← Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
The People Who Risked Everything to Influence Yo
00:23:35
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- [00:04]
A
So we've been talking about taking a risk, trusting God's influence in you. We had a different angle this morning. Who's taken a risk on you? Who are the people in your life that have influenced you? Welcome to living influence.
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B
Amen. Thank you, Scott.
- [00:18]
A
You're welcome. It's interesting to think about the people that have influenced me in my life.
- [00:24]
B
Yeah. I feel the same way.
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A
I was thinking about it this morning, and one of the things that is common through all of these people is they became my friends. Friends are amazing.
- [00:40]
B
Yes. Couldn't agree more.
- [00:42]
A
My grandpa talked to him about how he made me feel special. And my grandpa was not a spiritual man. Never really attended church, although in those last years of his life, he read the Bible all the time. He was an observer of me. And so when we would go visit my grandpa, we'd sit down at the dinner table and he'd look at me and he'd say, do your thing, boy. And that was my cue to pray. And it was just this little bit of respect from him in this position that was significant.
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B
There are people who God has given into my life who, in a variety of ways, have had an amazing positive effect on me.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Now, I would be unfair if I didn't say there are some people that have been in my life that have had an incredibly negative effect on me.
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A
Right.
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B
Both. I've learned from both of those influencers.
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A
That's true.
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B
I have. I've learned from both of those influencers. One of the things we got to be really, really careful of is, and I'm not going to dwell on this, but we got to be very, very careful to never let the negative influencer cause us to become bitter, because our bitterness will continue for us to live in their negative influence. Gotta learn that we have to know that forgiveness is the key to being resolved from the negative influencer.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because many, many, many people see themselves as the victim of somebody.
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A
Right.
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B
Well, that is not healthy. I don't want to do. Well, then we'll spend a whole podcast on that.
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A
Right.
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B
But what I do want to do is I want to talk about a couple of people who have had an amazingly positive influence on my life.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'll start with my wife, Grace. I tell this story often. I've said it before, but it's a very important story. When we got married, I had no idea how unhealthy I was. None. I was oblivious to it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I was especially attracted to Grace, not just because of her beauty, but of the strength and stability of her person.
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A
Yeah, I just.
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B
It was just an amazing. Didn't know anybody like that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And moving into our marriage, five years into our marriage, Grace takes me for a drive one night. And in that drive, she makes a statement that God used to change my life. That's how powerful the influence of a person is. And you said, there's something common in these people that caught my attention. I'll say this to you, Scott. The positive influence in my life are the people who believed I was worth their risk.
- [03:56]
A
Yeah, they believed in you.
- [03:59]
B
They believed in me. So Grace believed in me. But she made this statement. She said, bill, I know this is going to really hurt you. Now, that's not the statement that charged my life. She said, I know this is really going to hurt you, but. But I want you to know I'm really unhappy in our marriage. That we were five years married, never saw it coming, didn't understand it. That is wasn't even the statement that changed my life. Yeah, the statement. Because I asked her the question, why are you so unhappy? And this is the statement that changed my life. She said, bill, I don't think I can continue to live in a relationship where only you get to love me. You will not let me love you. Why don't you trust me? And the Holy Spirit of God's God used those words to tear my heart open in a way I'd never experienced. And all of a sudden, I felt unbelievably vulnerable, unbelievably disoriented, but aware of something I had never gotten in touch with. I didn't know how to trust anyone. Even though I love Grace, even though we were married, I had no idea of how to trust that lady with me.
- [05:26]
A
That's worth unpacking a little bit. You had no idea how to trust her with you.
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B
Exactly.
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A
So tell me what that means.
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B
Yeah. Well, what that means is this for me. And I've said this to a lot of audiences. Many of us have lives full of stuff. Most of it's hidden, a lot of it's dysfunctional. But we have an innate feeling.
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A
That.
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B
You wouldn't really like me very much if you knew really what was true.
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A
About me, all my stuff.
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B
You definitely wouldn't love me. You definitely wouldn't trust me. You wouldn't want to be around me. Oh, and by the way, I don't even like me. So. So it's like it's. It's all of that in that moment, I realized when she said that, you're right. I didn't say this to Her. But I said in my spirit, you're right. I don't. I don't know how to trust anyone. But something dawned on me. I believe it was God teaching me a lesson. He drew a connection in her words to a life lesson. I desperately wanted Grace to love me. Scott, there is nobody in the world I wanted to love me more than Grace. There was nobody I ever loved as much as I love Grace.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And now this dear girl is with two kids. She's telling me that she's miserable in.
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A
Our marriage because you won't let her love you.
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B
Because I won't let her love me.
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A
And that looks like what?
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B
Ah, very good. What that looked like for us. And since then, many, many times it looked like this. Bill, why don't you believe me when I tell you I love you? Why do you hesitate to let me care for you? Why do you keep trying to be the one Upman person in our relationship as if you don't have any needs?
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A
That's.
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B
That's the key.
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A
That's the key. And that's. That's the thing is we. What is it about us where we don't want to be needy?
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B
Exactly. And. And it's because we, in my opinion, we have this assumption that I can take care of me. But nothing in my history demonstrate that that's true. And so. So we. We have a false assumption that we can handle it without others.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Now we know how to use others, how to get from others what we want. But that's not what Grace was talking about. She was talking about this man. Boy. The boy in me who had never been loved. She was talking about this boy in me letting somebody love him. Letting somebody reach in and meet his needs and care for him. And my response that night, Scott, I'll never forget it. Of course, I couldn't stop. The minute she said those words. I couldn't stop letting her in. So I started unveiling all of this junk stuff and dysfunction. And she would pause once in a while. She'd touch me like this. She'd go, really? Why would you ever want to do that?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like as if. Why would anybody want to do that?
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A
Yeah.
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B
And. And. And I had all of this hidden stuff. And. And she did an amazing thing that night under God's guidance. Talk about risk. Listen to the risk she took. She risked taking me in the desert to tell me she was not unhappy in her marriage with a reason that changed my life. Many people have said to Grace, why did you do that? She says, because I knew I was losing him. I didn't know what I was losing him to. And the risk of losing him was greater than the risk of trying to keep him.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That's how powerful her testimony and influence on me was that night.
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A
We want to not be needy.
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B
Right.
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A
We don't want to burden another with our need.
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B
Right.
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A
But God made us with need.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
Need does not make us unrighteous.
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B
Amen.
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A
But trying to meet our need without allowing others in is what makes us unrighteous.
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B
Excellent. No, that's very, very well said. I couldn't agree more.
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A
It's. It's when we hide our need, the need doesn't go away. And so we deal with our need poorly.
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B
Because we think we can.
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A
Because we think we can.
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B
Yeah. Now you're hitting on a chord here that I spend a lot of time with. Scott. A lot of people comes out of my story, but it's right there. How in the world does anybody learn to trust another human being with who they really are? Scott, we desperately want to be known.
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A
Yeah.
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B
We're afraid we will be.
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A
It's terrifying.
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B
It's terrifying.
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A
Yeah. I mean, people like, how do you do it?
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B
Yeah. One of the questions that I get asked a lot, especially from men, is I don't think anybody can handle me. I just. I'm so screwed up. I know. And I'll say that's because you're measuring life through the lens of your shame. Because you've never measured your life through being loved. So I say to them, guess what? Love can handle you.
- [11:27]
A
Yeah.
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B
So in the car that night, this dear girl, she was sitting over there crying. I start telling my junk, and she.
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A
Moves right here, moves closer to you.
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B
She puts her hands on me.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I'm going, just being honest. I was thinking, while she's moving toward me, we're both crying and I'm thinking, I didn't say it to her. Thank God I was smart enough not to. I was thinking. I was thinking this. If you were the person telling me the stuff that I am doing, I kick you out of the car. Right in the middle of her loving me, my self righteousness starts to judge what I would do to her.
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A
Wow.
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B
Oh, it's amazing.
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A
Yeah. So.
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B
So there's this verse in the Bible that love covers a multitude of sin.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That night, Grace demonstrated. I changed the words to these. Love can handle sin.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Jesus proved it at Calvary.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So who do I let? Well, nobody can handle me. I've had more than one significant leader say to me, well, I don't know how to trust anybody. I'm not going to trust anybody. I'm not going to be that vulnerable. And then I'll say to them, and you're going to stay screwed up. So we're sitting in the car, I'm rattling off all of this stuff. She's getting closer to me. And then she says to me, with a lot of tears from both of us, she says to me, bill, do you know this is the first time in our marriage you have ever let me love you in my heart?
- [13:14]
A
It's like, how did she know that?
- [13:16]
B
Oh, well, that's. That's amazing. That's a great, great observation. Here's this girl, by the way, her name is Grace. I know that's the paradox of my whole life. Message is Grace. And I'm married to Grace.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I mean, who gets married to Grace? But that's my story.
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A
God likes humor. Exactly.
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B
He must, because he's.
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A
Look at.
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B
He uses me. She, in the health of her heart, knew what it was to be loved well. She, in the health of her heart, knew what it was, was to love well. And she knew she wasn't experiencing it with me. And it was so important to her because she knew that I was getting sicker and sicker because she's right. I was present, but I wasn't there. I was absent. Emotionally, I was absent. Often stayed up late at night to avoid her. I got really unhealthy. Here's a person who, because she loves me, is willing to risk everything for my benefit. And I believed her. That's the key. I believed her. Now, I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you that everything on that list of screwed up stuff Was gone in 22 seconds. Wasn't at all right. It was years. But I want to make an important statement because I do a lot of couple counseling. Grace never became my counselor. I want you to know that. That's very important.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I needed an objective person to help me see what she was discovering in me.
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A
So how did you deal with that?
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B
How did I. Yeah. I talked to people I could trust with what she was telling me was true. And I believe them. And in believing them, I began to understand. This is a. For me, Scott, this story is a worldview changing story.
- [15:22]
A
Yeah.
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B
Because I believe something in. Through them, especially through Grace. This. This truth, my view of me was severely distorted by my shame.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Which was the source of my pain. Which was the source of my life choices. Because I didn't like me. That's. I just gave Up.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That's heavy, heavy, heavy stuff. And I flesh that out with people because I'm discovering a lot of people are like, Bill Thrall. I didn't know that.
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A
Right.
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B
But a lot of people are.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'm not the only one who grew up in severe dysfunction.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'm really not.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know that. Non teasing. So as I think with you about this story of influence, I think, okay, grace took a risk for me. Listen carefully. That God chose to bless for my life and literally for thousands of others through our writing, through our teaching, through our preaching.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Now I want to pause and just say, who am I, Bill Thrall? Who am I willing to love so deeply that I'm willing to risk for their benefit? And I think, Scott, there are many on that list by God's grace, that would have never been on that list if that evening with grace never happened. I knew how to get stuff done. I knew how to do things well. I was that young guy with all this potential and all this leadership ability. And I was moving. I was a mover and a shaker.
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A
You were doing.
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B
And I was a doer. And I teasingly say, unfortunately. And I was preaching during this time of my dysfunction. Of course.
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A
Right.
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B
And I, because I could preach a message that Christians like to hear, but I never had to deal with the me who was saying the message. Now that's a problem. I'm going to expand my thinking and influence for a minute. There are numbers of preachers, Bible teachers, etcetera, who teach the Bible absent from experiencing its truth.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And because that's true, I will say to pastors, when I used to speak at pastors conferences, I would say, you know, you should never teach us truth, something you haven't experienced as truth.
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A
Yeah. And then they would say, well, what am I supposed to teach then?
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B
What would I teach? That's the whole point. You're right. And the whole point is, well, why would you dare to teach the Bible as true if you don't believe it as true? That's hypocrisy. That's Pharisee. That's pharisitic reality. Now, where does that. All of that we just said in two minutes, where does that come from? It comes from that one little incident with grace where that night I got in touch with the beginning of a.
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A
Process.
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Where I learned something, Scott. My knowledge of the Bible was not touching my reality.
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A
Right.
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B
Until I experienced grace.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Not just grace, my wife, but the truth of grace. Until I experienced the truth of grace. That's When I begin to have my reality. That night, my wife showed amazing grace to me, and it had a solution for my reality. I wish I could say this 10 times to this audience. The knowledge of the Bible will not transform you. The truth of the Bible will. But it can't transform you until you trust it.
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A
And how do you know if you trust something, you'll act on it? Right.
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B
And so this whole lesson of the influence of others, and there are others in your life and in my life. But this lesson, I felt it was important to repeat it. Thank you for extending it into these questions, because it's like I want to ask that same question again. I come across God, a lot of people. You're one of them. How do I trust the influence in me for your benefit? How do these things about what I learned from grace get transferred through me to you? I really love you, brother. I really care about you. I really want God's best for you.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But there's always going to be a risk. And you know what? I'm going to teasingly say this. It's much easier to give somebody a good book to read.
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A
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
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B
Than it is to sit with them and do life.
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A
Yeah. I just have to insert this piece. People want to go to churches and be told what to do.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
So that their life will go the way they'd like it. Right.
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B
That's right on.
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A
And so as I learned about grace, I developed this doing radar where I would respond negatively whenever I would hear somebody telling others what they need to do. My dad was an alcoholic. My dad's life didn't work very well. He did some things well, but there was a lot of mess in his life and a lot of dysfunction in his life. I took my dad to some medical appointments. My dad had an injury once, and I was kind of involved in his care. And I got to observe him up close as strangers would come in. I never found anyone who had more advice for people than my dad. It was just like, oh, my gosh, what are you doing?
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
And it's. He didn't understand grace.
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B
Amen.
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A
And so he was trying to do. And so he had lots of advice for everybody else.
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B
That wasn't working for him.
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A
No. His. It wasn't his reality.
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B
That's good for you. Great. Great illustration.
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A
Yeah. Yeah.
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B
Great illustration.
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A
Who's taken a risk.
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B
Yeah.
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A
For my benefit.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
And really, it is people who have trusted me with letting me see them. Absolutely. Trusted me with themselves.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
And it undid me and changed me to where I could trust them with me.
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B
Well said.
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A
Friends are amazing.
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B
Thank you Lord.
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A
Thank you for becoming my friend, Bill.
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B
I feel the same way, Scott. Thank you.
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A
You've been my mentor but you became my friend.
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B
Amen.
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A
And that's been incredibly meaningful journey. Who are the people that have influenced your life that have trusted God's influence in them for your benefit? That's a good journey to think about to make an account of. See where it leads you. We're going to continue telling stories and so we hope to see you next week on Living Influence. Thank you for listening to the podcast. We're really glad that you're here. We'd love to know that you're here and so if you could leave a comment we would appreciate that. But more importantly, if you know someone that should listen to this or hear it, we would love for you to share it with them. Thanks again.