The Tucker Carlson Show - Fasting, Prayer, Meditation, & the Global Persecution of Christians (With Hallow CEO Alex Jones)

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00:00:30.000 So I think if someone, not that people come to me for investments,

00:00:34.560 but I think if someone, if you had come to me and said,

00:00:39.820 I want you to invest in a prayer app, pretty sure I would have passed on that,

00:00:44.140 not for ideological reasons, but for business reasons, that can't work.

00:00:50.300 But Hallow seems really big to me.

00:00:54.980 Tell us how big Hallow is.

00:00:57.180 It's all glory to God.

00:00:58.400 But he's done, yeah, had you told me like a thousand people would use this thing,

00:01:02.500 I would have been mind blown.

00:01:03.600 We built it initially just for me.

00:01:06.060 But like 10,000 people, a million people.

00:01:08.760 I think we're at 22 million downloads now.

00:01:11.460 Like 600 million prayers prayed.

00:01:13.720 There was, we were, no religious app or meditation app or wellness app or workout app

00:01:18.580 had ever cracked the top 10 in the app store before.

00:01:22.020 And this past Lent, we were number one, which was crazy.

00:01:24.980 So it was the first time in history.

00:01:26.340 Glory to God.

00:01:27.260 It's just been a wild ride.

00:01:28.740 He does really cool things when you let him.

00:01:30.040 Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show.

00:01:42.740 We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else.

00:01:46.860 And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers.

00:01:49.920 We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly.

00:01:55.360 Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com.

00:01:58.220 Here's the episode.

00:02:00.020 Really an amazing story and unexpected.

00:02:03.000 So why did you build it for you?

00:02:04.840 What does that mean?

00:02:06.760 Yeah, I was raised religious, but fell away from my faith in high school and college.

00:02:11.840 Would have considered myself agnostic or atheist for most of that time.

00:02:15.700 And when I graduated, I got really into meditation.

00:02:20.420 And, you know, there were some secular meditation apps that I started using.

00:02:24.880 And I started using them every day.

00:02:26.360 And I loved them.

00:02:26.900 Um, there were like 10 minutes.

00:02:28.420 It was almost like technology without technology.

00:02:30.140 Like you press play, close your eyes, plugged in your headphones, and then we're just led

00:02:34.700 in this meditation.

00:02:36.240 Um, and it was really the first time that I'd sat in silence.

00:02:40.120 Uh, and the strangest thing started happening, which is every time I would meditate or sit

00:02:44.500 in silence, my mind kept feeling pulled towards something spiritual, like an image of Jesus,

00:02:50.380 an image of the cross, the words Holy Spirit, which I thought was very strange because I would

00:02:54.360 have considered myself agnostic. And so I started reaching out to people who took their faith,

00:02:59.280 um, more seriously, priests, pastors, people who I knew. And I thought I had this really

00:03:03.120 interesting question, which is, Hey, is there any way there's some sort of intersection here

00:03:07.420 between this meditation thing, this sitting in silence thing and this faith thing? And they all

00:03:12.460 laughed at me and said, yeah, we've been doing it for 2000 years. You probably should have heard

00:03:16.620 about it. It's called prayer. And I was like, no, no, no. I know prayer. Prayer is the like,

00:03:20.940 Hey, thanks for stuff. Sorry for stuff. Help me with stuff. Um, or the things that I memorized as

00:03:25.160 a kid. And I had this one priest who said, okay, those are great ways to talk to God. It's great

00:03:31.120 ways to share with God what's on your heart. Um, but have you ever tried to listen? And I was like,

00:03:37.680 no, what does that mean? What does it mean to listen to God? Uh, and I started learning about

00:03:41.800 this whole world of contemplative and meditative prayer within the church. Things like

00:03:46.280 Lexi Divina, Ignatian spirituality, imagined prayer, sitting in silence, chant, all this stuff

00:03:51.260 that I'd honestly never heard of before. And I sat down, uh, Lexi Divina is a way of meditating on

00:03:56.360 scripture. You pick a word that sticks out to you. And so I Googled how to do that, randomly opened up

00:04:01.120 a Bible and just 10 minutes in my living room, uh, opened up my Bible to Luke 11, where the disciples

00:04:08.140 funnily enough asked Jesus to teach him how to pray. And he gives them the, our father, our father

00:04:12.360 art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And hallow was the word that stuck out to me that I meditated

00:04:16.440 on. And it was just 10 minutes just in the comfort of my home. But I was just sobbing. I,

00:04:25.160 it was this beautiful combination of this deep sense of peace, like deeper than anything I'd

00:04:30.020 experienced before, but combined with this depth of meaning and purpose. So like hallow means to make

00:04:36.520 holy. And I was like, well, is God trying to make me holy? Am I letting him make me holy? Am I supposed

00:04:40.100 to be helping other people grow in holiness? And the answers to all of that was no, I was just

00:04:44.140 doing my own career, following my own ambition. What, what were you doing? I was in consulting,

00:04:48.880 just trying to have a good job, make money. Um, you know, it was a good job. It taught me how to

00:04:53.880 work, but, uh, but yeah, certainly wasn't working for Jesus. And so I had to quit my job, drain my 401k

00:04:59.620 at 25 years old or whatever it is, max out my credit cards, do this stupid startup thing. Um,

00:05:04.880 which isn't stupid, it's God's thing. So the, uh, but yeah, so it was crazy. It was this,

00:05:09.080 these really stressful questions, but wrestling with them in this place of deep peace. And so I,

00:05:14.420 I knew from then that I wanted this app. I liked the structure of these apps. Um, and I knew how

00:05:20.560 to code a little bit. So we started building it, but, uh, we had about like 20 to 30 people start

00:05:25.660 using it just cause they heard what I was building. And one of them, uh, one of them was my aunt.

00:05:31.340 Uh, I don't know this, this is a, it was one of my favorite early stories. So I love to tell it,

00:05:36.300 but the, uh, my aunt had just lost her son, uh, my cousin, he was 40. He had just gotten married

00:05:43.600 and, um, his wife had just gotten pregnant with their first kid. And, uh, he went into the doctor

00:05:51.800 said, Hey, there's something wrong with my chest. My chest feels tight. They said, you're fine. Go home.

00:05:55.240 He went home and he died that night in his sleep. Uh, and it was my, yeah, my godmother,

00:06:01.320 my aunt's only son. And she was just heartbroken, just destroyed.

00:06:07.220 She couldn't get out of bed for months. She couldn't eat. It was, and we have this big family,

00:06:11.520 like a bunch of aunts and uncles, and we're all trying to figure out like, what could we possibly

00:06:14.800 do for this woman? And nobody could do anything. I mean, it's a wound that deep. I couldn't imagine

00:06:20.040 losing a kid. And she sends us this note, right? When we launched, it was like December of 2018.

00:06:28.220 And she says, Hey, I just wanted to let you know, you know, there's one of like 20, 30 people using

00:06:32.240 this. I had no idea. There was like 10 meditations on it. Now there's like a hundred thousand, but

00:06:35.580 there was just 10 minute little meditations on the thing. And she said, I just wanted to let you know,

00:06:40.980 like Christmas is always a really stressful time for me. I got to figure out how to visit. She has

00:06:44.280 grandkids. I got to figure out how to visit all my kids, my grandkids get presents for everybody.

00:06:47.680 It's always a time of stress and anxiety, but I just honestly didn't think I'd be able to

00:06:52.580 get through it this year. I didn't think I'd be able to face my first Christmas without my son.

00:06:57.820 And I just wanted to let you know that these little meditations on this app have reminded me that even

00:07:03.020 in the darkest moment of my life, which I am in the darkest moment of my life, but even in the

00:07:07.200 darkest moment of my life, I can still have hope. And they've allowed me to get out of bed and to

00:07:11.580 carry on and thank you for allowing God into my heart again. And I just like, I just broke down

00:07:18.800 in tears on my floor. And I remember I went to my co-founder and I was like, man, it seems like two

00:07:26.120 things. One, it seems like God really wants us to do something with this thing. Like maybe it's not

00:07:30.540 just an app for me. Maybe, maybe other people are going to use this. And at the same time, like if all

00:07:37.760 we ever do, if we work for the next 50 years, if we waste all our money, if everybody hates us,

00:07:41.840 if everything goes terribly, and we got that one note, it will have been infinitely worth it. I'd do

00:07:48.580 it a hundred times over. Of course I would for that one note. And like the really cool part about

00:07:53.000 how is we just get to see these stories all the time from people who are in really dark, really tough

00:07:58.300 places. And we get to see God bring his love and his mercy and his peace into their hearts. But yeah,

00:08:04.860 from an investment perspective, it was the vast majority of people said, no, it was not, it was

00:08:10.520 not a popular investment. I certainly did not think anybody would ever invest in it. But by the grace

00:08:16.100 of God, some, some folks did, which is certainly a longer story, but, but yeah, the vast majority

00:08:20.560 thought it was a very stupid idea. What did your wife think? My wife is a saint. I owe my wife

00:08:27.440 more than I could possibly articulate. She's always taken her faith very seriously. It's actually

00:08:34.600 been funny to watch how my wife and my mom have reacted to me coming back to my faith. My, my mom

00:08:40.080 is the same, a saint of a woman. It's like the bedrock of our faith really tried to get me to

00:08:45.000 believe growing up, prayed for me, I'm sure a lot. But had you asked my mom, like of the people in

00:08:50.040 the country who would do anything religious, I would be the last on the list by far.

00:08:55.440 Why, why did, if we just rewind for a second, why did you lose your faith? It sounds like you grew

00:09:00.460 up in a religious family. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I mean, so I went to a, I went to a public school in

00:09:06.340 Ohio and like everybody was like, people would go to church. Um, but nobody really, at least the kids,

00:09:13.500 my friends, nobody believed there was no real believers. And it just like the, the way of the

00:09:17.540 world I think is naturally destruction and naturally away from God. Um, you have to like really take this

00:09:24.120 step into faith to believe. But for me, I just kind of followed the way of the world. I just followed

00:09:28.760 the way that what all my friends believed, which was kind of this new atheism thing, which is

00:09:32.700 like the Dawkins, Sam Harris stuff of like, yeah, this God thing is stupid. It's just what our

00:09:36.900 parents did. It's, there's no real evidence behind it. Although I never really thought about it. Like

00:09:40.680 it was never a conscious thought. I just kind of followed the tide of my friends and career and,

00:09:46.040 uh, secular society of just falling away and drifting away from my faith, which is heartbreaking.

00:09:51.900 It happens to, it's the story of way too many people in today's world. But I, at the core,

00:09:56.780 I think for me, it sounds like you were led away from your faith.

00:09:59.740 Yeah, I think so. Probably, you know, the society I was in, the friends, the school I was in certainly

00:10:05.220 was very secular. Um, but you know, for me, the thing that gets me excited about Hallow and the

00:10:11.820 work that we're doing is like at the core, what I didn't have was a relationship with Jesus. Like

00:10:18.440 what I didn't have was a relationship with God. Uh, I would like, I knew the beliefs I would go to

00:10:23.360 church. I went to CCD and church school and all this stuff. Um, but I didn't, I never had an actual

00:10:29.080 encounter with Christ. And if you do, like, if you actually have a relationship with Jesus,

00:10:33.360 it's really hard to pull you away from it. Like for me, if somebody now is like, okay, well,

00:10:37.640 what do you believe? Obviously I believe in Jesus. Uh, and if they tried to convince me not to believe,

00:10:43.140 you know, there's a lot of intelligent people, people way smarter than I am, the theologians,

00:10:47.180 philosophers, whatever. But convincing me that Jesus isn't real is like convincing me my wife isn't real.

00:10:52.780 It's like, no, this is a, this is my best friend. This, this is the person who helps me in every

00:10:56.580 moment. It's more real than my wife. And so it's like this relationship. Yeah. It's, it's, it's

00:11:02.000 unbreakable. Um, and that's, I think the thing that I really didn't have growing up, which is what we

00:11:07.160 get excited about trying to help people to build that relationship and to find God in silence and in

00:11:12.080 prayer. Why silence? Well, uh, scripture is pretty clear on this. The saints are pretty clear on this.

00:11:20.640 I mean, mother Teresa, I think is in the silence of the heart. God speaks souls of great prayer,

00:11:24.900 souls of great silence. You know, Elijah climbs up to the mountain and, um, a great wind comes by and

00:11:31.540 God is not in the wind and a great earthquake comes and God is not in the earthquake and a

00:11:36.800 great fire comes and God is not in the fire. Uh, but then a still small voice comes in the silence

00:11:42.440 and God is in the still small voice. Like it's in the silence that you hear God. And it's so funny

00:11:47.600 because for me, I just grew up my whole life. I was just busy. I just, I was just busy and noisy.

00:11:53.940 Like that's my whole life was noise. Like I was just scrolling. I was worried about work. I was

00:11:59.200 worried about relationships. I was worried about my career. I was worried about money. I was worried

00:12:02.540 about everything. And I was just thinking all the time and just talking to people all the time and

00:12:06.640 just listening to noise all the time. And C.S. Lewis says this in his Screwtape Letters, which is

00:12:11.220 this book about, um, is from the perspective of a demon, uh, trying to tempt people. Screwtape

00:12:18.860 Letters. And his big thing is noise. We need to make the world noise. The demon wants to try to make

00:12:26.840 the world noise, get away from music and get away from silence. Cause that's where you, but that's

00:12:31.020 where the people find God. But as demons, our job is to create as much noise so that they don't think

00:12:35.640 about stuff. And yeah, for me, it was just that it was so much noise. And as soon as you like take

00:12:41.400 10 minutes in silence away from the noise, you just, you find God. I mean, so, um, there's a bunch

00:12:52.320 of these, a bunch of these stories of, of, of people who have experienced this that I just love

00:12:56.800 to share. But, but one of these, um, was a woman who wrote to us about six months ago and

00:13:01.500 she was married with three young girls. Um, she worked in the city and, uh, she would like go to

00:13:13.300 church, but she, uh, had this overwhelming sense of shame all the time and she could never really

00:13:17.380 connect with God. And she, her life was full of noise. She could never really find silence or peace.

00:13:22.420 And she developed, uh, an addiction to alcohol and opioids to drugs and, uh, became involved in a

00:13:29.440 longstanding affair with a, with a guy from work. And her husband found out about it and, um, uh,

00:13:37.880 left her and took the kids. And she said she was destroyed, like at the lowest possible point of her

00:13:45.060 life, shattered into a million pieces for the whole world to see all of her shame. She thought often

00:13:48.600 about ending her own life. And she was scrolling on Instagram, just stuck in the noise of life.

00:13:54.480 And she sees this post from Mark Wahlberg talking about prayer. And she's like, wait a minute. Uh,

00:14:01.580 that's the guy from these bear movies talking about Jesus, talking about prayer. That's just weird

00:14:06.720 enough that I'll try it. And she opens up the app and she just does a meditation in silence.

00:14:11.440 And she said, she realized she was right in that moment, just like five, 10 minutes. She realized she

00:14:16.720 was right. It was the lowest possible moment of her life. Everything she loved had left her. Her whole

00:14:22.380 life was destroyed, but that she was wrong. She was not alone. Jesus was there with her and he scooped

00:14:28.640 her up into the thousands of pieces she had shattered into, scooped her up into his arms and

00:14:33.260 put her back together piece by piece. And she started using hallow like 15 times a day, which

00:14:37.320 is way too many times to use. I started going to these retreats and, um, she prayed for her husband's

00:14:43.480 forgiveness. Her husband had his own miraculous experience with Christ where he told her to forgive his

00:14:48.160 wife and their families back together and they're having another kid. And she just wrote to us and

00:14:51.620 just said, Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I'm confident. I wouldn't be physically standing

00:14:55.820 here alive today if it wasn't for the grace that God gave me in silence through this app. And so

00:14:59.260 for us, it's just like, man, glory to God. It's, but, but what he can do when we give them just like

00:15:05.220 five, 10 minutes in silence of our life. And it's hard. Silence can be intimidating, which is why

00:15:09.940 we built the app. It's can be intimidating to sit in 20 minutes of silence for you for the first time

00:15:14.260 you do it. And it's, it's helpful to have a structure and somebody to lead you through it when your

00:15:18.000 eyes are closed. You're just listening to something, but what God can do in that 10, 20 minute time is

00:15:22.520 just, it's miraculous. It's beautiful. That's amazing. Yeah. Glory to God. So last fall, I was

00:15:28.460 out in Las Vegas and I ran into Theo Vaughn, who's hilarious. And I wind up doing a podcast with Theo

00:15:33.960 Vaughn and I have a tin of Zen on the set with me. And he says, what's that? And I started joking

00:15:38.860 about the product, nicotine pouches. And I say, in effect, this is a cure for erectile dysfunction.

00:15:45.720 Totally joking. Of course, not serious, not a doctor, never even think about making medical

00:15:51.400 claims. I have no idea if that's true. I'm totally kidding. It's what we call a joke in

00:15:54.860 the business. It's a joke. It's not serious. So I get home and there is a letter from the

00:15:58.520 general counsel of Zen written in the most super silly is nasty to whom it may concern Mr. Carlson

00:16:07.320 or representative thereof. It has come to our attention that on a, uh, a broadcast with a nationally

00:16:13.960 known comedian, you made an inaccurate health claim about our product. I'm like, what is

00:16:18.060 this? What did I do? You should know that there's no medical study that suggests that

00:16:23.040 our product is an effective ED cure. And I'm like, are you kidding? I made a boner joke

00:16:27.660 and you're sending me a nasty lawyer letter. He was the dumbest, most humorless thing I've

00:16:33.040 ever seen. And it was instantly recognizable to me as someone who has worked at big companies

00:16:37.500 most of my life. It was a product of HR lawyer culture. Only like a pronoun company could issue

00:16:43.500 a letter like this. And it was like somewhere on this planet, somebody is laughing. We must

00:16:49.140 make them stop, call the general counsel, issue a nasty letter. And I thought to myself, I cannot

00:16:54.020 believe I'm buying their product. I have nothing in common with these people. They can't take

00:16:58.360 a joke. They're stupid and they hate me and they hate humor and they hate joy. And I thought

00:17:03.940 to myself, I'm going to create an alternative because there's no way I'm going to spend another

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00:19:42.360 What's interesting is that this device is the vector for noise. Yeah, certainly.

00:19:48.400 But you've used this device to bring silence back. Well, the device is a tool for unimaginable evil.

00:19:59.880 I mean, what is contained in that device is heartbreakingly sad. I mean, yeah, noise and

00:20:05.400 distraction, pornography, evil. I mean, there's so much evil in technology. There's so much evil

00:20:10.980 in social media, in the ways of the world. And we've had a lot of people, you know, you can get

00:20:19.340 addicted to your phone. It's very easy to get addicted to your phone, even if you're not looking

00:20:22.860 at bad stuff. It's just like, there's funny stuff on there. There's really entertaining stuff, or

00:20:26.200 there's news or whatever. And we've had a lot of people who are like, well, you can't, technology is

00:20:32.500 bad. It's inherently bad, which is one of the complaints about Halo. Which you certainly have to

00:20:38.640 find a way to escape from technology, to not get addicted, to find peace amidst the noise. But for

00:20:45.960 us, it's just like, God can use anything. We can't underestimate God. Like, God can take any tool we

00:20:53.100 have, whether it's the printing press, whether it's magazines, which also are used for tremendous evil,

00:20:58.140 or whether it's this incredible tool, which is used for tremendous evil. The vast majority of stuff

00:21:03.100 on the internet is evil, is terrible, is awful. But God can still use it. God can still reach out to

00:21:09.120 people where they are. And it's the same, it's like churches in a city. It's like cities are places of

00:21:14.580 tremendous evil. There's a lot of sad things that happen in cities, but God can still reach out to

00:21:19.440 people who live in cities with beautiful churches and invite them into a relationship with him. And it's

00:21:24.600 the same thing with this. It's our job as Christians is to work within the world and to reach out to

00:21:30.460 people where they are. And sadly, where they are is in their phones. And we've seen just time and time

00:21:36.220 again, where God can reach out to people through their phone and change their life. It's just a,

00:21:40.900 it's a, it's a beautiful thing for us to get to be a part of. And we have this, we have this

00:21:44.860 incredible privilege to get to be in this position where we get all these stories from people whose lives

00:21:50.660 have been changed. And it's just, I'm going to go on forever about these stories.

00:21:55.000 Please do.

00:21:55.620 But the, um, we had this, uh, this other young woman, actually, I was just talking to a guy

00:22:01.800 yesterday in Ireland who, um, had a very similar story to me, had fallen away. And in Ireland,

00:22:08.400 it's like in his friend group, apparently very unpopular to actually be Catholic, like to really

00:22:13.100 believe it. Um, and he had this radical conversion through technology, through the app, uh, where he came

00:22:19.580 back to his faith. But this, this one woman, I have a four-year-old daughter, so this breaks my

00:22:25.080 heart especially, but she was, uh, raised religious, but fell away from her faith, described

00:22:30.300 herself as a nihilistic atheist as a teenager, which is more intense than I would have described

00:22:35.420 myself. But, uh, I had a really tough time at school, which like, man, the social media for young

00:22:41.660 kids, especially young women, like just reading comments about yourself or like people insulting

00:22:46.000 you not to, it's just, gosh, it's so hard. Um, like I, I have a little sister who's much younger

00:22:52.060 than me and I hold her phone for like two minutes and she gets like 50 Snapchat notifications

00:22:58.260 about streaks she has to continue. And I'm like, I feel physically stressed holding this thing. And

00:23:03.040 so for young people just in today's world, it's just so hard. But anyway, this woman, this young

00:23:09.160 woman, um, was a teenager. Her mom was worried about her. She made, um, her download hallow onto her

00:23:15.280 phone and created an account. And the young woman became so depressed, uh, that she decided to end

00:23:21.580 her life when she was 15. And so she climbed into, um, into her bathtub and filled it with,

00:23:30.780 she did a bubble bath cause she said she wanted it to be a pretty death heartbreakingly. So, um,

00:23:38.000 and right before she went through with it, she said, look, God, I don't believe in you.

00:23:43.720 I'm an atheist. I don't believe in you. She looked up at the ceiling, but if you are real,

00:23:49.240 I will give you one last chance. This is your shot. Prove it to me. And she had her little

00:23:53.620 phone sitting next to her and she opened up the phone, played some random meditation that we had.

00:24:00.060 It was probably during Lent cause it was on Christ's passion and it was on how he bled,

00:24:04.280 how he died, how he suffered for us so that we didn't have to, so that we didn't have to carry that

00:24:08.720 wait alone. And she said, I don't know what it was, but I realized in that moment that Christ

00:24:14.360 was there with me in the room. He held out his hand. He picked me up out of the bathtub and I

00:24:17.800 dedicated the rest of my life to serving him. And for the last three years, I've been serving as a

00:24:21.800 missionary in the inner city for Christ. And I just wanted to let you know, I'm confident I would

00:24:25.220 have ended my life that night had it not been for the grace that God gave me through this app, which

00:24:28.240 is just like all these stories, but it's, it's about how God can use the thing that is most destroying

00:24:37.880 us for his good and can reach out to you through it and, and transform everything, even bad stuff.

00:24:43.680 He can transform it for his good. Like we can't underestimate the power of God. Um, so yeah,

00:24:50.060 it's for us, it's, it's, uh, I think people have to be disconnected from their phones. I don't,

00:24:54.600 my kids don't have phones and won't for a long time, but, um, but God can use technology. And

00:25:00.160 there's a lot of really cool parts about technology. You get to pray with a, on a retreat

00:25:03.720 with Father Mike Schmitz or some great pastor or leader for 10 minutes in the comfort of your own

00:25:08.600 home. Whereas without that, you'd have to pay, you know, a good chunk of money to go on a retreat

00:25:12.680 once a year, maybe. And so we have these, uh, tools with technology, but we have to surrender them

00:25:18.980 to God. We have to let God use them. We can't, um, you know, we can't make them God and we

00:25:23.180 certainly can't let them distract us from the things that really matter.

00:25:26.180 Who's Father Mike Schmitz?

00:25:27.880 Father, Father Mike Schmitz is incredible. I love Father Mike. Um, he is the host of,

00:25:34.020 he does a Bible in a year podcast, um, a series, which you can find on the app, uh, where he walks

00:25:39.480 through the Bible and explains it in this really unique way where it's not just from the, uh,

00:25:43.380 beginning to the end, but about how the gospel is kind of interwoven throughout the whole story.

00:25:47.440 So it's beautiful. It brings scripture to life in a new way. And then he does a bunch of different

00:25:50.560 things. Uh, we work with him on a bunch of different things. Um, sermons, homilies,

00:25:55.840 reflections, prayers, uh, just things to try to open up scripture to folks in a new way,

00:26:00.780 both to folks who haven't really had an exposure to scripture, but also to people who've been taking

00:26:05.020 their faith seriously for decades. So he's, he's phenomenal.

00:26:07.560 How'd you find him? How'd you hear about him?

00:26:10.420 Everything in Hallow has been the good Lord doing, doing everything. So every story has been about

00:26:17.420 us trying and trying and trying and trying and trying, and then just giving up and surrendering

00:26:22.640 and the good Lord doing it for us. Uh, father Mike, I was a fan of father Mike. I, when I was

00:26:28.620 first coming back to my faith, I was trying to figure out whether I was Catholic or Protestant

00:26:33.140 or whatever it was, because I had come to Jesus through this prayer experience, but, um, had a lot

00:26:39.020 still to figure out. And so I started watching debates. I started watching, listening to sermons,

00:26:42.400 all this stuff. And father Mike was one of the big ones. He has a handful of YouTube videos,

00:26:46.060 um, uh, on a channel called Ascension, which is phenomenal. And, um, yeah, I love them. And so,

00:26:54.600 but I kept trying to reach out. I kept trying to email them in different ways. Cause we had just

00:26:57.640 started this app and I was like, Hey man, is there any way that, Hey father, is there any way that we

00:27:01.260 could, uh, work together with something? I'd love to share what you have with the folks who have on,

00:27:06.260 who we have on the app, which was just whatever, maybe like a couple hundred people at that point.

00:27:09.520 And I gave up. I was like, all right, I've tried everything. I've reached out in every way.

00:27:14.640 And then he just randomly reaches out to us in an email and just says, Hey, I was with a bishop who

00:27:21.520 knew you guys and he mentioned you and that I should reach out. So we'd love to do something.

00:27:25.560 And the first thing he did for us was we have these, uh, sleep Bible stories where at night you

00:27:31.380 kind of read scripture to try to, um, disconnect yourself from the busyness of the world and focus on

00:27:36.820 Christ before you go to bed. And so he did these, um, this sleep reading of, uh, I think it was,

00:27:43.500 um, yeah, the gospel of John in the beginning was the word and the word was made flesh and it was

00:27:48.460 just beautiful. Um, and so then we kept trying to work with him forever. And he's been, he's, he's,

00:27:53.580 he's one of the most incredible people I know. He, you know, is very close with my wife and my kids

00:27:58.420 and I, and so it's been a blessing to get to know him, but also to get to share his message,

00:28:01.900 his message with people and he's changed more lives than I could possibly imagine.

00:28:07.020 Mark Wahlberg. How did I find everything about that amazing. How did Mark Wahlberg become a part

00:28:14.360 of this? Mark is awesome. Mark is incredible. It's an honor and privilege to get to work with him.

00:28:20.660 We, uh, yeah, he, he had this interesting experience he shared where he felt like God was a few years ago.

00:28:28.120 He felt like God was calling him. He's always taking his faith seriously. He's always been a

00:28:32.480 very public witness, um, of his faith, which is hard to do in Hollywood. Um, and well, not only hard

00:28:40.420 to do almost without any precedent, really, I can't think of the last famous actor who did something

00:28:46.740 like that other than Mel Gibson. For folks who, who, who aren't really in the Hollywood world,

00:28:50.940 it's hard to understand how unpopular it is, but it's, yeah, it's, it takes a tremendous amount of

00:28:57.480 courage. Like people will tell you your career will be over. Um, everyone will hate you. Um,

00:29:03.280 okay, maybe you can talk about faith, but like talk about it broadly. Don't talk about Jesus

00:29:06.680 specifically. You certainly can't talk about Jesus. And, um, you know, I have these conversations all

00:29:12.220 the time and Mark, yeah, uh, has this incredible courage. Um, but anyway, he felt like God is-

00:29:20.320 Yeah, cause I don't really see the upside for him.

00:29:21.520 Um, oh no, there's almost, there's none. I mean, other than doing the good Lord's will,

00:29:25.200 which is a tremendous upside in and of itself, but from a career perspective, certainly not. So

00:29:29.100 he, he felt like God was calling him to use this platform, this gift that he's given,

00:29:34.220 that God had given him, um, for God's glory to share what God had done with him. And he does this

00:29:40.240 great, he does a great job of sharing his faith in a way that doesn't feel like he's like ramming it

00:29:44.500 down your throat or anything. He's just like, Hey, this is, I have this friend named Jesus. He's

00:29:48.280 changed my life. He's given me everything good in my, in my life has come from God. And I just

00:29:52.800 want to share that with people. And so it's this, um, but anyway, he felt like God was calling him

00:29:58.900 to do something. And so he did this film called Father Stew. And this was a few years ago. He

00:30:03.720 produced it. He funded it himself. It was all him. He starred in it. Um, and it was this beautiful

00:30:08.880 film and we worked, uh, initially Hallow was decent size, but still pretty small. And so we worked

00:30:14.640 with him to help promote it and to create some content around it. And he says, he he's like,

00:30:20.120 God, he thought he was making a deal with God where he'd do this one thing. He'd like do this

00:30:23.800 one film. And that would be his thing. That would be his God thing. And what's happened since is God

00:30:28.180 just like, was just cracking the door and now he's like slamming it wide open. So now he's does,

00:30:33.000 he does all this stuff with Hallow and with a bunch of things with the faith, but especially with

00:30:37.900 Hallow, he does these incredible fasting challenges where like he is, um, he has many, uh, talents,

00:30:43.860 obviously, but one of them is this incredible discipline. Like, you know, you see him all

00:30:47.540 the time, wakes up at four, does his cold, cold plunge, does a workout like twice, does prayer

00:30:51.980 every day. And so, um, like leading people in fasting, which people often forget about fasting

00:30:57.240 is like prayer and fasting must go together. Uh, and so he has these incredible fasting challenges

00:31:01.380 that he leads people through on the app, but he's just been, yeah, he's a great guy to get to work

00:31:05.980 with. Um, I remember the first time he, uh, he FaceTimed me at like 8 PM on like a Friday night

00:31:14.680 or something. And it was one of the first times I'd talked to him. And, uh, I don't, you know, I don't

00:31:21.460 often talk to super famous people. And so I was a little nervous, you know, is that, that is FaceTime

00:31:26.540 for Mark Wahlberg. I was like, this is really cool. My wife's sitting here next to me. Um, it was, you

00:31:31.080 know, just the middle of the night and we just talked and it was like a 30 second conversation.

00:31:33.780 It was just like, Hey, I'm really excited about Father Stu. Uh, it's going to be great. We're

00:31:37.400 hearing great things from folks. It's coming together really nice. And I was like, Oh,

00:31:40.040 that's awesome. And he was like, yeah. And with Halo, Halo is going to be incredible. We're going

00:31:43.140 to change the world together. And I was like, Oh, that's awesome. And he's like, yeah, Halo is

00:31:46.240 going to be great. We're going to pray together. We're going to welcome the Lord into people's

00:31:49.340 hearts. Jesus is going to do incredible things. This is going to be great. And I was like, Oh,

00:31:52.620 that's awesome. And he was like, all right, man, have a great one. Have a good one. And then he hangs up

00:31:55.920 and my wife looks at me and people ask like how you stay humble. And my wife looks at me and

00:32:02.060 instead of saying like, Oh man, that's cool. You got to talk to Mark Wahlberg or like, you

00:32:05.340 know, whatever that he just FaceTimed you or any of that stuff. She was like, um, you

00:32:09.860 know, you said awesome a lot. Like that's all you said. And, and I was like, wow, I'm going

00:32:15.700 to be thinking about that for the next two years of my life. How stupid I sounded on a FaceTime.

00:32:20.740 But anyway, he's been, he's been, he's been really honestly incredible. It's, uh, yeah,

00:32:27.820 like this past Ash Wednesday, he, he went and did a bunch of PR where he goes and has a giant

00:32:34.900 Ash cross on his forehead and goes and does all these shows on, you know, nobody's seen somebody

00:32:39.480 with a giant Ash cross on their forehead on any of these shows today show or any of that stuff.

00:32:43.040 And I remember we did, uh, this is another funny story about God, uh, being in charge,

00:32:49.320 but we were in New York and we were about to go on all these shows, uh, for the launch of

00:32:56.720 kind of this Lent series, which are our biggest launches are, well, we have one coming up about

00:33:00.860 the election, one nation under God. And then we have kind of a season leading up to Christmas,

00:33:04.300 which is an advent launch and then a Lent. So really right now, this time of year is where

00:33:08.180 kind of our, our biggest launches are, but, uh, it was Ash Wednesday, which is the day that our

00:33:12.920 Lent challenge kicks off. And we did a little mass, uh, in the hotel, just in a conference room

00:33:19.980 in the hotel, a private mass. We had a priest come and it was just like four or five of us.

00:33:25.620 And it was funny because the reading was like how you're supposed to fast, um, in private,

00:33:31.120 which is true. You're supposed to fast and pray, not like show off like, Hey, I'm, you know,

00:33:35.080 I'm this great person. I'm fasting. And, uh, so that was the gospel. And then Mark goes up to get

00:33:39.660 his ashes and he was like, Hey father, I know I'm not supposed to like do this publicly from today's

00:33:45.600 reading, but, um, could you make this Ash cross like really big and really dark and really black?

00:33:51.280 Cause I'm going to be on TV all day. And, um, the funny thing about that is we had, I had woken up

00:34:00.060 and the app was, we had never cracked the like top 50 before. And I had woken up on Ash Wednesday

00:34:05.480 and the app was number three in the app store. And there were two apps ahead of it. Um, I think

00:34:11.240 one was open AI and the other was, uh, Temu, which is the giant massive Chinese social media company

00:34:17.240 that's trying to enter the United States by pitching itself as a shopping company. They have a

00:34:20.780 billion and a half dollar, um, Facebook ad budget a year just for the U S to spend, to try to enter this

00:34:26.080 market. Um, and they ran six national Superbowl commercials. And so we're like, there's no way

00:34:31.200 we're ever going to displace Temu from. So do you trust your internet service provider? Do you even

00:34:36.300 know what it does? What are a lot of reasons not to trust your ISP? Many internet service providers

00:34:42.800 are required to keep logs of everything you do online, just in case the government wants to take

00:34:48.120 a look at what you're doing. Can you believe that's legal? It is in the United States, in this country,

00:34:53.520 your online information, your entire browsing history can be sold to anyone. And it often is,

00:35:02.240 in fact, it almost always is. So what can you do about that? Well, one obvious solution is to get

00:35:07.920 a virtual private network, a VPN. The one we use is called express VPN. A VPN is an app that reroutes

00:35:15.920 all of your online traffic through encrypted servers. So your online data is private. No one can get their

00:35:23.020 hands on it. But how can you trust your VPN? That's a good question. Well, ExpressVPN has a privacy first

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00:35:48.140 one of those requests resulted in any customer data being exposed. It's not that they don't comply with

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00:36:22.120 slash Tucker. That's expressvpn.com slash Tucker, three extra months for free.

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00:37:52.720 How many Super Bowl ads did you run?

00:38:01.280 We ran a regional one, so it only covered like, I don't know, 30, 40 percent, and it was one. And so

00:38:06.760 I was watching the Super Bowl with my wife, and I knew that Temu was number one on the App Store. And

00:38:12.520 I was like, man, we have a chance of getting up somewhere high, but there's no way we're ever going

00:38:18.380 to beat Temu. I just hope that they're not going to do a Super Bowl commercial because last year they had

00:38:21.340 done one. And a national Super Bowl commercial is like five to six times the cost of the thing that

00:38:27.120 we did. And so I'm watching the Super Bowl, and I see the first Temu ad come on, and I was like,

00:38:34.280 shoot, man. And then I see the second, and I was like, two Super Bowl commercials. And then I see

00:38:38.220 the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. And I was just like, this is insanity. There's no,

00:38:42.540 it's absolutely impossible that we would ever, so like maybe number two. But anyway, I wake up and

00:38:46.380 we're number three. And I'm like, wow, this is incredible. That's high. Nobody's ever cracked

00:38:51.300 the top 10 before. That's, that's glory to God. That's, that's insane. I go to open the app and

00:38:55.740 it's completely crashed. It's totally white. Nobody, it's, you can't do anything. It's not like-

00:39:01.100 It's not funny. I don't know why I'm laughing. It's horrible.

00:39:03.160 It's not like it loads slowly. I mean, this is the biggest day in hallow history. And so it's,

00:39:07.440 it's, there's hundreds of thousands of people trying to pray, millions of people trying to pray on this

00:39:11.060 thing at this moment. And it's just white, just a white screen. And I know how to code a little bit,

00:39:18.400 but certainly not. We have people who code much better than I do now. And, and so I call our

00:39:23.600 developer and I was like, hey man, things totally down. And he's like, yeah, okay, I'm on it. And

00:39:27.180 it usually takes us about 30 seconds to get it to fix. But there were so many more people trying to

00:39:31.380 use it that it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And it was just this spiral going down and

00:39:34.640 down and down. And so it usually takes us about maybe one or two minutes to fix it because you can add

00:39:39.820 capacity or whatever it is. But, but he can't fix it. He can't figure out how to do it. It's like

00:39:44.300 this spiral he can't get, get, get control of. And so we go to mass and the app is crashing through

00:39:50.300 the whole mass. It's crashing. It's down. Nobody can use it. And this is like, we have a massive spike

00:39:54.720 at right in the morning. There's a spike in the morning and in the evening when people pray at the

00:39:59.320 beginning of the day and the end of the day, mostly. And so this is like right in the middle of our

00:40:02.520 biggest spike. And I was just sitting there in mass and I was just like, God, what? Like I surrender this

00:40:07.960 to you. Yes. Like this is yours. But like, why are you, why are you doing this? There's so many

00:40:11.740 people trying to pray. Like, can you please just fix this app? And I'm just like struggling with

00:40:16.720 this thing. I'm just so stressed and so anxious about it because it's just dying and no one can

00:40:22.040 use it. And our customer support things blowing off and everything's going terribly. And, and then

00:40:27.420 Mark is about to go on the today show and Fox and all these national TV shows. And what's he supposed

00:40:31.120 to do? Be like, Hey, download the app, but in like a couple hours, maybe. And so nobody else knows

00:40:36.360 that the app is crashing. And so the priest comes up to me after mass and he's like, Hey, Alex,

00:40:41.780 are you okay? And I was like, yeah, father, why? And he was like, well, it seems like you're pretty

00:40:49.020 distracted. It seems like you're pretty upset. Like there's something about you. It just feels

00:40:51.900 like you're upset. And I was like, well, to be honest, yeah, the app has been crashing for the

00:40:56.220 last like 30, 40 minutes. It's just been down. Nobody can use it. It makes me sad. It's like, this is,

00:41:00.640 we're hoping to, especially to people who have fallen away or people like that young girl who are in a

00:41:05.500 really tough time. Like we want to be a resource for people. We want to help people pray. And he

00:41:11.000 was like, all right, Alex, what would you mind if I just, if I just said a quick prayer for you?

00:41:15.160 And I was like, sure, father, I guess I'm the prayer guy. It's a prayer app. Yes. You can pray

00:41:18.800 for us. And he just sits there for a second and he just goes, okay, have a good day, Alex. And then

00:41:26.700 I get a text literally two seconds later that says the app is back up. It's just like, God,

00:41:33.420 this whole story, everything for us is just like, you try and you try and you try and you try.

00:41:37.840 And then you're just like, God, can you please take it? And then he does. And he's like, I was

00:41:40.980 just waiting for you to do that. I was just waiting for you to let me do it. And then it

00:41:44.760 went on to be, to, to displace Temu at the end of the day as the number one app, which is crazy

00:41:49.540 because the top 10 apps, all of the YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Temu, every app has 10,000 plus

00:41:55.220 employees. We had 80. And so it's just that it was this crazy story of, of Halo getting to number

00:42:02.040 one over Temu, which was, which was fun. Um, but, but yeah, it's just this, it's just God

00:42:08.440 showing us like, Hey, I'm the one who's, I'm the one who's doing this. Just make sure you always

00:42:13.820 remember I'm the one who's doing this, which hopefully, hopefully I do.

00:42:18.000 Amazing. Has it, um, has it hurt Wahlberg's career since you said that it might?

00:42:26.900 You know, Mark is an interesting place because, you know, he produces most of his own stuff now

00:42:33.200 and can fund a lot of it. And he's trying to build, you know, what he does really is he tries to focus

00:42:38.080 on a handful of things that he really tries to build. So he has like a health company, a clothing

00:42:42.260 company, Halo and a handful of other things he's really focused on building. But honestly, um,

00:42:48.300 you know, there's a lot of, like he'll post about like, just stay prayed up, just something he'll just,

00:42:53.980 he'll literally just look at the camera and be like, Hey, stay prayed up in front of a church or

00:42:57.120 in front of a statue of Jesus or Mary or something, and just invite people to pray. And he had, he,

00:43:03.640 he, you know, he had a friend of his come up to him and say like, Hey, haven't you seen that everyone

00:43:09.940 like, haven't you read your comments? Like everyone hates you for these posts. And he's like, comments,

00:43:17.180 dude, I haven't read comments in like 30 years. You can't read comments on social media. That'll

00:43:20.980 destroy you. And he's like, what I see is that these posts, whenever I post about Jesus or talk

00:43:25.840 about Jesus, they get like, you know, 10 times the number of views that anything else I talk about

00:43:29.680 gets. People are clearly hungry for this. And we've shared a bunch of these stories of how,

00:43:33.600 uh, you know, that woman who almost ended her life saw a post from him talking about Jesus and was able

00:43:39.040 to, you know, it's an interesting thing because to, to reach out to somebody who doesn't take their

00:43:42.720 faith seriously, you know, my face isn't really going to get them to stop, but Mark's face will be

00:43:47.040 like, wow, that's weird enough. Like the guy from the bear movies talking about Jesus. Like that's a,

00:43:50.760 that's a weird thing. I'm just going to, it's, it's just weird enough that I'm going to try it.

00:43:55.040 But, um, but anyway, for him, he's just, I don't know. He just, it's, it takes a bravery.

00:44:01.200 I mean, for a bunch of folks, but then through it, I think God actually does these really cool

00:44:04.620 things. And you're starting to see actually in Hollywood. Now I was just talking to somebody,

00:44:08.560 I was in LA this week and they were saying, this is the first time in like 30 years that someone has

00:44:14.440 come asking for faith-based scripts, asking for faith-based material. And they're like,

00:44:19.500 it's not, obviously it's not because people are, the studios are suddenly trying to share

00:44:23.980 Christ. It's because, you know, you see things like hollow or you see things like Bible in a

00:44:27.480 year or the chosen or whatever it is. And you see these things working, you see people are actually

00:44:31.300 really hungry for it. And it's, you know, I mean, scripture again, it's pretty clear. It's if you

00:44:35.180 seek first the kingdom of God, all the other things will be given unto you. It's like, and now it's

00:44:39.340 scary and you go through like a dip. I mean, for me, certainly. Uh, but God then brings you these

00:44:44.980 incredible blessings on the other side of it. Um, so I don't know. I mean, Mark's, you know,

00:44:48.980 Father Stu did, Father Stu did really well. His obviously hallows, um, blown any of our

00:44:54.460 expectations or anything that we expected out of this water. So yeah, for him, I think it's been

00:44:59.540 a pretty cool ride. It's, it's just awesome to see somebody who has this incredible platform

00:45:04.940 and talent and gift, uh, use it for the greater glory of the kingdom. So it's a blessing.

00:45:10.640 And be rewarded for it. I mean, it sounds like you think things are changing. There's something

00:45:16.300 going on. I mean, I think we're in a, I think we're in a very dark place. Um, but I have

00:45:24.020 this, yeah. And hello, I have this tremendous hope. I mean, it's, it's just, uh, we get, we

00:45:34.460 just get to see it all the time. Like in the darkest places, God reaching out to people and

00:45:40.260 like we Chesterton has this quote that's like, there've been many times in history that GK

00:45:45.040 Chesterton, there's been many times in history where people thought the church was dead. The

00:45:49.060 church is not this like straight line. It's, it's, it's this time of many times people thought

00:45:53.540 it was over the rise of Islam, the death of Jesus, the death of his apostles, the fall of

00:45:57.280 Rome, all these different times when people thought Christianity should just peter out and

00:46:00.280 die. But Christianity can't die because as soon as it gets close to the grave, when everyone

00:46:05.240 expects it to be in the grave, it resurrects because it has a God that knows its way out of

00:46:09.900 the grave. And I don't know for us, we just see it. And I think you can see it. You're

00:46:14.420 starting to see a little bit of it in, you know, some of these broader things like Hallow

00:46:18.340 or Bible in a Year or The Chosen or, um, anything. But for us, it's just in these stories and

00:46:24.520 especially in the, in the places when things are, when things are really tough and really

00:46:30.840 dark. And like, you know, we live in a culture of death and in a, in a, in a sad secular

00:46:35.280 world that's falling away even more rapidly from Jesus. And, but still in that he's there.

00:46:42.400 And like, we had this, you know, we had this other woman right into us and share her story,

00:46:49.300 which was, uh, she had become, uh, pregnant. She was, uh, she had just graduated. She was

00:46:58.340 unmarried. She was dating somebody, um, very young and had become pregnant and was just

00:47:03.200 petrified. Just so scared. Cause all the world does is tell you that if you're pregnant as a

00:47:07.980 woman, your life's over. And it's the worst thing that can happen to you. And all these

00:47:11.100 terrible, sad messages. And she's petrified. She's like, Oh, I wanted a career as I'm scared

00:47:17.680 out of my mind. There's no option. There's no options. What are my options? And she said,

00:47:22.480 she fell down on her knees. She had the app and she opened up Halo fell down on her knees

00:47:27.980 and she said, God, I just, I don't know what you want from me here, but I surrender it to you,

00:47:36.580 which is, man, it's just an incredible witness of faith, but I surrender it to you. I surrender

00:47:40.520 it to you completely, whatever you want. And she hears audibly in the silence, his name is Luke.

00:47:48.820 Uh, which like, if you're going to say one word to save a child's life in the womb,

00:47:56.600 like hearing his name from God's voice, like hearing God has a name for him already is like,

00:48:01.180 well, his termination is no option. Cause God has named him. His name is Luke. And so she goes

00:48:06.540 through this journey. She's like, all right, well, I'm not going to terminate him. So what am I going

00:48:09.060 to do? And she starts exploring and she's like, and she shares the story and she's, she's like,

00:48:13.260 I'd never even thought about adoption. And I started thinking about it. I started exploring it.

00:48:17.280 And I was like, well, if I could find a family that maybe would make sense, that's faithful,

00:48:20.140 that's Christian, you know, and I could still be a part of my child's life, somebody that could

00:48:24.000 raise my kid better than I could with, um, you know, maybe, maybe that's an option for me.

00:48:28.800 And so she finds this couple who takes their faith very seriously. And, uh, she's like, okay,

00:48:35.600 this is perfect. This is, this is, this is the couple that, um, that I would choose. And she says,

00:48:41.720 hey, I just, uh, one last question before we proceed, like, do you, it's your kid. Um,

00:48:49.040 do you know what name you'll name him? And they said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We've known for a while

00:48:54.800 now. His name is Luke. And she's just like, glory to God. And the crazy part is then after, during

00:49:02.660 her birth, they, the doctors found she was sick. She had an illness. Um, I forget exactly what it was,

00:49:08.880 but it was some, something that needed surgery that they never would have found otherwise.

00:49:12.300 And she would have died from it. And they found it during her birth. They never would have found

00:49:16.380 it otherwise. And so the child who now is like the best part of her life, she gets to be a part

00:49:20.540 of this child's life and this family's life. And, you know, for her, it's the, the peak of her life

00:49:25.440 is the best thing that happened to her is this kid. And it also literally physically saved her life.

00:49:29.340 But it's just like, even in this world that is so tough, that is so dark, um, that is going

00:49:36.340 through so much. Like God is still there and he's still able, if we just like give him just a crack,

00:49:43.040 like we just crack the door open of our hearts, he can do the rest. He takes the rest. And so,

00:49:47.840 yeah, I have, I have tremendous, I have tremendous hope.

00:49:51.600 Does it feel to you that people who haven't considered anything beyond, you know, their five

00:49:57.900 senses are suddenly asking questions about what else there might be, or people have a heightened

00:50:03.420 spiritual awareness? Do you notice that? I think so. Yeah. I mean, I, uh, I mean, we see it

00:50:09.160 obviously with the app. It's, that's all we do is, um, try to open people to Christian spirituality,

00:50:16.620 um, in a relationship with the Lord. But I think there's a bunch of things for it. I mean, the one

00:50:23.300 is like I was saying with technology, I mean, it's just so much noise. Like it's just so much

00:50:30.760 busyness, so much stress, so much anxiety in this phone that especially young people, like you go to

00:50:35.800 them and it's just like, Hey, did you know there's like real peace, like real rest, real peace.

00:50:41.700 And that I think has this tremendous pull, which is like the offer, you know, Christ offers a lot.

00:50:49.120 Christianity offers a lot, truth, beauty, joy, fearlessness, courage, all these things, but

00:50:54.720 also this deep sense of peace. And especially in today's world, I just think people are hungry for

00:50:59.280 it. Like it's, everything feels terrible. Everything feels like you're stressed and worried.

00:51:03.840 The world's about to, the world's about to end. Um, but real peace, I think people are really hungry

00:51:08.900 for. And that's what we get really excited about. I mean, I was in Silicon Valley for, um,

00:51:13.720 for three years with my wife and I would ask, I would talk to people all the time and you'd be like,

00:51:20.660 are you religious? And they'd be like, no, of course I'm not religious. Nobody's religious anymore.

00:51:24.220 Um, but then you ask them what they are and they would say, which is this relatively new

00:51:29.760 invention, which is spiritual, but not religious. I'm spiritual, but not religious. And it's like,

00:51:33.700 are you spiritual? And they would all say, yes, of course I'm spiritual. I'm interested in

00:51:36.580 spirituality. And there's two kinds of ways to go about that. The one is, um, you know, like,

00:51:43.740 well, can you really be spiritual without being religious? Like, okay, you're spiritual. So you're

00:51:47.260 having a relationship with something outside you. What is that thing? Don't you want to try to figure

00:51:50.480 out what that thing is? And it's funny. I'll talk to people who meditate and you'll be like,

00:51:54.780 okay, you sit there, you meditate, you're alone in your room. Um, and these are secular people who

00:52:00.320 don't. And, but is there something else there with you when you meditate? And everyone will be like,

00:52:06.400 yeah, of course there is. Absolutely. There's something else there. There's something invisible

00:52:09.400 there. And I was like, okay, well, that's the craziest thing in the world. So you're saying like

00:52:15.720 when you stop watching Netflix and scrolling on TikTok and you just sit in silence,

00:52:18.860 there's an invisible force there. Shouldn't your whole life be like focused on, well,

00:52:23.260 what is that thing? Figuring out what that thing is and what it wants from you. And the good news is

00:52:27.580 like what it wants from you is to tell you that you're loved, like to love you infinitely and then

00:52:32.580 to call you to this life of love and service for other people. So it's, it's this force of tremendous

00:52:36.680 goodness, but like, don't you want to really figure that out? And I do think we see.

00:52:40.420 Well, and also there are non-good forces out there too.

00:52:43.460 Exactly. Yeah. Well, now that's for me, actually, when I was coming from secular meditation,

00:52:47.760 which is mostly has its roots in Buddhist meditation or Eastern meditation to Christian

00:52:54.200 meditation, obviously the core of the difference in Christian meditation is a relationship with

00:52:59.840 Jesus. It's not about whatever, like your breath or trying to like de-stress. It's not about any of

00:53:04.320 that. It's about trying to let Jesus into your heart and transform your heart. Um, let him love you

00:53:08.860 and then to go and share that love with others. So at the core, it's a totally different thing.

00:53:13.480 But, um, the other big piece of it that was different for me that I found really powerful

00:53:19.540 from a Christian perspective is in Eastern traditions of meditation, you know, the fundamental

00:53:24.740 belief is, Hey, there's suffering. There's a way to escape suffering. And, you know, meditation is one

00:53:28.560 of those techniques. Um, but there's no good and evil fight. There's no good versus evil in Christianity.

00:53:34.420 Like if you sit in silence and you just focus on your breath or something, there's two things that

00:53:39.140 can come into your mind. Yes. There's a good thing, which is great. It's Jesus. He loves you.

00:53:43.140 And there's a very bad thing. And the very bad thing does not love you and does not want you're

00:53:46.680 good. He wants your destruction. And, you know, like there's, there's this blog and one of these

00:53:51.720 secular meditation. That's just so obviously true though. Look around. Yeah. I mean, to deny evil is it's,

00:53:56.640 it's the other thing I was saying when you said, you know, it feels like people are more aware

00:54:00.420 is evil just feels a lot more on its face than it ever was. Like it used to feel, I don't know.

00:54:06.180 I've only been around for a bit, but like under the surface and now it just feels a lot more

00:54:10.620 like it's right there. It's staring at you. Which, sorry, I interrupted you. You were about

00:54:14.460 to say something. No, no, no. But you said, so there's a book. Uh, no, there's this, there's on,

00:54:18.920 on one of these secular meditation websites. Um, you know, somebody, they write in questions or

00:54:25.300 whatever, and the, the meditation person, the secular meditation person answers them.

00:54:28.800 Um, and a woman wrote in and said, Hey, I was meditating and I had a thought come across

00:54:34.720 my mind about harming my child. Um, you know, what do I do with that? And the person just

00:54:40.900 responded like, well, okay, just treat that like any other thought, just like acknowledge

00:54:44.280 it and let it go. And, you know, keep trying to focus on your breath. And for me, I just,

00:54:48.960 I was like, man, that, that doesn't feel right. Like that doesn't. And the Christian teaching

00:54:53.420 is so much, so much deeper. Like all of, there's this spirituality called Ignatian spirituality,

00:54:58.680 where it's literally all just about, okay, you're sitting there in silence. You're sitting there in

00:55:02.360 prayer or at any moment in your day, how do you discern between what is good and what is bad?

00:55:08.040 It's called a discernment of spirits. And so it's like, well, how do you figure out

00:55:11.040 if something's talking to you? Is it the good guy or is it the bad guy? Cause that's it.

00:55:14.700 And our job is, Hey, if it's the bad guy, get the bad guy out of there, you know, fortify yourself

00:55:18.780 against your temptations, against your weaknesses, ignore him as much as possible. And if it's the good

00:55:24.240 guy, like try to let him in and let him transform your life. And the good guy wins. The good guy's

00:55:28.380 infinitely more powerful than the bad guy. We don't have to build up the bad guy into being

00:55:31.400 more powerful than Jesus. Jesus already won, but we have to continue the fight. And our job is

00:55:37.060 primarily within our own hearts to discern this good versus evil and to get the evil out. And I

00:55:42.440 don't know. I mean, it's.

00:55:43.840 But it's a big deal. I mean, the core Christian prayer says, and deliver us from the evil one.

00:55:49.460 Certainly.

00:55:50.400 Yeah. So, I mean, that suggests like, we should be afraid of that.

00:55:54.400 Well, it's a war. I mean, that's the story of scripture.

00:55:57.080 But it's not like something we just sort of let it go and hope it doesn't come back. It's

00:56:00.080 like, wow, that's really scary. That can destroy you and everyone you love.

00:56:03.900 Yeah. No, it's. And, and the thing is, it's, I don't know, for me, it's like in my own experience,

00:56:10.560 if I go back pre Jesus, um, in my life, it didn't feel like I was actively trying to do

00:56:17.680 evil. Like it, it didn't. Um, but I, I was like, I was a terrible guy. Uh, I was a bad

00:56:24.700 friend. I was bad in relationships. I was a terrible son. I was involved in many things

00:56:28.660 I shouldn't. I, I mean, and I believed many things that were truly evil, that were wrong,

00:56:34.120 truly evil. And, uh, you know, it was only after letting God into my heart that like, I

00:56:42.300 started seeing all these things. And I had this priest at this homily, I think it was like

00:56:45.540 a week ago. And he said, life is like you're driving in a car with a, with a cracked and

00:56:52.000 dirty windshield. When you're driving away from the sun, you don't see any of the cracks.

00:56:55.820 You don't see any of the fog. You don't see any of the defects in the windshield. But

00:56:59.640 as soon as you turn around and you start driving towards the sun, as soon as you start journeying

00:57:03.300 towards God, you start seeing all these cracks and all these defects. And it's with Christ,

00:57:07.980 like you start seeing like, oh my gosh, like how evil all this was, but that's the way of

00:57:13.500 the world. The way of the world is destruction. Like the, the, the road is wide. The way is easy

00:57:17.780 that leads to destruction. And there are many who follow it and the road is narrow and the way is

00:57:21.860 hard that leads to life. And there are a few who find it, but like, once you find it, it's, it's hard.

00:57:26.820 Yeah. Cause you have to fight against evil. It's not, it's not like you just get to disconnect and

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01:00:50.500 So, I should have asked you this at the outset. Of course, I conduct all interviews backwards.

01:00:55.400 So, my apologies. What is prayer?

01:00:58.120 Yeah. I think at... There's a bunch of different, really beautiful definitions of prayer. But for me,

01:01:06.720 at the heart, it's just the way you have a relationship with God.

01:01:12.360 It's the way you talk to Him. It's the way you listen. For me, primarily, it's listening. I mean,

01:01:16.420 if you believe what I believe, which is there's a God up there, He can talk to you,

01:01:20.820 and He knows what He wants for you, for your perfect good in every moment. Like, all you'd

01:01:25.900 want to do is listen. All you'd want to do is, you know, pick up your phone every morning and be

01:01:28.960 like, hey, God, what should I do? Yes. But it's not just in the morning, which is an important time

01:01:33.740 to spend time in prayer. But it's every moment. Like, He's here with us now, and He knows what

01:01:39.400 He wants. And what He wants is for your good. And He wants to enter your heart and transform it

01:01:44.520 and turn it radically on fire with His love to then go love others. And so prayer is the way we

01:01:52.120 have a relationship with the Lord. There's a quote that says, prayer is lifting up your heart

01:01:55.680 to God. It's the medium through which you have a relationship with the Lord. It's taking time to

01:02:00.940 sit in silence, to be alone with the one who loves you. There's all these beautiful definitions. But

01:02:05.380 for me, it's primarily, yeah, it's sharing. Like, it's helpful to share what's on your heart and to

01:02:09.540 ask for stuff. And God answers those things. Prayer is real. Prayer can change things. I've

01:02:14.220 seen it change things. There was a user who was at Hallow and was driving to work. And

01:02:23.900 he heard in prayer, hey, park in a different spot, which doesn't make any sense. He was a

01:02:32.340 teacher. It was like, park in a different spot of the parking lot. And he's driving, he's

01:02:36.580 praying. He hears God say, park in a different spot. He goes to a back corner that he never would

01:02:41.160 have parked in and he parks in it. And the school he went to was Uvalde, the school that got shot up.

01:02:45.940 And that day it got shot up. And had he been parked in the normal spot he would have parked in,

01:02:51.140 the shooter would have gone through his, directly through his car, but he stayed in the parking lot

01:02:55.060 and the shooter went around a different way. It was just like, so prayer works. I don't,

01:02:58.700 people call me crazy, whatever. Thoughts and prayers. Prayer works. Like prayer can change lives.

01:03:03.140 I've seen it literally actively save people's lives. There was a woman who was coding out and

01:03:09.640 her friend was sitting next to her. So she was dying. They were trying to resuscitate her.

01:03:13.640 And her friend was sitting next to her and they said, I'm going to pray a rosary on the app.

01:03:18.120 And she opened up the app and prayed a rosary. And the doctors say, okay, I'm sorry. We've,

01:03:24.980 you know, we've been trying to resuscitate, but she's not with us anymore. She's dead. And the woman

01:03:29.260 said, don't leave yet. We'll finish the rosary and then you can leave. And the doctor said, okay,

01:03:34.280 I don't know why. And they called time of death and two, three minutes go by. And then Jonathan,

01:03:40.820 who's the guy who does the rosary on the app, Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in the Chosen is

01:03:44.680 phenomenal. But he, he closes the rosary, says in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy

01:03:49.840 Spirit in a beep. And the heart just comes back. The woman just comes back to life. And so, I mean,

01:03:57.580 prayer works. Like, like you can ask God for things and he does them. He doesn't always answer

01:04:02.060 them, answer your prayers in the way that you expect. And he often, he often leads you to pain

01:04:07.560 and suffering, which is, you know, the way of the cross. It's the way he promises. It's the way of

01:04:11.980 his apostles. I mean, I have a lot easier life than my, than the, the apostles had, that's for sure.

01:04:16.860 But he'll lead us all to pain and suffering. And that's how he leads us closer to him. But prayer at

01:04:21.080 the core is, is talking to him, asking him for things. Yes. All the stuff that we know prayer is,

01:04:25.780 but then it's also listening. And for me, that's what really changed my life was learning to listen.

01:04:31.440 And that's mostly learning to sit in silence. There's a bunch of different ways to listen,

01:04:35.540 but mostly learning to sit in silence, meditating on scripture, reflecting on where God is in our

01:04:40.960 life, all these different ways. It's why we built the app because there's a thousand different ways

01:04:44.260 to grow closer to God, to learn how to listen. And it can, it can be scary for people who don't know

01:04:48.520 what that means, but to really try to spend time each day listening for God and, you know,

01:04:54.740 exploring whatever works for you in whatever time. Can you, I mean, I think a lot of us would

01:04:59.500 like to listen more carefully. Yeah. And prayer can't just be like a litany of complaints and

01:05:05.140 desires or something really ugly about that. Very narcissistic about it. But listening, you know,

01:05:12.600 into the void comes, well, in my case, like fly fishing, you know, or worrying about dumb stuff.

01:05:18.540 How, what is the process you use to listen to God?

01:05:24.300 Yeah. I love the question because it's the question I wrestled with. Uh, and it's the,

01:05:29.260 it is the whole reason we built Halo. Uh, and there's a thousand different techniques of prayer

01:05:34.720 and meditation on the app, a thousand different ways to structure your time in silence, because

01:05:38.560 one of the real hard parts is distraction. You start thinking about whatever worries or

01:05:43.240 issues. And there's a bunch of ways.

01:05:44.900 I believe this is addressed in the screw tape letters, as I recall.

01:05:47.460 Certainly. But one of the, there's, there's a bunch of ways to, so there's a bunch of different

01:05:51.620 techniques of prayer. And the first thing I'd recommend is I'm not going to do nearly as good

01:05:55.560 a job at teaching this as we do on the app. So folks should try Halo and download it, find whatever

01:06:01.940 session works for them and give it a shot. But, um, you know, like meditating with scripture,

01:06:05.980 as an example, there's a technique called Lexi Divina, uh, has a handful of different steps to it.

01:06:10.680 You, you make sure that you notice that you're in God's presence at the beginning. And then you

01:06:15.360 read like a short paragraph from scripture. So it's not just total silence, although, you know,

01:06:19.520 it's great to also spend time in total silence, but that can be harder for folks who are newer to

01:06:23.720 it. Cause you, you get distracted and you start thinking about work. And then you're just like,

01:06:26.860 wait, I just spent 20 minutes just thinking about all this stuff I had to do.

01:06:29.460 Exactly. That wasn't prayer. And, um, but you, you, you ask God, Hey, help me. I'm about to try to

01:06:37.000 pray. Uh, can you help me make this time what you want it to be? And then you pick a passage or,

01:06:42.640 you know, a few verses from scripture and you try to see, okay, what word, or maybe there's an image,

01:06:46.520 or maybe it's a phrase is the Holy spirit calling out to me. And for me, it was Halo in that first one,

01:06:52.240 but it can be anything. And, and it's funny, actually, the really cool part about scripture,

01:06:56.560 when you do this is you can do it in a group of like six, seven people. And like one sentence,

01:07:02.740 people will be like seven different words will stick out to them and seven different meanings

01:07:07.120 for different people at different stages in their life. You are a city built on a hill. Um,

01:07:10.840 it cannot be hid, uh, like city or hill or light, uh, shine, whatever. Like people will meditate on

01:07:16.960 different words and you try to focus on that word. So as your mind gets distracted, that's fine.

01:07:21.380 That happens. You just bring your mind gently back to the word, back to the point,

01:07:24.900 back to the focus, what you're trying to meditate on, which is, you know, for me was

01:07:28.400 Halo in this first meditation. And then you use that to share with God what's on your heart.

01:07:33.040 So it's good to share with God. You, you open up to him just like you would want your child to share

01:07:37.000 with you what's on their heart, what they're worried about, what they want, even if it's not

01:07:39.940 good for them, you want them to tell you, you know, you don't want to keep it secret. So you share

01:07:43.000 with them and then you try to sit in silence and you just try to, this is the hard part, but it's also

01:07:49.140 the beautiful part, which is after you get through this, you share what's on your heart and you spend your

01:07:52.840 time trying to recollect yourself and center yourself on, on scripture. Then you spend,

01:07:58.420 you know, it can just be like a minute. It can be two, three minutes and you just let, let God,

01:08:03.440 you just sit with God and you just try to sit with God. And if your mind gets distracted, that's fine.

01:08:08.140 You gently bring it back or another technique for distraction. And there's a bunch of these things.

01:08:12.460 It's a whole tradition. There's thousands of years of this monks and nuns and all this stuff doing this,

01:08:16.320 but you take the distraction and you say, okay, I'm really thinking about this thing at work.

01:08:20.900 I'm really thinking about this relationship that I have. And you use that for prayer. So you got,

01:08:26.440 the devil can use it to distract you away from God, or you can use it to transform it into prayer and

01:08:31.020 say, Hey God, this thing is happening at work. Is there something you want me to do here? Is there

01:08:35.640 something, how do you want me to handle this? I'm getting distracted. I keep thinking about this.

01:08:39.160 Is there something you're trying to tell me here? And then you listen. And sometimes it'll be obvious

01:08:43.160 and sometimes it won't be obvious. Sometimes scripture will jump out to you and sometimes God will speak

01:08:46.620 directly to you. Sometimes you might hear something audibly, but usually all the funny thing is I've

01:08:52.160 been doing this now for six years and I spend all my time every day just trying to, there's a bunch

01:09:00.440 of different stuff, but the core of it is trying to understand and share like really deep, really

01:09:04.440 awesome Christian contemplative and meditative spirituality with people. And so I read all these

01:09:10.700 spiritual directors, all these folks, all these saints, all this stuff. And the funny thing is,

01:09:15.020 it's like at the core of all of it, there's nothing like, the greatest truths are also the simplest.

01:09:25.260 All God wants in prayer is to show you how much he loves you and to just hold you and to just love

01:09:31.800 you. And it's like, that sounds lame as like a man, like you're like, Oh, I want to be strong. I don't

01:09:35.700 need love, whatever it is, but you do like, you need this love of Christ and he loves you so deeply

01:09:40.940 and so infinitely. And it doesn't matter what you, we had this woman right into us who was trapped in

01:09:44.360 this tremendous state of sin. She said she was overwhelmed with shame, sexual sin. She was,

01:09:49.700 she was a terrible person, violence, all this stuff. And she entered into prayer and it was just silence.

01:09:54.640 And she just heard God say to her, I love you. And she goes, you can't love me. I'm a terrible

01:10:00.200 person. I'm the worst sinner. I know I I'm trapped in this cycle of sin. And he says, I love you.

01:10:05.020 She goes, you can't, you can't love me. I'm not worth it. He says, I love you. I love you. I love

01:10:08.800 you. And he just kept saying it until she said, okay, fine. And what he does is he loves us so much

01:10:13.660 so that our heart overflows both for love back to him, but also to then go share that love with

01:10:18.660 other people. We had another young girl who had never heard that she was beautiful from anyone in

01:10:25.100 her life. She was 20 years old. She had never heard, it just breaks my heart as a father, had never heard

01:10:30.100 anyone tell her she was beautiful, just ugly. She had just heard that she was ugly her whole life. And she

01:10:34.380 looked in the mirror, she started a little meditation, not in the audio or anything. And

01:10:37.880 she just heard the words from God, you are beautifully and wonderfully made. Do you think

01:10:41.020 I make mistakes? And it's just like you, God will tell you if you give them, and it's not, you know,

01:10:45.740 don't try it once, try it a bunch. You have to persevere. You have to try it for a year. Don't try

01:10:50.600 it for two weeks. Don't try it for four weeks. Try it for a year, just 10, 20 minutes in silence.

01:10:54.560 But what God will do if you give them that little crack is he'll tell you exactly what he wants to

01:10:59.820 tell you, which no one, I can't tell you. I don't, but it is at the core that you are loved

01:11:04.120 and that you are called to greatness. You're not called to sit in your sin. You're not called

01:11:07.440 to be the same. You're called to be transformed, to be perfect. And he brings that out of you. He

01:11:12.740 brings love out of you. And the other unique thing about prayer is prayer is completely useless,

01:11:17.460 a total waste of time if it does not lead to a life of love. And Christianity is very clear.

01:11:22.980 It's not like meditation or working out or anything that makes you feel happy, which it does.

01:11:26.500 It makes you feel all that stuff, but it must lead to a life of radical love and radical service

01:11:31.900 and fighting for the good and fighting for the truth and fighting for those who most need it.

01:11:35.940 And so yeah, for prayer, I think the ultimate stage of it, yes, knowing you're loved, but then

01:11:42.400 ultimately what you do after listening is you try to surrender your life completely to him. You try to

01:11:47.920 give up everything to him so that you no longer live, but Christ lives within you and that you pray

01:11:53.340 unceasingly. So the end state is like, I try to talk to God. I try to share what's on my heart.

01:11:58.100 I try to listen for him. It's hard. I get distracted, but I try my best to listen for him.

01:12:02.220 And then what I try to do is let him into my heart to surrender my heart completely and totally to him

01:12:06.500 so that he takes over everything. And so anyway, I know that's a long answer, but that to me is what

01:12:10.960 prayer is. It's not a long answer. It's a great answer. How does, you said earlier that fasting

01:12:15.820 and prayer go together? That's often forgotten. Mark Wahlberg's been trying to remind us of that.

01:12:22.040 What is the connection between them? And what do you mean by fasting?

01:12:28.680 Well, traditionally what is meant by fasting is food. But it's interesting because fasting used

01:12:33.960 to be a massive part of, it's not even talked about that much in scripture because it was so

01:12:38.020 assumed. Like people just knew that you were supposed to have fast.

01:12:40.260 Right. And that's how it's referred to, at least in the reference I can think of. It's almost like,

01:12:43.940 you know, when you fast, by the way, when you are fasting, assuming you will be.

01:12:47.400 Hey, you're supposed to fast. It's like, of course we're supposed to fast. It was just assumed.

01:12:51.260 Whereas in today's world, we don't. And we have all these. So anyway, at the core of fasting is

01:12:55.540 from food. We have all these what? Like we soften, we soften fasting, which is true. Like some people

01:13:01.780 have eating disorders or some people have issues with fasting or some people have issues like health

01:13:06.420 issues or women are pregnant or breastfeeding or whatever it is. And so there's all these reasons.

01:13:09.620 But like for me as a, whatever, 30 year old man, I can fast a day. Like I can go a day without food.

01:13:15.460 I can just drink water. I can go many days without food actually, but I can certainly go a day without

01:13:19.700 food. And it's one of the things about, especially when we talk to young men, it's like Christianity

01:13:25.720 has been soft and sadly so. And what it is is, you know, Christianity really, if you read the gospels,

01:13:35.980 like if you really read what Jesus is saying, it's not soft. It's really hard. And it's two things

01:13:42.440 that are both really hard, radical mercy and radical justice and perfection and avoidance of sin and

01:13:49.640 defeating the devil. Like it's, it's, it's radical both. And so, yes, there is a radical love, which is

01:13:55.380 like, hey, no matter what you do in your life, I will love you. I will, I will forgive you if you come

01:14:00.680 to me. At the same time, you are called to be perfect. Not like, hey, you're a good person

01:14:06.380 because you go to church on Sundays or, hey, you're a good person because you don't yell at people.

01:14:09.760 It's like, no, you're called to never be angry with somebody again. And fasting is one of those

01:14:15.700 things that, so I don't know, for me, for as, I mean, there's like this, there's this old, there's a

01:14:20.660 bunch of my team makes fun of me because I love all these like kind of crazy Christian stories. But

01:14:24.140 there was like these old group of monks called the stylites that would just in the desert,

01:14:30.020 they would just climb on top of a column. So Roman column in the middle of the desert,

01:14:34.920 and they would just die. They would just starve to death on the column for Christ to, to sacrifice

01:14:40.500 their bodies for Christ, which is certainly probably not what most people are called to. But fasting,

01:14:46.260 I mean, at the core was food or at the, at the basic is food for anybody where that is, you know,

01:14:52.020 acceptable is I think something that we're all called to, but it can be anything. So it really,

01:14:57.320 what is fasting is anything you want, which I, I like food. I like bad food. I like, so fasting

01:15:03.260 from food is hard, but it can be fasting from your food, from your phone. It can be fasting from,

01:15:08.040 you know, a social media scroll. It can be fasting from anything that you want is just giving it up.

01:15:13.920 Any addiction that you have, that's of this world, that isn't something that is helping you grow

01:15:18.260 closer to the Lord, just giving it up. And it doesn't have to be, you know, bad. It doesn't

01:15:22.740 have to be bad in nature, like chocolate. Jesus isn't against chocolate, but you can give up like,

01:15:28.340 Hey, you know, I'm not going to have that extra cookie just as a small little sacrifice for God.

01:15:33.080 And Jesus is really clear in scripture, which is, you know, there's a story of this man who's

01:15:37.800 possessed and his apostles, men of great faith, uh, try to cast it out. And they're able to cast

01:15:42.540 out many demons and they can't cast it out. And Jesus comes and says, okay, I'll cast it out.

01:15:47.780 Fine. And cast it out, of course. And his apostles say, well, why couldn't we, why couldn't we do

01:15:53.140 that? And he says, some things can only be accomplished through prayer and fasting.

01:15:57.260 And so it's like the power of fasting is, I think this really untapped and you see it actually in,

01:16:03.060 in today's culture too. Like we've tried to pick all these different things where it's kind of like

01:16:07.800 fasting, but not like cold showers or cold plunges. Now we're like, Oh, you should do it. It's like,

01:16:12.220 it's hard. It makes you, um, it helps you grow in discipline. It's all this stuff or, um, you know,

01:16:17.400 intermittent fasting, all these different things. And it's like, yeah, Christianity has been doing

01:16:21.280 that for 2000 years. Like cold showers are another great way to fast. But for me, I don't know,

01:16:25.760 whenever I fast, which traditionally it's like Wednesdays or Thursdays. And again, you can have

01:16:30.520 like a meal or something, but it's, you should eat dramatically less food than you do otherwise,

01:16:34.780 or maybe it's from coffee or maybe it's from whatever. But whenever I fast from food,

01:16:38.200 it's this interesting, I just feel like it's the same thing, by the way, whenever I sit in front of

01:16:46.160 the Eucharist, but, uh, for me, whenever I fast, I just feel like, you know, it's not radical,

01:16:51.520 but it's like 20% easier for me to enter into prayer. And so like, you'll sit in prayer for like

01:16:56.500 20 minutes and your mind will get distracted for a while and you share, share everything that's on

01:17:00.580 your heart and you're trying to meditate with scripture. But then at the end, you'll have like

01:17:02.900 two or three minutes once you get really into it. And it's just a little bit at the beginning,

01:17:06.180 but like two or three minutes where it just feels like the saints described this as like union with

01:17:11.360 God, but it just, it feels like you're really close to God. Like you feel very connected spiritually

01:17:15.820 and there's something good. And it takes a while and it's really hard, but when I fast, I can do it

01:17:21.580 in like, it doesn't take like 18 minutes of me sharing or trying to not to, it takes like 30 seconds.

01:17:26.360 Like I could just be here and I could just be like, man, like, yeah, I feel like God is right here.

01:17:30.740 What do you think that is?

01:17:31.660 I don't know. I think it's the further, I'm certainly not a theologian, so I don't know.

01:17:36.100 But for me, it's like the further I get from this world, the closer I get to God and the world,

01:17:41.800 you know, we're called to live in the world and work in the world. And we're called to take care

01:17:44.720 of our bodies and to serve as best as we can within the world. But God is not, we are called

01:17:52.600 to not be of this world, to be in the world, but not of the world. And I think as we disconnect

01:17:56.800 from the things that most tether us to the world, we get closer to the spiritual realm,

01:18:02.020 which, you know, to me is a relationship with the Lord.

01:18:04.620 How often do you fast?

01:18:06.520 I try to, everybody has their own journey, but I try to fast Wednesdays and Fridays.

01:18:11.800 During Lent, I try to-

01:18:12.940 Wednesdays and Fridays?

01:18:14.160 Yeah. Now, you know, sometimes I'll do kind of like a half fast where I'll still eat,

01:18:20.380 but probably about half of what I would eat in a normal day. And, but during Lent, I try to do full

01:18:25.380 fasts. And then I try to do a full fast, um, uh, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday and sometimes

01:18:32.700 longer, but, uh, honestly at the beginning-

01:18:36.220 So you, you only eat five days a week, ideally?

01:18:39.860 Yeah. During Lent, yeah. And during regular times, I will eat on Wednesdays and Fridays,

01:18:45.300 but usually it's, it's about a third to a half of the like calories or amount of food that I would

01:18:52.760 eat on a regular day.

01:18:53.540 And then you fast three days on Easter weekend.

01:18:57.280 Yeah. I usually, I fast Good Friday, Saturday, and then to, to mass. And then, you know, there

01:19:02.640 was a year I fasted all of Holy Week, but-

01:19:05.440 What was that like?

01:19:06.860 Ah, my wife was a saint through it. I was coming back to my faith. There's something special about

01:19:10.980 folks who are new back to their faith. You've got this fire that is important for us who have

01:19:14.460 been taking faith seriously to try to rekindle, um, which we have a lot of folks on. I've talked a lot

01:19:19.780 about people who have come back to their faith on Hallow, but it's an honor to get to pray with

01:19:22.580 everybody. I take my faith seriously and I use the app three times a day, but, um, yeah, that was a,

01:19:28.100 that was a seven day fast, which, um, was pretty intense. Like you, you start getting, I would say,

01:19:35.840 I would say the first two days suck because you're just really hungry.

01:19:39.380 But then you don't, after the second day, I'm not hungry. I don't feel the sensation of hunger,

01:19:44.520 really. Maybe it comes every once in a while, but I'm not really hungry. And so it is just like

01:19:48.980 living a whole day, like what I was saying, like just where within a minute, anytime you think about

01:19:53.920 God, you can just enter into this prayer space, which is, and the other thing it does is, you know,

01:19:59.680 Jesus describes himself as meek and humble of heart. And whenever you have a lot of food, I don't know,

01:20:04.180 there's something that kind of puffs you up. Like when you have all the energy and when you're just,

01:20:07.440 when you're hungry, you're just like, you're so much more humble and so much meeker.

01:20:10.920 That's true.

01:20:11.380 And so you feel like, man, this is probably how I should be all the time. Um, but then,

01:20:17.600 yeah, certainly towards the end of it, you start getting slow and you lose energy and it's hard

01:20:21.060 to walk and it's hard to do. It's hard to, you know, have enough energy for it. And then I was

01:20:26.040 supposed to, you're supposed to like eat bone broth or something when you come back to your faith.

01:20:29.020 And so after Sunday Easter, after Sunday vigil mass or Saturday vigil mass for Easter,

01:20:34.460 I had my wife get me some bone broth or something. And I was just like,

01:20:37.180 this is disgusting. I need some McDonald's. And so, which was not, I would certainly not

01:20:41.800 recommend eating McDonald's after a long fast.

01:20:43.800 Did you?

01:20:44.240 I did. And I felt pretty bad.

01:20:45.780 What'd you get? Filet of fish or do you go all the way?

01:20:47.560 Oh no, it was Easter. So it was a feast day. So I could celebrate. So I had a,

01:20:50.320 I had a couple of burgers or something. Yeah. I don't eat McDonald's anymore, but I did that.

01:20:54.720 No, I don't either. But how did, how, what was that like going from,

01:20:59.540 you know, empty tank to filling it with McDonald's?

01:21:02.020 Uh, yeah, it was not, not recommended. Not recommended. You feel like crap. I mean,

01:21:06.940 and the other, actually, this is the funny thing about the spiritual life is actually how,

01:21:11.660 how, how many analogies there are for it. But like I've, I, so I, and this year I've,

01:21:17.280 I've tried to do a lot better job of eating healthier and like cleaner and more protein and

01:21:23.440 all the stuff you're supposed to do. And it's this, it's this funny sensation where like,

01:21:28.900 then the bad food, it's, it's really hard at the beginning because you're addicted to all these,

01:21:33.280 all these things, all these foods that are terrible for you. You're addicted to them.

01:21:36.260 So you got to break it. And that's really hard. It's like, oh, I want sweets or I want,

01:21:39.660 you know, processed foods or chips or whatever it is. And so it's really hard at the beginning,

01:21:43.040 but then once you get through it, you start to realize like, well, actually clean food,

01:21:48.500 like good natural food tastes way better, like is way better. And the fast food is,

01:21:54.600 it starts to be disgusting. Like it starts to be like, ah. And so like,

01:21:58.500 I haven't had McDonald's, which is, I'm a big fan of McDonald's, but I haven't had McDonald's in

01:22:02.520 a long time. And now it's just like, yeah. And my wife and I were saying the same thing. It's like,

01:22:08.360 I don't even, not only do you not want it, like for, for a while there, you just don't want it.

01:22:12.480 And that's nice. But then you start to ultimately like actively dislike it, like the, the stuff that's

01:22:18.140 bad for you. And I think it's very similar in the spiritual life. It's like this journey of,

01:22:23.100 like at the beginning, when you try to break a habit of sin, it's really hard to break because

01:22:29.220 you're really attached to it. And then you get to a point where it's like, okay, well, I don't,

01:22:33.480 you know, by the grace of God, I don't really want this thing anymore. And then you get to this point

01:22:36.700 where it's like, I actively hate that thing. That thing is evil. That thing was destroying me. I see

01:22:40.780 it now. Like I can see what it was doing to my soul. And anytime I get anywhere close to it, you like

01:22:45.340 feel like, no, this is bad. This is terrible for you, which is kind of this funny analogy with food.

01:22:51.240 Um, but yeah, so anyway, I wouldn't, I wouldn't fast. Um, I wouldn't fast and then eat McDonald's

01:22:57.840 certainly would not be the recommendation. Although Kevin James, he shared this on Rogan,

01:23:02.880 so I can, I can share it, but he did a 40, 41 day fast or something crazy, which was insane.

01:23:08.560 And I had dinner with him when he had, during his fast, like 20 days into his fast or something

01:23:12.440 crazy. And he was, uh, you know, he, I was like, are you okay if I eat? And he was like, yeah,

01:23:19.100 I like to look at food. Like I need to look at it. So I still have a relationship with it,

01:23:23.060 but I'm fasting and he did it for his family, which is beautiful. But, um,

01:23:27.020 Kevin James, the actor.

01:23:28.100 Yeah. Incredible. Incredible man of faith. Awesome.

01:23:31.380 Really?

01:23:31.820 Yeah. Yeah. You should talk to him. He's, he's,

01:23:34.040 I haven't seen him. He's inspirational.

01:23:35.820 I went on a sitcom he had once years ago, many years, 20 years ago.

01:23:39.920 Anyway, I haven't seen him since I had no idea.

01:23:42.480 I'll tell you there's, we've got some, I can't, I can't share everything now, but we've got,

01:23:46.820 there's, there's a lot more people, celebrities or whoever, who are faithful folks, um, who are

01:23:55.500 just, you know, haven't really had the opportunity or the culture or the, the platform to share their

01:24:01.060 faith. And it's cool to get to meet these people and to get to talk to them about what God has done

01:24:05.560 in their life. And it's, it's way more people than you would imagine. So really?

01:24:09.620 Yeah. That's cool. I think there's something cool happening in the world. So we'll see.

01:24:13.160 I think that too. I don't think you can have this much evil without a counterbalance.

01:24:18.480 Well, in the darkest night, that's where the light, the darkness cannot overcome the light.

01:24:23.160 And it's, it's like, yeah, it's, I don't know, the night is darkest before the dawn. There's all

01:24:26.980 this stuff that's all this traditional wisdom that you say, but you don't really realize.

01:24:32.100 And I think we're in this time where, I don't know, evil feels a lot more on its face than it

01:24:36.140 ever was, but so does good. And like, I think God is doing something really cool and I'm excited for

01:24:43.120 it. So we'll see what the good Lord wills. We are proud at TCN to offer quality long form

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01:28:17.480 guys do. I'm really struck by the persecution of Christians, which I never thought I would see in

01:28:36.440 the modern era in this country. On two levels. One, it just doesn't make any sense because Christians are

01:28:42.860 the most sort of productive, least threatening, nicest, like why, you know, if you're running a

01:28:50.440 country, why would you be bad? You'd want more Christians because they actually pay their taxes

01:28:54.200 and like have obedient children and they're just easier. Have children, yeah. Yeah, have children.

01:28:58.900 They're easier to deal with. So I'm sort of baffled by it. And then I look at it, I'm like, well,

01:29:03.720 no, no, that is a, there's something so offensive to the world about the word Jesus, unless it's used

01:29:10.940 as an epithet, that that phenomenon itself is evidence of God's existence. I think that word has

01:29:19.680 power despite 2000 years of misuse. Yeah. Um, I mean, we, we, we have seen a lot of different,

01:29:28.940 um, backlash from the app. I mean, there's, have you, I should have asked you that. Have

01:29:34.960 you really? Yeah. I mean, there's, you know, whatever attack articles about we're radical

01:29:39.540 because we're pro-life or any other. There have actually been pieces attacking Hello?

01:29:46.900 Oh yeah, certainly. Um, would you find that kind of hilarious? Well, you know, at the beginning,

01:29:52.080 it, it, at the beginning, it stressed me out, but certainly actually funnily enough, there were two

01:29:56.320 vice and Buzzfeed, both wrote hit pieces and really within like a month or two, both were

01:30:02.460 bankrupt. Yeah. Which is, um, I never celebrate anyone's bankruptcy. And I didn't, I didn't allow

01:30:07.920 myself to celebrate either one of those. Cause I don't want to be the kind of person who celebrates,

01:30:11.480 you know, people suffering and the people who work there suffered. And so, but, um, I, uh, it didn't

01:30:18.660 wreck my day. I'll be honest. Yeah. The, um, and we got, uh, the app got kicked out of

01:30:26.100 China, the Chinese cybersecurity administration or something deemed our content illegal and

01:30:31.340 seriously removed it from the app store. Yeah. Uh, we launched a challenge on, apparently they're

01:30:36.600 not huge fans of John Paul II. And we did a meditation on how he led, did a lot of work

01:30:40.980 on defeating communism globally. Yeah. Um, Gorbachev, uh, credits him with being one of the

01:30:46.800 major forces to destroy the Soviet Union and, or communism at least. And yeah, they didn't like

01:30:53.600 that. So they sent a note to Apple and Apple removed our app from the app store in China.

01:30:58.380 But there there's, so there's been, there's been a bunch of stuff. Um, and whatever, you just have

01:31:03.900 to look at Twitter to find anybody who hates Jesus or any of Mark's posts or anything. But, um, but I

01:31:10.180 don't know the thing that bothers me the most or the thing that makes me the most sad is, is, is like

01:31:13.700 the, like there's the on the face persecution where it's, you know, like, Hey, you're not allowed in

01:31:18.960 China, which is sad. Like we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ in China. And it's a tough,

01:31:23.300 it's a tough environment certainly to try to share the gospel and to try to live the gospel. But,

01:31:29.780 you know, the sadder thing for me is honestly just like the, it's like the, the undercurrent of like,

01:31:37.420 um, trying to get away from Jesus. And this, this is certainly isn't everybody, but it's a lot.

01:31:44.260 And it's like, Hey, you know, you can share about faith and you can share about prayer, but

01:31:48.120 like, let's not talk about Jesus specifically. Let's just not do the Jesus thing. Uh, let's just

01:31:53.360 talk about like religion more broadly or like how Alex, you should build a Buddhist version of this

01:31:58.080 and a Hindu version of this and a Muslim version of this. And, you know, we'd invest if you were

01:32:01.820 broader spirituality, but not, you know, just the Jesus thing. And I'm like, yeah, sorry. I'm,

01:32:07.460 it's just going to be Jesus or like a, you know, a TV commercial where somebody's like,

01:32:11.340 okay, we can talk about prayer and it's a prayer app, but like, don't show a picture of Jesus in

01:32:15.380 it. And it's like, that's going to be a picture of Jesus. And it's, don't you find it so revealing

01:32:20.600 that Jesus 2000 years later is controversial? Yeah. But he's always been whether, but on what

01:32:27.980 grounds? I mean, it doesn't, it's, it's, it's so irrational that again, it's proof of its reality,

01:32:33.060 but like what the guy who told his followers to pray for their persecutors and turn the other

01:32:38.420 cheek, like that guy is controversial. Like why? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's from a Christian

01:32:43.560 perspective, it's because it's not, it's not just people who are, it's not people who are cranky

01:32:49.340 at Jesus. I'm exactly right. No, it's a spiritual war. And so it's like, it almost makes it so much

01:32:53.540 more obvious when you're like, okay, well, why are you so against, uh, you know, why are you so

01:32:58.500 against life? It's like, well, if I was Satan, what would I do? That's what I would do. Uh, and I

01:33:04.980 would try to destroy Jesus. I would try to get Jesus out of everywhere. I'd try to secularize

01:33:08.800 society and make it and remove Jesus. The, you know, and I think our country was, I don't know,

01:33:16.540 we've done, you've talked about this before where it's like the last, whatever, 40, 50 years of

01:33:20.220 trying to build a secular society, but that's not what our country is. Our country is a Christian

01:33:23.400 country. And we're doing this one nation under God series on the app as we go through the election,

01:33:28.540 but it just focuses on like, even if, if you go back to any of the founding fathers, you know,

01:33:34.400 they talk about the importance of prayer and how God is building this country. Now we have to trust

01:33:38.280 him with it. And Abraham Lincoln has this beautiful quote where he's like, Hey, in the midst of the

01:33:42.900 civil war, he's like, Hey guys, we have really screwed up. We have tricked ourselves into thinking

01:33:49.420 that our own success, that our success was the result of our own hard work and virtue and wisdom.

01:33:54.980 When in reality, we know it's God leading us, but we have forgotten to pray for him. We have become

01:34:01.460 too proud to pray to the God that made us. This is his last quote, which is just beautiful,

01:34:05.340 but it's like, yeah, we've forgotten prayer. Like prayer should be, politics is important. We should

01:34:09.580 engage in politics, but it comes at the end. Like the beginning is the heart and the beginning is

01:34:12.840 prayer. And whenever you think of like, well, this world is going down the wrong path. Yeah. That's

01:34:20.060 the way of the world. The way of the world is not, it's not the C.S. Lewis describes the world as

01:34:24.320 enemy occupied territory. Uh, and Christianity is the story of how the rifle King has landed and

01:34:29.840 invited all of us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. And it's like, yeah,

01:34:34.400 that's what it is. The world is enemy occupied territory. The world is Satan's. The world is evil.

01:34:40.040 The way of the world is destruction. The way of the world is death. And Christianity is this crazy

01:34:44.500 thing. Like it used to be normal societally. Uh, and so we kind of forget about it, but it's this

01:34:50.300 insane thing. It's a crazy thing to believe that God sent his only son so that we all shall have

01:34:55.500 life in heaven with him. It's this crazy thing to, in that he's here with us now, like an invisible

01:35:00.940 person is right here who loves us both. Who's trying to help us both. And he's in our hearts.

01:35:05.000 He's trying to transform our hearts. And there's this giant war going on all around us, invisible

01:35:08.840 war with angels and demons and whatever, trying to convince our hearts, trying to win our hearts.

01:35:13.060 Like that's a crazy thing to believe, but that's what we believe. And so, but, but when you really

01:35:19.200 enter into it and you're like, ah, it's crazy, but yeah, you have the words of everlasting life

01:35:23.020 to whom else shall we go? And everything becomes just a lot clearer, but it also, it takes a bit

01:35:29.020 of the weight off of it. Like I used to get so worried about all these world events and it's

01:35:33.420 like, well, you know, God's in charge of this thing. He's already promised us that he won it.

01:35:37.960 And it's just our job to try to be as good a people as we can, to try to be saints and to try

01:35:41.660 to let God into our hearts to transform them. Is that the message of one nation under God?

01:35:47.700 Yeah. I mean, the message of one nation under God is politics is important. We should engage in it.

01:35:53.840 Well, actually here's the message of one nation under God is just in scripture itself, but

01:35:57.880 it's the passage of when they ask Jesus, should they pay the census tax to Rome, this evil government,

01:36:06.220 evil, evil government.

01:36:07.380 Check the coin.

01:36:08.460 Which is, you know, had just killed like, you know, 30 years earlier, had just killed all the

01:36:12.700 firstborn children in this area to try to kill Jesus. Like that's a terrible, and they're saying,

01:36:16.520 okay, well, should we pay the tax to this oppressive government that's oppressing us?

01:36:20.160 And Jesus says, okay, show me the coin. And he says, okay, whose face and whose inscription is

01:36:25.280 on this coin? And they say Caesar's. And he says, okay, well then render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

01:36:29.160 Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And then that's what we focus on usually. That's usually the,

01:36:33.520 and then everybody talks about, which is true, what that means, which is that it's important to

01:36:37.880 engage in the politics of this world. There are important things. There are important fights to be

01:36:40.960 had. We need to engage in them. We need to take them seriously. We need to be God's hands and feet in the

01:36:44.900 world. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar. Engage in politics. Do your civic duty. But then the second

01:36:50.640 half of that line is, but give unto God what is God's. And we usually throw that part away. And

01:36:55.260 it's like, okay, yeah, obviously we give unto God what is God's. But it's like, okay, but give unto

01:36:58.160 God what is God's. Okay. Well, the coin had Caesar's face and Caesar's inscription. And I'm stealing this

01:37:03.700 from a homily I heard from a priest. But the coin had Caesar's face and Caesar's inscription. Okay,

01:37:08.940 where is God's face? You are God's face. You were made in the image and likeness of God. And where

01:37:14.440 are God's words imprinted? Where is his inscription? It's on your heart. His words are imprinted on your

01:37:18.980 heart from the beginning of time. His words, his law, his love is imprinted on your heart. So give

01:37:23.000 unto God's what is God's. Where's his face? Where's his inscription? It's in you. You are his face. You

01:37:27.580 are his inscription. And so your job, yes, is to give unto Caesar what is Caesar. Sure, pay the coin back to

01:37:31.960 Caesar. But give unto God what is God's, which is your whole life. You should give your whole life to him. You have

01:37:36.880 to give everything, your heart, your life, your soul, everything to God. And so when we get wrapped

01:37:41.160 up in politics, it's important. Again, we should engage in it. It's not diminishing politics or the

01:37:46.080 importance of politics in any way. But the first thing is, do we give unto God what is God's? And

01:37:50.980 it's the one thing that like, I still think has a chance at cutting across political boundaries or

01:37:56.480 whatever it is in this country and saying, man, if we just let Christ into our hearts, if we just let

01:38:01.900 Jesus come, he can fix it. He can fix it all. And so we just need to pray for Christ's will to be

01:38:08.420 done in our world, primarily first within our hearts, and then for all of us to build up our

01:38:12.020 communities and our country and our society in the way that the good Lord intends so that we can build

01:38:15.940 up the kingdom of God. How do you use the Hello app? Me? I use it a lot. But I have this little,

01:38:26.840 I have a routine on my app. We have these little things where you can set up like personal routines,

01:38:31.740 which I love. But like my routine is this, which is there's daily readings. So in there's a signed

01:38:42.180 reading from the Old Testament, a Psalm, and then the gospel reading. So I do those in the morning.

01:38:48.580 And I try to spend like 20 minutes in silence. There's an unguided structured silence session.

01:38:53.440 So you don't have to like set an alarm or anything that takes you out of it. It's kind of a peaceful

01:38:56.520 way to in and out. It just kind of structures the silence for you. And so I try to do 20 minutes

01:39:00.580 in silence each day. And then when, um, right when I wake up first thing, certainly I try not to look

01:39:06.100 at my phone. I've tried to get my phone out of my room. It's terrible to have your phone when you

01:39:10.040 first wake up. It's awful, awful for you. If you know, for your second business, if you could invent

01:39:16.300 a reliable alarm clock. Yeah. Yeah. Just reinvent the alarm clock. I think that would get phones out of

01:39:22.480 people's rooms. Yeah. You need them out of your rooms. It's, it's, I've had everyone uses the

01:39:26.760 alarm. I know it's heartbreaking, but there's, there's good, I have a good alarm clock. We've

01:39:31.760 figured out alarm clocks, you know, it's, there's, I have, my wife and I actually both have a good

01:39:36.180 alarm clock. She still has her phone in her room, but it's, um, but she also, we have a two month old,

01:39:41.620 so she has to wake up in the middle of the night and feed the kitten. So she's got to do something

01:39:44.720 while she's feeding the kitten or else she'll fall asleep. But, um, there's this surrender

01:39:49.040 novena that I do in the middle of the day. There's a litany of humility that I do in the

01:39:52.180 middle of the day, which is a series of humility prayers, which is like, man, if you want something

01:39:56.360 to put you in your place, this, this will be like, you know, what, what people think they're

01:40:01.160 humble and you're not, you're not even close. So give me an example, give me any, I'd love this,

01:40:05.980 uh, humility being the key to wisdom, by the way. So I think it's worth pursuing.

01:40:09.820 Well, how does this put you in your place?

01:40:14.740 The litany of humility is the most intense part. We start every, uh, every, every,

01:40:18.720 lent with it. Um, but it's the series of prayers where you ask God to give you humility,

01:40:24.800 but tactically like what it actually means for you. And it's asking for these crazy things where

01:40:30.860 you ask God that others may be loved more than I, that in the opinion of the world, others may

01:40:35.680 increase and I may decrease, that others may be more successful than I, that others may be chosen

01:40:40.240 and I set aside. Um, come on now, all these crazy things that are, uh, you're supposed to mean that.

01:40:46.160 Yeah. Well, what you pray for is, or from the fear of embarrassment or from the fear of everyone

01:40:51.100 hating you or from the fear of people lying about you and besmirching your name or whatever it is

01:40:54.680 from the, from the fear of everything bad that could happen to you, deliver me Jesus. And so you

01:40:59.880 pray this, Hey, deliver me Jesus from these fears of the world hating you essentially. And the prayer

01:41:05.500 here is God grant me the grace to desire it. Jesus grant me the grace to desire it. So certainly I,

01:41:10.140 I don't, you know, like if I just walk down the street and I see somebody, uh, I don't naturally

01:41:16.620 want them to be more successful than I am. Um, and so what you pray for is like, Jesus grant me the

01:41:22.400 grace to desire it. Now, the interesting thing about that though, is with kids, it's different.

01:41:27.160 Like God has, I have a four-year-old, two-year-old, two-month-old and God is just,

01:41:33.080 kids are the greatest theology lesson in the, that you could ever possibly receive. And the,

01:41:38.120 one of them for me is humility, which is like, when I look at someone random, I don't naturally

01:41:46.500 want them to have a higher opinion from the world than I do. Uh, but when I look at my kids or like

01:41:52.640 to have a better life than I do, uh, but when I look at my kids, if I look at my daughter, my son

01:41:56.820 and it's like, yeah, of course I want you to have a better life than I do. And there's no, I don't

01:42:00.820 feel like, uh, I don't feel like jealousy. No, it's like, no, please. Like I want you to be in the,

01:42:05.520 and the last thing you pray actually is that others may be holier than I provided that I may

01:42:09.800 become as holy as I should. And it's like, I want you to be closer to God than I am. I want you to

01:42:15.360 be holier than I am. I want you to be happier, more joyful, you know, whatever worldly success

01:42:19.660 God wants from you. I want you to have it. Like, I want you to have such a better life than I do.

01:42:24.000 And it's not, there's no, like, I feel no, there's no jealousy. There's no comparison.

01:42:28.500 Just the opposite. That's the deepest desire of your heart. We used to call that,

01:42:32.020 in fact, the American dream. Right. That your children would be better off than you. No,

01:42:35.620 for real. Yeah. Um, that is what every parent wants for his children.

01:42:40.660 But what you're supposed to, I mean, the crazy thing in Christianity is that's how God feels

01:42:46.020 about all his children. And that's how we're called to feel about our brothers and sisters

01:42:49.200 in Christ is how I feel about my daughter. And it's in the other great piece of it, of fatherhood

01:42:55.000 is like, I don't know, as a person, as an adult, you're like, well, I'm going to do something bad.

01:43:00.040 And if I screw somebody over, they're not going to like me anymore. You know, they have no reason

01:43:04.380 to forgive me. They have no reason to do any of that. That's not the natural way of things. The

01:43:07.600 natural way of things isn't forgiveness, but you look at your daughter and then in, in the Christian,

01:43:12.340 in the Christian teaching, it's like, well, but God forgives you no matter what. And it's like,

01:43:15.980 I don't really buy that. That's pretty intense. Like no matter what, really, even the really evil

01:43:19.780 ones, even the ones we all hate, uh, he forgives them no matter what, if they come to him.

01:43:24.100 And it's like, well, just think about your own. Like if my son did something terrible,

01:43:28.080 like the worst possible thing I could imagine. And he comes to me and he says, dad, I'm sorry.

01:43:32.800 I forgive him instantly. And instantly, not even a question, not even like anything I would hold

01:43:37.620 over. It's just like, I love you so much. Yes. I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're happy. Like I,

01:43:43.360 I, I, I certainly aren't, aren't, I'm not going to lie to him about something bad. Like if he's doing

01:43:47.520 something bad, I'll be like, Hey, you should stop doing that. It's bad for your soul. But it's not,

01:43:51.340 it has nothing to do with like me trying to make him smaller or berate him or anything. It's just

01:43:56.420 concern for him. And as Christians, it's like, okay, well, yeah, that's the lesson you're given,

01:44:01.360 which is you feel that naturally for your kids. Some people, certainly there are terrible parents

01:44:05.960 out there, but I feel that natural. I didn't have to work out. I think most parents know exactly

01:44:09.460 what you're talking about. And so then Christianity is like, okay, well then you got to do that for

01:44:13.460 everybody. And so the litany of humility is this like, okay, yeah, I can pray the litany of humility

01:44:17.340 for my kids. And maybe now I can pray for my wife and some of my close friends and some of my

01:44:21.660 family. And it's like, okay, yeah, just keep, you have to keep pushing yourself. And so then

01:44:26.300 yeah, people will be like, Oh, I'm humble. And it's like, no, you are not. If you're humble,

01:44:29.920 you believe some crazy stuff and I'm not anywhere close to it. But the, anyway, that's one, I do a

01:44:36.100 chaplet, uh, which is a divine mercy thing, which is just Lord, please have mercy on us. And, uh,

01:44:42.020 uh, and then a rosary at the end of the day. And then I try to go to mass, um, when I can,

01:44:46.840 but hopefully most days, but yeah, so that's most days. Yeah. Daily mass, which is intense.

01:44:53.140 You as a Catholic, you're called on Sundays to go to mass, but I don't know for me, I have a

01:44:57.760 spiritual director who's phenomenal. And he just said, look, Alex, there's three things every day,

01:45:03.220 sit in silence for 20 minutes, go to mass every day and do a rosary every day. And everything else

01:45:08.620 in your life will come from that. And it's an interesting one. It's like, it doesn't change it.

01:45:13.680 Nothing, nothing in Christianity is like this. It's like eating good food. It's like,

01:45:18.160 it's not going to make you feel infinitely good immediately the next moment, unless you're really

01:45:22.400 aware of how your body acts. But like gradually over time, you just notice how much it does in

01:45:27.240 you. And for me, like if I go to mass or I spend time in adoration or I do a rosary or I do, I do

01:45:32.020 the things I'm trying to do. I just am like, it's like 10, 20, I'm a pretty terrible guy naturally.

01:45:37.780 And it's like 10, 20% better for me to be more patient or more loving or more humble or more

01:45:42.960 oriented towards others and less worried about myself. And it's just like 10, 20% easier for me

01:45:48.080 to be a better person. And I need the help. And so I try to get it as much as I can.

01:45:53.880 It is just so striking. I think any honest person will admit this. If you think of all the people,

01:46:00.040 you know, in your life, who are the happiest, who are the most content, who are the kindest to

01:46:08.020 others, it is sincere Christians. Actually.

01:46:11.320 I mean, it's, yeah. I mean, in terms of happiness, I mean, I can just speak for myself, but I'm just so

01:46:16.920 like, I am so much more joyful, so much more fulfilled, so much less worried than I ever

01:46:23.500 could have imagined. And I like, Hallow is like building a startup is a really stressful thing.

01:46:29.400 Like it's a very, it's a very, uh, building a company is a really hard thing. It's a very

01:46:35.120 stressful thing. Most people burn out and I am just more at peace and more joyful than I've ever

01:46:39.880 been. I, the, um, I've got too many stories for you, but that we, we were doing our first fundraise

01:46:46.960 for Hallow, which goes back to everybody saying no. And, uh, the first, we were running out of money.

01:46:56.080 It was just our own credit cards, our own whatever. And so we were about to have to go back and get

01:46:59.260 regular jobs. And we're like, well, I really think God wants us to do this thing. We'd had these

01:47:02.600 stories about my aunt and all this stuff. And we're like, oh, okay, well let's go try to raise

01:47:06.600 some actual money so we can actually work on this full time and not have to go back and get regular

01:47:09.600 jobs. And had we had to go back and get regular jobs, we would have, Hallow probably would have

01:47:13.260 died. So I go and I do this fundraise thing and in the startup world, it was the first time we

01:47:17.180 raised any real money. I go and pitch everybody. And it was like a period of two weeks. I pitched maybe

01:47:22.840 80 people over the course of two weeks. So that's a lot of meetings, like 10 meetings a day.

01:47:28.140 And, um, this is pre COVID. So you're flying all around, you're driving back and forth around the

01:47:33.220 Silicon Valley Bay area, whatever, trying to make these meetings. And everybody's judging you. You

01:47:36.720 have no numbers, you have nothing to show. So they're just like, do I want to bet on this guy?

01:47:40.280 Are you sitting up straight enough? Are you making enough eye contact? Are you answering questions

01:47:43.280 well enough? Is your story any good? And my story is just my relationship with Jesus. And, uh,

01:47:47.420 so it's like as personal as it could possibly be. And then is the idea any good, which most people

01:47:50.920 thought it was a stupid idea. Um, and if you're lucky, like five might say yes of those 80. Uh,

01:47:59.040 but that means like 75 say no. And the no's come really quick and the yeses take a while.

01:48:02.880 And so you just, you have meaning after meaning after meaning you're exhausted. You're constantly

01:48:06.000 analyzing yourself. Like, are you doing this right? And you just get, no, that's, that's stupid.

01:48:10.380 Nobody's going to do it. You're stupid. Nobody, you've never done this before. You've never built a

01:48:13.560 business before. You have no idea what you're doing. Uh, and nobody prays anymore. This is an old

01:48:18.320 thing like a hundred years ago. This is, um, especially Jesus, like the Jesus thing that's

01:48:23.420 way over. And, uh, so it's just, no, no, no, no, no. This is never going to work from like,

01:48:30.180 honestly, the, the most intelligent startup people, like the best startup investors in the

01:48:34.860 world are telling you, no, like the people who know way better than I do. No, this is a terrible

01:48:38.540 idea. And I remember I came back to my little studio apartment and I sat down and I was, I was 25

01:48:45.140 and I had like four or five knots in my back. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. It was just like

01:48:49.880 this crazy stress, which was weird. It's like, I'm not at war or anything. Nobody's trying to kill

01:48:54.280 me, but it was just this crazy stress. It was like this dream I had that, uh, I felt so wrapped up

01:48:59.840 in. We had people working for it. There were families, whatever, depending on it. And if this

01:49:03.460 didn't work out, then it was done. It was never going to exist. And I sat down and I prayed and I was

01:49:09.240 like, God, I think you chose the wrong guy for this. I don't think I'm the right guy. I don't

01:49:15.340 know why. I don't know why you chose me. Um, this is too much stress. It's too much weight. I can't

01:49:21.520 handle this. I can't do it. I'm too young to be like having it. My chest was physically tight. Like

01:49:25.840 my, my, my, my heart felt tight, which was like, I don't think that's good for you. And I was like,

01:49:31.600 I can't do this. And then I was like, God, here's the only thing I know how to do. I'm going to make

01:49:37.320 a deal with you. I promise you if this thing works, I will always give you credit. I will

01:49:41.840 never trick myself into thinking I'm some successful entrepreneur who figured this out

01:49:45.180 and I'm some smart guy or whatever, blah, blah, blah, knows how to do startup stuff. I'm never

01:49:48.840 going to trick myself into thinking that I know it's you doing this. I promise you, I will always

01:49:52.700 give you credit. At the same time, if this thing doesn't work out, that's on you. That's not on me.

01:49:58.220 I can't, I can't take the weight of it. I can't take it. It's too heavy. And that's fine. Like you

01:50:02.520 want, you want it to humble me. You want it to teach me some lesson. You want it to reach out to

01:50:06.520 somebody or inspire somebody else to do something else. You want it, whatever your plan is, that's

01:50:10.020 fine. It's your thing. You can do with it what you want. Maybe you want it to be massive and then to

01:50:14.160 come crashing down and everybody hates me in the world and everybody thinks I'm terrible, whatever

01:50:17.340 it is. Fine. It's your thing. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to do the best I can, but I can't

01:50:23.000 take the weight of whether it doesn't work or not. That's yours. It's yours, whether it works or

01:50:26.180 whether it doesn't work. And I just felt this like enormous weight from my shoulders. And the next day

01:50:34.060 we went, um, the next day we went to meet with our favorite investor and it was at a coffee shop

01:50:41.140 and I was late and I opened up the daily gospel and it was a story of Peter trying to fish and

01:50:48.140 he's been fishing all day and there's no fish. He can't catch any fish. And Jesus says, let down

01:50:52.520 your net. And Peter says, what are you talking about? There's no fish. I've been fishing all day.

01:50:55.920 For me, it was like, well, I've been pitching everybody. Everybody has said, no, the list is just,

01:50:59.960 now there's like three, four people left. There's no, everybody's going to say, no, this is,

01:51:03.180 this is never going to work. What are you talking about? And Jesus just says, let down your net.

01:51:06.240 And Peter catches more fish than the net can carry. And two seconds later, that guy gives us an offer

01:51:10.660 to fund the whole thing. And then over the week, over the next three, four days, we get three,

01:51:15.640 four more offers, more than the net can carry, more than we can take. And it was just this hilarious

01:51:20.780 example of God, exactly what I talked about at the beginning, which is just like everything with

01:51:24.640 Hallow is just us trying to do something and then letting God take it and us, you know, working as hard

01:51:30.340 as we can, but letting God take it and own it. And if you do, he just does these incredible things

01:51:34.820 with it. And so it's just this journey of, just this journey of radical surrender, but it's, yeah,

01:51:41.140 God has done some really, really cool stuff with it. So it's a blessing to get to be a part of.

01:51:45.420 Did you take money from that investor?

01:51:47.240 Yeah, we did. He's one of my favorite investors of all time. I love that guy.

01:51:49.900 And what's his view of it now?

01:51:51.440 Uh, you know, it's funny because as, as an investor, Silicon Valley is a funny thing because

01:51:57.880 everyone says they're, they want to be contrarian thinkers. And there are some, there are some out

01:52:05.500 there, but, um, but no one really is. So it's like, oh, when AI is hot, AI is hot, when Bitcoin's

01:52:12.540 hot, Bitcoin's hot, when, you know, it's, it's whatever it is, everyone's like, oh, I'm a contrarian

01:52:16.520 thinker, but no one's really a contrarian thinker. It's just the tide of whatever people are investing

01:52:19.800 in. It's the biggest herd in American business. Yeah.

01:52:21.960 But the funny thing, the funny thing for us is like, Hallow is an obvious idea to 80% of

01:52:29.320 the country. If you go to 80% of the country and you say, hey, do you want an app to help

01:52:33.640 you pray, help you grow closer to Jesus? They'll be like, yeah, of course. 80% of the world still

01:52:37.460 prays every 80% of our country. It's much higher in the world, but 80% of our country still

01:52:41.740 prays every week. And whereas if you went and said, hey, do you want an app to help you

01:52:45.860 meditate or something? They'd be like, well, I don't know. What are you talking about?

01:52:48.700 But in Silicon Valley, it's exactly the opposite. And in LA and in New York and in, you know,

01:52:54.580 parts of Chicago and Seattle, whatever. But, so it's a contrarian idea, but only in Silicon

01:52:59.060 Valley, which is great because most of the obvious ideas are taken, like, you know, whatever,

01:53:02.800 they're mostly already built. And so we have this contrarian idea where the vast majority

01:53:06.740 of people will say, no, what it really takes, honestly, is someone has to have an exposure

01:53:11.100 to faith.

01:53:12.620 Yes. Does this investor have an exposure to faith?

01:53:15.280 Yeah. And it's, it's interesting because it's either like a very close family member,

01:53:21.960 like your mom or somebody took their faith really seriously. And maybe you do, or maybe

01:53:26.280 you don't. But you have to have someone in your really close orbit who takes their faith

01:53:29.980 really seriously. And, or you take your faith really seriously. Now there's tough parts about

01:53:34.940 you taking your faith really seriously, which is like, if I'm like a real Christian, do I want

01:53:40.880 to go out and tell my, cause they're investors who represent other investors, whatever. So

01:53:46.720 they're LPs, whatever people who invest in them. Do I want to go tell my, the people who

01:53:50.440 invested in my fund that I'm evangelizing on behalf of my specific religion? You know, it

01:53:56.040 kind of feels like I'm, and like many, like whatever, uh, there are many religions who are

01:54:01.860 not, certainly not the Catholic church who are invested in these funds. Uh, you know, their

01:54:06.280 endowments or whatever universities are. And so to go and invest in a specifically Jesus thing

01:54:11.140 is, you know, especially for a Christian, it feels like, oh, well, am I using my

01:54:15.680 secular career, which I usually like separate from my faith thing, uh, as some sort of faith

01:54:21.800 tool. And that can be scary for many. We had, we had several investors who early on were like,

01:54:26.320 I just, it's too scary for me. I just don't think I can do it. I don't think I can jump.

01:54:30.140 And what it, what it, what it really means is most of us have our career and we have our

01:54:36.300 faith. If we take our faith seriously, we have our career, our secular stuff, and then

01:54:39.400 we have our faith, which maybe goes into our family and stuff and our personal lives, but

01:54:42.800 it usually doesn't go into our career. And what it takes is this real courage to be like,

01:54:46.660 well, it should all be one. God wants it all. God doesn't, God doesn't stop having a

01:54:52.000 relationship with you when you go to work. He doesn't stop trying to change your heart when

01:54:55.520 you're at work or in a secular or corporate thing or whatever. He wants it all. He wants

01:54:58.380 your whole thing. And so it takes like a real courage for some of these people. And so we

01:55:02.180 had many of them who said no at the, in the early days who have now jumped on later. Cause

01:55:05.900 they were like, you know, I was just scared and you know, I'm not, which it still takes

01:55:10.160 courage. It still takes courage to invest or be a part of Hallow. It's, you know, the way

01:55:14.080 of the world, although Hallow has been, you know, way more successful than I ever could

01:55:18.260 imagine. Glory to God. But, um, you know, it still takes courage to do that. And so these

01:55:22.900 people, you know, it's sometimes it takes time, but yeah, this guy has, uh, he's been,

01:55:27.000 I mean, he's, he's a phenomenal investor. He's really helpful, but also just like, Hey man,

01:55:31.420 look, I trust you. Like you do it. Some people like try to tell you how to do stuff or, um,

01:55:36.940 you know, cause they've, they know a lot. They've seen a lot. They've been around the

01:55:39.820 corner and they've been around the block a handful of times, but this guy is just a

01:55:42.920 tremendous man of yeah. Trust and mission. He's, you know, very passionate about the work

01:55:47.640 that we're doing and the mission that we're working on and trying to help people find love

01:55:50.700 and peace in a relationship with the Lord. So yeah, he's been great. And a handful of the

01:55:54.380 folks that we had really early on in the early days were phenomenal. Um, but yeah, it's all the

01:55:59.280 good Lord, just finding people and putting them in our path. We, we, we did a most recent fundraise

01:56:03.600 with a, a guy flew out to meet us. And, um, I thought I knew everything about Silicon Valley. I'd been

01:56:11.640 working in Silicon Valley for like four years. So I thought I knew every fund. I thought I knew every

01:56:15.640 organization. And this guy I'd never heard of before runs a fund called Goodwater Capital. It's like

01:56:20.560 a $7 billion fund that invests in startups. And, um, he comes to me and he goes, Hey man, I just

01:56:26.520 wanted to let you know, I think God had me start this fund. He was the founder of the fund like

01:56:30.780 seven, eight years ago so that I could make this investment. And I was like, really? And he was

01:56:35.440 like, yeah. And I was like, why? And he was like, Goodwater is the name of our fund. Right. And I was

01:56:39.640 like, yeah. And he's like, that's the combination of good news and living water. The goal of the fund is to,

01:56:44.340 uh, you know, be a voice for Christ in technology, which they're almost, there is none. And I was

01:56:50.320 like, I didn't even know. That's crazy. It's like, I had no idea. I had never heard of this thing

01:56:54.320 before this guy came to us, but it's just this great story of God putting really cool people in

01:56:58.380 our lives and then doing the rest. Last question. Are you hopeful for the future of the country?

01:57:04.860 Yeah. I'm hopeful for us. I'm hopeful first for the kingdom of God. Like if I had to start at the,

01:57:16.280 at, at, at the core, I have no doubt, no matter how strong evil is, I have no doubt that God will

01:57:24.520 win. Even when it seems like, like the whole world is stacked against you. And there's something fun

01:57:29.920 about that actually. Like. There's something fun about having the world stacked against you.

01:57:34.240 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's sad, but it's, it's like, I was in, like, I grew up in Ohio and

01:57:39.520 you know, like 30% of the people are Catholic. The rest of the folks were Protestant and it,

01:57:43.860 you know, people would go to church. That's just what happened. But nobody,

01:57:46.620 you know, there were a few people, my mom really believed. There was a few people that really

01:57:49.220 believed, but most didn't. You just went to church because everybody went to church.

01:57:53.900 And when I was in Silicon Valley, like there were four other Christians,

01:57:59.620 like that, that I knew. And so you, you almost felt like you were part of this rebel church.

01:58:06.300 And so it was like, you were like up against the world. Like it, and, and so you really had to be

01:58:10.580 on fire for your faith because like people thought you were the weirdest thing. Like it was the weirdest

01:58:14.720 thing they'd ever seen. Like what an actual Catholic or an actual Christian, like this, that's crazy.

01:58:19.380 That's insane. And you're like, yeah, no, Jesus has changed my life. And, and, and what you found is

01:58:23.840 this community of people who were really, really on fire. And actually Pope Benedict talks about this,

01:58:27.940 this is like 20, 30 years ago where he had this vision of the church. And he was like,

01:58:32.220 I see the church and it will get smaller, much smaller. It will lose all the places it had

01:58:37.020 in society. It will lose this expectation that people would become Christian or would become

01:58:41.540 Catholic. But from that, you would have this much smaller group of people who didn't join just

01:58:46.140 because their parents told them or whatever it was, but because they're on fire for a relationship

01:58:50.380 with the Lord. And from that smaller group of people, the church would be renewed in a new way.

01:58:54.860 In the one thing that really matters with the, which is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:58:59.520 And I don't know. So that was exciting for me and in Silicon Valley, it really strengthened my faith.

01:59:05.300 Now I'm glad I don't live there anymore because it can certainly take a toll on you. But,

01:59:09.260 but there's something fun about living in that rebel church. It's hard. Obviously there's

01:59:13.960 tremendous suffering, but that is holy as God says, brings us closer to him. But there's something

01:59:18.720 fun about living in that, in that rebel church. So from, from a kingdom of God, I am very hopeful.

01:59:22.800 Now, if God wants the country to collapse, which would be sad. I love our country. I pray for

01:59:27.640 our country every day, but if he wants it to collapse, saints can be made. I can grow closer

01:59:31.880 to God in a falling empire and I can grow closer to God in a rising empire. Arguably more saints are

01:59:36.680 made in a falling empire than a rising one. But I certainly have hope for our country. I don't

01:59:41.760 think it's, you know, we, we get to talk with a lot of people and we get to see what God is doing

01:59:45.800 in a lot of people's lives. And if, if you believe that there's a religious revival or a revival of

01:59:50.880 faith, which I do believe, then maybe it doesn't happen the next four years. Maybe it doesn't

01:59:54.760 happen the next 10, 20 years, but I don't think our problems are primarily political. I think

01:59:58.860 politics comes at the end. I think our problems are problems of the heart. And the only one who

02:00:03.000 can solve the problems of the heart is a real relationship with the Lord. And so that's at

02:00:06.720 Hallow. I mean, it's why we get so excited about seeing what God is doing with Hallow is we see this

02:00:11.140 tremendous resurgence, not just in like people being like, oh, I want to be a good person or people being,

02:00:15.540 believing in the values of our country, but people being on fire with a relationship with the Lord,

02:00:20.680 which then leads to all those things, leads to all that goodness, leads to all that truth and

02:00:24.040 justice and wisdom. And so, yeah, I get, I get hopeful for our country, whether it's in the next

02:00:28.560 10, 20, 30 years, I surrender it to the Lord. The good Lord will do what he wants us to do. And

02:00:32.300 for me, it's just my job to let him into my heart as best as I can to try to love and serve people as

02:00:37.040 best as he wants me to. Alex Jones, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

02:00:42.740 Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to

02:00:47.940 Tucker Carlson.com to see everything that we have made the complete library. Tucker Carlson.com.

The Tucker Carlson Show - November 15, 2024

Fasting, Prayer, Meditation, & the Global Persecution of Christians (With Hallow CEO Alex Jones)

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