Faith Walk / William Carroll
Faith Walk / William Carroll
Ep. 41 : Riding Away : The Road to Renewed Faith
Navigating life's storms with faith isn't a journey for the faint-hearted. I, William Carroll, have weathered the harsh winds of an unwanted divorce, the ache of losing my prayer partner, and witnessed the disheartening fallout of a church community split. Each step on this path has been a lesson in humility, forgiveness, and the unexpected ways God stitches new companions into the fabric of our lives. Vernon's support shone as a testament to the enduring bonds that sustain us when all else seems lost. Together, we'll explore these intimate struggles and the strength found in fellowship through the most trying times.
Have you ever found solace in the roar of a Harley engine or seen the face of God on the open road? My story takes an unexpected turn into the world of motorcycle ministry after a seven-year detour filled with loss, occasional drinking, and a deep sense of wandering. Clinging to the powerful promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13, I found my way back to a profound truth: even when we stray, God lays out a path for our return. I'll share how the scripture became my lifeline, leading to a revival of faith and calling that I never anticipated.
For those at the beginning of their spiritual quest or seeking to rekindle their connection with the Divine, this conversation is an invitation. I'll guide you through a prayer of salvation and encourage you to step beyond the routine of religion into a dynamic relationship with God. The journey ahead is rich with the Word's teaching and the liberation that follows a heart surrendered to Jesus Christ. As we embark on this walk together, let's embrace the freedom that faith brings and the beauty of a life transformed.
Well, good morning and welcome to Faith Walk podcast with William Carroll. I'm your host and we've been talking about faith walk, having a faith walk. How is your faith walk, I need to ask you today? Where are you in your faith walk? Listen, everybody that trusts Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, and receives him into his heart starts on a faith walk. And on that faith walk as you learn of God and you're a disciple a disciple is a disciplined learner and as you learn the word of God and you stand on the word of God, you know every day you ought to see God moving in your life because he's presence with you. He comes into your heart when you ask him into your heart and he comes into your heart and he makes his abode, he makes his house, he makes his temple in your heart. So as you walk out your life, you should be walking with God. You should lean not unto your own understanding the word says but unto the understanding of the Lord according to his word. See, the spirit of God and the word always agree. The spirit of God and the word of God always agree. So you get in prayer and if you see something in the word, first off you find it in the mouth of two or three witnesses. In other words, you go find two or three scriptures in the word that says the same thing and has the same thought and you back it up like that. You don't make just, oh, there's one scripture that says this in the Bible and oh, that's what I'm going to stand on. Well, listen, anyway, let's take God out of the box this morning. Religion puts him in the box, relationship takes him out. So let's take out God out of the box this morning as I continue to share a very trying time in my life.
Speaker 1:It was the last podcast I had started talking about how I had gone through. I had been married 24 and a half years. I'd gone through a voice that I didn't want to go through. My prayer partner, 25 years at that time, got killed in a head-on crash, you know, and I was kind of left alone. The friends at church, the ones that used to call me in the middle of the night to come over and to pray for their loved ones if they were sick or if they was having trouble, or I mean, they just just dropped out of the picture, you know. Um, they quit calling me. I hadn't seen them as soon as it hit the paper. You know cause our little town they put, they put courthouse news in the paper. So as soon as they put divorce in the paper, it just seemed like my friends fell out.
Speaker 1:And I want to talk about that just a little bit because, yes, it hurt me, because, because, you know, I was thinking, you know, I'd been there for them. Where are they? Where are they when I need them? And so later on, after a few years, I, you know, I came across some of them and I just began to ask them, you know, where are you? And they said well, william, we always, you know, and they used to always tell me this. They used to always say, oh, william, I wish I was like you and I'd say, no, you don't, no, you don't, because I have problems too. Don't put me on that pedestal. If you put me on a pedestal, you're setting me up to fall. Don't put me on that pedestal. You got your own walk that you have to walk through. You don't want to be like me and I don't want you to be like me, because then you have to go through the trials and tribulations that you don't see in my life, that I have to go through and anyway they go. Oh, all the time they used to say that and I say don't put me on that pedestal. Well, they put me on a pedestal, I guess, in their imagination. And when then I fell, you know, I went back and I asked them where'd y'all go? And they said well, william, as strong as the faith, as strong as you are in your faith, when we saw that you failed, we realized in our life it could happen just as easy to us and we just realized it knocked us down, that if you failed, it could have happened to us. And I said but that's no reason to leave me. You should have been there. You know, I shouldn't have had to ask you to be there. You should have been there for me, like I was there for you. But I forgive you. I forgive you because God was there. God set up some friends and you know I was. I was right in the middle. I abruptly quit that, that last podcast, because I had an appointment and I had 10 minutes to get there and I had to go.
Speaker 1:So I was talking about Vernon and the missionary who was going all over and he was calling me from everywhere and telling me about you know what they were doing to him. And he stopped and he bought and, uh, he bought some chocolate one time at this chocolate factory and and he brought it back and he says, yeah, you got to try this, this is the best stuff I ever had in my life. And he said, dang, that was $40 a pound. And he said that's the most expensive chocolate. But he said, well, it was worth it. And it was, it was very good chocolate. But he was a great friend and listen, so I was. You know, he'd call me all the time, I mean just out of the blue, and we'd talk about what was going on. And people would hear him at lunch or at supper or whatever, talking, talking about well, talking about my situation, and all. And they would hear him.
Speaker 1:And, oh, listen, at this time, the church we were going to, let me tell you something, the church we was going to, it was like another divorce. The church we were going to at that time there was some things really going on behind closed doors and stuff. Our church had grown real fast and then, all of a sudden, everybody was gone and so I got to going around and asking people that left hey, how come you left? How come you left? And I found out some things that was going on with the pastor and all, and I mean it was dark people. You wouldn't even believe me. I could do a whole series on what was going on and I want to. You know, I just the Lord laid it on my heart.
Speaker 1:And then Vernon and I shared with him and we were praying at one time and I said, oh man, I got to go to courthouse. Look at the courthouse records. I find 91, 91 records at the courthouse of people in the church, you know, taking out loans and this, that and other in the church's name, saying that the people had signed it. Well, they hadn't, you know. You could see that the signatures was forged and all.
Speaker 1:And I brought it up to the church and I said, hey, man, you know. I said you know, if you got cats in your house, when somebody comes in the door, they know you got a cat because they can smell it. It don't matter how clean you keep that cat box. I said this house is dirty and we need to clean it up and I tell you what man. They just, you know, they didn't want to hear it. They didn tell you what man they just you know they didn't want to hear it. They didn't even want to look at the documents. I said I told the Deacons. I said hey, your names on this. You signed this for a loan. You put this under a mechanical loan. You bought some land across the street. No, we didn't. It says that the church did.
Speaker 1:And I said in, your name is signed on it. I didn't sign nothing. I said come here, I know you didn't. Your name spelled wrong. Said come here, I know you didn't, your name's spelled wrong. You'll come look at this. Well, they didn't want no part of it, see, but um, so so in in in my life I was going through a divorce. It felt like I was going through a divorce in the church, you know, because the church, the people was leaving and there was things going wrong that needed to be brought out in the open, and I didn't want to be the one bringing things out in the open. I had enough going on in my own life, you know. But Vernon was there. Vernon helped me. Vernon, you know, stood up. Vernon backed me and said this is not right, we just have to get to the bottom of it. We didn't cast nobody down, we didn't, you know. But anyway, we moved on from there and at a certain point in the time, you know, the Lord just released me from there, released Vernon from there. Vernon was out making his rounds, he came back.
Speaker 1:I was coming out of the depression. It had been about two years since the divorce and I was coming out of the. I was coming out of the depression, you know, and I was starting to just feel, just feel like, you know, I hadn't just abandoned God totally and completely and I, I, just, I just kept. You know, I don't know, man, I'd never been depressed today in my life until that time. And you know, people would ask well, how do you get over it? I just get over it. Well, that's the wrong thing to say to somebody that's depressed. You know, the day I started really coming out of it was when I was so depressed at work, one day, and I just started writing a poem, and I wrote a poem about what I felt and that God was able to bring me out. And that's when I started coming out of the depression.
Speaker 1:Vernon, what happened to him? He came back, he was here, you know, and we had started going to a different church and Vernon had a stroke. Vernon had a stroke. He was put in the hospital of God and he had been in the military 101 airborne. He had had so many parachute jumps it was just, I don't even remember the number, but it was astronomical. And anyway, he was such a great guy and I just loved him, you know. And then he had that stroke, was in the hospital.
Speaker 1:I went to see him. Oh man, he had tubes everywhere and I said, vernon, you want me to pray for the Lord to raise you up and heal you? And because, listen, vernon knew the power of prayer, I knew that God could raise him up. He knew God could raise and help. I had seen it before. As I've told you in the past, there's so many things that I haven't told you. There's so many stories of praying for the sick and then recovering, because that's what the Bible says in Mark, chapter 16. Anyway, listen, he shook his head. No, he said I'm ready to go. I said you're ready to go? He shook his head yes, he couldn't speak at the time, but he shook his head, yes. I said do you want me to pray that God would just call you home? And he shook his head, yes, so we prayed that God would call him home.
Speaker 1:He was an older gentleman, his wife had already passed away and was gone to heaven, and a lot of his friends, you know. He just didn't have a lot of friends anymore, because when you get older sometimes that happens, and he had already told me that he thought God was through with his work here. You know that that that the orphanage thing had just kind of shut down somehow, you know. And and he said, you know, unless God opens another door, I'm through, I'm ready to go, and anyway. So I prayed for him.
Speaker 1:And the next, the, the next, well, that night, after I left, after I left the hospital that day, uh, that night he passed away. Well, he was going to go to a funeral. He was going to have a funeral. His funeral was on the weekend. I asked my bosses at that time, I worked the weekend. I asked my bosses Ken, can I take off and go to my funeral? My boss said, no, william, I need you here. I need you here Cause I'm going to be gone, I'm going to be out of town and I need you to cover for me and take care of everything while I'm gone, because you're the one that knows what to do and how to do it and I expect you to do it right. Of course, you can call me if you want, but I know you won't need to. And I said, well, I'd really like to go to the funeral. He says no. So so he said no. He said you can't go, uh, because I'm going to be gone, and, uh, you need to stay here.
Speaker 1:So I didn't get to go to the funeral and that Sunday, that Sunday, I was at church and, um, when I came out from the church that Sunday morning, um, I was going at that time to First Baptist in Carthage, texas, and I walked out and I was mad. People, I didn't know I was, I knew I was upset, I knew I was mad, but I was mad and I walked out. And when I walked out of that church, I had seen some friends of mine that knew Vernon really good, was good friends with him, and got to go to his funeral and, um, uh, uh, they um, I had asked them about it and asked them, it was in, it was down. I believe it was in New Orleans, you know. So that's about a six, eight hour drive from us and I was asking them about them, and I was. I was just, you know, devastated that I really didn't get to go. I was just, you know, devastated that I really didn't get to go. And so, um, uh, so so I, um, I walked out of the church and I had, I had bought a Harley, and I saw it sitting there.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times, you know, when you go through a divorce or something like that, you try to replace it with something you know, to make the hurt a little less hurtful. You know a lot of people, when they break up, or break up with a boyfriend, or break up with a, or go through a divorce, first thing they do is go buy a new car, thinking that's going to fix it. That doesn't ever fix it and sometimes it even compounds it later on. But they try to do something, they move. You know, I'm going to sell my house and I'm going to move here and I'm going to move there. Well, I had bought a Harley, you know, and I had met, I had met some, some more friends, and, um, I walked out that day, that Sunday morning, and I said, okay, god, your word says you wouldn't put more on me than I'm able to handle. That's all I can handle. And when I said that I walked, I walked out and I got on that motorcycle and I climbed on that motorcycle and I never looked back. Uh, yeah, I still would go to church. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is I took I want to let me find this scripture right quick Um, because I want to tell you that so many times the devil allows us to take scripture out of context, and when we take scripture out of context, it, it, it never fails that, um, that we, uh, that we go off on the wrong foot.
Speaker 1:You know, now, here I am. I've been serving the Lord, I've been going to the jail, for at that time, you know, I don't know, oh, I'd been going to jail, probably shoot 20 years, you know, 18, 20 years. At that time I'd been, like I said, I was a youth pastor at a couple of churches, you know, and it wasn't a and it wasn't a paid position, it was, it was just a volunteer. I was used to sponsor at a couple of places and and, uh, anyway, um, I'm trying to find this right quick, but I can't find it right quick, the scripture, but anyway, so I just, I walked out, got on that motorcycle. So they, what I did was I started riding the motorcycle. I started riding it, you know, and I started going with the new friends. I told you, you know, my church friends kind of, you know, distance me.
Speaker 1:You know, because you know I had mentioned in the last podcast that in the church it seems like that the divorce is an unpardonable sin for people of the church. In the church, oh yeah, we'll let a pastor that committed murder and repented of his sins and we'll put him up in the pulpit and we'll, you know, sing his praises. You know, god forgave him, god changed his life, and that's true, he does, and that's what you should do. But when it comes to divorce, we don't want to talk about that, you know, because people don't really go through the word and find out and hear in their heart what's God saying to them about divorce. You know, and, like I said, I had a piece. I prayed about it for two years during that depression. You know, two years, it was a year before and a year after, and anyway, I'm not going to go back over that, but I'm just going to tell you that God, the word of God, says this is what it says here. Let me see if I got it right here. It says oh, okay, hold on just a second, let me go. Let me look at it a different way. Okay, so it says here we go.
Speaker 1:Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, 10 and 13. Now, this is the scripture that I had said when I walked out, but I didn't say all of it. See, what the devil does is say you know, he said to Eve in the garden, he says, uh, eve says we can't even touch that fruit. And he said oh, you can't touch it. You know why can't you even touch it? Well, god didn't say not touch it, see, but he twisted the word around. You know, she said we'll surely die. He said you won't die, you'll be wise as God is. Well, they were already wise as God. They were made in his likeness, but they didn't recognize it. Anyway, it says there hath no temptation taken you, but such as common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that what you're able, but he will, with the temptation, make a way escape that you may be able to bear it. You see, I took that out of context. I didn't take the time.
Speaker 1:At that time, because I was hurt, I was going through depression, I just lost my prayer partner for 25 years. I just lost one of my best friends for the last three years, you know, and me and him really got close the last two and I was coming out of the depression, man, and this hit me, you know, and I walked out and I this is what I said I said, god, you said in your word that I wouldn't, you would not put anything on me or that I would be attempted above that which I'm able. That's all I can take. And I remember getting, and I got on a motorcycle and I went down a path for seven years, kind of like the Midianites came down and took and stole all the crops from Israel and Gideon in the story of Gideon. For seven years they just every year they'd come down once and take everything, wipe it out. Well, for seven years I didn't. I didn't, I didn't rebel against God. I didn't, I didn't leave him. I sought repentance for 12. I sought repentance for seven years I sought it. I'd go to church and I'd cry. But you know what Sometimes God has you walk through some things. He has you to walk through some things to get you somewhere where he wants you to be. See that, walking out and riding motorcycle.
Speaker 1:Now I started riding with a whole different group of friends and I started, you know, going with them. Yeah, we'd go out to karaoke on Friday night and we'd go somewhere on Saturday night and we might ride somewhere on Sunday, and I was riding with them. You know, and listen, these aren't bad people, these are good people. These were all good people, you know. But I got to back. I got back, you know, drinking a little bit with them. You know, not to extremes, but I did.
Speaker 1:But I was following Jesus, but at a far, at a distance. You see, I wasn't one with him like I had been for the last, for the first 24 years. I wasn't one with him and I needed to get back to being one with him, you know, and I just I prayed, prayed and I tried, but it took seven years. You know, at the end of the seven or the first of the eighth year, when God called Gideon, it was eight years and then God called me into the motorcycle ministry and, and see, all that time spent, he was preparing me for something. He called me back, he called me to repentance me for something. He called me back, he called me to repentance and when I repented and said, oh Lord, oh Lord, forgive me. And I got to talk about that because I'm going to tell you what happened.
Speaker 1:In that Now that seven years, you know, I just kind of was willy nilly, I felt out of place, I felt like I was. You know, I didn't know where I was going or where I was headed. I just it was just a time of turmoil in my life. You know, I was struggling, struggling, I would, I would repent, but you know, it was like I just couldn't, I just couldn't get back to God. Well, anyway, listen, uh, that I'm fixing to stop right there because this next part it's going to take me a little while and I don't want to start to stop right there because this next part it's going to take me a little while and I don't want to start. I don't want to start and then have to have to come back. You know, uh, next time, on this next part about, about my repentance, uh, just know that the whole time, looking back now, the whole time, I know, I know that God was with me during that trial, during that season of threshing wheat in the wine press. I'm telling you, god was with me.
Speaker 1:You say well, how can God be against you? You sin, yes, but I repented. I was repenting of my divorce. I didn't want it. And then I didn't want the depression, I didn't want my friends to die, but it was so much on me. That day I walked out and I said, lord, you said you wouldn't put so much on me that I couldn't bear it. Well, I can't bear it. And I went and got on that motorcycle and it started taking me down a different road.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, I want to share again what the scripture says, because I want you to know that, had I gone back and looked up the scripture instead of just going like that, because I believe that was the enemy leading me off into the wilderness for a time being. But what the enemy does for evil, god turns for good. Amen, he does. He does. If you have a repentant heart, like David did, All right. So it says there has no temptation taken you, but which is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be attempted above that you are able. So he won't let you be attempted above that you're able, but with the temptation. He will also make a way escape that you may be able to bear.
Speaker 1:It See, I should have gone back. I should have looked at that scripture up instead of just going off of the one part. God won't put more on me than I'm able to bear, it's true. He won't put more on you that you're able to bear, because he will give you a way of escape that you're able to bear. It See, see how the enemy uses you. See how the enemy tries to trick you using the scripture. So you don't get in there and you don't read it. You hear it somewhere and you don't go back and you don't read it and you don't make sure.
Speaker 1:I should have gone, I should have known better, I should have known better. But listen, god had a plan, I just didn't know it. God had a plan that and he was sending me out, um, and I had to come to myself and he had to speak to my heart, and then it opened the door for me to join a, a motorcycle ministry, the chariots light and go, and there was a period in my time that I had an open door with some of the 1% clubs that I could go into and I could speak unto them and I could pray for them, and I could go to their funerals and I could pray for this one and I would ask him can I pray for you? And they knew there was something different. You know, and, uh, and, and, and you know, god opens the door, sometimes for a season, and then he closes it. Well, listen, I got to wrap it up right here.
Speaker 1:So I want to ask you today, how is your faith walk since you trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you haven't trusted him as Lord and Savior? Pray this prayer. The word of God says that if we believe with our heart that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we confess him with our mouth, we shall be saved. So, if you believe in your heart today, say Lord Jesus, I believe in my heart that you died for my sins. Wash me in your blood, cleanse me, make your abode, make your home in my heart, lord, and save me in Jesus's name. Now, if you pray that prayer, that's a confession. But don't stop there. Go tell somebody. Go tell somebody about Jesus. Go tell somebody what Jesus did in your life, because he's fixing to set you free, he's fixing to teach you Get in the word of God and start your faith walk. Remember religion puts God in a box. Relationship takes him out of the box Until next time. This is William Carroll here on Faith Walk. Start your faith walk today in Jesus's name Amen.
