in your home and i want to thank you for all the e mails and carlson all the support i value it and i appreciate it and i do pray for you i say that every week and i mean it i pray for myself and all the viewers and i'm really really grateful to be here i miss specially excited to be here because my guess is a gentleman that that i've had the pleasure of hearing to speak through the years and and we kind of grew up in some of the same areas that at the same time in when people say to me that powerful i don't always know what that means but when god has for us through what he shares i get overwhelmed and then i i think god so if he's powerful that could  it's really really honor and a privilege to have my guest on today he's a very very loving carrie exciting articulate the list is on and on yes but it is happening now now's the time that's right can i do this and so i'm i'm excited about being here so kenneth i've heard you share and i wish i wish i could just have you talk for like two hours but we only have a half hour so i want to first have you tell our viewers a little bit about what you do you know professionally for sure well i i'm a few things that i started april first of two thousand and eleven call break free ministries and it's a ministry that kind of like a constant center where people come in one on one counseling group counseling  opportunity to train and to teach and and so that's been going on and we're located in sunnyvale ok and and then of course i get the opportunity to go across the bay area and abroad to  train christian as well as secular organizations around addiction and as well as teach at recovery events and preach at various churches for instance and freedom in recovery and so in there i have the general church population there i have family members who have no no idea really what recovery an addiction is all about and i get a chance to address them and then the next morning i a press presbyterian church to speak to their recovery ministry house steps of faith so that's just a little bit of what i do am i'm with this group now called new life global outreach little bit and talk a little bit about what you believe was maybe the maybe the i don't know maybe the beginning of the preparation you were going to need to do what you're doing today absolutely well let me just say first of all that i'm a recovering addict and and i was born in chicago raised in berkeley graduated from berkeley high and and i guess i was twenty three when i realized i had an diction problem and i had no desire to stop and continue on for another oh oh seven eight years before i realized that  i really did have a problem and then i ended up in a place called vacaville prison ok and and i was thirty three and i had an encounter with the living god and members june being released from san quentin and and i got out and now i'm saved and i want to tell the audience that after that you know after i got say the never had any more problems with drugs or alcohol or anything but that would not be my truth to that matters i was still struggling but i did get my first job i got my first job at out the base and worked out the bates shipping and receiving and i was still chipping in but i wasn't running hard like i had before obviously i got a real job and that went on for some time and did some things happening and my parole officer tried to violate me and i ran out of office and then he put a warrant out and i was going to work he said he would come to my job and my three months went on i was just so scared going to work and finally i stopped going to work and back out there again and then it was december of eighty seven that i got in some real trouble again possession for sales of cocaine i was in cam a village in west oakland and i just cried out t  he gave me a year instead of sending me back to prison and then it was two months later where i was going to chapel every sunday at seven i read it and every time i'd go a pastor would come in and he would tell me about the calling th do for me wow and it kept going ringing over and over to i got up on the side of the bed grabbed the pen and a pin and began to write is god spoke to me that was on a tuesday night two nights later they called me for early  revival let go and let die and it was friday night i got out the thursday night friday night i met the revival and they had a call in three articles and one of them was called if you feel called to the ministry same thing i felt when i was person it was actually the holy spirit was a person but not one visible and i accepted my call and in september of eighty eight i was in bio college wow but gosh i really want to be able to i've always wanted to be able to say once i did that not happen that i it was four years later january sixteenth one thousand nine hundred two that i actually went to go pick up a friend who was getting high and i grabbed the pipe from them went to the bathroom the flushing couldn't get out of my hands were you and so before you go to the toilet it went to my mouth and then i got rid of it i drove two miles to taylor memorial united methodist church are our sister church and i convinced myself when i first left on my way that i need to tell a pastor about time i got there  disease it told me that it would be it would be in the pastor's best interests that i tell him because it would leave him high and dry with no one in such a short notice there is a an expert defense lawyer when it comes to making a case for nonsense actually being good sense  that started in two thousand and i did that for seven years before i went over to abundant life to lead the recovery ministry there and then when i found god gave me this vision about starting my own ministry break free ministries he said that name is still available i have fifteen different names and someone who i had mentored so what about the name of the minister you had before it manifested were i'm sure that name is gone he said let me check still available it was just one other h and i realize now that grace without truth is a license to keep on singing and doing wow wow just like truth without grace is it is condemning in judgement or grace without  right that's what i call the the term i've been using lately is what i call spiritual retardation absolutely when i have this information and i have this this i've seen so many examples that make the grace unquestionable but i can't really i can't really out grow old whatever my injuries are because i'm so stuck  way i'm clear gad god is real and we're going to do it all kinds of things but i'm still here doing the same tragic thing over and over and over because i am stuck spiritually i'm suffering from a spiritual retardation that's not allowing me to accept the whole truth and nothing but the troops so help me god absolutely so that i can move forward in whatever his plans are for me and they don't even matter anymore it what matters is i need to always be clear that i'm operating in a place that i can feel his love and his power and his grace and his mercy because outside of that if i'm going to be interest force me nobody even has to injure me today yes then they never had to i was always good at it yes but i can steal a sixty years old i can still have a thinking that's not going to serve me well take some behavior that's not going to would a heartbreaking revelation yeah that he really has given us a life that's so full of so much love and so much beauty that we would injure ourselves and somebody else yeah so i did mean to jump in there that you know you can think you know you come out of prison and you say you know i think i'll be the president united states you know that's just a realist and you know and so so so the ideal self is one  o he says well since you said you're over there and acceptance even though i know you're in denial i because i gave you the freedom to choose and i'm going to have to leave you over where you say you read that and do you acknowledge where you're at then i'll come get how they look on the outside was more important to what was going on the inside and for god's way spirituality is like you know we realize that it's ok for outsiders measure insides and it's about internal transformation that we don't change  here with my flashlight and it's when that that that transformation and that level of spiritual development and healing allows me to put the searchlight all me and just sit there seeing me and all of my my my assets and my defects are all of it all i just sit there with it and understand that you know what this is exactly where i have to be from god to really really really do with me what he would like to do with me i have to be in that levels of surrender with myself in my life so that i can jass receive his instruction and carry them out no matter what what is is like those that inside no matter what that diseases say exactly trying to convince me you know i love your analogy like you know it wants us so never worked right i just didn't know how to tell the truth exactly it always it was always painful i just thought if i did it long enough it would change it would change you know i the truth if the truth is never the problem but the disease of the now the nile will tell us that the truth is a problem but the only problem really is a lie yeah and when we can't embrace the truth about way yeah is to do it with them and that's what i want to do with us yeah he wants us to understand that that he is willing to give us not only the freedom to succeed but the freedom of fail and if he's won the do that then we've got to be willing to accept