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- [00:00]
Christine Caine
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Sophia Bush
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Christine Caine
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Sophia Bush
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Christine Caine
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Sophia Bush
support our national parks@garnier USA.com NPF God
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Christine Caine
will make people stand up and wait. You just gotta stay faithful. Allow God to develop you and not get out of the purpose that he's got for you. It's been a brutal decade and I. I start crying for the first time in 37 years of being a Christian. I don't know if I want to. I don't know if I want to because I know that cost associated with doing it.
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Lecrae
But how do you navigate being a mother and a wife and traveling and the speaking and the organizations?
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Christine Caine
Most people have really well managed lives, but they've managed God right out of their life. So it's only what I can achieve, what I can do, what I can manage. And I wasn't called to live a well managed life. I was called to live a supernatural life. My life should be a life where people go, how does that work?
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Lecrae
Goodness, I want to run through a wall.
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Christine Caine
I love you. I can't wait. I'm running through a wall right now.
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Lecrae
Open the door so I can run through a wall. I'm running through a wall. I didn't grow up in church, and when I saw church leaders make poor decisions, I'm devastated. What the heck? Is any of this real?
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Christine Caine
And here's the thing, Lecrae, the people that I personally know that maybe have fallen in the last five years, most of them have been older than me. So you think you get to 60 and you can go into cruise control. But the enemy is nothing if not patient. Be really careful what you pray for, because as Many people, as God allows you to help. That's how many people you can hurt. This is the deep end with Lecrae.
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Lecrae
All right, everybody, listen. Today I'm excited because we have an esteemed, incredible individual with us. I mean, we've got a scholar, a Bible teacher, a leader and advocate for human trafficking, those who are in danger of being trafficked, and just a brilliant and godly individual. Somebody who I have had the opportunity to be around probably for nearly. Almost over a decade, for sure. And somebody that I'm sure everyone's going to be excited to hear from today. So we have none other than Christine Cain.
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Christine Caine
Hey, Lecrae. I'm so honored to be. Be here.
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Lecrae
I'm glad you're here. Like, you don't understand how excited, not only was I for you to be here, but just like my team, my staff, they were like, can we sneak in? Can we hang out in here? And I was like, no, it's. It's. Unfortunately, we're. We're in a different studio. We're in la. It's a little different. So I'm honored to have you here. You know, there's so many places we can go. There's so many things that. And you're so vocal and transparent with your story and your journey. But I do think it'd be helpful because your story's so powerful, right, for people to just kind of understand the origins. They know you as a Bible teacher, they know you as an advocate, and some know your story as well. But then there's some who just see you as this incredible leader who's got it all together, and they don't know about the. The history of trauma and pain that you've endured. So talk to us about what molded you into the person that you are today, historically.
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Christine Caine
Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll give it the kind of Cliff Notes version. Sure, sure, sure. So, you know, I was born in Sydney, Australia, and I couldn't tell by the acc on you've been down under. That's where I first met you, actually. And because you were loving Vegemite.
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Lecrae
That's right. Good gracious, good gracious.
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Christine Caine
Well, so I was born there the daughter of Greek immigrants. So I don't know. Have you ever seen my Big Fat Greek Wedding?
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Lecrae
Yes.
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Christine Caine
Okay. That is my big fat Greek life. So, you know, if you give me a word, any word, the origin of that word is Greek. And we. We grew up to be Greek is to be Orthodox. And, you know, when you have that immigrant experience, your whole life really revolves around your culture. So, you know, I didn't really have that much to do when I was very, very young with the Australian community. We were very much in our Greek bubble.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
And, you know, I grew up in kind of very typical government housing, immigrant housing, sort of your stereotype that you would expect. And my family, my immediate family was. Was great. But, you know, my parents allowed a lot of people to come into our home who they should have been able to trust, but they were very, very untrustworthy. And that meant for a lot of years in my childhood, I was the. The victim of childhood sexual abuse and. And everything that you would expect with that. So I was a young woman so full of shame, so full of anger, so full of bitterness and unforgiveness and confusion. And especially, you know, I grew up in the 1970s because I'm, you know, I am as old as when dinosaurs
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Lecrae
roamed the earth, when anybody's born in the 1900s. So the kids were all there.
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Christine Caine
My kids are like, was their life on Earth back then? So, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s in Australia, no one was talking about abuse. I didn't really even have language to frame what had happened to me, but I certainly had the effects of it so very broken. And then about two weeks before my 33rd birthday, I got a phone call from my older brother, George. He was 35 at the time. I was about to be 33. We had. I had a younger brother, Andrew, who at the time was 30. George caught me and he said, chris, I just got a letter from the government, and it says that I've been adopted. Now, Craig, when he first said this to me, I got to be honest, I laugh because you might not have done this in your family, but when you're kind of growing up, you're going to your siblings, you know, we're not related. Okay? So I'm just like, whatever. Except now he's, like, really serious. And I said, george, George, of course they've made a mistake. Of course they've sent this letter to the wrong person. Call the Department of Community Services and tell them that they've sent this letter to the wrong person. Well, he called me back about 15 minutes later, and this time he is sobbing, and he goes, chris, it's true. They told me the name of my biological mother, my biological father, when I was born, when I was immunized, like, they have a whole file on my life. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh. He goes, I'm going to go home and confront Mum. And, man, I don't know if you know anything about Greeks, but Greeks are a little bit crazy. So we act first, think later. I'm thinking this thing could explode. So I jump in my car to go to my mom's house. My dad had died when I was 19, so George is going to go confront Mom. There's this, obviously, this family secret for 35 years. I walk into the living room right at the moment that my brother is giving my mom this piece of paper from the government, and I see my mom's face change and she starts crying, and she said, george, I am so sorry. The adoption laws in Australia, in the 1960s, they were closed adoptions, and we never thought you would find out. So before your dad died, I promised him I would never tell you. Tore up the paperwork. So, I mean, it's a moment, you know, my brother's crying, my mom's crying. I think I'm. Greek. Food is the answer to life, the universe and everything. There's a crisis happening. I'm going to go to the kitchen and make. So I go to start making some food. My mother comes into the kitchen. A little while later, in Greek, she speaks to us. Greek is my first language. She said, christina, since we're telling the truth today, do you want to know the whole truth? And I turn around, and initially, I don't even know why I said. I went, I've been adopted, too. And then with just tears streaming down her face, she nods her head and says yes. So, I mean, a profound way to find out you're not who you thought you were, you know. And so from that. That's. At that moment is how I found out that, you know, my parents had lied to me for 33 years, that my birth certificate was not my birth certificate. And then about a year later, I got my documents from the government. And there's probably nothing that could undermine your sense of identity or purpose than. Than truly discovering you're not who you thought you were. And you had. I had a birth certificate for 33 years. I got married and had that birth certificate. You know, I had a passport. And now all of a sudden, I get a document. And on that document it says, particulars of child prior to adoption. And it says child's name. And typed in is the word unnamed number 2508 of 1966. So here's my birth certificate with no name on it, just a number. And. And then a document from the Royal Hospital for Women where I was born, that said, you know, it had an assessment of my mother. I mean, I Could quote, you know, the statement was, it is evident this woman is totally disconnected from this child and wants to get it over and done with and go back to work as soon as possible. So, you know, in that I'm hearing unwanted and unloved and unseen and unknown. So that deep rooted sense of rejection, abandonment, abuse, the immigrant experience, of course it shaped me in so many ways and framed me, you know, so there's a lot of trauma in all of that formation. But I do, you know, I can't stop there because to me that that's not the story. You know, I met Jesus in my early 20s and he did make a difference because I'm just thinking the girl I was before and even knowing the Lord and knowing the word of God is what made me not freak out when. So my brother got the same news as I did on the same day.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
And we had two very different responses. And you know, his was very understandable as you would expect to get that sort of news. But because I had, you know, met the Lord, truly became a fully devoted follower of Jesus about a decade before that. For a decade I had been renewing my mind because I had believed so many lies about myself and I was. There was so much brokenness because of my past that in order to survive, for me, Bible reading is not like some legalistic thing, it is survival. So I had to, you know, before we knew about neuroplasticity, I was changing your mental mind. That was right.
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Lecrae
That's right.
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Christine Caine
You know, God sort of knew what to do before we knew the science. But it was. I was rewiring literally my brain by memorizing scripture. So I say all that and, and I'll end here is when my mum said my. You can imagine I'm that moment in the kitchen, my mom's sobbing. There's, I mean, the secrets coming out of our family. And we're a family of secrets obviously between the abuse, the aband and all that that does. But I had so renewed my mind at this point. I remember grabbing my mom in that moment and because she was so losing it, I went, mum, it's okay. And literally out of my mouth in the kitchen. I mean there's no worship music. I'm not on a platform. This is in the kitchen. I go, mum, before I was formed in my mother's womb. And out loud I literally went, whose ever wound that was, it doesn't matter. God knew me. God knitted together my innermost parts. He fashioned my days before as yet there was one of them. And you know what Lecrae, to this day, I mean, I'm sitting here talking to you in LA and I still don't know the circumstances surrounding my conception. I don't know what was it a one night stand? Was it an ongoing adulterous affair? Was it a rape? I don't know. But because I know Ephesians 2, 10 that says I'm not the workmanship of a rape or an affair. It says I'm God's workmanship and I've been recreated in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand. That's right, that I should walk in them. So I guess to me, so much of what I do, you know, we talk about rescuing the victims of human trafficking and big numbers, 50 million slaves or numbers are numbing and dehumanizing and desensitizing. And it's easy to ignore suffering if it's nameless and faceless. But on my birth certificate there's not a name, there's just a number, 25 of 90. So no one's ever a number to me because God doesn't make numbers.
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Lecrae
You preaching.
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Christine Caine
And so to me it's like the Lord has made sure from, from my birth certificate, I can never see an individual outside of them being created in the image of God. And that there's no numbers, there's no statistics, there's just people. And I'm one degree of separation from the very kids we could be rescuing. Because if I wasn't born in Australia that had a rule of law and a proper adoption system, I could be any one of the kids.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
And wouldn't it be just like God to say, I'm going to take an unnamed, unwanted, abused, adopted girl from the back of Sydney, Australia, and not only rescue her, but, but use her to rescue, to turn around and open the prison doors for those that are still bound. That to me is the gospel and it's redemption. I got to tell you, every time we put a trafficker in jail or rescue a young woman or child, I think, devil, you can stick that in your pipe and smoke it. And I feel like Joseph, you know, in Genesis 50:20 said to his brothers, you meant this for evil against me.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
God meant it for this very purpose.
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Lecrae
It's, it's, it's really. There's so many that, so many things that run in my mind. So, so number one, because I've been abused, I've been abandoned, I have a, you know, only my father who wanted nothing to do with me, still don't have a relationship. I've met him once.
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Christine Caine
Right.
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Lecrae
I understand this, the feeling of like, well, who am I? You know, and where's my value and where do I come from? I. I'm curious for you how, you know, the scriptures is how you were renewing your mind, but how are you wrestling with the, the flood of information that that's telling you? Well, who are you or who is your mom? Well, why didn't she want me? And like, how are you practically navigating?
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Christine Caine
Yeah, it wasn't, you know, I'm trying to think how long after that there was a moment I thought, should I contact my mother? Because it had my biological mother's name on it, but they don't know who the father was according to the documents. And, and so I thought, what if I'm supposed to get in contact with her? And, and you know, I'm. I'm like this avid evangelist. I'm thinking, what if I'm supposed to tell her, you know, look what the Lord's done kind of thing. And so again, we're going back to pre cell phones or when there was not, you know, there was life on the earth before that. But so I had a Greek social worker friend and because I was thinking, and I know the immigrant experience, obviously, and I thought, okay, if she came to Australia and it was back then, I guarantee you nobody knows that I exist. As in if, you know, she's remarried, had kids, whatever, I don't want to ruin her life. So I said, and I thought, and she probably doesn't speak English because this would have been the first wave of immigrants that came out in the 1960s, 1950s, 1960s. And so my, my Greek friend that is a social worker in Sydney, Australia, and I was with her and she said, okay, and put me through a protocol of what we can do. So I was in the room. So it was old school phone with speakerphone. So this is the only thing I've ever heard of my biological mother's voice. So she called and then, you know, the woman answered and, and my friend did all the talking. I was just. Didn't say anything. And she said, you know, I'm going to give you a date, and if you want me to continue the conversation, I will, and if you don't, I won't. And then she said, 23rd of September, 1966. And this is the only thing I've ever heard from my biological mother's voice. There was an audible gasp, like a shriek. And just in Greek, very loud, three times. I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. And I'm going to my friend because I didn't want in any way to destroy her life because I thought, you know, to be an unwed. Pregnant.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
Like back in the 60s, her father could have killed it. Like it was a big deal. And so I'm. And I thought, I bet you her husband doesn't know and her kids don't know. And I don't want to wreck this. And also the only thing I. I have in my ears is an audible gasp. And then, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. And so again then, that's the tape. This is to answer your question. So the truck, the tape recorder then is like c. She didn't even want you. She didn't even give you a name. You're just a number. She left you in the hospital and left. And here we are 35 years later by then. And 35 years later, you're still trouble. But there is no easy way. This is the bottom line because have there been adverse effects of. Of that brokenness and that, you know, I would almost go as far as to say a spirit of rejection and abandonment which creates an orphan spirit. So did I a lot of my early life, looking for acceptance, looking for significance, looking for security. And then when I first. When I got saved and was in church then, you know, was I looking to people and perhaps even at times leaders to be. To me to feel this mother wound
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Lecrae
because I get out of my life. Okay, get out of my life.
- [18:00]
Christine Caine
But that would be me that I had a gaping mother wound in my life in particular. And so I think some in. In that may have led and did lead to some unhealthy attachments. So. Because until I learned, and again, this is the role where therapy has been very helpful and understanding attachment theory and family attachment systems, then I realized, okay, and it took a while to disentangle that because you, you, when you put spirituality into that, oh man, it can mess it up. Because there are spiritual principles that are true and there is a great. You know, hopefully. I hope I can be a healthy spiritual mother to a lot of people. But I also know there's a downside to that. And so I'm cognizant of it. And I think here I was coming into church life at 21, 22, and okay, so suddenly I come into this life transforming eternity transforming relationship with Jesus and a community. And for the first time I'm feeling seen and known and loved. I've not processed through any of the trauma that happened. And so you could just transfer that trauma if you don't process it. And nobody was talking about anything back then, so I didn't know. So I think then it get intertwined. And if you're gifted and you start going into. Then you can float for a good number of decades until you can't anymore. And then your world comes crashing. And certainly I had some real dark nights of the soul.
- [19:31]
Lecrae
My world came crashing. When did. When did your world come crashing?
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Christine Caine
It would be. I would say there were different. Like there were different points where. And mine had to do mostly, I think there was a gaping mother wound.
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Lecrae
So internally.
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Christine Caine
Yeah, internally.
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Lecrae
And working anymore.
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Christine Caine
Yeah, it's just like I couldn't or I would hit a certain point in relationships and just kept coming up against the same wall. And it wasn't until I recognized and this is deeply painful, that I was looking to get from people what I could only get from God. Now that was very painful. And it was like he was my deal. I wanted to keep. Who wants to go through that pain of that healing? You know, when I snapped, I had a big ski accident once and I snapped my ACL tore my mcl, tore my meniscus, you know, did the whole lot. Fractured my knee, and I had to have a hamstring graft. I come out of surgery and the PT comes into the room and says this to me. So, Chris, you. You've really messed up your knee. Most people don't fully recover and get full movement back from the kind of serious injury you've had, not because they can't. You've had a hamstring graft. So technically your right knee is now stronger than your left knee. But the problem is that when you had the injury, it happened like that. Deeply painful, but it happened really quickly. And he said, but the recovery process is going to take at least six months of. Of intense. We've got to break the scar tissue. We've got to do a lot of PT work, he said. So the pain of recovery is going to be far greater than the pain of the injury. Christine, you can recover quickly or slowly, completely or partially. It's entirely up to you. And then this was the line. The degree to which you are willing to embrace the pain of recovery is the degree to which you'll recover. So I come into church life, so there's a speaking gift, there's a leadership gift, so you can hide behind that for a really long time and. But then eventually, I think eventually, if you're really sincere with God. It's going to come crumbling down one way or another, either by God because of his grace and his mercy and because you sincerely want God. I don't. I don't think it was. I wasn't cognizant of the fact. It wasn't like I am looking to get from people what I'm only going to get from God. I was just so messed up. And there was abandonment. And so I come into spiritual families. So you imagine there's abuse in my family, and then of my family of origin, which is my adopted family, my. My mother of origin leaves me in a hospital and walks out. So there's attachment issues, there's abandonment issues, there's rejection issues. Then there's a whole immigrant issue. You don't fit into Australian society. Then the whole woman thing, you put all that together. I suddenly come into church life, which at best on a good day is a dysfunctional family, you know, because we're all in it and I've got no idea. And then you mix that in with spiritual authority, and then you mix it in with spiritual giftedness.
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Lecrae
Yeah.
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Christine Caine
And of course it's going to get messed up.
- [22:43]
Lecrae
Okay, I would like to talk to a very specific group of people for saying there are believers out there who love, go read their Bible, go to church and still feel trapped by unwanted, intrusive thoughts. And a lot of them think something's got to be wrong with my faith. But it might not be a faith issue at all. It might be ocd. Religious ocd, which is also called scrupulosity, can look like constantly wondering, did I pray right? Do I need to start over? Am I making God mad? What thought did I just have? What popped in my head? And people are carrying guilt for years because they don't realize that this is a treatable mental health condition. And so that's where no CD comes in. No CD is the world's leading OCD treatment provider. All their licensed therapists are trained in erp, or Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, which is the most effective treatment for ocd. No CD therapists deeply understand ocd, so they know that these thoughts don't mean anything about you. In live virtual sessions, they'll help you break free from OCD's grip while honoring your faith so you can get back to focusing on what matters most. No CD is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans, and they provide support between sessions, so you are never alone. If you think you might be struggling with religious OCD, don't wait head over to nocd.com to book a free 15 minute call with their team today and start reclaiming your faith. From from OCD nocd.com n o c d.com Life does not happen on a nice little neat two week schedule. Your bills don't wait, your kids don't wait, and stuff doesn't wait, it just comes up. And I remember those seasons where everything looked fine on paper, but the timing was off. The money was coming, but I just didn't have it yet. And it was that gap between now and payday. And that's where the stress lives, right? And that's why something like earning actually makes a lot of sense to me. Because. Because what Earn in does is it allows you to access your own pay as you earn it up to $150 a day and with a max of $1,000 between paydays. And let me be clear, it's not a payday loan. This is a no interest, no credit check, no mandatory fees type of situation. The money you get is money you've already earned. You just download an earning app, add your info, and as you work you can access your pay. Whatever you take out, plus an additional tip optional tip, gets paid back automatically from your next paycheck. So for me, this is not about doing anything reckless. This is everyday stuff. This is gas when you weren't planning on driving that much. This is groceries when all of a sudden the prices jump. This is covering a bill so it doesn't turn into two bills or just taking your family out to that nice quiet meal or without anxiety popping up in the back of your head. So earning exists to give people financial momentum, not shame. Life is going to keep on moving and your money should be able to move with it. If that sounds helpful to you, which it should, this is what I want you to do. I want you to download the Earn in app today. It's E A R N I N in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. And when you sign up, type the deep end with Lecrae under podcast. It's going to help support the show. Now remember, Earn in is a financial technology company, it's not a bank. The access limits depend on earnings and risk factors. Standard cash outs take one or two business days with no mandatory fees, expedited transfers or are available for a fee. And tips are optional. Available in select states and terms do apply. Listen, it's your money. Put it in your hands with Earn In.
- [26:01]
Christine Caine
That's it.
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Lecrae
I'm. I'm curious too, because within the church. You are such a dynamic leader, right? A speaker, a leader, a teacher. You're gifted in so many different ways. But you said you come from this big Greek family. Yes, and, and in my limited understanding, traditional Greek family, a woman is like, you know, the cook, have the babies. Like, you know, it's like, were people ashamed to see you kind of like, wait, you're not being the traditional 100.
- [26:38]
Christine Caine
Oh, yeah. I'd say to people, I'm a Greek Orthodox mother's nightmare. And so this is like, this is not what you've been wanting your daughter, you know, to, to grow up and do. And there was a really long time my family didn't speak to me. I mean, because it was like, it was a deep shame that, you know, I would be doing this. So, you know, you. So this is why this has always been real to me. Number one, I didn't know, I didn't even know there was a Protestant world. I grew up in a Greek Orthodox church all my life. Okay? So I, I, I didn't know. I grew up even, you know, and got saved pre Internet, pre no social media. I didn't know there was like a career Christianity. It cost me everything. I, I knew there was, you die Christianity because when I said yes to Jesus, my family for a very long time did not speak to me. All of my extended family, which very much, you know, that was my whole support system in my whole life. So to me, there was no, like, you become a Christian and your life gets better, or, you know, everything's up and to the right. And it was like, you become a Christian, you take up your cross and you follow Jesus, you're going to die. Because this was costly. It literally cost me everything. And so, and I thought, I mean, I'm not saying anything bad about that. I'm going. That's what I thought it was. And, you know, I always go. I think the greatest gift was when I got saved because I'm so old, is that we were discipled then by martyrs and missionaries and not celebrities. So I didn't know that you, that there was any other way. It was like, okay, you're going to lay down your life. And in fact, it's a privilege. I don't know, you just think, I'm going to be, I'm Greek Orthodox still. I get saved. I still don't understand a lot about the Protestant church. So I'm thinking Mother Teresa, you know, like, I'm thinking, you're going to go to Calcutta, work with lepers, you've arrived that is what being a Christian is. So it is. You know, I mean, that's reflected in different ways now through what I do with a 21 and the other work we do.
- [28:36]
Lecrae
But bring a little bit of that back. Yeah, we appreciate it.
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Christine Caine
We are. But that's. But that's what I think. Thought. So when people are like, you know, I travel a bit and people like, this is not what I signed up for, I'm thinking, what did you sign up for? Like, Jesus died for me. I didn't die for him. And so, you know, it's kind of like I thought it's to lay down our life, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow him. Now we live in a highly visible world. I get that. I'm sitting here on a podcast with you. We've got social. So what does it look like to die daily in that context? That. That's our. What we have to navigate now. But I think, you know, it wasn't that I got any affirmation from my community at all. Ostracized. I was ostracized. That was the deal. But again, all of that was God preparing me for what he had prepared for me. Because it was. I think when you've paid that kind of cost and it's ongoing by the time you get here, and maybe I've got more visibility now, but I had to learn to find that place, in that secret place with the Lord. So, yeah. Which was, thank God, because I could find it then. So. Because, you know, I always say, if that spotlight that's on you is bigger than the light of Christ that's within you, it will kill you. And so I think because I was shaped in that anonymity and obscurity in the back of nowhere, it has helped as your life becomes more visible.
- [29:48]
Lecrae
So. So obviously it costs you a lot. But I'm also curious, too, because now, you know, you get married, you're a mom, and I'm just like, at the time when you got married, was there, like, an expectation of these, like, traditional roles from your husband even?
- [30:08]
Christine Caine
Well, you know, I didn't get married until I was almost 30.
- [30:12]
Lecrae
Okay.
- [30:12]
Christine Caine
So by then I sort of reconciled with my family, and by then, my mum was so desperate for me to get married. Because then the only thing worse, you know, of, like, me becoming Christian is me, like, not being married. Because the. The whole reason you're on the earth is to get married and go forth and multiply and suddenly. But, you know, so when you're kind of younger, it's like Christine, it's not too late. So, you know someone's gonna want you. By the time you in your 20s, you're walking into family functions. They're like, don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Like, you know, she'll. And my daughters can't even believe that this is real because they're growing up in such a different world.
- [30:50]
Lecrae
Right.
- [30:50]
Christine Caine
But I'm going, you have to understand, in my entire life, peer group, I mean, number one, I'm the only one in my family that at that time married a non Greek. Wow, that was a big deal. I married an Australian man. That was a big deal. And then I was. I didn't marry till I was, you know, almost 30. But then almost, it's like my mother's like, please, you know, I'll give you a cow, two cucumbers, three tomatoes. Just please, like anything. Is it. Is he a male? Okay, well, you can have a. So by then it was still then. And the good thing, I think, with nick. So by 30, I was already Youth Alive director in Australia. So he knew, you know, she's a youth evangelist. He had come To Faith at 25, I think he was working on the stock market in Sydney and then really had a radical encounter with the Lord and came to Bible. Like put all that aside. Went to Bible school, entered ministry and. And was a businessman. So he was bivocation also. He was doing ministry and business. And so it wasn't he, I guess because he was from a family. He was number 12 of 13 children.
- [31:59]
Lecrae
Sheesh.
- [32:00]
Christine Caine
His mother had 15 full time pregnancies in 17 years.
- [32:03]
Lecrae
Sheesh.
- [32:03]
Christine Caine
Literally. So it was like he had really strong sisters that were lawyers and doctors. And so he was surrounded.
- [32:12]
Lecrae
Seen this before?
- [32:13]
Christine Caine
Yes. It was not that shocking to him. And you know, we fell in love. But what drew us together was purpose. So living on mission and I mean his gift mix, you know, business and a strong ministry heart. Really strong leader. I mean even, you know, we have offices all around the world. Nick is the CEO. He runs all our staff, all our offices. And so I felt very safe with him. I felt that he wanted me to flourish and to flourish in my gifting and my calling. And I think there's a safety in that. Like when a woman truly knows that, number one, the man loves the Lord with all his heart, all his mind, all his soul. And he then loves. He's not threatened or intimidated. He's incredibly secure. He's probably the securest. Truly the securest man I know.
- [33:02]
Lecrae
Gotta be to be married to You.
- [33:03]
Christine Caine
Well, literally. But. But again, there's something really attractive and that I believe God has put it in us that makes me want to yield to a man that is that strong and secure. So to me, there's never been an issue of like, you know, he is my husband, he's the head of our household, you know, my daughter, like, it's beautiful and it. And I think God has blessed that big, but it's his security and security in Christ that was most attractive to me. And then because we got married later, it was really around purpose. So we've never kind of had a who's going to wash the dishes and who's not, because our purpose in Christ is so together that there's just kind of a natural ebb and flow and flow that is really, really very beautiful in that way. And did you ever. Did you ever.
- [33:55]
Lecrae
Because coming from your background in the Greek family, did you ever feel like, like internal pressure or guilt, like, I need to be more of this?
- [34:03]
Christine Caine
Yeah, for sure. You know, But a lot of that I'd navigated when I was a kid, you. Right back to kindergarten, you know, my mum dropped me off at ballet classes and then comes to pick me up and I'm sort of throwing the tutu off and I'm playing soccer with the boys down, you know, so there was like something. And she'd be taking me to buy me Barbie dolls and I'm like reading in the book section and I would always get, Christina, no man is ever going to want to marry you. But my daughters can't believe this is true. But this is like 1970s Greek girl, you know, you can't be more educated than a man. Well, I was, you know, I was betrothed to a Greek man when I was 18, you know, 17. And they arranged this. Yes. And his mother. I had a choice. Go to university or marry their son. I couldn't do both because.
- [34:45]
Lecrae
Hold on, I'm trying to wrap my brain around the fact your parents arranged for you to marry somebody.
- [34:51]
Christine Caine
But, I mean, I had a weighed in and it was like, yes, I'm. You know, I didn't you.
- [34:55]
Lecrae
Did you get to see them first?
- [34:56]
Christine Caine
Yes, I did. It was not like we just met at the altar. Although I do have people. People that just made it the altar.
- [35:01]
Lecrae
But they.
- [35:02]
Christine Caine
Yeah, but anyway, so it was like. But his name was Khan Constantine, so very Greek as you could get his full name. But it was like. And, but then. And then if this is not as stereotypical as it gets, and I, you know, grew up in A in the western suburbs of Sydney. And his parents own what we call in Australia, like a fish and chip shop with fruit and vegetables. So it's like exactly what you're imagining, Con, with fruit and vegetables, fish and chips. And this is his mother. She's got, you know, there's the big vat of oil and she's holding the chips as you pull them out of the vat of oil. And she's saying to me, offering me, like the family business, Christine, you cannot be more educated than con. You can't be. So you can't. If you want my son. And. And it's like, I've got this picture. If you can play this one motion, you're holding the hot chips and I've got either. And you got to understand back then, I've got no idea my life is going to be. I don't even know almost that a Protestant church exists. I don't even know the American church world. I've never been to America. There's no Internet, there's no social media. And this is like the hot chips and oil. You can have this and my son, or you could go to university, but you can't have both. And you have to understand, there wasn't one Greek girl that I knew that had gone to college in my time. So it was like, even for me, it was like this shaming you if you go to college. And it's so hard. And I'm imagine I don't talk about this stuff much, but I'm laughing because I'm thinking young women listening to me now would think, what is she even talking about? So I had. You've got the religious side in a Greek Orthodox church, of course, the priest is everything there is that you are. That's why I'm thinking Mother Teresa. So do you say, did you feel a call to ministry? I go, yes, but I thought it was. I was going to be a nun, you know, like, I thought that that's your role. That's how a woman does. And so. And then I. And then I have the cultural thing, which is a woman washes, cooks, cleans, you know, procreates, and this is it. You. You don't do what I'm doing so visibly. And then I marry a guy whose mother's had 15 kids in 17 years, obviously good Catholic stock. So. But because Nick, again, I think it was truly encountering Christ. So we had to really wrestle with what is a cultural thing, what is biblical? So truly, what. What's God's requirement biblically of marriage? And, you know, of which I have no problem. And I always say, if a man loves his wife as Christ loves the church, there ain't nothing I'm gonna not submit to. That's my bottom line. It all flows from that. Yeah. So because Nick loves me as Christ loves the church.
- [37:44]
Lecrae
Yeah, this. So how do you. How do you navigate. I mean, everyone asked me the same question, but I'm not a woman and I'm not, you know, the global leader that you are.
- [37:59]
Christine Caine
Right.
- [38:00]
Lecrae
But how do you navigate being a mother and a wife and a traveling and the speaking and the organizations and not. And there's probably women who see you as their mother, their spiritual mother. And like, how, how do you. What do you have to process to. To. To do balance all of that for sure.
- [38:21]
Christine Caine
And you know, I go, I have a perfectly imbalanced life. And so. And that's where the perfection is, is again, this is the best way I can explain it instead of trying to compartmentalize everything. And of course, there's different seasons when my kids were younger, but we've also always done it together. So the kids have been on the road to. With us the whole time. You know, we've had our different roles within the ministry. I have the more visible one. That doesn't mean it's the more important one. And so I think sometimes we really confuse visibility with significance. And so that's where we get really confused. So to us, I've always led a perfectly imbalanced life. What I mean by that is at all times, there's something that's imbalanced because I'm doing one thing in particular. But here's how it works. So rather than seeing compartments, I see my life like a wheel. So a wheel's got, you know, different spokes and it's got a hub in the middle. So I've got different spokes. I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a daughter, I'm a friend, I'm a boss, I'm a, you know, speaker, whatever. I'm an author. I've got all the different things, all the different spokes, but in the middle there is the hub that keeps all those spokes spinning. Yeah. All the wheel turning. So here it is. When you go, how does it happen? Well, if a wheel is well oiled, it'll keep spinning. So without the oil of the Holy Spirit, there is no way I could do what I do. So with the oil, the divine enablement of the Spirit of God, that's how it all works. So do you not think that as that's. And as long as I'm in that place with the Lord and I'm asking the Holy Spirit to be over everything and I've got an ear attuned to his voice and is he not going to tell me if one of my daughters needs a bit more attention? If my marriage needs something a bit more? If not, so to me it's the oil of the Holy Spirit that keeps that thing working. Because here's what we say. We say if. If it's to our Father's great glory that we bear much fruit, not just a little bit. So glory is at stake. The glory of God is at stake here then I can't. Woven into the very fabric of our calling is the inability to fulfill our calling without the power of God. So I think where we get overwhelmed and burnt out is when we're trying to do it in our own strength. But when we have the oil of the Holy Spirit, my life should be a life where people go how does that work? And when it's out of whack and where I really know that spills not is if I'm not producing the fruit of the Spirit. So not trying to. So if there's not love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, long suffering, self control flowing out of me, there's something wrong. That's when I've got a pause. Not is man, are you working too hard or are you doing this too much? I don't even think about that. People have asked me, you know, do you like traveling? Well, I stopped asking myself years ago. You know, I've. We travel 289 all the time and so do I like packing? I stopped asking myself if I ask myself. Of course I don't. Yeah, do I like. Like of course I don't the. The actual mechanical part of everything but enabled by the Spirit of God to be true to my calling and to do what God's called me to do. And it should be unexplainable if God's in it, if my life at the end of it all, if it's. This is why I really am careful about a balanced life. I don't even know what that means because if I. Most people have really well managed lives but they've managed God right out of their life. So it's only what I can achieve, what I can do, what I can manage. And I wasn't called to live a well managed life. I was called to live a supernatural life. Is evident that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond anything I could ever ask, hope or think. But what's it according to the power that's working in me. So if it's the power of my flesh, then I'm going to be burnt out, exhausted, or I'm going to blow up out of pride or arrogance. I'm going to end up destroying my marriage or my children. But if it's all of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, you go that, that life is unexplainable. And that's because without the God factor, so without the oil of the Spirit of God, there is no way this life could happen.
- [42:28]
Lecrae
I, I didn't know that I was coming to church tonight. I did not know this. I'm taking notes. You speak it into my life. I'm like, this is so good. That's so good. I look this love, joy, peace, patience coming out of me, then, okay, I'm in, Lord, I'm dependent.
- [42:43]
Christine Caine
That's it.
- [42:44]
Lecrae
And I'm not, it's, I'm not trying to manage it. And I, oh my gosh.
- [42:47]
Christine Caine
Well, how else do you know that you're connected to the root? Because that's, you know, the fruit is what talks about. So we're willing to overlook fruit because of gift. But that's a real problem because a gift will fill a room and a gift can entertain a crowd. But it's only the anointing that breaks yokes and chains and bondages. So the anointing is where the oil flows. And so Isaiah says it's the anointing that breaks the yoke. So you could, you know. I know. Then I'm no longer ministering. And if I'm just relying on a gift and a well managed gift, then I'm really not doing ministry. I'm just doing good activity. And so I don't want to just have a life full of activity that's well managed. I want a life full of ministry where the oil is flowing and people are being set free. That's really what matters.
- [43:30]
Lecrae
You. So for somebody who's been through so much, you know, so much trauma like you, you, you so hopeful and I think that's what draws people to you is the, the measure. I mean, your freaking book is the faith to flourish. The woman who's been through all of the trauma you can name is encouraging people to flourish. And what do you tell, like a young person, like, and not even a young woman, but a young person. Because I was sexually abused, but because I was a guy and it was a woman who did it to me, it's like, oh, you know, I never wrestled with God. Why did this happen to me? But for somebody who's hearing you say, oh, you got the faith to flourish, and they're like, no, I've been trafficked. And why do I trust a God who allowed this to happen to me? How do you.
- [44:23]
Christine Caine
So glad you asked that, because that. And I think that's the cultural moment we're in. Because. And that's why I called it the faith to flourish, because it actually takes faith to flourish. That's the bottom line, that it's not because the world is not going to get any better. So if we're all waiting to, you know, people think I would have flourished too, if I was born in a different neighborhood, or if I was different culture, or if I was never abused, or if my mother never left me in a hospital. So we sort of think it's contingent on if my external circumstances were better or are better or will change, then I can flourish. And my whole argument is, no, see, that's not the case because I can't change my history. I can't change that. It is what it is. But when I'm rooted and grounded in Christ, then I'm connected to the source of flourishing. The source of flourishing was never where I was born, or that I had a perfect background, or that even that my mother would nurture me. All of those things are good, and it would have been helpful and less traumatic, sure. But it doesn't define whether I can have the future. See, Jesus calls us from the future to the future. That's our telos. So what the enemy wants us to do is get our eyes all on our past. So what we do, and especially where we are today, so much of where we're getting our identity from is either our trauma or what happened to us or what they said about us. But I'm trying to encourage people to say, let's make what Jesus did for us bigger than what anyone did to us. So when I made what Jesus did for me bigger than what the abusers did to me, then that begins to change. It means, hang on a minute. Therefore, if I am now a brand new creation in Christ Jesus, the big question is, am I using me? Am I really rooted and grounded in him? So if he's now, that's where my root system is. I mean, you could do this 100 different ways. Even the whole metaphor in the book is the olive tree and olive branches. But Even we, Romans 14 have been grafted in. Yeah, okay, so. And it's an Olive branch that has been, that has been grafted in. So now my whole root system is in the promises of God, the promises given to Abraham. That is now no matter, you know, I'm a gentile, that I was, I was obviously grafted in. But when I get born again and I'm in Christ, I'm grafted into him and his promises. And all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus. Yes, and amen. Not all the promises of God are in success or numbers or metrics or whatever. They're in Christ. So if Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus. Yes and amen. No matter what's changing around me or what's happened to me, those promises are still for me if I'm rooted and grounded in Christ. So what I'm guess I'm saying is that I had to get my eyes off what happened to me and fix my eyes on Jesus and understand that this same Jesus that healed in scripture can bring healing to me. That my history doesn't have to define my destiny, that my identity is not in what happened to me because Jesus is calling me from the future to the future. So I'm healed and I'm being healed, you know, So I think in all of that that I can get stronger every minute. But we have almost built a culture around. I'm limited by what they did to me, or I'm limited by what they said to me, or I'm limited by where I grew up. I grew up in one of the poorest zip codes in my whole state. And so is that going to define me or is what happened to me going to define me? Or is the fact that I'm a brand new creation in Christ Jesus? Now that doesn't mean I diminish or dismiss or deny the reality of my pain or what all the trauma or what happened to me. You know, the blood of Jesus doesn't give you amnesia, but it gives you a life beyond your past. And I think what we're doing in our current culture is we're minimizing the power of the blood and we're maximizing the power of the trauma. And I'm saying, oh, there's something more powerful than the trauma. It's called the blood of the Lamb of Jesus Christ. It still sets people free today. It might not sound trendy, but I'm living proof that you can stop out and finish. Finish good. I'm living proof that the blood works, the blood heals and it delivers. Now I think in the past we were, we got so far. The pendulum swing one way. You know, people say, well, that's under the blood. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It's almost like this denial.
- [48:31]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [48:32]
Christine Caine
And it caused worse trauma. And so then what we've done, then we've swung the pendulum the whole other way, going, your identity's in your trauma or your identity is. And I'm going, no, my identity is rooted and grounded in Christ, in the promises of God. And all those promises are still available for, for a woman that was left in a hospital, unnamed, unwanted, abused, adopted. If I didn't believe this Lecrae, how could I look at a traffic victim in the eyes and say to them that there's hope for your future? Why am I even doing what I'm doing? And I think so much of the work and the justice. This is where we have to be careful in our justice work. Because to try to do justice work without hope just leads to further despondency. And I think it traumatizes people that are already traumatized even more.
- [49:19]
Lecrae
Wait, talk about that for a second. Like what? When we try to do justice without hope, what is that?
- [49:24]
Christine Caine
If there's no hope, if it's just for the sake of, if I can just get you out of this situation, but I can't offer you any more hope, you're going to probably go back into that situation and you know, it's going to be feel it's going to be even worse. I mean, in the sector that I'm in, you know, we have this thing called compassion fatigue. So in aftercare workers that work with traffic victims, it is so hard to be on the front lines. So there is something like a 80 something very high 80s percentage turnover because you're on the front lines now. The difference, a 21. We have less than a 3% turnover and we're nearly 20 years old because our aftercare workers are hope filled and faith filled. So it, I'm saying that, and there's a whole lot of care as well. So there are other factors, but I'm saying the, the biggest factor is when you can turn up and do very dark work, but you're full of the light of Christ, the hope of Christ, the peace of Christ, the joy of Christ. It gives you longevity. Like how often, apart from what happened to me, how after 20 years of being on the front lines of helping to fight human trafficking, am I still full of love? That's a greater testimony to the power of God. Still full of love, still full of joy still. And what is the kingdom of God? Righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. Yeah, again. And I think I talk about this so much to go. Flourishing is. And I think everyone gets a bit scared. Oh, my gosh. Prosperity doctrine. You're saying everyone's got to be happy and everything's got. And I'm saying, no, I'm saying in the midst of suffering and pain and darkness, you can still have love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, long suffering, self control. And that's actually a flourishing life. So this can be a message. If you're in a township in South Africa, if you're in the middle of Cambodia and we have offices in Cambodia and Thailand. What do I do when I'm leading offices in two countries where there's more at each other? What do you. How do you navigate people through real life situations that are happening? Well, if you're rooted and grounded in Christ, there is something that happens that, like an olive tree, you can flourish in the most barren places, in the most dry places, in the most difficult places. And in fact, that's the call of the Christian. And the whole thing is premised on Psalm 52. 8, where David's being, you know, chased into a cave, Saul's trying to kill him. He's been slandered, it's been so bad. He goes, but I am like a green olive tree flourishing in the house of God.
- [51:54]
Lecrae
I love your perspective, especially for somebody like myself who needs that constant encouragement. Right. But a lot of. I think a lot of times people don't realize that the fight to see other people flourish or be encouraged comes from the times you've had to fight through discouragement. What do you struggle with? What's been hard in this fight that's made you have to. That's made you an expert in overcoming.
- [52:27]
Christine Caine
No, but, you know, when you get to, like, I'm about to go into my six decades, so, you know, I'm 60 this year. And so I feel like, to a degree, I feel like a church mother now. And I want to say to a generation that is languishing, truly, the last 10 years have been really tough for people. There's no doubt about it. And everyone's experienced a form of trauma or been triggered by different stuff or has been dealing with stuff, whether, you know, in the church or. There's been a lot of pain in the world in every way. So I'm going, the Lord's allowed a lot of that to happen, I think, because we had to get real and we had to go, you Know you a fake, you can't flourish. It's got to be a real you. You got to get real before you can even begin to flourish. But flourishing is the mandate of a Christian. When God created us in Genesis 1, it's, you know, be fruitful, multiply. It implies flourishing, have dominion. And Jesus said, I came, you know, then it all went wrong. And then Jesus came. He says, look, the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I came that you might have life and life more abundant. So he's redeemed even what God started in Genesis 1. And yet I look now at the church between the two advents of Christ and I'm like, okay, it's been a brutal decade and I don't see people flourishing. And almost I feel like I want to give people permission to flourish again because we're always scared. Okay, okay, but look at the pain, look at the suffering. Chris, how could you talk about this when there's people still in slavery, when there's still so much racism or sexism or misogyny and there's so many narcissistic and toxic leaders? And yes, yes, yes, and yes. And I'm going, yes, we live in a fallen world. If you're waiting for that all to get right before you actually live your mandate to flourish, you're not going to do it. And what's at stake is fruitfulness. This is deep, has deeper theological implications because it's God's glory. Because if it's to our Father's great glory that we bear much fruit, then if we've got a whole bunch of languishing Christians that are not bearing fruit because they're tapping out, then it's like, you know what? This is not good. For the sake of the kingdom, the mission of God on the earth. And so I really want to, number one, give people permission and help remind people. Because when you've been languishing for a long time, so you're just feeling, it's not even you feeling, you're just feeling nothing. Like there's so much of just, you know, like whatever. I don't. Apathy, indifference, you know, whatever. We got used to kind of watching church at home. Then we saw all these church blow ups everywhere. So who wants to even go to
- [54:44]
Lecrae
church leaders falling off?
- [54:45]
Christine Caine
Then we saw leaders falling off the planet. Like, who even thinks anyone's credible anymore? Or they don't even believe what they're teaching. Why should I believe what they're teaching? And you know, so, so all of
- [54:54]
Lecrae
that, and when you see that, when you see the church in disarray. Like, what is your thought? Like, how do you process that?
- [55:04]
Christine Caine
Well, of course it's painful. I mean, I've lived. I've lived it in my own world, you know, that I've seen. That's right. Great, great pain and great struggle and. And I mean, a grief. Grief. Deeply grieve. But I've. But I've so encountered Jesus, you know, and. And with a bit of maturity and time, like I said, had maybe I seen some of this in my 20s and 30s, it would have rocked me even more because I hadn't worked through a lot of the stuff and the attachment stuff and the family stuff. It would have. I would have spiraled. Like, this is why I have great empathy for people that are really spiraling, because I'm like, man, I'm. I'm one minute away from that. Like, you know, like, it's just that the Lord brought healing, and so I want to bring that to people and go, but this is why I keep coming back. But all the promises of God are not in a church brand or a leader, but they're in Christ Jesus. Yes, and amen. So I want to remind people and go, the promises haven't gone anywhere. Even if you had, like a season of maybe deconstruction or confusion or stepping away, if God. The promises of God are in Christ Jesus, I had to sit there and go. Some of the church world as I knew it has kind of fragmented and falling apart. What was the promise of God in the brand or in the name or in Christ Jesus? Therefore, if there were promises over my life that were rooted and grounded in Christ, just because leaders around me or a system around me fell, didn't mean my purpose did it, didn't mean my destiny did. And I want to. And I guess I'm saying to people, you can still flourish. But I did get to a point. You go, chris, how? There was this moment, and I came home, and, man, like, everybody just bombarded left, right and center. You know, you're just like. You feel like you're getting hit from every angle. And you. You don't know because it's just so much going on in the world. If you and I walk out of this podcast and we go online, there'll be 10 different things.
- [56:49]
Lecrae
That's right.
- [56:50]
Christine Caine
That weren't happening an hour ago that are happening now. And you go, I can't come up for breath because it's just like, something. But there was this particular season, man, when it was just felt like it was coming left Right and center. And I came home and Nick, my husband, he kind of de. Stresses by watching, like, movies on the Navy SEALs, you know, like, watching. And. And there was this thing, and I didn't know what the. I'm not American, so at first I didn't know what it was. He was watching this series on Hell Week. And, okay, so, like, okay, so it's like. And I didn't know that this existed, right? So it's really good. Marines that are, like, really good at what they. You got to be the best of the best. But you go into this one week where they try to break you down. I mean, psychologically, physically. You don't sleep. You know, they're. They're telling you, really, they're knocking you down mentally, psychologically, all the time. Whole deal is to break you down so that you break there and you don't break on the field, on the front lines. And then you've got to ring the bell. That's the whole thing. If you're going to tap out, you're going to ring the bell. That's the whole goal. So I walk in, Nick's watching this show, and the Navy seals are jumping out of the helicopter into the ocean. They've got to swim a mile and then do their thing. You know, when they get. And I start crying, which is not common. And Nick looks at me, goes, now what is going on?
- [58:03]
Lecrae
You're crying.
- [58:03]
Christine Caine
Navy SEALs jumping out of helicopters. And I said to him, I think. I think this is where I'm at. I said, I feel like, you know, God's inviting us to another assignment. I mean, you know, rescuing slaves or helping develop women or, you know, doing what I do around the world. I kind of feel like we're on the front lines and the enemy doesn't like any of it. Like, he doesn't want people in captivity set free. I'm an evangelist. He doesn't want to see people find faith in Christ and, you know, sort of helping to strengthen women. He doesn't. He's always not loved women. So I kind of go, the big three, women, souls and slaves. I'm not the enemy's favorite person. And so, you know, so you're kind of feeling all of this. And I said, I feel like I'm jumping out of the helicopter, and I know I can do it. I know, okay, this is the assignment. And I've got the muscle memory. I've got. Not strong enough. And I'm crying. And I said, but for the first time in 37 years of being a Christian, I don't know if I want to. And I'd never been there. I'd always been at, like, often, even to this day, I'm like, I don't know if I can. Like, I don't know, you know, But I've never been at. I don't know if I want to because I know the cost associated with doing it. And it was like, in my own way, I was languishing. I was just like, I could. If I don't do anything stupid, I could pretty much cruise my way into eternity. Now I've got almost four decades of ministry behind me. I could. I'm doing more than, you know, a lot of women, it's kind of like, okay, she's done a 21. She's done Propel, whatever. And if I just, you know, keep my marriage together, my kids love me, you know, stay on track. Yeah, this is. I said to Nick, I go. The sad thing is, though, that I go, there's so little discernment in the body that I could tap out in my heart. And as long as I don't do any of the big sins, nobody would really know. Like, you know. And I go, but Jesus would know. Jesus would know that I left it on the table and that I. And it. Paul said, I run my race and finish my course. He didn't just say, I run my race till I get a certain degree of whatever, notoriety, success, whatever, however you measure that eternity will measure things very differently. But. And I go, and Jesus will know that I stopped running. Even though the world still may or may not be applauding because there's. People are getting rescued, I go, but I could tap out in my heart. And I think a lot of that came out of, like, I got to go to people. You can flourish. And when people hit my age. And here's the thing, Lecrae, personally, the people that I personally know, most of them that I personally know, that maybe have fallen in the last five years. All of them have been. Most of them. Most of them have been older than me. So you think you get to 60 and you can go into cruise control. And the fact is that the enemy is nothing if not patient. And he'll be like, I'll wait till you can have maximum impact. And my mentor said to me very early on, in my early 20s, Chris, be really careful what you pray for, because as many people as God allows you to help, that's how many people you can hurt. And so the devil will wait until you can hurt the maximum amount of people. And that. And I'm going to Nick at 60. If I thought I could go into cruise control now and kind of tap out in my heart, number one, if I tap out in my heart and I don't flourish to the end. Caleb said, I'm 85. He said to Joshua, I'm as young now as I was then. So there are so many people, my generation that are like, tapping out. And they're like Hezekiah, who did really well. And then when he lets the Babylonians in and Isaiah comes and prophesies that, you know, you're going to go into cap that 100, you know, you're in the future, your sons will go into captivity, Hezekiah, after this phenomenal life. He responds to Isaiah and he says, the thing you have said is good, as long as this isn't going to affect me in my lifetime. And I said to Nick, I could tap out on a generation now and go, I could ride on the cloud of what I've done for 40 years and go, man, they can sort it out as long as this doesn't affect me. And that's what King Hezekiah did. We've got a whole generation my age doing that. You know what? It's too tough. And they're either not finishing well at all, or they're just tapping out and going, whoa. Instead of being spiritual mothers and fathers. And that's why I think Paul said, you know, teachers, you have many, but fathers, you don't. And I would just slip in. You know, there's a. And spiritual mothers, you don't.
- [62:29]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [62:30]
Christine Caine
And so. And we're having a whole bunch of spiritual mothers and fathers that are having a midlife crisis. And you see it in the world and you see it in the church and you're supposed to be. And then we're seeing them go. But that's because they didn't deal with stuff.
- [62:43]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [62:44]
Christine Caine
And I'm telling you, the Lord loves us too much to let us get away with it. And he's like, you know what? I love you. And there's going to be wholeness. But again, it causes more damage because the more you've helped people and the more people you help, the more damage you can do.
- [63:00]
Sophia Bush
This is Sophia Bush from Work in Progress with Sophia Bush. And now a break from our sponsor, Miracle Grow. Let's be real. We're all feeling a little digitally distracted and time starved lately. We're craving real connections and ways to unplug. And honestly, gardening is the ultimate way to do this. It isn't Just about plants. It's about trading the digital noise for a quiet win. As you pour your energy into helping something grow, you're pouring a sense of calm and connection back into yourself too. If you're in an apartment or you've never even touched a shovel, don't let self doubt stop you. With 75 years of expertise, Miracle Gro takes the stress out of the process and makes it pure joy. And let me tell you what I can confirm this. From the garden I love spending time in outdoors in Los Angeles to my little potted plants where I grow herbs indoors in New York. I love working with plants. And I love Miracle Gro because whether I'm doing something in the soil or potting something in the apartment, Miracle Gro takes the best care of my plants. So my plants can help take care of me. And here's the big secret. Most people think water and sunlight are enough. But no, no. Your plants actually need more to truly thrive. Whether it's starting with the right soil foundation or giving plants the boost they need to stay vibrant with plant food, our friends at Miracle Gro have all the essentials to make growing simple and stress free. Head to miraclegrow.com to check out all of their easy to use products and start your growth journey today.
- [64:42]
LifeLock Sponsor Voice
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- [65:43]
Lecrae
No that. You said so many things today that are rocking me. I need you to slow down. I'm drinking from a fire hydrant. My history does not determine my destiny. I'm still holding on to that. But so I I didn't grow up in church. And when I saw church leaders make poor decisions. Did it did more than grieve me. I think I swung my pendulum too far right and I found myself like, almost like, what the heck is any of this real? My wife, who grew up in church, this was par for the course for her. She wasn't like. She was like, it's a broken world. And you know what I mean, I'm devastated. On the other hand, just like, so for somebody who has seen it up close and personal, like you have, like, were you. Is it like, like, how, how did it affect you? Because you're, you're a leader. You know people, you're in it, you're in interwoven. And I'm just like, how did you navigate that?
- [66:49]
Christine Caine
Yeah. I mean, deeply, painfully. Because it was, you know, this was decades of my life and decades of people that I love and care about. Again, the saving grace was that I'm connected to Jesus. And so that is the saving grace. I'm connected to Jesus and I love the church. So that. And he loves the church. And so that meant that, okay, you've got to separate certain things. That, that doesn't mean ever, that we deny or dismiss or diminish the reality of anything that happened and that there are consequences of that. Sure. And there is great pain and there's fallout, but it's still, if you read your Bible, there is brokenness all the way through it. God does not sugarcoat anything anywhere. And so I think when you have enough history with him, you know, this is going to be. This is going to work out okay, but it's going to be deeply painful.
- [68:01]
Lecrae
Yeah. And you're back to your, your hamstring again.
- [68:04]
Christine Caine
That's it. And I think more for me, I grieve more than anything else. I grieve what it could have been. So it's. I think that, you know, whether it's a. In a natural divorce relationship, oftentimes you're not people, you know, just. Just personal sort of pastoral care. It's. When women in particular have talked to me, it's not so much even that they're going to miss the person, particularly if it's been a really bad marriage. But what they miss or what they're grieving is the dream of what it could have been. And I think when you see a church blow up or leaders falling, it's like, wow, this could have been so much more. And particularly, you know, what I came from. It's like I lived in a revival miracle for decades and so than to go, wow. And then the pastoral side of me is just like the shepherd side loves people. And, you know, by the time then, when a lot of stuff happened, I'm in my 50s, and so people were in my youth group, and people were like, you know, this is so you're. So you're wanting to love on people, and you're wanting to really help people see, it's going to be okay. I think I went into mother mode. You know, it is going to. Jesus is faithful. I know that this isn't. And you've just got to be rock solid, steady and secure. And you got to let. You got to let people have their process. And I think when they can see that you're stable through it, it's like, okay, there must be, like a real God here somewhere. This thing has got to be real for me, though. And then I needed a place I needed to really. And, you know, in and out of my life, I've. I've regularly gone to a therapist.
- [69:44]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [69:45]
Christine Caine
So for me, again, if I'm not careful, it's a lot less. You're pressing on that wound. So in my early 20s, say, if, when this would have happened, I had no place to process it. It was like the gaping wound that I had that was just starting to heal. My mother wounds, my attachment wounds, my abandonment, my rejection, my, you know, the abuses that lied to everyone to you. It triggers all of that. Like, you're going, is this all, like a joke here? Like, is this all a setup for something else? Because I lived in that through growing up. People would come into my house under the guise of one thing, another thing would be going on. So suddenly you go, I don't need to go to the church house for this to be happening. You know, so you're like, so you've got you. The reality of this is happening there, and then just people letting you down. And. And then there's. That's going to trigger the attachment stuff or the abandonment stuff or the rejection stuff. Like, it's all there. And so you come into the family of God and then you start all of those things. KELLY so when it first did, it was like, when I had a wound, that thing would press, and because that wound wasn't totally healed, the toxicity and I think we need to have grace with people. People are at varying degrees of the healing process. So then if a leader falls, a church blows up, something happens. Okay. If it's still early days for a lot of people, it's like you've just ripped that whole stitching off that wound. And so that you're going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they're saying that or doing that or they want to burn down the whole house. Well, a lot of that is that wounds only just beginning to heal, like, so that it's just gaping. That thing is gaping over everyone. But the more healed it gets and the more cleaned up it gets. Like, now you can press things. You can press my knee. There's scars. Like my knee has got scars, but you can pretty much. It's, you know, people can fall and bash it. It's like, it's not gonna. I got scars from when that thing really cut me and it cut me. And when that first got cut, man, it was a gaping wound, so it stunk. It was pussy. Sorry for the. You know, but it was. And I think some of what we've seen in the last 10 years, because we've had a lot of very visible failures from. And there isn't one stream of the church that hasn't been.
- [71:59]
Lecrae
Yes, absolutely.
- [72:01]
Christine Caine
So sometimes I think people, like, are pointing the finger. Like, I wouldn't be pointing anywhere because God is cleaning house. Every denomination.
- [72:07]
Lecrae
A lot of times it's the, the, the most prominent or the visible, but
- [72:12]
Christine Caine
it's every stream, every denomination. I mean, I'm across the breadth of the church, all over the world. So it is everybody. The Lord is cleaning house. And so you go in the midst of that at wherever you are in your walk, you can have a different effect because for some people, it's going to cut them open. And if it's only just a fresh wound, they've just come out of something. This thing is going to just. And we've seen a lot of that. And you've got to have a bit of mercy because. And then you've got others where it's like, oh, they're fearful, feeling the sting of it because that thing's not totally healed yet. But the stitching is taken. Like, they're not giving up on Jesus. The stitching, the metaphors, I'm. I'm taking a long way. But, you know, it's. It's taken, but it's hurts. And then, you know, by the time hopefully you've gotten to my place. Is the scarrings there? So, yeah, no, I can remember all of that. It's there, but I'm not. It's not going to take me out. And pretty much you're not going to feel toxicity come out of it. And so hopefully I'm going to be able to respond out of wisdom and not out of wounding.
- [73:14]
Lecrae
I mean, you're doing it now.
- [73:16]
Christine Caine
Oh, yeah.
- [73:17]
Lecrae
Like, literally, I'm sitting, like, because I was definitely the gaping wound. I had expectations, I had father wounds, I had trauma. I didn't grow up in the church. The church was the safe place for me. And then when I see fallout or lack of empathy, then I'm like, ah, yes. And I'm hearing you talk about it so clearly with such eloquent wisdom to where now I'm. I think I sit. You know, I'm probably 10 years removed from that experience, personally. But now I sit in a place where I'm, like, the person who's, like, I feel that I'm not. But listen, guys, it's. It's going to be okay.
- [74:00]
Christine Caine
Yeah.
- [74:01]
Lecrae
You know, so. And yes. And I have friends who, when they, you know, they. They were like, I saw what happened to Hillsong Church. I'm done with church. It's over. I'm like, no, no. God is still on the throne.
- [74:14]
Christine Caine
Yeah.
- [74:15]
Lecrae
And so I. You're. That's wisdom.
- [74:18]
Christine Caine
Oh, okay. Yeah. I pray. So. I think we need to be operating in wisdom now because there's a lot of. We are hurting and there is a lot of woundedness, and so you've just got to have an ear to what it is, and God will get us through. I really think it has been a great mercy, all of this reckoning, as difficult as it is, it's been a mercy because I still think we're living in the greatest days. If we believe in the promises of God and we really read to the end of the book and we really. I'm thinking of the Bible of the
- [74:50]
Lecrae
Book, but I'm, like, still flourishing.
- [74:51]
Christine Caine
No, if we read, we truly do. Our hope is in Revelation. So we know, and we know from second Timothy that what is going to happen in these days? Will people be lovers of selves and lovers of money? And will there be all the things that. In the list? And yes, we're seeing. Seeing it work out. And so I don't want us to, like, get less shocked because it ought to shock us and it ought to grieve us. But. But perhaps our compassion and our understanding, if we let it drive us to Jesus, even if for a minute we need to leave the institution or the brand or the structure, but if it drives us to Jesus, it's going to be okay.
- [75:37]
Lecrae
I'm gonna be honest with you. Like, I. I anticipated hearing you share and say wise things, and I've heard you speak a number of different times. I don't Think I've been more impacted than I am right now sitting here listening to you share. Because I mean, you, When I hear you talk, You are so tough, right. In terms of the things you've weathered. But at the same time, you don't rely on your. Your toughness. It's like you, you're relying on this, this grace and this mercy and the spirit of God. It just emits from you and I. And I'm so encouraged by it because I think oftentimes people can look at someone like yourself and say, man, I gotta be tougher because, oh, she's tough. She did it. She fight through that thing. But you're really dependent.
- [76:38]
Christine Caine
Oh, yeah.
- [76:39]
Lecrae
And that's what I hear.
- [76:40]
Christine Caine
100%, yes. Yeah, yeah. Because there is no other way. I mean, I couldn't have tough. I mean, I so think even before I came to Christ and probably my early years with Christ, I did try to do so much of it in my own strength and tough it out. Because, man, you know, we're immigrants. We get the job done. We are those people. And. And so I think there's this. You've got it just to survive.
- [77:05]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [77:06]
Christine Caine
So I have never forgotten. And I think that's why God has given me great compassion. And when, when you still have proximity to where you came from and the people that you came from. I was survival mentality. So it actually has been a real work of the spirit for me to go into a flourishing and abundance mental. My natural state is you survive and you got to be tough to survive. That's how I think you got to protect yourself. So here is, you know, for what it's worth, in. In my. My darkest nights of the soul, I've had to go. I was. I had built up walls and I was pretty good at them because, you know, you got to be a survivor to be. You got strengths. But I had. My walls were my defense mechanism. So you, you could only get this far. And to allow the Holy Spirit to become my defense mechanism instead of either. Just my own ability to tough it out was the hardest thing. And this is what I learned mostly about faith then, because I thought. People think you're a faith girl, man, you started a 21. You do propel, you know, you. You're a faith girl, but faith. And I am, I pray I am. But faith is predicated on trust and not understanding. And I realized I wasn't a faith girl for a long time. I was a control girl.
- [78:27]
Lecrae
Yes.
- [78:28]
Christine Caine
And so faith and control are not the same thing.
- [78:30]
Lecrae
Get out of My life, it was like I.
- [78:32]
Christine Caine
If I could control things, and if I met, I had to reason my reasoning and my mind. But faith is predicated on trust. Now. It is hard. So when I read, you know, God is light, and in him there is no darkness. Lecrae can't tell you how long it took me to internalize that and really believe it, to believe that God has no dark side. Because there wasn't really a man I met that didn't have a dark side. And there wasn't really people that I met, not where I was from, that didn't have a dark side. So it was kind of like, God is light, in him there is no darkness. So if a leader falls, God is light, and in him there is no darkness. If a church blows up, God is light, and in him there is no darkness. So, God, if you don't have a dark side, that means every time I see a dark side in someone else, that doesn't mean you do. That doesn't mean you're wrong. Now, that. That was my. It was not easy to get to that place of trust. And I have to continually get there because there's a daily dependence. It's kind of like the manner in the wilderness. Now I'm in the abundance of the promised land, spiritually speaking, I'm in Christ. It's a new covenant. Yeah. But he still makes sure that I am. I am only ever one thought away from going back to how I used to think. And I'm only one emotion away from allowing my emotions to get out of control.
- [79:51]
Lecrae
I'm afraid of that.
- [79:52]
Christine Caine
Me too.
- [79:53]
Lecrae
For myself.
- [79:54]
Christine Caine
Yeah.
- [79:54]
Lecrae
So I'm like, how do I stay? And God is so gracious to me, even in this conversation. He's just so gracious to me to just be able to sit here and be reminded, you know, it's just like I was. I was, you know, feeling extra confident and thinking I can plow through things. And God humbled me, and I was in a. In a low place. And I remember going to visit Francis Chan, right. And Francis said, let's pray. And we must have prayed for an hour and a half. And. And I was like, oh, this is what dependence looks like. You know, like Lecrae, you don't have this. And I. And I sit here with. With. And the things you. Because the things you're saying are not things that you can read.
- [80:41]
Christine Caine
Right.
- [80:42]
Lecrae
These are things that have been lived.
- [80:43]
Christine Caine
Oh, yeah.
- [80:44]
Lecrae
This is like wisdom exuding. And it's encouraging because it. You know, you've taught me so Many things just in this, this conversation. I, I'm, I wonder because you've, you've seen it all. You've been, you said over three decades
- [81:01]
Christine Caine
of 37 years of full time vocational ministry. Yeah.
- [81:05]
Lecrae
When you see, you know, because you've got a massive platform. We were talking earlier and you said, well, most times Americans see me, it's like a small percentage of the, like I'm on a, in a stadium or something. But that's not the bulk of the work that I do. But a lot of people do see you as larger than life. When you see a lot of, you know, Christians who, they'll, they get on social media or they'll get on the Internet and then bow, they're in front of the lights, camera, action. What is your wisdom in, in these, in this era that we live in?
- [81:37]
Christine Caine
I think, I think, you know, we have to have a formation process because whatever you don't deal with now will deal with you. And so that is the issue. And, and you know, there's no expiration date on that. And like I keep saying, the enemy will, he's so strategic and we'll wait till he can have maximum impact because he doesn't care about you. He just wants to destroy God's people, you know, and the more he can, the better. So you've got to remember that there is a spiritual enemy. We believe that that's, we all believe there's an enemy of our souls. And so, and that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. And so I think we've got to be cognizant. This is not a game. And in a generation that it's easy to confuse visibility with significance. So some of the people on the earth and in the kingdom that are doing the most significant things on the planet have no visibility because they would be killed if they're on social media.
- [82:37]
Lecrae
Oh.
- [82:38]
Christine Caine
So. And be careful that we never mistake like dancing with a Bible on TikTok with actually reading the Bible. So make sure the thing that you're dancing with, you're reading and make sure the post that you're posting with the coffee cup that you actually opened it rather than posted it. So I think if there's a, if there's a disparity between how much you're posting and how much you're with the Lord, then you probably should stop posting and you should be with the Lord a little bit more. Come on, Christine, those are the things sustain you. You know, I think if you start caring more about how many likes you get than how much like Jesus you're becoming, then you've probably got a problem. Or if you start caring more about how many followers you have than how many are not following Jesus, then you've probably got a problem. So I would, I would think those things kind of matter. If you care more about what people think about you than what God knows about you, you're going to have a problem. So if you're caring more about your edited and filtered and cropped and really well done post so that people think your Persona is something and that actually keeps you up at night more than what he really knows, this thing's going to blow up.
- [83:41]
Sophia Bush
This is Sophia Bush from Work in Progress with Sophia Bush. And now a break from our sponsor, Miracle Grow. Let's be real. We're all feeling a little digitally distracted and time starved lately. We're craving real connections and ways to unplug. And honestly, gardening is the ultimate way to do this. It isn't just about plants. It's about trading the digital noise for a quiet win. As you pour your energy into helping something grow, you're pouring a sense of calm and connection back into into yourself too. If you're in an apartment or you've never even touched a shovel, don't let self doubt stop you. With 75 years of expertise, Miracle Gro takes the stress out of the process and makes it pure joy. And let me tell you what I can confirm this from the garden I love spending time in outdoors in Los Angeles to my little potted plants where I grow herbs indoors in New York.
- [84:37]
Christine Caine
Work.
- [84:37]
Sophia Bush
I love working with plants. And I love Miracle Gro because whether I'm doing something in the soil or potting something in the apartment, Miracle Gro takes the best care of my plants. So my plants can help take care of me. And here's the big secret. Most people think water and sunlight are enough. But no, no. Your plants actually need more to truly thrive. Whether it's starting with the right soil foundation or giving plants the boost they need to stay vibrant with plant food, our friends at Miracle Gro have all the essentials to make growing simple and stress free. Head to miraclegrow.com to check out all of their easy to use products and start your growth journey today.
- [85:23]
LifeLock Sponsor Voice
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- [86:23]
Christine Caine
and it's just a ticking clock that's going to happen.
- [86:26]
Lecrae
See that, that's what I'm saying. That's not, you can't read that. You can't get that in a book. I mean, you can get it in her book, but, but that's, that's lived experience. All right, that, okay. It's so much. I, I want to, we got to go underwater. So this is the deep end. So we're going to take you underwater, we're going to ask you some underwater questions. All right? It's gonna start a little light, make it deeper. So here we go. What is something that people assume about you that's completely wrong?
- [87:00]
Christine Caine
I would think that, I don't know, like I would do with this, that. I'm stopping because I want to. How I'm gonna say this because I, I speak with such a passion and such conviction. I think at times it could be like, you know, like sometimes I heard, I'm just thinking of some young people, they'd be like, man, I just got caned by Cain. That's probably the best way for me to word, I just got that. That would. Someone then could take that out of context and think that implies a lack of either empathy or a lack of compassion or a desire just for like perfection with not understanding grace. But I would, I would think, oh no. Like I, my revelation of grace because I know how much I need it every single day is so, so great. And it's out of my love that I want to warn people. So it's not like a, oh man, she's just coming into Cain. It's like going, I don't want you to blow up. Because I have been over the course of almost four decades with possibly some of the most well known and influential people in Christendom. And what I have discovered is that a brand won't keep you and a platform won't keep you. And if, if you have to, and it's because I love you. So nowhere does it say go kind of build a platform. The Lord said to Nehemiah, the only time platforms in the Bible is when the Lord said to Nehemiah, I've given you a platform. But if you build it and you put yourself there, you have to keep yourself there. And promotion doesn't come from the north, south, east or west, it comes from God. So God, if God puts you there, God will keep you there. And so my thing is, so sometimes it might be like, man, she comes down hard and I'm like, it's like a parent that's going, I don't want you to self destruct. So it's out of a love, not out of anything else. No, no, no, no. It's quite the, the contrary. It's gone, man. I just know that this thing could take you out because I've seen it take people out.
- [89:05]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [89:05]
Christine Caine
So, so yes, I'm passionate and there's a strong conviction and I might say some things that other people go, I can't believe she just said that. But it's for your good. It's like I say to my kids,
- [89:16]
Lecrae
I was, you preach like I parent. That's what I'm hearing right now.
- [89:19]
Christine Caine
It's a parenting and I'm probably getting more and more like that because then I've got a 24 year old and a 20 year old. I'm going. It is true. When I'm going, I'm doing this because I love you. Yeah, that's the deal.
- [89:28]
Lecrae
That's good.
- [89:28]
Christine Caine
Yeah.
- [89:29]
Lecrae
Where what like there are certain venues that I like to perform in or be in. It's a certain type of, you know, it's, it's, I don't, it doesn't have to be big for me. It just has to be like, well, they're, they're, they're captive. But actually, if I'm being honest, my favorite places to perform are prisons.
- [89:46]
Christine Caine
Yeah.
- [89:47]
Lecrae
So I'm curious, is there a, a place that you like come alive when you get to preach? Yeah.
- [89:52]
Christine Caine
I can't believe you just said that because that was exactly what I was going to say is when I have the opportunity and I have gone both to men and women's prisons and I, I, because I, you don't get more honest people.
- [90:04]
Lecrae
That's right.
- [90:07]
Christine Caine
We all here and I'm like, you know, buffer, the grace of God. I'm on this side of the bars kind of thing. Like, you know, literally. So I, I could go on, I could say in our freedom centers at a 21, you know, where I'm sitting around with 15 rescued victims of human trafficking. And never is my story more meaningful to me than in those moments when I'm like, let me tell you about what God can do. You know, I've been abused and abandoned and the same Jesus. And, and you see, because I can look eyeball to eyeball. And this one, like prisons too, you can see. And it's like a. You know, when Jesus says, and I think in Matthew 25, whatever you've done for the least of these, you've done. Like, it's like, then I think Mother Teresa said it, or it was either Mother Teresa or someone said, I'm not being Jesus to them, they're being Jesus to me. In that moment, it's like, whatever you did for the least of them, you've done unto me. So it's. And, And I see the reality of that is, like, when I'm in those settings, it's not like I'm thinking. I'm not even thinking about do. How many points do I have in my sermon? And is it eloquent and is it exegetically correct? And is it like, you know, am I using the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic? And is there an introduction and a conclusion? These people don't care. It's like, am I sitting there? And I could say, look, I was blind and now I see I was lost and now I'm found. And that. So to me, it's like no one cares about a preaching style or a, you know, but it's just, they could, you know, this, this is my thing is when they said to Peter and John, they were uneducated and not eloquent, but they could see they'd been with Jesus. So in my. I say to people, I don't test my litmus test of how close I am to the Lord is not. Did I go to a big arena. And a lot of people responded, you know, that's not it. It's like when I'm in the back of Bulgaria where English is not even on the cards, and I'm with a translator and I'm sitting with the Roma community in, in the most. On. On trash dumps, in dumps where they're living, you know, and God shows up, then I know, and I. And I go, and you can ask my husband. I'll go, this is still real. Yeah, this is. I know this is real. I know this is real. It's not, because, you know, I mean, I pray that every time I'm in a big thing, but when I've got. And I've got the speakers and I've got all the things, I mean, I believe, you know, I'm praying, I'm bringing my best. I'm doing all that. But where I know it is, is when I'm in this thing and there ain't no worship team, there is no sound. There's no. And it's either the spirit of God's there.
- [92:57]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [92:57]
Christine Caine
Or not.
- [92:58]
Lecrae
I love that. Okay, I got a couple more. Yeah, you've. You've. You've. Coming up on seeing 60 seasons of life.
- [93:07]
Christine Caine
I'm loving it, man.
- [93:09]
Lecrae
Give me the top two seasons that you've experienced
- [93:15]
Christine Caine
the last decade.
- [93:16]
Lecrae
Okay.
- [93:17]
Christine Caine
And can I just say what I'm believing for? Because I just.
- [93:20]
Lecrae
Hey.
- [93:22]
Christine Caine
Well, you know, I read a study about 10 years ago, or maybe longer, from out of Harvard Business Review, and what they'd done is they had done a. A survey of, over a great period of time, of a thousand CEOs. So, of course, their language was profitability and success.
- [93:38]
Lecrae
Yeah.
- [93:39]
Christine Caine
And of those thousand CEOs, over a long period of time, they found that the most successful and profitable CEOs the most success, the biggest decade was between if they didn't blow up their marriages, do anything unethical or illegal. So if they stayed on track and they started coming out of college, entered their career, got into CEO, their most profitable and successful decade was between 60 and 70. Second most was between 70 and 80.
- [94:11]
Lecrae
Wow.
- [94:12]
Christine Caine
Third most was between 50 and 60. So over the last 15 years, you would have heard me saying constantly, I haven't even entered into my most fruitful decade yet.
- [94:20]
Lecrae
I love it.
- [94:21]
Christine Caine
So I've been prepping all of it for this decade 60 to 70, and even how what we're doing with a 21 and Propel is for maximum fruitfulness. And I knew this last decade, 50 to 60, was going to be my third most fruitful decade, so I prepped it, and it was awesome. I feel the next 10 are going to be the best, and then the 10 after that will be the second most fruitful.
- [94:43]
Lecrae
I. I've heard. I didn't hear that, but I heard the, you know, whatever happy means. But they said the happiest times of people's lives are generally their 20s because they're young and fry and spry and idealistic, and nothing bad has probably happened to them, most of them. And in their 60s, they say the 60s is another happiest time in people's lives because they're, you know, they, they have the wisdom and the understanding to, to move forward into a different. And then they, you know, especially if you're generous and caring. I've heard that.
- [95:12]
Christine Caine
So I think you should be. Because I can't imagine how I could be saying to you, I've walked with the Lord for almost four decades and how could I be more grumpy or more. How could you say you have been in relationship with the resurrected Christ, the spirit of the living God, fixing your eyes on Jesus and be. And not be full of more joy, more peace, more kindness, more goodness. It has to be a byproduct of going. So as I now I'm looking at the finish line because no matter what I'm pray, I live a fruitful and long life, but there's less ahead of me than there is behind me. So you can't be getting closer and fixing your eyes on him. I say to my kids, I'm going to be like super granny for Jesus. I'm not looking over my shoulders. I don't want to go back to my 20s, 30s, or 40s or 50s. I want a generation to see it gets better as you get older. I think some people, as they get older, they're like, you know, I got the joy of the Lord. I'm like, can you tell your face? I'm going like, you need a spiritual enema. You need like a cleansing. You need like a spiritual enema and a cleanse cleansing. Like there's something not right about this. Like you need to be. Because if you're full, it doesn't mean everything's happy around you. But there's this peace and this joy. And I want my girls and then God willing, my grandchildren to look and go, oh, it just gets better. It doesn't get worse. You more joy, more peace, more and more trust, more confidence. And so I am determined, especially I think in this era where certainly in my life, the last decade, where I've just seen so many my age and older not finish well. I pray by the grace of God, I want to finish well. I want a generation to see a generation finish well.
- [96:49]
Lecrae
I, I just want to be an armor bearer for the next five years of your life. Just let me just travel and carry luggage, carry your Bible for you, because there's just. You're leaking wisdom. I just, it's like, it's, it's so such an encouragement to my soul just to be, yes, I'm Like I'm. I'm gonna be re. Watching everything we've. Because I can take notes. Because I'm like, I want to take notes right now. I can't take them, but thank God it's being recorded so I can, you know, I got the notes. I'm so grateful. Like, you have no idea how grateful I am. I mean, you kind of asked. Answered my last question with this question, with the question, but I'm just grateful. I, I'm, I'm. And I, I kind of already know what your answer is going to be, but I'm gonna ask you anyway.
- [97:33]
Christine Caine
Okay.
- [97:36]
Lecrae
What, what do you hope your legacy will be?
- [97:41]
Christine Caine
What I want it to be is I want to make sure that I've handed the baton of faith to the next generation. It really isn't a 21 or propel. I mean, I've got all systems in place for, and people in place ready for all of that. But there's two things. So the two scriptures that are the saddest scriptures in the Bible to me is the Hezekiah 1 in Isaiah 39, when he said, as long as this doesn't happen in my lifetime, I'm good, peace out, I've tapped out. And Judges, of course, I'm going to throw in A Judges, chapter 2, verse 10, where it says, when Joshua and his generation died, another generation arose that did not know the Lord, nor the works he'd done for Israel. So my thing is, who cares how big my ministry is if when I die, another generation arises that does not know the Lord, like, who cares? What did I do? So truly, ultimately, was Joshua successful? I'm not sure. Because if you, if you don't hand the baton of faith to another generation, that's going to carry that Jude faith passed on through the generations. I haven't done my job because I'm not here to build a big ministry. I'm here to be fruitful for my Father's glory and to do everything that he's placed me on the earth to do. Not to be comparing, competing with anyone else not to build the biggest anything or the best anything, but to do what he's put me here to do. I'm his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for the good works that he prepared for me to do in eternity here on earth. So that's all I'm accountable for, to do what I'm called to do. And ultimately it's not the building of the thing, which is why I think we've had so many failures, because they get to my age and their identity is in the thing, not in Christ. Their identity is in their position or their title. And it says in 2nd Samuel 18:18, because Absalom had no sons to bear his name in remembrance, he built a monument to himself and Saul built a monument to himself. And so that doesn't go well. And so I think a lot of us, instead of leaving a kingdom legacy, which is ultimately passing the baton of faith, we're trying to build monuments to ourselves because we've got this inbuilt need to let the world know we've been here. But the best way we can do that is by passing the faith to the next generation.
- [99:48]
Lecrae
I just. Can I go run through a wall? I just want to go run through a wall for Jesus right now. I am like, take my baton.
- [99:58]
Christine Caine
That's what we want to do.
- [100:00]
Lecrae
I love that. I love that. And it's so. It's such good perspective. It's such good perspective because you get one life, it'll pass. Only what you do for Christ will last.
- [100:09]
Christine Caine
And it's true.
- [100:09]
Lecrae
It's like, yes, it's such good perspective. And it's a good perspective, especially for a younger generation because we're, we're all, God willing, going to be 60, 70, 81 day.
- [100:22]
Christine Caine
Totally.
- [100:23]
Lecrae
And you don't think about that, you know, And I want people to think like that time is coming, so.
- [100:29]
Christine Caine
Well, I'm glad you do, because numbers, I mean, sorry, Psalms 90 says, teach us to number our days, that we might develop our heart of wisdom. So my thing is that, you know, if we don't count, our day is our days won't count. So I have had from the beginning, for probably almost four decades, I numbered my days to 80. So I've only got that amount of days. So, you know, and I've got a lot less of them left. So the clock's ticking. Not, you know, so I think the, the more we can encourage people to go, your days are numbered. That's such a life giving thing. Am I just weird? I don't know. But I think it's life giving to
- [101:06]
Lecrae
me, it's life giving it. Well, especially because that means something awaits me on the other side.
- [101:11]
Christine Caine
Totally.
- [101:12]
Lecrae
And I'm excited about what awaits me too. So I'm. Listen, it is a joy. What do people need to know that they don't currently know? Obviously you need to know about faith to flourish. Okay, you need the faith to flourish because we've, we've already heard. But what else is, is coming up?
- [101:30]
Christine Caine
I think, you know, I'M on all the things. You can. You can find her, follow her.
- [101:35]
Lecrae
Yeah, you can. You can become a contributor to propel or a 21 as well and help people, you know, fight against humanity.
- [101:44]
Christine Caine
That would be one thing. I would encourage people. I mean, just go to the a21.org for whatever you could do. But what we've got is a whole bunch of resources to help people to say, man, we can help you with prevention and awareness. We can get tools in your hand. Because listening to this, there'll be a lot of people that think, what can I do? Go to a21.org we have created things because I. When I started this nearly 20 years ago, my biggest thing was I was never going to just talk about it, but just to frustrate people, like, as they go, what can I do? I want to put tools in people's hands to say, here's what you can do.
- [102:16]
Lecrae
That's great. That's great, Christine. Thank you.
- [102:20]
Christine Caine
Thank you. I love this. You're awesome.
- [102:23]
Lecrae
Great. Mind blown, y'.
- [102:26]
Christine Caine
All.
- [102:26]
Lecrae
We love you. We love you. Thank you again.
- [102:28]
Christine Caine
Thanks so much.
- [102:29]
Lecrae
Oh, my goodness.
- [102:31]
Christine Caine
Was that okay?
- [102:32]
Lecrae
I want to run through a wall.
- [102:33]
Christine Caine
I love you. I'm running through a wall right now.
- [102:36]
Lecrae
Open the door so I can run through a wall. I'm running through a wall.
- [102:42]
Christine Caine
This is the deep end with Leck.