The Secret to Joy Through Every Storm

0:00 He does everything he can to keep you out of hell. In fact, he sent his son to die on the cross. He has given you the gifts of eternal life, but it's not yours until you receive it. So many of you know who Jesus is and think that's enough. I know Jesus, Son of God. You swear about that on a stack of Bibles. You know that. The demons in hell know that and shudder in fear. It's not about knowing who Jesus is. It's about receiving him as your Savior. Welcome to the Ignite with Mary McGuire podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good?

0:43 This is exciting. Here's the question. How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ignite. A special guest today. One of our two guests that we were going to have on today ended up with a conflict. And he couldn't make it. So you got stuck with me. Oh, yeah. Well, hold on a second. So I'm talking. Karen and I are talking with our ministry team. And trying to, OK, there's lots of people. Who should we have on next? And then we got off that call. And then I'm talking to Karen. All of a sudden it hits me. Wait a minute, what am I doing? She's right in front of you, I've never had Karen on, you know?

1:24 We are 63 years, right? 63, oh my goodness. You know what, Karen, it's a big day coming up, we're very close to it. Her 20th anniversary, 20th anniversary, 20th year anniversary, 20th anniversary of her 65th birthday. You can't figure that out. Look at her. I mean, can you believe that? I mean, it's just unbelievable. It's just, yeah, you're amazing. And we have an amazing life together. Yes, we do. It's been a crazy wild ride. It's been an awesome... Crazy. Wild. So I text Katie, who takes care of all our social media platforms and actually runs my life so that I don't get things mixed up.

2:08 She gets me where I'm supposed to be and all that kind of stuff. And I text her and said, hey, I thought of somebody. She's a young, perky blonde, sharing her faith all the time, every day, just had cancer surgery, didn't even miss a beat. She's perfect. And Katie cuts back and she says, oh, give me your text. Give me your cell number and I'll text you right now. I just text back, Karen. And Katie goes back and says, duh, I should have had a VA. She's right in front of us. So here we are, Karen, 63 years and years before that. But we've had a ride. Yes, we met in college.

2:50 Met in college? Christian college. Moved her from Arizona to Pasadena College where I grew up. And she's way older than me, nine months. And I never let her forget it. No, he doesn't. He really doesn't. Thank you, Barry. But we've had a fun life. Yes, we have. And we can't get it all in, but I would jump to a time that was very important to us, a life changer. It was, you know, raise the church with godly parents, myself in particular, and see how you support the pastor and the work of the church. We were there. We were volunteering, getting babysitters, going there in the middle of the week, every week.

3:31 Yes. And we had no joy. Okay? A lot of you don't have joy. Like 76% they say of Christians don't have joy. In fact, they have fear. And when you have fear of any kind, you're retelling God, I don't trust you. And James Wan, he says, if you have fear mixed with your faith, do not expect to receive anything from me. You're double-minded in all your ways. So how do you get to have joy in the midst of life? Yes, a lot of life. And we got this before we experienced that. those periods of life, he set us up for that and we were praying for joy and met a guy, and I won't go into all the details, but he spent about an hour sharing with me how he was, as he's getting ready to speak at a luncheon, for an hour about how much fun he's had in sharing his faith.

4:27 And I never, we had shared our faith, but we never had fun doing it. It was always following the... Knocking on the door, scared to death. Well, we did that. Back in 1960, 65, 66, we went out knocking on doors. Yes, we did. In Detroit, Michigan at night. I don't think I'd try that now. I wouldn't try that now. But we weren't having fun doing it. We did it because we went to evangelism class, okay? You have evangelism. You've got a couple thousand people at church. Well, we're having evangelism class this afternoon, okay? Y'all come. Five people show. Never more than five or six people, ever. in those classes we went to.

5:08 But we paid attention and we followed him. But we weren't having fun. And then I met this guy who was having so much fun. Oh, my goodness. He was just, I, I, and I walked away in tears. I said, I want that. That's what I want. And so we talked and we said, okay, we're going to start doing it and start doing it not out of a sheet of paper, Point one, point two. It's just loving on people. Jesus said, no, no, you're my disciple by your love. That's it. And I was an introvert. People don't know that I was, they don't believe. Was I an introvert? Yes, he hid behind me. I could tell you some really great stories about him hiding behind me. She's never met a stranger.

5:48 I love kids. And I'm trying to build a business. And we go to these sessions, and I would literally hide behind you. Yes. And she'd go on to talk. And would she get them going, then I'd pop up and say, hey, I'm her husband. You know, I'm looking for, we're at trade shows, okay? We're trying to build a business. Trade show. And I have to go out and find all the buyers as they're watching, the red badges. So I did. I brought them in, and then Barry would sell them. Bless his heart. I mean, it's 63 years of trade shows. I mean, we've been to hundreds and hundreds of trade shows. She's still going. We go to the Seamus show, biggest on-way trade show there is. You'll see Karen in the booth working. I say, you don't have to do this anymore.

6:28 But it's so much fun. It's all my friends. People you've known forever is just great. So we have fun, and people do kind of notice the fact that we have a lot of fun. And people often say, well, you know, if I had Barry's wife, if I had his business, if I had his cars, you know, I'd be happy too. Yeah. But they have no idea. They have no clue. It's been a wild ride. What God has put us through, it has just been quite amazing. I mean, we don't have time to go through all the stories, but wow. It hasn't been like a smooth road.

7:10 It has never been smooth. Has it ever been smooth? I don't think so. You should have seen the rain here in Arizona yesterday. Oh, my goodness. I remember Jim Dobson called me. It must have been 20 years ago. the founder of Focus on the Family, of course. And I was being attacked at the time. And I said, Jim, at some point, doesn't God just say, you've had enough? Just go on. He just laughed at me. He thought that was a funny thing he ever heard of. He says, you would be spoiled. You'd have no faith. You wouldn't need faith anymore. And the more he tests us. That'd be boring. You know, if you're going through trials, let me tell you, he loves you.

7:54 Yes, he does. And it's really a compliment because he doesn't give you more than you can endure. Okay? That's a promise. He knows you can endure it. And we've told ourselves. I mean, we've been through some tough stuff we might get to in a moment. And who he loves, he prunes. You know, you prune back the bushes and then you get better roses, right? Well, he's pruned us a few times. I had a lumpectomy. Yeah. Really. We'll get to that in a minute, but wow. I mean, the things he has done in our lives and the experiences we've had with joy. With joy. And we face them early on before, you know, once you're in the problem, it's too late. Yeah.

8:36 You need to prepare before the problem. And so how do you do that? How do you do it? I would think people would ask us, and they do ask us a lot. How did you get there? How can you go through the death of your daughter? Yeah. We lost our 49-year-old daughter, Nicole. Probably the hardest thing of all things we've gone through, that was the hardest. Still miss her so much. Yes. You know, more than half of marriages end with the death of a child. And so I knew that I had to do the service. I couldn't have a pastor do it. I had a lot of pastor friends that offered me.

9:18 But I also knew that over half the crowd would be car guys, who are the greatest guys in the world, guys and ladies. But they just almost feel like, and you know if you're a car guy, you know what I'm talking about. You feel like you're so good that God wouldn't possibly send you to hell. Of course, he didn't send anybody to hell. He does everything he can to keep you out of hell. In fact, he sent his son to die on the cross and gives you the gifts of eternal life. But it's not yours until you receive it. So many of you know who Jesus is and think that's enough. I know Jesus is the Son of God. You swear about that on a stack of Bibles. You know that. Yeah.

9:59 But you know what? The demons in hell know that and shudder in fear. It's not about knowing who Jesus is. It's about receiving him as your Savior. That was long done before Caroline got married, but that's the background. That's the bedrock. But then you end up losing your 49-year-old daughter, who is the most prolific faith sharer we've ever known. who went through incredible pain, even to the point of addiction in the Teen Challenge. By the way, we've supported Teen Challenge since 1969. I think we're the oldest people at Teen Challenge. Oldest, largest, most successful program for getting people off of drugs, life-controlling substances. So we've lived that life.

10:39 They see us, they don't think that we know anything about pain. We have been in the worst places in America and around the world, working for the worst of the worst. And seeing the power. We've had them come down in our house off of drugs. We've had pregnant girls come in and stay with us. It's all over the place. It's been great. It's been great. And, you know, every time, and it's hundreds of them, every time we get them alone and you talk to them, and I hear their stories, it comes to me every time, but by the grace of God. Mm-hmm. There go I. There we go. And we get to rescue them with the word of God. And through Teen Challenge, we thank God for Teen Challenge.

11:20 But anyway, there's a lot of parts of our lives that the general audience doesn't know. And you might see me in these podcasts and only know me from the podcast. And of course, I'm excited and joyful because we're in the game and sharing our faith. But I want you to know on a practical basis, I just think this is an opportunity for them to see us both. Yes, you're a long ways away over there. I understand, yeah, well, we've got to have distance here to fill the screen. Sorry, so far away. But, yeah, at that time, I spoke at the funeral, and I knew the car guys were, is he still smiling now? Yes. He's always smiling because he's a Christian, but is he still smiling now?

12:02 He lost his daughter. And you know what I did? I laughed. And I smiled greatly and I wept greatly. And I won't stand this subject too much or I'll start weeping right now because the more you love, the more you grieve. But I also explained to them that the fact of the matter is Nicole's in heaven. Yep. She's doing great. And she's having the time of her life right now. She wouldn't come back for anything. She's in heaven. She's having a blast. So if she's having fun, why should I not have fun? But that doesn't stop my grief. Yes. And missing her how many times I need her counsel. She mentored me in many ways. And she was a great car guy.

12:43 And she put on a car show called Benedict Castle Concord in Southern California. And it's still going strong and raised about $350,000 this year. Yes. So it's pretty cool. But through that, how do you get through? Most people don't survive this going through... the loss of a daughter, but it's just knowing that God's in control. Yes. You're knowing that God's in control and people are praying. You have, we have the most wonderful friends. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, they're uplifting you, but, but I tell you when things hit, I say, okay, God, it's yours. Take it.

13:23 And he does. He really does. And he just gives you the, I, the peace. Yeah. That I feel. He's in charge. Yeah, he is in charge. You don't question God. You know, if you're going through something right now, there's all the whys, and you'll never answer them. You'll never get answers. Why, why? Don't ask why. Ask what? Okay, ask what? What are you up to, God? That's what we say. What are you up to? How many times have we said that? All right. Just like when we moved from Balboa Island to Phoenix. Well, how about we're at Manchester Airport. It's 1 o'clock in the morning. And there's nobody to pick us up.

14:05 And the airport's closed. The airport, the lights all go off. And we're sitting there. And our driver failed us. He wasn't there. No driver. And we have to be an hour away, right? Well, God's up to something. Yeah, he's up to something. I wonder, he has somebody who wants us to talk to, is exactly what you said. Yes. And so there were two benches. There was nobody in the airport. There wasn't a car, okay? It's one o'clock in the morning or an hour away from our hotel. You've probably never experienced that. I mean, when things go bad, you know God's up to something. You just know it is. And when you face life that way, it changes things. It just changes things. And fortunately, I have a wife that lives that with me. And she said, well, God must have somebody he wants us talk to.

14:47 I guess so. In the meantime, it was a warm night. There was two benches. So we're okay. And Kathy, my secretary, was calling all over the place. And she finally found a guy. She goes, I got somebody. He took a ride up to Boston, and he was deadheading back to Manchester, and he'll be there in a few moments. So he pulls up, picks us up, and we're driving off. And he says, wow, what was going through your mind as you're so stranded? And I said, do you want to know the truth? Great question. He says, yeah. I said, we decided that God had somebody we needed to talk to.

15:29 He said, exactly what we said. Exactly. Exactly. And he goes, wow. What's that all about? What's wow? He says, you can't believe this. I'm at the worst place of my life. I am a mess. I'm in destruction. I have all kinds of things going on. I know what's going on. I know I need God, but I don't know how to get to him. And then God puts you in my car? Yeah. Amazing. And we had an hour to share with him and pray with him and give him scripture. We got out. He was shouting at the end. He was so excited. So were we. Yeah, we were. We hugged and prayed. Really getting late now. Oh, yeah. It's all starting to get up. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and we're laying in bed.

16:09 And had we not had that concept, of course, we'd be saying, where were you, God? I mean, thanks a lot, God. You know, just shaking our fists. You could do that. Or you'd say, wow. Thank you. Yes. That was a miracle. It was amazing. You realize we had to stop our plane in Chicago, and that's what delayed us getting into the flight. We ended up being the last flight in as they were closing the airport. It was the last bag off. Do you remember? We were the last. They stopped the baggage claim, and there was no bag. And then the bag came out. And then we all got, there's no car. So all the things God had to go through to make that happen for his glory.

16:50 The timing was perfect. And I think, quite frankly, you can go through things like that. And if you're not on your game, if you're not serving him, you're on your own. If you're mixing worry with your faith, you're on your own. Don't expect him to answer anything. James 1. But we don't live that way. We live expecting and we had that kind of it. So this is our life. Yes. This is our life. I can't wait to see what you're up to now. Said that so many times. Even to the point of death for Nicole. And by the way, we have another daughter who's incredible. Yes. Sharing her faith. And she's a chaplain at Sharp Hospital in San Diego. We're so proud of her and her family and all.

17:32 But just specifically on this tragedy that ended up giving us some ministry. Have we not had a ministry to people that have been losing? You know how many people lose their kids? Wow. Remember our pastor said your ministry was... is going to be added to. You're going to have a new ministry. Yeah, he says he's giving you a new pulpit. New pulpit, yes. Who he loves, he prunes. I said that earlier, but, I mean, there's pain. There is pain. But wouldn't you agree that the growth spurts in our life spiritually have come? Oh, yes. Through the pain. Well, that's how you grow.

18:12 I mean, how else would you grow if you didn't have? Yeah, if you don't have pain, you think, well, God, why am I having pain? But he's right there. Well, you see him answer your prayers. Yeah, you see him. And he gives you that peace that passed understanding. And you say rejoice. Again, I say rejoice. Those are huge words to us because we do in our darkest moments. The people we have led to the Lord because of the loss of Nicole. Can you imagine? Oh, by the way, if you want to see her service, get this, this will blow you away. We recorded her service. They put it on YouTube. And you just found how many people watched it?

18:52 Over 20,000, and I haven't checked that for a while. Over 20,000 people have watched the video of a funeral. And it's three hours long. But we had an altar call, and people, some very famous people raised their hands. And we've been hearing reports since, and we suspect there may be hundreds of people except for the Lord from the video of a funeral that nobody normally would watch. It's just incredible. So these are the days of our lives. These are the days of our lives. And we live every day. How do you start your day? By praying. Oh, we're surprised. Okay.

19:32 I pray for him to bring people our way. Yes. Okay, expound on that. Every morning. Expound on that. Well, I've been doing that for so many years. And it's just so incredible. He does. He brings people our way. But you won't expect it. You know, if you're not... If you're not thinking about it, it won't happen, folks. Well, I specifically pray for him to bring people to us that we can minister to and help. It happens every day. It happens every day. But if you're not intentional, you know when we're walking by people that are lost all day long? You realize that probably 90% of the people you're around in the office, on the streets, in the stores, they're lost.

20:14 And they're not going to church. So how are they going to know unless somebody tells them? And pastors, who's going to tell them we're not being sent? You're not sending us. When's the last time you heard your pastor say, I equip you, Ephesians 4.8, I equip you for ministry. And then you go in the road. I'm sending you. We're sent, okay? Yes, we are. And when we realize that, and realize that everybody around us is lost, almost everybody around us is lost, that's opportunity knocking. And if we don't realize that, we're just walking by opportunity after opportunity. People are going to hell.

20:54 You understand? They're going to hell. They're lost. I mean, we love to hate people in politics or in the lines protesting or whatever. They're lost. That's right. Maybe God's given some over, but we don't know who they are. That's not up for us to say. The fact of the matter is they're lost. They've got nobody loving them. No, and they have no idea that God loves them. And the easiest entry into sharing with people is how much God loves them. They can't believe it. They just can't believe it. Certainly way more than half. Oh, my goodness. They can't believe it. They can't believe it. You don't know what I've done. Oh, you can say that, but you don't know what I've done. Yes. I wear a cross all the time, and I have so many people comment on the cross, and it is just a wonderful way of opening up to tell them about Jesus.

21:43 So thank you for buying me. Well, I didn't want to buy the cross. That was a struggle until I asked him. I said, he died on the cross, okay, and you're wanting to wear a diamond. cross. I mean, that's the opposite of the widow bite. No, I just can't do that. But she finally wore me down. And now multiple times a day, people are commenting on your cross, which gives you the opportunity to just open up and talk about God. And then she gives me this famous line. What did you say? What about Jesus? No, no. Who made the diamonds? Yes. Yes, I asked him, well, who made the diamonds?

22:24 This is after several months of my saying, no, no, no, no, no. She says, Vera, I have a question for you. Who made the diamonds? You kind of got me on that one. That's really funny. So anyway, it's fun serving the Lord. And in the worst of times, and we were at that point where we were losing the business and it was gonna be taken away from us, a joint venture partner company was trying to take, sent me, I still had the stock. You did catch Vulture. Pardon me? Vulture company. I said, yes. Not venture, Vulture. Vulture capitalist, yeah.

23:06 I want to tell you about my business. In their building, the address in San Francisco was 666 on their building. That was their address, it really was. That was their address. And so when I was 65 years old, I found out that it was over, that my life is, you know, our ministry, everything. I mean, nobody, who's gonna trust me now? What happened to your God, you know? And I just prayed the simple prayer, which we have prayed, I think it's worth noting, because we do this all the time. It is continual, God. We ask you for nothing. I know you should pray, and the answers are prayers.

23:46 But when you're living for him, anybody that knows this knows Romans 8.28. Okay, I know, I know. I know it's him. I got it, Romans 8.28. But some of you probably haven't heard it, so I've got to say it again. He promises you. He'll make everything in your life. I mean, everything in your life. Right down to last night, we had some funny things happen. Yeah. Everything. He makes everything in your life work for good. How do you get in the center of his will where you have everything in your life working for good? Isn't that pretty cool? I think that's the greatest. I think that's pretty good. Second greatest problem is after John 3, 16. I think that's a pretty good one. We live our lives by it.

24:26 He says, I'll make you if you do two things. If you love me. And you live your life for my purpose, not yours. Caring. Caring about people and loving people. His purpose is to seek and save the lost. No question about that. I mean, there's no argument on it at all. It's just to seek and save the lost. When you live your life every day doing what Karen's suggesting, who am I going to speak to today, bring people to me today. He does. You live your life like that, and you're leading them close to Jesus. It doesn't matter if you lose the sales presentation, you lose the tennis match. It doesn't matter what happens. Because you're moving people closer to Jesus every day, and that's all he asks of us. When he says, love me and love your neighbor as yourself, the next verse says that you cover the entire law, everything, that's all I ask of you.

25:17 Why is it the one thing that he asks of? He asks us two things, love him, but the one thing for action, love your neighbor as yourself. seek and save the lost. The one thing he asks us to do, it's called the Great Commission. Why is it the one thing he wants you to do that you don't want to do? It's the one thing you don't want to do. That's Satan. And he's laughing at you because he knows when you do, you end up with joy and nothing. You become impervious for nothing can affect you. Well, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Our strength. Yes, it is. Hear that. The most basic scriptures are these scriptures.

26:00 You don't have to be a profound scholar, folks. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Nothing stops us. I don't care what it is. Nothing stops us. We just keep right on trucking. We've talked to some of the most interesting people you could ever find everywhere because we're in so many airports. Oh, my goodness. Well, we... Remember the guy at the American Airlines ticket counter? Yeah, yeah. Tell him that story. That's a good one. It's crazy. Just real quick, you leave before you know you're praying with him and stuff. But it's just... It's so much fun. He even walked us...

26:44 Yes, to where we had to go through. To TSA, yeah. Yeah, to TSA. We were just sharing with you the TV counter before we know it. He closed down the counter with people in line and walked with us to the TSA place. And here are these people. And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, but he's so interested in what we're talking to him about. Jesus. You know, so that was really fun. It happens everywhere, every day. I can't even keep up with them because, you know, I started thinking I need some, I keep doing them, but they happen so frequently that they're not, they're a big deal for the person, but not necessarily, there's so many you can't keep track of them all. But that's Jesus, you know. And so when you live your life that way, I got to tell you, it's beyond description.

27:32 And he has given us more and more and more activity and presence and influence and stuff. You know this word influencers? Now people are called influencers. Is that not interesting? I'd never heard it until really this year. Yeah. Yes. People are influencers. I'm an influence for Jesus. You're a Jesus influencer. I'm a Jesus influencer. Everybody knows that. We all need to be Jesus. I see her so often. And wherever I go, I still have a tendency to be, I know you can't believe it, but I still have a tendency to be an introvert. And wherever I am, I'm looking over and she's forever in a circle of people.

28:14 And the center of a text is they're wanting to hear from her and she's just voting to them. And I look at her and that's my wife. I get to talk to them. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. We travel continually. We get up in the dark continually. That's not a lot of fun. 4.30 in the morning to catch a flight. And she is almost always up before me. And she's smiling. And I just think, thank you, Lord, that I have a wife. I've been doing this on my own. So many ministries and the wife is kind of supportive of one there once in a while. But this is our life. It's not my life. I'm glue.

28:54 I stick to you. Yeah, exactly. We do it together. We encourage each other. So it's a great way to live. I really see a couple. We've got other stories we could talk about. And I have a captive audience. So let's kind of cut this off and then restart. Okay. And then we have a few more minutes because there's so much going on. I can't even think of it. This is unscripted if you hadn't noticed. So. I just found out about it. Thanks for watching. Yeah. You know, she can do podcasts better than me. If I, we'd have a bigger audience, right staff? We just let Karen do the podcast. She's a lot more fun than I am. I should have had my own talk show. Yeah, you should have. With your assistant, Leslie.

29:36 Yeah. We talked about doing that. We should have done that. That's right, because Leslie has been right there with us from the very beginning and over at McGuire's. Leslie Mike Kennedy, I just say right away, this is personal, so I can make it personal. Mike and Leslie Kennedy and one other person, the four of us built McGuire's, correct, into what it has become. And then they decided, Mike and Leslie decided, they'd like to take all they've learned in marketing. You know the gospel is the greatest product, if I could be crass. Yes. And the most poorly marketed, I mean, it's just crazy. So they want to take their expertise from the business world and use it for Jesus. So Mike and Leslie Kennedy are soulmates family.

30:18 I mean, and we have talked about how I don't sit Leslie and Katie and Karen close together. He won't let me sit by Leslie because we talk to her. They have fun. Anyway, we have a lot of fun. It's a great ministry. We're having a lot of fun doing what we're doing. And it's growing and growing and growing faster than we can keep up. And so we'll talk about that later. Anyway, hey, nice to talk to you. Thanks for joining us. And for the moment, we'll say, see you later. Adios. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please let us know. Subscribe now to continue receiving my podcast and add your comments to help us attract more viewers. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast.