Unstoppable Grace: Ron Acosta's Journey from Ruin to Redemption

00:04 - Speaker 1 Hi, this is Paul Louis Cole. You're listening to the Brave Men Podcast. Thanks for being with me. Ron Acosta on today a remarkable story. In fact. His pastor said it's the most amazing story he has ever seen of a man losing everything and coming back. That's what happened to Ron, because of his faith in Christ. But, man, it was a road and we're going to get into that. We're going to talk about what it takes. Here's Ron. 00:32 Ron was this guy. Like you and me, we're in control of stuff. We got stuff going on. He had his life scheduled. He's a major executive with one of the world's largest corporations good income, stuff happening. He's got his life scheduled to the 15 minute I mean a quarter hour. He's in control of everything until he wasn't. Then what do you do? Where's your faith? Where's your trust? He wrote a book called Unstoppable Grace. That's how we met each other, and Ron today has a powerful story of a multi-entrepreneur, associate, pastor, mentor, marriage counselor. He's just a guy that's got a lot going on Chick-fil-A franchise owner, operator, and so it's going to be a great time with Ron. 01:24 Listen, if you're not following me, paul Louis Cole, on social media, you're missing some of the stories we just got back from Indonesia. Remarkable stories, some of them I can't put in there, some of them can't tell you because it would be dangerous for some of the people that we met with. But some of the most remarkable men, hundreds of men from 20 different Asian nations, and that's what Christian Men's Network is doing every single day helping churches grow by discipling men. I mean rescuing families, restoring relationships. So just go back. If you're not following, go to. It's that ampersand? No, is it ampersand? No, it's an at thing At Paul Louis Cole, l-o-u-i-s, p-a-u-l, l-o-u-i-s, c-o-l-e and Paul Louis Cole, and then socials, all that kind of thing. Follow Christian Men's Network. We also have a program called Monday Night Men. It comes out once a week and every Monday night premieres at 8 o'clock Central. That's a teaching and training time going through absolute answers right now, powerful book written by my father, dr Ed Cole, and what else. 02:40 I was going to tell you a you, oh, lion's Roar is coming up. Depending on when you're listening to this, it's November 5, 6, 7. Here in Dallas it's always the first weekend of November, and so that's coming up. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. We're about, I don't know, like a third full or something like that. It might be a half full by the time you're listening to it, so make sure you get in there. 03:05 Cmnsummitcom cmnsummitcom. Yeah, a lot of stuff going on. It's amazing. I keep hearing stories. Got a story from Marcus poll. Oh, that's another one. Brave men, motivational Some email that comes out three times a week. 03:23 That's a motivational email. It's an email that comes out three times a week. That's a motivational email. Go to cmnmen, sign up there. And I got a note I'm going to pass it on through that from Marco's poll. They've got 10,000 groups now meeting down in Brazil. 03:38 I mean, god's doing some things. It's time to feel like you know, there's stuff going on, there's chaos and crisis, but at the same time, let's say this there's chaos and crisis and then Christ and Jesus is Lord of all. That's our hope, that's our faith, that's where we live. That's what happened to Ron. I mean, ron had to come to a place where he was like who's in charge of this? Is it me? It's a great story. You're going to really dig it. It's a story that talks about what it means to look back up. You're on the bottom, but God's grace, no matter what, no matter how big you feel, god's grace is, it's bigger and that's what Ron proves. So I'm looking forward to that. I'll get right into it in a second. I just want to say one more thing about to all of our friends who support the things like what we just did in Indonesia the Nigeria outreach, the Middle East coming up, arabic translations we've got more that are happening. I want to say thank you to every single one of my friends who is a partner and supports this ministry in what we do to reach men. We are CMN, we rescue men, we see families, restored churches grow and everything changes. Everything changes when a man is discipled in Christ. It changes everything. And here's proof. Here's Ron Acosta. 05:18 So, talking with Ron Acosta, my new friend, who wrote a great book called Unstoppable Grace Memoir, it's not just a. It says on the cover, it says a memoir. I would say it's a drama, it's a I don't know man, it's like a movie. In fact, if you wrote a movie like your life, somebody would say that didn't all happen, but it all happened to you. How old were you? And I just want to jump into a couple things. Sure, sure Thanks for being with us on Brave Men, and I think if anybody epitomizes Brave Men. It would be you, ron, because the courage it has taken you to walk out this journey, coming from a dysfunctional background. But you thought your father was dead for most of your life. You thought your biological father had died, yes, sir, and how old were you when you found out he was actually alive? 06:10 - Speaker 2 So I was 35 years old when I found out he was I mean, I'm sorry, 48. It was 35 years from when I was told. So I was told when I was 13, and that was in 1974. And then, 2009, I found out he was alive, so 48 years. 06:26 - Speaker 1 Wow. And you reconnected with him. Yes, sir. And what were his first words to you? What was the first? 06:32 - Speaker 2 You know. So the process was kind of it did happen all at once, right. So I found out he was alive in 2009. I actually wrote him a letter and he didn't respond. And then, in 2012, I found the copy of the letter and I felt god prompted me to send it again. So I did, after fighting with god a little bit you know, and I had a step, I guess a stepbrother. 06:57 he responded to it and asked me kind of what I, what I was looking for, and I just said I wanted to connect. You know, I had heard he was dead and then I found out he was alive and I said I just want to have a chance to talk to him. And in 2012, I had my first conversation with him and it was very, very basic. I mean, how are you doing, what kind of family you have, et cetera, like that. And then it went dead again. So I didn't actually see him again till or talk to him again till 2018. I didn't know if I really wanted to. My mindset was well, he never really looked for me, so why should I even? 07:28 - Speaker 1 He didn't look for you, yeah. 07:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and give the energy to try to reconnect. But, yeah, in 2018, I actually flew to Las Vegas and met my father and it was really interesting because one of the things that I struggled with all my life is I really never had a father that told me that he loved me. Yeah, god did you know, and I think that's what I drew on a lot of my strength on throughout the years but I never had a man really tell me that he loved me. 07:55 And we're sitting at this restaurant for the first time and they push him in front of me. Now my dad was double amputee right, so he had had both his legs cut off. He had one liver transplant, so he's not in the greatest health and one of the things he looked at me at the end of the conversation well, two things that really de-armed me as we were talking. He goes because I was calling him Albert, his name was Albert and he goes. Well, can I ask you, will you call me father? And can I ask you, will you call me father? 08:25 - Speaker 1 And can I call you? 08:26 - Speaker 2 son, and I mean just right there, God just took all my animosity away from me. And at the very end of the conversation he told me something. He goes I love you, mijo, and mijo in the Spanish is a very, very positive way of telling your son you know somebody, you love them. 08:41 - Speaker 1 It's a very endearing term. 08:45 - Speaker 2 That I love you, I love you, love them, and so I very endearing term that I love you, I love you, son, and that was, I would tell you, that was probably the most graceful thing God had done for me in a long time, just to let me hear those words. 08:52 - Speaker 1 So, yeah, it was that is really something that now I want to get back. I'm going to we're going to track through a couple of different areas now, and so Ron has written this book, unstoppable Grace, which is great, so I want to recommend it to you, and I want to recommend that, if you're listening to this, you can buy it on Amazon, right? You can buy it different places, yes, sir, but Unstoppable Grace, ron Acosta, a-c-o-s-t-a and your website's actually Ron Acosta. Yes sir, yes sir. So they can go to that, and we're going to get into a couple of things from the book, but that one was one of the things that really hit me. And the thing that hit me, ron, is that this happened after you became a follower of Jesus Christ. Your life has turned the right direction and yet you still go through stuff and part of it is still dealing with abandonment and rejection. Yes, sir, yes. 09:41 - Speaker 2 Right, yeah, you know, when I gave my life to Christ, it wasn't until I was 43, you know. So I lived this life. I knew I met Christ when I was really young, but then I really didn't have any kind of relationship with him. And at 43, I gave my life to Christ and I thought it was going to get, everything was going to get better, right, and it just seemed that things started to pile on, you know, and it was like okay, now, I want you to do this Now I want you to do this Now, I want you to do this. 10:11 And it got to the point where, you know, I felt that I needed to meet my father, you know, and and and I and I and it, just it was just an experience, you know that, and I, you know I don't know if you know we're getting too much into the book, but you know, he was in a hospital room and and I actually, you know, led him to. 10:21 - Speaker 3 Christ and. 10:26 - Speaker 2 I gave him the first Bible I ever had. I asked him if he had a Bible and he said no. So this Bible was worn and torn and had notes all in it, and so I gave him my Bible as his first Bible that he ever had. 10:38 - Speaker 1 Really. Yeah so you gave him your first Bible you had. That is incredible. And how many brothers and sisters did you find out you had? 10:48 - Speaker 2 So I have 10. So I have one sister and nine brothers. So it was, and actually you know, since then, fortunately we found two more. So my dad was. He was very active in raising, bringing children into the world. 11:03 - Speaker 1 Now your dad had. You've got a couple siblings and half-brothers or whatever. They're in prison. Your dad was in and out of prison is that right? 11:10 - Speaker 2 Yes, sir, and he was involved in gangs in Los Angeles. 11:12 - Speaker 1 Yes, yeah, he was a LA gang leader and really that leadership skill, sort of like when you read about Peter in the Bible. You know he's up and down and he's getting out of the boat, he's all in faith, and then he's denying Christ and he's up and down, but he's got a leadership thing on him, you know, and your dad had that, and that's. It's interesting that you would have that same thing in your life. 11:36 - Speaker 2 Right, I think we all. I mean, if you look at this blended kind of family type approach, you see a lot of that. You see a lot of the siblings that have strong leadership in them. Again, there is a couple that are doing some time, but I mean I think we see that and there's a lot of addiction pieces in it too, that I don't think I got the alcohol or the drug addiction. I got to work alcoholically. You know, I became a workaholic and that's what he was too. I mean he worked constantly. 12:01 Yeah, I mean he worked constantly yeah so it's kind of odd that we would pick up some of those traits. 12:04 - Speaker 1 It's interesting because really you found out he was dead or heard that he was dead. Your mom basically wanted to just cut him off Correct From her past, but when you were 13, you hadn't seen him for a while anyway. 12:18 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it's been since when I left California in 69. 12:28 - Speaker 1 And so it had been before that last time I saw him. So yeah, and so now this, okay, so now we're going to go back in this thing and and go through some of these things because and today you and your wife becky, you've got a ministry to marriages yes, sir because you figured, if you could rescue yours, you could probably help some others. 12:44 - Speaker 2 That was it. That was it. You know, we used to go to. We made it a habit of going to like a marriage retreat every year, and so I started doing them and leading them, and I mean, I needed it every year just to keep our marriage going. 12:56 - Speaker 1 And you've built a retreat center. It's called the Refuge. It's here in Texas, down in Hill Country somewhere, yes, sir. And so that's really remarkable man. And so let's track back and talk about why where you are today is so remarkable, because you did become a workaholic, but you also went through all sorts of trauma. You had grandparents who you found out weren't your grandparents. 13:21 - Speaker 2 Right. 13:22 - Speaker 1 You had dysfunctional living situations in and out of living with different people. So, uh, where were you born? Where'd this, where'd this all start, ron? 13:31 - Speaker 2 so I was born in los angeles 1961, and so, uh, I grew up in that in kind of I don't know if it's echo park area which is it used to be rough quite a bit. I don't know, know how it is now. I haven't been back in a lot of years, but so I grew up in a in a in a rough neighborhood, and so, uh, was was a product of the LA school district, and so, um, I couldn't, even in the first grade, I couldn't even read, or couldn't. 13:56 the only thing I could do was color, and couldn't do that very well, and so my mom had put me in a Christian school. 14:02 - Speaker 1 All you could do was color, and you couldn't do that very well. 14:04 - Speaker 2 I couldn't get out of the lines. I couldn't stay in the lines, but she had put me in a Christian school. I don't think she knew it was a Christian school, but it was a private school. They held me back a year. It was probably the best thing that could ever happen to me. And then that's where I actually heard about God. 14:27 - Speaker 1 So that was the first, that point, wow, wow. So now. So this is you're in, basically, gangland LA, yes, sir, so anything that we've ever seen in movies, or if, like myself or some of us, that we've been in places like that, whether that's urban situations in any major city. So you were in the middle of all of that sort of activity. Your dad was very involved in that. Yes, sir, yes sir. And then and then that broke up sort of early in your life, right? 14:48 - Speaker 2 Yes, so my dad actually. So he left. He would be gone for long periods of time, so he'd go down to Mexico, do his thing, come back, you know. And so at two, at two years old, he officially left us. Then my mom and them reconnected, and then he left us again at five, when I was five years old. So there was multiple times that he abandoned us. 15:04 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and then you. So you ended up your mom just basically did whatever she could to survive. 15:09 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so she met a guy, you know, and he was from North Carolina and he promised her the world, and so I met him, maybe once before I knew it. I was getting in a car one morning and we were tracking, you know, 3,000 miles to the East Coast to live in North Carolina, you know. So we talk about culture shock. 15:28 - Speaker 1 How old were you then? 15:29 - Speaker 2 So I was eight. I was eight years old when that happened. 15:32 - Speaker 1 Okay, so you're eight years old, you've been in and out of different homes or different living situations yes, sir, in LA, gang situations. And so this dude shows up, says, hey, hey, we're going to live, I own a house in north carolina. Tell me, tell me about this house. 15:50 - Speaker 2 So so yeah, because this cracked me up, man, it's you know I read the book, yeah, it's, you know it's a, I mean. So you, we pull up into it, and then the grass is about I don't know, probably waist high right. You walk up to the door and there's rats, spiders all jumping out, and so this house is just it's wood floor, basic two room, half bedroom house, and the only way it was heated with was a uh, a coal stove in the middle of the house. That's the only way it was heated, no air conditions or anything like that. And so, you know, this is say it sounds bad, but for a lot of years I basically slept with my mother I mean that's what. 16:27 I was in the same room with her, and so, you know, I consider myself, I guess you say, the man of the house. But when I was introduced to this, I got pushed into a room right by myself with my little brother. I mean, you could see roaches crawling on the roof, you could see rats running on the floor, and then you had this, this, you know, cold stove making all these noises, and so, a kid, at eight years old, I was scared to death. Right, I was. I was, you know, I was, you know, crying every night, uh, and so it was a man. It was a unique experience, you know, and so well, it's that reminds me of that. 16:58 - Speaker 1 What's the guy's name? Jeff, the comedian that says you know that all those jokes, you might be a redneck. You might be a redneck if you mow your front lawn and find a couple of cars you forgot you had. So how long were you there and how? What? Now you're eight years old. This is we know psychologically. This is the formation. This is 70% of the formation of how you're going to live. Your life is happening between seven and nine, right right. What's happening in your mind at this point? 17:27 - Speaker 2 It was very you know and I found that out later in life that you know your belief system is based on those ages and, unfortunately, your belief outweighs your knowledge side of your brain, right? So this was a tough time. You know, I was in this place with a man that I really didn't know. They really wanted me to call him dad and I really fought it, fought it for years, and just because I didn't think he was my, I didn't, he wasn't my father, but I was forced to say he's your dad, call him your dad. He was very racist, I mean very racist, talked about all nationalities and I'm sitting there going listen, I'm Hispanic, I'm Hispanic, you listen, I'm Hispanic, I'm Hispanic, you know. And he's talking about you, know, I don't want to say words, but I mean he's. 18:05 He's very derogative and what he's calling individuals and I was going. Well, how does he think about me? You know what does he think about me. You know this person's better to be dead. So am I better to be dead? You? 18:17 - Speaker 3 know, and so it was it was really rough time. 18:19 - Speaker 2 He did give me. Let me drink my first beer when I was nine years old, and so he introduced me to alcohol when I was very young, and so it was. It was a very fearful time, you know. I was always worried about, you know, not being there in the next day. Right, I mean he, you know. And so it was. It was. And and then, like I said, the town we moved in was predominantly white. I mean there was no. I mean it was, it was African-American black, but there was no Hispanics. There was. I was the only one. I was their first introduction to the Hispanic race in that town, but so it was. It was coming from all areas. I mean I was not only getting it from home, I was getting it from the school that was in. 18:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and then how old were you when you moved out of there? 19:00 - Speaker 2 So, actually I was 16 when they left. You know, I had developed friendships and you know, I played football, wrestled, I played baseball, basketball, so I was pretty much entrenched into the school system and had friends, and and so, at 16, he got caught up in an affair and, uh, decided they were going to leave and I, they had arranged for me to stay there. I was not, I was a handful, I was. I mean, I was, I was rebelled. I was rebelling, you know, and so I. It was always a fight, and so so I stayed there. I stayed when I was 16. Um, you know, I lived with an aunt and uncle from his side for a while and then I got kicked out of that house and went in to live with a friend. Got kicked out of that house and so individually started renting with about five or six men and kind of like a little house where I paid $20 a week to live in this boarding house. 19:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so at 16, you're functionally homeless, yes, and found a place to live, started working in order to be able to do that, so you started taking care of yourself and having to function when you were 16 years old. 20:08 - Speaker 2 I had to grow up. You know I had to grow up. I had to quit. You know I love sports. I had to quit. I just couldn't live with doing the sports, and so I took a course, a business kind of like a business thing, where I'd leave school at one o'clock and I'd go to work at this. It's called Cannon. Meals used to be back there and they made sheets and towels and I'd work from three o'clock until 11 o'clock every night, and so that was my life for probably two, three years when I was in high school. 20:34 - Speaker 1 And did now and then. Where did you get involved with Walmart? Because you became a vice president, one of the regional vice presidents of Walmart Corporation. So I was pretty amazing, considering where you came from. 20:47 - Speaker 2 So I had got into college, I was going to Western Carolina University, which is unfortunately right now where all the storm hit up in around Asheville, which is unfortunately right now where all the storm hit up around Asheville. 20:57 And so I got into school and I was actually I was going to go work at a summer job. They had just South Carolina was really right in the line and they had bought a company called Big K and so I was going to get a summer job with them. And I went into the store and I met the head of personnel for Walmart and he asked me what I was going to do, what was my future looking like? And had a couple options. I was going to be a counselor, I was a major in psychology with a minor in counseling. Or I went into the military. I was in ROTC through college. And so he said, well, why don't I consider coming to work for Walmart? And so weighed out all the facts and decided that's how I would jump into the Walmart. So in 1983, I started working for Walmart. 21:38 - Speaker 1 They sent me to Texas, so I went from North Carolina to Texas now, and you became at that point then, and I would say it seems to me and I'm not going to try to reframe this in one sense, but your identity at this point, your identity, because one of the things a father gives to a son is identity. So you find out now well, let's kind of demarcate this you find out at 13 years of age. Your mom tells you you're still living there in North Carolina, your dad died. Okay, so there's that, and then we talked about that thing. But then, so now you're starting. You're at 19 years old, 20, 21, something like that started to work with Walmart and you became a workaholic. Was that basically that workaholism? Was that basically to essentially frame your own definition? 22:28 - Speaker 2 So when I was, you know, when I mentioned this in the book you know, a lot of times my mom and you know I love my mom but you know she would tell me often I was not going to amount to anything or I'd be just like my dad. You know I'd end up in prison or you know I'd be dead somewhere, right, so that was, that was a constant theme as I was growing up, as I was rebelling. You're going to be just like your dad. You're going to be just, and I didn't know who my dad was, right. 22:49 - Speaker 1 And so. 22:50 - Speaker 2 I was driven me personally. I was going to prove everybody that I wasn't going to be that person. I was going to be somebody and I was going to make something out of myself, and I think that's what drove me to work so hard. 23:01 - Speaker 1 So your stepfather is racist, yes, and your mother's telling you you're not going to be any good when you grow up Correct, probably going to be a, you know, druggie jail guy, you know, convict like your dad, and not going to amount to anything. And this is what this is the filter of your life, yes. And then they leave and essentially, you start working out your own life, if you will, pulling up yourself by your bootstraps, and then you get into a job where they where every time you do something right. It's rewarded. 23:32 - Speaker 2 Yes, I mean, that was for me to hear. You know, and even you know, when I was even in high school, I had counselors tell me you know you're not going to go to college or you know you need to go get a work, trade, or something like that. But you know, when, when I went to work for Walmart, I was immediately told you can be anything you want to be, you can be a CEO, you can, you can grow as much as you want to, as whatever you put into it. And I believed it and it's true, it was true. I mean, I met Sam Walt and you know he told me himself Ron, he goes, you can do whatever you want to in this company. And so it was. It was a place where I thrived at, because that's that's who I was, that's how it was built. But I think my identity unfortunately became all about Walmart or all about the position that I work to, to point of my self destruction almost. 24:19 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So now, where'd you meet your? 24:20 - Speaker 2 wife Becky. So actually she was working for Walmart in one of the stores I was at and so we had met and we couldn't back in Walmart days you couldn't date anybody if you were in the same store with them. So I had actually got moved to another store in that timeframe. I asked permission to date her and I actually still got the letter, what they signed it, that they gave me permission to date her. 24:39 Really, yeah, so 1985 we got married, and so we've been married 40 years this coming may yeah, 40 years and it's just been nothing but roses, wine and roses I wish I could say that, I wish I could say that it's been, it's been some challenges, so well, let's talk about that. 24:58 - Speaker 1 You get married, you're moving up in the company because you're basically working 16-hour days, six days a week, yes, sir, and getting rewarded for that and this is no knock on their culture in that sense, but it's how you were wired but you're getting rewarded. You're getting your dopamine hit, you're getting this thing. Then you get married, but you keep doing that. How did so? What were the issues that that created? 25:24 - Speaker 2 So it was you know it was, there was a lot of different issues. I mean, we, we got married because we had a. Our first son was not planned and so that kind of threw all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I was a married man, I had a son and I didn't know how to do any of it Right and the only thing I knew how to do was work and provide. That was my number one thing. I was going to provide for my family, no matter what, and so that's what I was driven to do. And I mean it caused a lot of problems. You know, now I would tell you the biggest challenges in the early days was just money. I mean I think the biggest thing. You know I was only making $12,000 a year when I first went to work for Walmart, and so a lot of in the beginning days was money. But as I started growing in position, I was gone all the time. I mean I would leave on Monday and not come back till Friday. 26:14 - Speaker 1 Because you became a regional manager, started moving up, started working on a number of stores you know, to your credit. Now the thing is and I also want to get into something here in the book the seven pillars of getting to know God, because that that is a really powerful part of the book. I'm talking with Ron Acosta, a former. He's a Chick-fil-Aoperator and doing a great job. Done that for over a decade now. You were with Walmart regional vice president, but the story's pretty remarkable and I want to talk about it. So the book is called Unstoppable Grace. You can get it on Amazon, so I want to make sure we plug that in ronacostacom. So now you're finding your identity in the work. You get married. Money's always an issue. I heard a comedian the other day, ron. He said, uh, he said I'm a firstborn. He said of course the firstborn means that when you were born your parents were broke. That's probably right when the third or fourth comes along. 27:09 Your parents are trillionaires yeah that's probably great. That's true, and I thought that was funny because it because it just feels like it's so, true, man? 27:18 - Speaker 2 Yes sir, yes sir. 27:20 - Speaker 1 You know, but okay, so now. So you're walking through this, you guys have, you know, there's marriage stuff, money things, this and that you got a son. What's his name? Brandon Brandon. So, and where is he now? 27:33 - Speaker 2 So he lives about an hour and 45 minutes from us in Texas. Okay, so he's in Texas. Yes, sir, he's close. 27:40 - Speaker 1 Yes, Okay, well, that's fantastic. So you've got a son and a daughter, yes sir, and two grandchildren, yes sir. Yeah, it's awesome, man, fun, it's fantastic. All right, so now, where is it? At what point, then, do you meet Christ and does your marriage hit the rocks before that? 28:01 - Speaker 2 My marriage was already at the rocks. I'll be honest with you Traveling with Walmart was the biggest challenge that we had. I mean you could say I had an affair. It was with Walmart, right, yeah, but in 2004, I gave my life to Christ, right, I was sitting in church and the pastor did an altar call and I just felt, god say you need to change. You need to change. Why were you in church? My daughter played soccer. I was the soccer coach and she had some friends that had invited her to go to church, and so we were unchurched and we decided to go with her and I heard this message, you know, from coming from the pulpit about marriage actually, at the time, and I just felt, I mean, every time it sounded like I was trying to hide under the pew, right, because it felt like the guy was speaking right to me, and so I gave my life to Christ at 43, and then my marriage went to pot. I mean, it just blew up. 28:55 - Speaker 1 You get a ticket to heaven and your marriage goes to hell. 28:58 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean it just went crazy. I mean it was a fight. It was about traveling, it was about helping, it was about not enough sex, it was about how we handle conflict. It was everything we had the money. Money wasn't the issue back then. Because of what? 29:14 - Speaker 1 it was Now. You had the money and the identity and the definition and the accolades and you've become high up in the company. 29:23 - Speaker 2 You meet Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and then stuff happens, yes, yes, and I remember it was a point where I had, and so there's kind of like I don't want to say two things, but my wife, her dad, had cancer and so she had moved off to live with him. She actually my son had already graduated high school he was in college at this point and so she takes my daughter and they move about two hours away from where I am and I stay here in Houston and they go to a town in Beaumont so I would see them maybe once or twice a week. Friday, my daughter, she played volleyball and soccer so I'd go down and watch her when she played high school ball and we would always get in a fight. It was just a total fight every time, and this one weekend, I mean, it was just so bad? 30:06 - Speaker 1 Oh, hang on. Yeah, becky, your wife had moved to Beaumont sensibly hey, I'm going to take care of my dad but she had put your daughter in a new school. Yes, yes, yes. So this wasn't like yeah, you know, I'll just go over there every so often and help out. She was gone. 30:26 - Speaker 2 She left me. We separated in all terms. Wow, she bought a house there, I had a house here, she bought a house there, yeah, and so it was a separation. So it was. You know, I just remember I mean I was done, it was over. I mean I actually called my attorney and I said listen, I want you to freeze all our accounts because I don't want her to take all the money, and so that was a very bad point. But I remember I woke up the next morning and there was a pastor on Kerry Shook he's a Houston pastor, down here, yeah, out of the woodlands, yeah, and he was giving a message about marriage and he said two things that really caught my attention. He said it's better to be holy than happy. I'm saying, wait a minute, you know you don't want me to be happy. And then he said then he read Eph, love your wife like Christ, love the church. He died for her. And so I just did it. I just everything that I did is I showed her by action that I was going to love her. 31:22 - Speaker 1 There you go, man. 31:23 - Speaker 2 And so let's say it's corny. We actually as a group we did the love dare, and so I was. I was performing that love dare on her while I was here in Houston and she was in, you know, two hours away, you know, two hours away, and I was, we were still doing that, you know. Eventually she would tell me about a year later. I asked her. I said what made you, what made you decide to come back? And she goes. You know, ronnie, she goes. I was done, she goes, I was finished with you. She said, but I saw you putting all your love into the Lord and changing your life. That made me trust you again, and so it was nothing I said, but more of my actions that she witnessed that changed her heart for me. 32:00 - Speaker 1 I remember I've got a friend named Ed and I remember years ago that he was going through difficulty and they were going through difficulty and he came to a meeting where my dad was speaking and somewhere along in the process of them talking, you know, my friend said hey, I'm going to change, I'm just going to go home, I'm going to tell her. Things are different. And my dad said to him don't tell her anything, she's got eyes. Yes, yeah, she'll see it. And so I think that sometimes we have a tendency as men particularly when we're, you know, high performance men like yourself, you know we want to go back and just say, hey, I got this nailed, I got this. So let's all, like everybody, fall into line. 32:40 - Speaker 2 Right, yeah, yeah. 32:42 - Speaker 1 Executing a business. One time yeah, it's my wife One time turned to me and I was apparently, apparently I was somewhat kind of dictating to the family I've got three children and this is when they were still at home and my wife turned to me I think it was in the car and she turned to me and she goes. You know, I'm not your employee. 33:00 - Speaker 2 I've heard that before. Have you heard that before? Yes, I've heard that. I've heard that. 33:07 - Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. So acts of service, acts of kindness, acts of love, what's the love dare Tell me about that? So? 33:13 - Speaker 2 the love dare was uh out of the movie. Fireproof that they made I don't know if you've ever seen that and so it came out it was the, it was a book and it was uh, 28 days or maybe it was maybe 40 days of just doing different things for your spouse and not telling them actually doing those things. Yeah, and so that's uh, we did that. 33:32 - Speaker 1 I mean you could say it's a little bit, you could say corny, or whatever, because my wife at one time she goes, I know what you're doing, so you need to say it yeah, but on the other hand, the fact is you're doing it Right and I think that's why sometimes we as men and if you're listening right now and you've got some issues in your marriage which, because we're all human and nobody's perfect we're going to have things. And uh, you know, I remember one time, uh, somebody told me, a guy told me, a friend told me. He said hey, man, you know what the sexiest thing is that I've been doing? So what do you mean? He goes in my marriage? He said, no, no, what is it? He said unloading the dishwasher. There you go, unloading the dishwasher. So what do you mean? Because you know, and I don't know if everybody has a dishwasher, but basically he would unload, rather than you know they weren't washing them in the sink, but he would, they had a dishwasher and he would unload it. And I go well, that's interesting. And I thought to myself I, I don't think I've ever done that. Yeah, maybe we've been married maybe 25 years at this point. 34:31 And so I went home and I did that, okay, I didn't say anything, I didn't say, ta, you know, or any of that kind of stuff, I just did that. And then, I don't know a week later, unloaded, of course. Now I didn't know where everything went. You've got these bowls that are like serving bowls and stuff. I don't know, I don't know they just it's like the guy who said one time he says I don't know what happens, all I know is that I get clean clothes in my dresser. I don't even know how that happens. It's like dude, your wife does that. So I didn't know where they went, but I did that and I did it a couple times. 35:07 And then I think we were out to dinner or something and my wife Judy said so what's going on? I go well, what do you mean? She goes. Well, you've been unloading the dishwasher. I said you notice, she goes notice. Because I had thought actually just rinsing the dishes was pretty good. And then I went next level and I rinsed them and then loaded the dishwasher. It's like dude, I'm next level husband now. And then when I unloaded them, it like it just blew her mind. 35:37 So, acts of kindness, loved her. I'm digging it, okay. So now we're talking and now you have a marriage ministry and all that. So when did you guys get back together? I mean, obviously at some point you moved into her house or she moved back to your house or so all this kind of so 2004, give my life to christ. 35:55 - Speaker 2 2006, everything blows up. She moves off, uh, for almost two years about 2008 is going in 2009. We we've moved back together, uh and so uh, and really reconciled our relationship now, this is about the same time and you reckon you, you. 36:14 - Speaker 1 So when did she become a follower of Jesus? 36:17 - Speaker 2 So she's always been, so she was a young child. 36:19 - Speaker 1 She was a young child, yes, so this is interesting she married you as a follower of Christ, knowing that you weren't. Yes, yes, so that's fascinating in and of itself. Yes, yes, and then just was like, okay, well, this is a great guy, love this guy, we'll work it out. And eventually it did, but there were a lot of obstacles on the way. Now, somewhere right around that 2009, somewhere right around that period, you ended your employment with Walmart. 36:47 - Speaker 2 So, yeah, a little bit longer. So it was 2011 that I actually finished, so it's about the right time. 36:54 - Speaker 1 So you get back together, things are going well and thank God for your pastor, who was your pastor at the time. 37:00 - Speaker 2 Rick Baldwin. Rick Baldwin. 37:02 - Speaker 1 Okay, rick Baldwin. So thank God for him, because you know that's, that's the. In fact, he wrote the forward for your book. He did, and he talked about the fact that you actually did go to a family group, yes, and continue actually did go to a family group, yes, and continued to the family, even when you were in a sense, single. You were separated, Correct, correct, and you went to it and that, for him, that marked him in the sense of, okay, ron's serious about this, ron is serious about this. And then, you know, I remarked on this the other day we were talking some pre-talk about what we were going to talk about, but somewhere in all this process, you, you ended your. In fact, the book goes into it a lot. I don't need to go into the whole thing right now, but essentially you ended your 29 years, I think, with Walmart, yes, and, and we're sort of unemployed at a very at an age where you're at the high thrust sort of level and you end up with a call from Bubba Cathy. 37:59 - Speaker 2 Yes, sir. 38:00 - Speaker 1 Yes sir, yes sir, One of the owners of Chick-fil-A. Yeah, that was pretty amazing. I don't know too many people who have actually had a phone call from yeah, that was a different day, different type day. 38:12 - Speaker 2 Actually, the CEO of Walmart at the time was David Mike Duke, I'm sorry, and I had reached out to him. I said you know, and he's from. 38:19 He's a graduate from georgia tech in atlanta okay and I asked him did he know anybody that worked for chick-fil-a? Because it's hard to get into chick-fil-a. I mean it's all right, it's, it's very challenging uh uh process. And so he goes. Well, I might know somebody, let me check. And then about a week later bubba kathy calls me and I I asked him. I said how did you know, mike he goes, how did you? I said how do you know mike duke, he goes. Well, his mom used to babysit me and my brother when we were young. So I kind of a small world, but I mean it kind of well, but it's. 38:48 - Speaker 1 But it's how the world works. It is based on relationship and sometimes we forget this and we forget that, in particular r with our relationship with Jesus Christ. Yes, yes, we end up with this performance-based religion if we're not careful. Which is essentially what's happened to so many of the institutional religious churches or institutions over the centuries is they devolve into checkmarks and little boxes. You tick off and it's all performance-based. Did that happen to you? Did it become like that? 39:21 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I would say I was stuck in performance. 39:24 I think that one of the things that I went to. I was a pastor, associate pastor, for a little while. They sent me to it's called Sunscape. It's a pastor's retreat. They gave us a Taylor Johnson survey and I scored. It's a pastor's retreat and they gave us a Taylor Johnson survey and I scored high on performance, which is not good, right, not good and low on joy. So here I am saying I'm a Christian, right, but I'm scoring high on performance and low on joy, and I found everything I did was about performance. 39:49 When I would do a sermon, it was about performance. I mean it was, yeah, I would pray to God to give me the right words. But I found myself critiquing myself to the point where it was how I was doing things, what I looked like, or what I said, or I measured everything which it shouldn't be that way. Right, it shouldn't be that way. I was checking the box a lot and I went through a breaking process. I mean there was a piece where I know God said no, I don't want you to do this anymore. No, I don't want you working at Walmart anymore. No, I don't want you to do this anymore. And he opened certain doors for me to kind of get out of that, but yeah, yeah. 40:23 - Speaker 1 Well, you know, basically you know, when you pray for things and I tell men this all the time, ron is that closed door is the same as an answer to prayer? Yes, so essentially, walmart, that door closed. 40:36 yes, it wasn't like it closed you were no longer going to be there, it slammed shut on your behind right, and then the lord opened the door over a period of time to work with chick-fil-a and be an owner operator now. But there's two things I want to hit, and then I want to hit the seven pillars. Okay, there's two things I want to hit. You end up in this and I know you said I don't think I would have pulled the trigger, but you end up in a depressed state with a loaded gun close by Right Right and in a place where you thought, yeah, I might be better off just leaving the earth and it might be better for everybody else. 41:15 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I had been. There were some medical things I had fought through and I was. I was on some, uh, seizure medicine, so it was there was some issues with the medicine and but I think that you know, like I told you the other day, that you know, like the water in the bottle, right when you shake a bottle, why does the water come out is because the water was already in the bottle. The agitation just brought everything out out. 41:36 - Speaker 1 And I was angry. 41:37 - Speaker 2 I was angry with God. I was angry with God about losing my job at Walmart. I was angry with God about struggles I was dealing with. I was angry about, you know, some of the things with my mother. And so it was a 4th of July weekend and it's so bad. It was a Sunday. Me and my wife got in this huge fight, and so she decided to go with her sister to the beach on that weekend. 42:00 And I didn't say this in the book, but the night before I had this just dream. That was so real that she left me, that she found another guy, and and I mean it was so real, I mean I, I mean I woke up in a sweat and I just felt all of a sudden, you know, I'm going to leave you too, I'm going to abandon you. So all the things that I grew up with, you know, you're not worth anything, you're not valued. I don't love you, I'm going to leave you. All these feelings came rushing out. 42:26 And then the next night, you know, I sat there with a gun, my nine millimeter in my hand, and I could kept hearing. You know this would be it. The world would be better without me. I would be better not being here. And I mean I had my hand on the trigger, I put the gun to my head. Like I said, I don't know where I would have been, but about that time I got a text message from my wife Becky, and she said I love you and everything's going to be okay. 42:59 - Speaker 3 And it just at that point I I mean, I just fell to the floor, I fell to the floor and I cried like a. 43:01 - Speaker 2 I cried like one of those cries where tears are coming out and everything's coming out of your, your office. Yeah so, but it was. It was god, you know god, and he, he led me to recovery out of that piece, you know it's. 43:14 - Speaker 1 It's amazing that you know we don't think much sometimes about a little text, or you know. But I tell men all the time and I told some men yesterday I said find two men, you know, think of two guys today that you could text and it would make a difference. Yeah, Not even that it would make a difference. Just find two men you can text friends. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs. It says if you want friends, you have to be friendly. Yes, you know. And the average man in the United States in particular and I know we've got friends that are listening to this all over the world but in the United States the stats are Ron, and you know this because you work with marriage and psychology and so forth but the average man has 1.7 friends. That's correct, that's correct. And my joke, he's the guy that doesn't show up when you move. And the fact is is that we're lacking in friendships, relationships. And so here you are, you fall to the ground, you pray. So I want to hit this other piece. This is the second thing I wanted to hit is that you had and I go back to the story. 44:17 There's a story in the first covenant, the Old Testament, in Judges, the book of Judges, it's the story of a young man named Gideon and when he's 15 years old, the angel of the Lord shows up. It's a much deeper story, but an angel shows up and says to him you're a mighty man of valor. And Gideon looks at the angel and says no, no, you don't know who I am. And he begins to tell him my tribe is the least. Now, at this point in time, he's part of Israel, israel's, living in fear and hiding in caves. He says I'm the weakest family in this weakest tribe, in this whole nation that's living in fear and hiding Of the weakest tribe. My family is the weakest family Of the weakest family of the weakest tribe in this disparate nation. He said I'm the wimpiest kid and my question has been for a long time Ron, who told him that when you're 15 years old and your identity is that I'm the national wimp? 45:12 Somebody told you that. Who put that in you? So you had that put on you. You're abandoned and your biological father, who abandoned you, you think is dead. We find out now that he was alive. You've led him to Christ later in life, but you've got this identity crisis. It seems to me that when you sat there with the gun that had to have been part of that, had to have been and you said, the words came rushing back. It had to have been the racial things that that stepfather said, yes, your mother saying you're going to be just like your dad, you're going to be just like you know, this guy, any coach who ever cut you anything that ever got all these things came back and how did you resolve? Cause it feels like that was an identity crisis. Your wife texts you, but how did the identity crisis get resolved? 45:59 - Speaker 2 You know I did not realize that I had to go through the stages of grief. You know, I didn't know that losing a job would be considered grief, you know, I mean, yeah, you lose somebody, a family member, somebody dies and you grieve over it, and I never went through all the stages. That was probably one of the biggest things that I understood is that, you know, I was stuck in the anger stage, you know, and that's the beginning stage of the grief. And then, it's kind of odd, my wife was struggling, she and she Googled a inspirational scripture that she wanted to read and it come up Ecclesiastes, and she gave it to me. 46:36 I said, do you know what Ecclesiastes is? Everything is meanliness. But you know, I read Ecclesiastes for the first time not first time this time and it just, it was just so opening to me about God didn't want me, certain places and things were worthless and I was looking at the wrong things and I was. I was going after the wrong things and my identity need to be in Christ, and so that was kind of the period that I went through to get my identity to where I still struggle with it. I was telling my wife the other night I dreamed I was back at Walmart the other night. I said why do I keep dreaming this. 47:06 You know why do I keep dreaming this and so, but it was. I think the biggest part was that I just didn't realize I had to grieve over it. And then, you know, it was almost like so, as soon as I told and I love my pastor, but I told him, hey, to me at Walmart he goes well, this needs to be your God story. You need to get up in front of men and tell them that you lost your job and you know, you brought God into the workplace, which I did, but it didn't work that way it was. I depressed all those feelings because I thought, you know I need to be, step up, pull my boots up and speak out. You know so. 47:38 - Speaker 1 Because your identity was based on performance. 47:40 - Speaker 3 Your identity was based on your talent. 47:42 - Speaker 1 Your identity was based on your talent. Your identity was based as we do, as most men, our identity is based on our hands. And when Samuel looked at the seven sons of Jesse and he looked at Eliab, the oldest one, and said that's the guy, he should be the king, the next king. It's the story of when David gets anointed, because David was the eighth son and he was off in the field. And Jesse goes yeah, it's probably Eliab, it's probably this guy. And Samuel goes yeah, it must be that guy. 48:14 And God speaks to Samuel and says no, no, no. He says you're looking on the outside, but I look on the inside and who a man really is is who he is in his heart. And the Bible says in Proverbs, chapter four, it says out of your heart comes your life. It says guard your heart, because out of your heart comes your life. Jesus said in Matthew 10, he said the words that you speak will be the product of what's in your heart. 48:36 But most of us, as men, define ourselves based on what we do with our hands. And the issue that we often have and the reason pornography and addictions, and you went through a lot of different stuff like this the reason that those things are such a problem is that they fill our hearts with something that eventually becomes what we do with our hands. So every time you see some sort of issue with somebody's life where they've had an affair or something like that, you go back and go okay, well, there was probably an addiction issue of some level or an identity issue that this you know tried to redefine himself. So you found your identity in Christ through this process and then wrote a book about all this, and there's a lot more that's in the book. That's awesome. If we did the whole book, it'd be a six-hour podcast. 49:23 But I want to hit something, because you put something in here that I thought was really good and the seven pillars of getting to know God. Yes, and I don't know, I'm reading this on a Kindle. I read a lot of books on Kindle, I listen to books, I read books on Kindle and then I have printed books. So I'm in the process right now. I've always got two or three books I'm reading or listening to. I'm listening to Dennis Prager's fifth volume of the Torah. That's what I'm working out, that's what I'm listening to, and it's on Deuteronomy, which is fascinating work. He's a Jewish philosopher, theologian. But this book has got in it something I think is really powerful the seven pillars of getting to know God. So I wanted to go through that, Ron, and this is in the book Unstoppable Grace, a memoir by Ron Acosta A-C-O-S-T-A. Ron Acosta. And so pillar one let's hit that. 50:15 - Speaker 2 Okay, and so, and forgive me if I, I'll try to say them in order as the book. I don't know if I do all these in order, like the book frames it, but I believe the first one is corporate worship Is that the first one I have. 50:31 So let me kind of frame this up a little bit because, like you said so, I started this walk with Christ, you know, turned my life over four to three baptized baptized with both my children and really didn't know what was next. Right, the war started. I mean, things got chaotic and I didn't really understand. I knew God, but I didn't know God. And I understand, and we all should understand, it's about a relationship with God, right? Right, Some of these things have come at different levels. I didn't start doing all of them at one time, but corporate worship is one of the. I would tell. The founding thing we need to do as men or anyone, is to make sure you're going to church and hearing God's Word as a corporate body, because that's where God shows up at, is at church being in community. 51:09 Being in community. 51:10 - Speaker 1 I think you know, if you look at the book of Acts you see that as a marking point of the book of Acts they continually met with the apostles and talked about the Word and they broke bread. So when you talk about community to me part of that one of my favorite parts of church, if you will, on Sunday is grabbing a bite to eat with somebody afterwards. You know we go to a Wednesday night. 51:33 We attend C3 Church in Fort Worth. My son Brandon is the pastor. He and his wife Meredith are great pastors, but we have a Wednesday night home group. We call them Dinner Party. Yes, yes, pastors, but we have a Wednesday night home group. We call them dinner party. Yes, we do dinner every Wednesday night with a group of friends and we're in each other's lives and praying for each other. But we hang out, we have fun, we laugh, we'll have something to eat and then we'll pray for each other and remember each other. So that community, I think, is really important. 51:58 - Speaker 2 Pillar two. So I think that's a prayer right. 52:02 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's prayer. You know what? I'll give you that. I'll give you that. I'll give you the headline as it is in your book. 52:07 - Speaker 2 The problem with writing a book is now you're stuck with it bro, and so, like you said when I wrote it, I mean the format is a lot different, right? So in prayer, you know, how do you have a relationship again with someone you can't see, right? And I think the whole idea was, if you're praying to God and speaking to God, don't get caught up in saying things formal or something like that, just having a conversation with God, and that's been so rich for me. I get up every morning, I pray throughout the day, but usually every morning I get up at 4.30. I'm in my little room over there and I start off with prayer and just speaking to God. You know, I've asked him to forgive my sins, I thank him for the things he did, I acknowledge him as being the almighty God and then I pray for other people. I prayed for this conversation this morning, and so it's just rich in prayer and throughout the day I always ask God to give me, you know, guidance, and I pray every night. 53:05 But I love the idea of when Christ a lot of times in the Bible he went off in the morning by himself. And that's my richest time to go and just pray, just have a conversation with my Father. 53:14 - Speaker 1 Yeah, one of the things I think I pray all the time. And so Brandon, my son, was talking one time. He was talking about our lives as a family and he said one of the marks of my dad's life is you never know when you're going to be praying. You're driving in the car talking about something. All of a sudden my dad's like, lord, we just pray over that thing, dude, that's just. Yeah, I don't know. It's like. I remember, uh, kenneth copeland one time saying he had a close friend who'd never prayed more than 15 minutes at a time. Like his intercession time in the morning be about 15 minutes, he said, but he probably never prayed more than 15 minutes at a time. Like his intercession time in the morning would be about 15 minutes, he said, but he probably never went more than 15 minutes of his life without praying. 53:50 And one of the powers of prayer is that prayer strips away the inconsequential. Guys always talk about focusing their life. Well, focus isn't about greater intensity, it's about greater intentionality, but when you focus, it's about cutting away the things that don't belong. And prayer does that when we pray. So, number one corporate community. Pillar one, pillar two pray, and you pray every day. So we're living the life of Christ. We're living a Christ-like life. Pillar three is reading the Bible. 54:17 So if you've, already read it once. It's like reading a book. Do I need to read it again? 54:21 - Speaker 2 I tell you, you will learn something different every time you read it. 54:24 I mean I think God speaks to me. I'm reading Exodus and I'm reading Luke right now and he speaks to me every time I open the book. One of the things when I was young in Christ and I didn't know, I hear this a lot. People ask me how do I know what Christ wants me to do, or God wants me to do? And you have to read the Bible right. I would remember my pastor, rick. He would always get up on the stage and say God spoke to me. God spoke to me and I said, well, something must be wrong with me because I don't hear anything. 54:52 How does that happen? And so I went to him and he said through God's word, through God's word, and I just made it a habit of reading God's word every morning as well, and do different times. Yes, I've read through the Bible multiple times, but I think God speaks to me in different ways. 55:08 You know, I just read my whole thing right now is focused on making sure priorities are right, and there's a piece in the book that I probably could talk through at a later time, but I read about Martha and Mary. Right, and Martha's going. You know, christ, why are you letting Mary sit there at your feet when I got this meal to cook? And then Jesus, you know you could just hear him say Martha, martha, martha. You know she's found the one thing. She found the one thing. That's most important and I think that's. If you don't, if you want to find that one thing you know you need to you've got to be involved in the Bible and then be obedient to what it tells you. 55:39 - Speaker 1 And then do it, and then do it. Yeah, yeah, faith without works is dead. The half brother of Jesus said that, james. Yes, you know Mary and Martha. Martha gets a bad rap. I like Martha, I like Mary, I like, of course. They're Lazarus's sisters, yes, and who was, I think, the best friend of Jesus? 55:56 - Speaker 3 Yes. 55:56 - Speaker 1 And the closest friend. And so here's Martha. You know, we kind of give her a bad rap. She's trying to get some stuff done, you know. You know, I've always thought about this and everybody goes yeah, mary chose the right thing. But I mean, when you think about it, if you were planting a church, who would you want? Mary or martha? 56:13 - Speaker 2 martha, all right, reading the bible, pillar four is uh yes, I would tell you probably the one of the biggest things I feel for me that lets me see god, right. Right, I mean, so we always talk about miracles. Does God show miracles in our life anymore? Yeah, and I journal all my prayer requests. I journal what God tells me as I read what does he want me to know, what does he want me to do? And so I go through this process every day. You know it's kind of odd. You know you talked about my marriage and work life. 56:45 I started journaling in 2004, when I gave my life to Christ. The first two entries of my journal were to save my marriage number one and number two was to find me a different career. I don't know if I wanted him to do number two, to do number one. He had to find me a different career. And, yeah, I can look at that now. I can look at all these prayer requests and go God did this. I see this where God did these prayer requests. And go, god did this. I see this where God did this. I see this where God did this. So journaling has been one of the most powerful tools that I've had to have that relationship and knowing God. 57:12 - Speaker 1 I go back through my journals and read things and I go yeah, I remember that. Gosh, that was a All right pillar five. Be still and know that he is God. That's Psalm 4610, one of my favorites. Yeah, you know. 57:25 - Speaker 2 I didn't practice that for a long time and I was walking with a mentor and he suggested that I would do this. And it's hard. It's hard just to sit there and just be still right. And you know, for first I couldn't do it for one or two minutes, but then in the long period I've done it as long as 30 minutes or an hour. 57:43 Just be, still and listen to God. I kind of use that verse to kind of guide me through it Be still and know I am God. Be still and know I am God. Be still and know I am the great, I am the Yahweh. Be still and know God knows all about us. Be still, just be still in the silence and the beauty of creation, or early of the morning, well, yeah, and it has to be when you read the whole chapter, psalm 46,. 58:07 - Speaker 1 He is our refuge. Yes, the only way you can be still is being confident to know that he's there. He's our refuge. 58:14 - Speaker 3 Yes, yes I think that's powerful. 58:16 - Speaker 1 Pillar six is a small group, so that's kind of what you were talking about a minute. 58:19 - Speaker 2 Family groups, men's groups, book of Acts. You know it tells us right, meet often and break bread. And I will tell you what. In those small groups, that's where I saw Christ work the most. I saw the love of Christ, I saw the agape, love for each other. I saw us when we cried with each other when we lost a loved one or we celebrated when we had a grandchild or something. It was that is the most unique and a piece of life I think we can do as Christians. 58:47 - Speaker 1 And then pillar seven is have a mentor. That's a tough one sometimes. 58:52 - Speaker 2 That's a tough one sometimes. I've mentored probably I've mentored two men a year because I do about six months a piece but you know I've been mentored. I still have a mentor, rick Baldwin. Still we meet once a month for coffee. But I think if you can find that it's very powerful, I mean, and not be afraid to be transparent with that person and let them help you strengthen your walk, but also help them strengthen their walk as well, and I would think that was. I've done one through Chick-fil-A that was actually programmed, and then I've always done one with Rick over the years. But it's sometimes hard to ask for that, you know. I mean you have to ask somebody to mentor you. You got to have somebody that wants to mentor you or be a mentor. But I think for men, especially us men that are further in our walk, it's very important. I think it's very important that we wrap our arms around other men, other men and help them on their walk. 59:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a mentor or a discipleship helping others. I think that's the thing you know, ron. We need each other, don't we? Yes, yes, yes, sir. Brotherhood Pillar 7, me with a mentor, also, maybe in the small group community Pillar 6 that you have here. I think all of that could be to me is all part of brotherhood and opening ourselves up, being vulnerable, dude, that's probably the toughest thing as a man, isn't it? You know? 01:00:08 - Speaker 2 I, I, I hit a lot of stuff for a lot of years. I mean I, you know it's sad to say that when I wrote this book there was things in the book that my wife didn't ever know, because I was thought it was an embarrassment, you know, and you know I just I felt God tell me to be transparent, because if I'm not transparent, it's not going to help anybody, right, it's not going to help anybody that reads it. So, but it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard to, you know, admit to some of the things that we've done wrong and what's been done to us. 01:00:33 - Speaker 1 Ron Acosta ronacostacom, you said that you've got a great cut line in here. All my life I've been in a hurry, a hurry to get to the end. Unfortunately, with this type of thought process, you miss a lot in your life. 01:00:48 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. 01:00:50 - Speaker 1 Relationships, god's creations and joy. And so now you work with Chick-fil-A, which is a remarkable story and a remarkable company. But I would say, and you've got a ministry to marriages called the Refuge that you and your wife do, I would say you are now, you have become a purveyor of joy. You know. 01:01:09 - Speaker 2 I, yeah, I mean I. You know we always try to talk about happiness and joy, right, but do I know that I'll be in heaven someday with Christ? Right, that's my joy. 01:01:18 - Speaker 1 So yeah, I like, I like heaven on earth right now. I, you know it's, it's that old, you know that old spiritual that was, uh, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to leave right now. And so I, I love that promise and that hope that we have but, I sure like hugging my grandkids. 01:01:35 - Speaker 2 Oh, I love it too. I love it too. 01:01:36 - Speaker 1 As the Lord gives me this time here on earth, I want to do, you know, everything I can do. That's why we do this podcast meet new friends like yourself, ron. So you know, thank you for sending me a note and just saying, hey, here's what we're doing. And then I read the book and I went dude, I want to meet this guy. This is how he survived this. So I look forward to spending some time together in the future and I want everybody to get a copy of this book. It really is one of those types of things that you know you could read it and it reads like a movie and yet, at the same time, it was your real life, and Unstoppable Grace is the name of it. Unstoppable Grace, ron Acosta. Hey, thanks for taking the time, ron. 01:02:19 And would you right now just take a moment and let's pray over some guys that are walking through some different things. They've heard some things today and they say you know what I need to do this or do that. And I think you know, one of the things that all of this conversation has helped us realize is we have to take things to the action stage, and that's what you did. You actually took steps towards healing. 01:02:44 Yes, sir, and as you did that, christ met you and now you and your wife Becky help other people. Let's pray for some guys to take this to the actual stage. Go ahead and pray, ron. 01:02:52 - Speaker 2 Sure. Dear Heavenly Father, I want to just thank you for this morning and thank you for this time to reach men. Lord, I know that there's men out there that struggle with similar things that we all do with, but I want them to know that there's truly hope. I think when we hear the calling from God, I think our challenge is to react to that call. Don't just put it off to the side and say I'll do it later or do it some other time, or that's not for me. One of the things someone asked me one time is why did God grace you? Why did he give perennial grace to you? And you know, one of the big things that I feel that I've tried really hard to do is that when God calls that I react and I don't? 01:03:30 you know, I don't want anybody to be a victim and just understand that there's hope, there's truly hope with Christ. I mean, all things are possible with Christ, and I hope that when you hear that, you truly believe that that all things are possible with Christ Yahweh, that when you hear that you truly believe that that all things are possible with Christ Yahweh, our God, our God, our mighty God. For those who are out there, just I hope that this message and if you read the book, please send me comments and so we can celebrate together. Lord, I pray this in your precious name. 01:04:02 - Speaker 1 Amen. Thanks, Ron. It's been great spending time with you. 01:04:06 - Speaker 2 Thanks for the time I appreciate it. 01:04:07 - Speaker 1 Thanks for being my brave men. Yeah, and thank you for listening to Ron Acosta and I'm Paul Louis Cole with Christian Men's Network, cmnmen, and we have resources for discipling of men and mentoring of men in 50 languages. You know, we've got something that you can use in your church, your community group, small group. So thanks for listening to Ron and I as we talked about Jesus, because that's what it's all about, and never forget this Hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. God bless, thank you. God bless, thanks, ron. 01:04:43 - Speaker 3 Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmnmen. That's cmnmen. Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts or download it. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.