Ep. 293: Restored

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, this is Daniel Markin. And on today’s episode, I have the great opportunity of chatting with Chris Brown, who is a writer, author speaker in the United States. But he has a really crazy story. We go a little bit into that, about his life of… It’s nuts. We don’t spend too much time there though, because what we’re talking mostly about is how do you live… If you have a really difficult past, how do you now walk forward and live in light of that? How do you use that to fuel your future? How do you walk with the Lord and use that for ministry, for helping other people? So, hope you find this episode helpful. I know I found it helpful, just even chatting with Chris about it, so enjoy.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, this is Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by Chris Brown. And maybe you know who he is, maybe you don’t, but I’ll leave that up to him to introduce himself. So Chris, welcome to the program. Thank you for being with us today. How you doing, man?

Chris Brown:

I’m doing great. Honored to be on this show. Hey listen, if you’ve never heard of me, that’s fine. I’m totally good. But I’m just a ministry guy, I absolutely love Jesus. I’ve been in ministry now for 20 years doing a variety of different things from radio, to podcasts, to speaking, to writing, whatever I can do to show my gratitude to the Lord. And when I wake up in the morning, I’m just like, hey, what kind of impact can I make for God’s glory? And that’s taken me around the country quite a bit. I’ve served a little bit in Miami, Florida. I’ve served a little bit in North Carolina, also in Tennessee, lived in California, lived in Colorado, and spent some good time in the Caribbean. Haven’t been up to Canada yet. But anyway, ministry has taken me quite a few places, and yeah, it just looks different in every season. And this season I just wrote a book, and I’m loving talking about it.

Daniel Markin:

So good. Hey Chris, well thank you for being on here. I don’t want to belabor our intro too much because I want to get into your story. You’ve written a book on this called Restored, and I want you to take us through some of that. But maybe just to start, would you let us know, I guess in a sense like a testimony? Begin to walk us through your story of where you’ve been, and then how the Lord has brought you here. And even with that, you’ve written about this, what was the event that made you want to begin to tell your story? Because I know a lot of people will keep that stuff private. For some people it’s like, they’re embarrassed about their past, for others they just don’t want to burden people with their past. Yet you’re unique in that you just openly want to share it, and openly want to tell people about your past. And so, love to hear a little bit about your story here.

Chris Brown:

Yeah. So just catch everyone up to speed on a little bit, just a flyover of what the book’s about and my story. I grew up in a childhood filled with instability, and violence, and several father figures going to jail, abuse shelters, sleeping underneath piers and bridges, sleeping in the backseat of a car, 17 different schools, drugs and narcotics, in and out of… Parents out of detox and rehab centers. It couldn’t be, I don’t know if it could be much worse, it was just a really tragic upbringing. And to really zone in on your question, was there a time of why I felt like I needed to tell this story? It’s because I was in this boardroom. I’ve had great opportunities to serve in ministries that are just thriving ministries with these incredible leaders, and somehow I keep finding myself in these spots. And I was serving for this ministry, and maybe some of you guys know that you guys listening in can know this ministry, but it’s Ramsey Solutions, a gentleman by the name of Dave Ramsey, who’s kind of a national and a little bit of an international name when it comes to teaching about personal finance. And I was in this meeting, and there was a bunch of board members all huddled around a table. And they were dissecting my latest talk. It was in front of like 10,000 people in Atlanta, Georgia, and they were dissecting it frame by frame on what I could have done better technique wise, and facial expression, and body posture, and voice fluctuation and just content. And one person spoke up and said, “Man, Chris, there’s just something about when you’re up there, everyone just automatically assumes that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You come across a very polished speaker from maybe a high end family. And you need to be more real and more vulnerable.” And I was just like, I had this moment. I’m like, you have got to be kidding me. I didn’t say it out loud, but internally I was battling between two emotions. I was like, okay, have I just really been successful at deceiving everybody that I came from that kind of upbringing? Or do they have a point? Do I need to lead out with vulnerability more often? And that’s the day where I felt like I need to be more open and honest, and vulnerable about my past. And I’m really passionate about this topic called stewardship. It’s not a topic, I just undersold it. It’s a biblical concept, it’s beyond a topic. Stewardship is managing God’s blessings, God’s way, for God’s glory. When you hear the word stewardship, if you’re listening in you’re like, oh, this guy’s going to be talking about a capital campaign at a church, or talking about money. No. Stewardship is so much deeper than that. It is managing everything that God has allowed us to manage. The Bible says in Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” Fullness thereof means in all it contains. If you look up the original language for the word all, it means everything, all. It’s exactly what it means. And so, we are managing not only money, but time, and energy, and relationships. And our story, we are managing what’s happened in our life, our experiences, our stories for Him. And so, I came to the point where I’m like, yes, I’ve been through a lot of tragedies. What am I going to do about it? Am I going to suppress them? Am I going to ignore them? I’m probably not even going to dwell on them, I don’t want to dwell on them, but what can I do? And so, that’s where my journal came, and then my journal turned into a book. And it is, the tagline of the book, the book is about restoration. It’s called Restored. And the tagline is, “Transforming the sting of your past into purpose for today.” And now as a grown adult, what gets me up every morning, every single day I’m asking myself the question, how can I transform the sting of my past into purpose for today? How can I give it purpose? How can I give God glory? That yes, it was unfortunate, but there’s not a whole lot of benefits, there’s no benefits to having a victim’s mentality. And so for me, it is to suck the nutrients out of those experiences so I can do some good.

Daniel Markin:

Thank you for sharing that. And even fileting yourself open with that, there’s so much there. You’re tapping into something that I think we get quite wrong with Christianity a lot. Which is that if you become a believer, if you become a Christian, that life is going to be easier for you. And so often, it’s easier in some ways, in many ways actually it’s going to be harder. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed, you’re now in a spiritual war, the enemy’s not happy about that. And I would imagine, and I just want to even get more real with you on this. As you think about that sting, what’s it like waking up every morning? I imagine if I’m in your shoes, it still stings every time you wake up, right? If I’m you, I’m thinking every time you wake up it’s like, this still hurts. And maybe you’ve moved through it, but I don’t know, are there moments where you feel like you can’t get out of your own way? Your past is still there with you? And then how do you move past that? Because it’s one thing to be completely past something, but with something so significant to who you are as a person, it shapes you, it transforms you. So I imagine in some ways you can be thankful for that past, but in other ways you’re like, you wish it never happened. How do you balance that, being thankful and also just wanting to be rid of your past?

Chris Brown:

Yeah. So in some way, the way you just asked the question brought me to an analogy I’ve never used this analogy before, so pardon me if it doesn’t work, if it’s not good. For some reason, this is the way my brain thinks. I think of gasoline. Gasoline can be destructive, it can hurt. Like you’re saying, you start talking about opening up the wounds, or you said something along the lines of bringing that pain back every time you do that. And the gasoline could be a… Gasoline blows things up. If you were to drink gasoline, it would not be good. If you got gasoline in a cut, gasoline’s not necessarily a good thing. However, that same gasoline is what I’m using as fuel. It’s what you would use if you were to start your mower, or start your blower, or start your car. It’s what fuels your house, gasoline can be used for good. It is my ministry rocket fuel. If you take that gasoline container, and it’s filled with all these memories and all this pain, I actually use that as rocket fuel to help me minister to people. I can’t have the empathy for a dying parent, or a miscarriage, or getting beat up underneath a bridge, or any of these things that have happened to me in my lifetime, unless I went through them. Unless I have the gas, unless I have the gasoline. And so, I feel like I just use it every day. It is my rocket fuel. Just an example of this is my wife’s dad, after 13 years of being told he was going to die any minute, lived for 13 years. Just think about that, a whole family on pins and needles, wondering when he was going to die because of a brain tumor. And for 13 years, he deteriorated physically, and they had to see that in his mind, and physically, and this whole process. And then he finally passed away. And so that right there, he died at… I forget the age, it was mid fifties or mid forties, way too young. And he was super active, he ate well, there was no reason for it. And for us, we’re reminded that life is short. And so here I am at 44, my wife’s at 41. And we’re just like, no, we get up every morning and we are just gung ho, going after it a hundred mile an hour trying to give God glory. I don’t think we would have that urgency if we didn’t have three out of four of our parents die before they were 55.

Daniel Markin:

Wow, that’s deep man. And I’m sorry to hear about that loss. Was that recent?

Chris Brown:

No. The last, my mom I think died in 2011. I think that was the last one. So now we have one, her mom is still alive and she’s a matriarch of the family and she’s amazing. And so, I feel like I hit the mother-in-law lottery. But yeah, three out of four parents had died. And my dad died 17 days before I got married, so that was just a brutal… Our honeymoon was just in grief. So, we’ve been through some stuff. And everyone listening in, you have too. We all have different pains. Maybe your story’s not like my story, but you do have a choice. You have a choice, you have a mindset that you can either play the victim card… By the way, the only person that’s ever invited to a pity party is the Devil. The only person that’s ever there when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, that’s just the enemy trying to take you out. And so, I just encourage everybody, man, just surround yourself around people that pull you up and don’t push you down. People that aren’t saying, “No, yeah, you’ve had it so rough, oh.” And trying to push you to this over-dwelling on it. Don’t ignore it, I tell people don’t ignore past pain and don’t run toward it either, but you dance with it. And by the way, I say you lead the dance. And so you’re telling it, hey, right now you need to go in the closet and shut the door. I don’t need you right now. Or pull it out, I need this pan to relive it for a second so I have some empathy in this situation. And you just lead it, you dance with it. Don’t ignore it, don’t run toward it. But you know it’s there, and you lead it, and you tell it who boss. You’re in charge, not your pain.

Daniel Markin:

Let me ask you this: what’s the difference between pity and grieving?

Chris Brown:

Good question.

Daniel Markin:

Or what’s the difference between feeling sorry for yourself and grieving? Because I feel like those can be confused for the same thing many times. And as a young adult myself, I look to you maybe for a little bit more wisdom on that. So, how do you actually grieve instead of just throwing a pity party?

Chris Brown:

Yeah, that’s such a good question. That might be the best question I’ve heard in a while, that’s deep. I’m not a clinical psychologist at all, so I don’t pretend to be. But as I process your question, I think that the variable is when it starts to really hold you back long term. I think there’s a process of grieving to make sense of something, and to allow yourself to really think through the value of what you lost, it not being there. So I think that by the time, allow yourself a season, for some people it’s a month. Sometimes it’s two months, sometimes it’s six months. But I think when you are going around in a hamster wheel of the same thoughts over and over again, and you are actually limiting progress in your life to create new positive memories, to drown out the things that you’re grieving, when it’s holding you back like that. It’s the same thing with how do you know it’s God’s voice and the Devil’s voice? How do you know if it’s condemnation or conviction? How do you know if it’s shame or you’ve just got a healthy Holy Spirit conviction? Now you didn’t ask this question, but this right here is kind of a parallel to it. How do I know which one’s which? Whenever it is that feeling that you have of guilt, and shame, and condemnation, that is going to hold you back and make you want to retreat, and give you less confidence to move forward in your calling. Conviction actually is a feeling and an emotion that makes the… I want to get better. I want to get better, I want to know the Lord more, I want to fall in love with the Lord more. Yes, I feel convicted about my current state of how close I am to God, but man, this conviction, thank you, God. It’s proof to me that you care about me, that you love me enough, your Holy Spirit’s active in my life and it propels me forward to love Jesus more. And so, those are the differences, the little nuances. One makes you want to retreat. So, if your grief is holding you back and making you want to retreat, recluse, be a hermit crap, and it’s three months in, four months in, you probably need to start throttling up to first gear and second gear, and create some new memories.

Daniel Markin:

That’s so interesting, that nuance between retreat and actually action. Because I think each one of us go through those moments and maybe you have those thoughts, but conviction sucks in the moment, but also behind it is kind of that gasoline. We’re like, I actually want to push through this, and move through this. And it requires an honesty, and it requires us to be honest about our past, honest about our failings. But that’s where the grace of God comes in. God already knows that I’m a complete disaster. And in this moment, he’s showing me this. And I can either try and hide that from him, which again is just so funny. It’s like back to Adam trying to hide from God in the garden. It’s like, He knows, He knows this. So, with that is an invitation to be honest before the Lord. And I think that speaks to what we see with John, the gospel writer. Also, he writes this in First John, where he talks about walking in the light. Walking in light is not perfection. It’s not like I have all my ducks in a row, and now that I’m living this perfect life, with perfect thoughts and perfect actions, I’m actually walking the light. It’s actually walking with honesty about where you are, and then bringing that to the Lord. And as you were talking about the grieving, there’s things where maybe we’re grieving idols that are being stripped from us, and that’s hard. In the long run, it can be good for us. But there are also good things that we grieve. And so with that, I think if I can just give my 10 cents on grieving, bringing all those things to the throne, bringing all those things to God and being like, “God, I’m upset. You take this, you take this, I don’t want to deal with this.” That’s going to just do so much for us as we think about difficulties in grieving. Because if we don’t do that, it can turn into bitterness, and into that same cycle again. Did you ever experience some of that bitterness cycle, as you thought about your past? And I even want to jump into, when did the Lord really meet you and just transform you? And I’d love to hear some of that part of your story.

Chris Brown:

Yeah. I can’t help but think that some folks are listening in right now and they’re a little bit frustrated at how easy I’m making it sound to go through some pain. I’m like, “Hey, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and victor’s mentality, and write a book about it.” I do want to draw some light to the fact that I’m 44, and most of my trauma happened before I was 20. So, there’s a time in between. And that’s what you’re getting at. Were there times of bitterness? You better believe it, that I didn’t have the opportunities that others had, that I didn’t have the upbringing that others had, that I had the emotional deficiencies that I shouldn’t have had. I had the experiences that I probably should have never seen, and never heard, and never been a part of. Yeah, there were some doubts with that. And the journey has been a lot of seeking God, being around a bunch of people that spoke life into me. First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 33 says, “Do not be misled, bad company corrupts good behavior.” Another translation says, “Corrupts good habits.” And so we got to ask ourselves, who are we hanging out with? Are they pulling us out of bitterness, or are they actually making us more bitter? Because yeah, you should… Who are you around? Are they pulling you up relationally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially? Or are they pushing you down? And so, that’s helped me. It’s also helped me to see God, to find faith, to have a relationship with Jesus that’s thriving. Not religion, but a relationship with Jesus where He’s there with me. Also really practical handles, journaling and writing out my feelings. Also going to counseling, also writing a book. Because I’m now taking it, that’s the transformation thing where you’re taking it. Okay, not just writing it down, it’s not about me, and shifting the focus of how do I take this and honor God with it? How do I take this and help other people with it? And this goes down to Proverbs 11:25 that says, “Those who refresh others, themselves will be refreshed.” And I haven’t really felt the refreshing when I go get a massage, or I go to counseling, or I need to take a little trip or a vacation, this personal care, self care doctrine that’s out there. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if you’re really looking for long term refreshment, it is when you’re refreshing others, it’s not refreshing yourself. Because I sat on my front porch on a rocking chair with sweet tea, for 18 months when I was in the middle of a midlife crisis. When I felt discouraged, demotivated, I was moody. And I was like, okay, I need to take a sabbatical. I need to take some time off work, I need to focus on me. Man, the more I sat on that front porch, the more I sat in that rocking chair, I’m supposedly living this great life. I’m overlooking this beautiful farm that we own, I’ve got three kids that are healthy and thriving. Everything’s great on paper, but I’m here focusing on myself, and focusing on myself. And I actually got more in a deeper pit of discouragement, because I went 18 months without thinking about others, without serving others. You’re going to be the most refreshed when you’re serving others. Now, that doesn’t need to be a formal ministry. It doesn’t mean you need some kind of corporate nonprofit. It may just be walking across the street, and being a really good listener for your neighbor who’s going through a similar thing that you went through 10 years ago, or eight years ago, or five years ago. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be others focused.

Daniel Markin:

You mentioned your family there. How have you begun to share your story with your kids? And even before that, when you met your wife?

Chris Brown:

When my wife and I met in college, I was the quiet, mysterious kid that had this mysterious past. And everyone always knew that… I was pretty involved in college baseball, and student body president and all that kind of stuff, but I was super quiet and no one knew anything about my past. They just knew something was not normal. Because I went to a Christian college, just a lot of rich kids were there, so it was pretty obvious I wasn’t one of them. But as my wife and I dated, I started to tell her a little bit here, a little bit there. Because I wanted her to know who she was marrying. I didn’t want to feel like I was being someone I’m not for the next 50, 60 years of being married. So, I started to give her little glimpses of it, as much as I thought she could handle at once. Same thing with my kids, just gave them little glimpses of it. And now, as they’ve all now read the book, now they’re getting all of these glimpses of a story in HD. Because in a book I can really explain exactly this situation. And just to let everybody know too, the book is really story based. In each chapter, a story, a compelling story that happened to me. But I then go into what I learned, and then I went into what the reader can learn or possibly learn, with some advice when their situation that may be similar. So, that’s how the book format is. But my kids are learning, through that process they learn more and more about me. And they’ve been able to appreciate the journey that I’ve been on that has had some cycles of bitterness. Every time you get married or going into a relationship, whether you’re married or not, you’re going into a relationship with baggage. You’re going to have some kind of baggage that you’re bringing in. And mine just happens to be rejection, always feeling like I’m rejected, I’m not good enough. Which would be very natural with my upbringing. Another one would be not being able to handle conflict. Another one’s a scarcity mindset. These are things that were baggage that I brought in, that my wife, Holly, has helped me navigate. She brought in another whole set of baggage that was completely different. But we all bring our baggage, and that’s what makes it beautiful, is we can help each other become our best selves.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. That’s so good, man. What’s one piece of advice that you would give to someone going through a really hard time right now?

Chris Brown:

Well, I would just say don’t underestimate who you’re around. The Bible’s really clear, I talked about that a little bit earlier, about making sure you’re careful of who you’re around. There’s a stat out there that your income is, just from a financial standpoint, your income over your lifetime will be within 10% of the 10 people you hang out with the most. So, who are you hanging out with? They’re either going to be speaking life into you, or they’re going to be pulling you down. And so for me, God does speak to us directly. I’ve got a chapter in the book that talks about His fingerprints. When I look back at my life, His fingerprints were all throughout my life. He doesn’t have to use people to do His thing. He can just snap his finger, bypass using humans, but He chooses to use humans. And so, you had talked about isolation a little bit a minute ago. Those of you in isolation, you will not get out of this pit of despair, and discouragement, and even depression, and anxiety and feeling overwhelmed, by yourself. You just won’t, you won’t do it. You were designed to be around other people. And just a little bit, 30 more seconds on this. I spent 12 years on airplanes, jet setting all over the world to minister to people, on platforms that were gigantic. And it was great for my ego. But Daniel, can I tell you that in those 12 years I felt so lonely? The thing is, I was speaking to hundreds of thousands of people every year on stages, getting a ton of atta-boys, a ton of high fives, even hugging people in green rooms behind big stages. And I had all of these surface level friends, and I quit all of that. The reason why I quit all that, is because I was starving. What was I starving for? I was starving for real, local, deep community. Inside each and every one of us, we are starving. No matter who you are, you’re like, “Chris, you don’t even know me.” No, I know you’re human. And you’re listening in today. You are made with, you’re starving for two things: purpose and community. So, find the intersection of those two things in your hometown, and get involved in that, and it will refresh your soul.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Great place for that is the local church. And so, that’s a great place to start. Find a church, get involved, get involved with the people. Serve one another, serve with them, and you’ll just see how that transforms you. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens over time. You look back a couple months, a year, and it’s just going to be like, wow, you’re in a completely different place than you were. So, hey Chris, thank you man, for being here. Thank you for your time, thank you for sharing. And look forward to reading your book and checking that out. If people want to find this book, find your resources, maybe past stuff too, where do they go?

Chris Brown:

It is sold everywhere that books are sold, but the two best ones would be my website, chrisbrownonair.com, which is all of my Instagram. All the social feeds are all Chris Brown On Air. And then of course Amazon, Amazon’s a good choice as well.

Daniel Markin:

Thanks again, man, for being on the program and look forward to speaking in the future.

Chris Brown:

All right, thank you.