The Power Of Love

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
You guys, this might be the most viewed podcast we've ever done, because of the importance and relevance of what it is to not only love God, but love one another. We're going to sit down with Barry and Karen Meguiar, so get ready, it's going to be precious down with Barry and Karen Meguiar.

00:47 - Speaker 1
So us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

00:55 - Speaker 2
Well, everybody, we have a very special edition of our podcast together. The Jack Hibbs podcast is going to expand today for good reason. I have with us two very dear friends, two lovers of God, two lovers of one another, and they've got a story to tell Barry and Karen Meguiar of the Meguiar auto product industry. That's what they're known. They're known by that logo, by that name, but what a lot of people don't know is the amazing world that pre-existed before the world exists today, as they are iconic in the auto world, but not only the auto world, but in the Christian world, and you need to meet them.

01:39
So, barry and Karen, it's really great to have you with us, and this is a special time, because I just believe that this is unrehearsed. But I think the direction we're going to go right now with this podcast will probably get a zillion hits and views, because it should. Because I'm going to go away from what we would normally talk about and I want to ask you both tell us, where did you meet? When did you first cast eyes upon one another?

02:07 - Speaker 3
Let me just quickly say I often tell people this is our testimony. They hear me speak, but Karen can get up here and speak and tell me the same stories, because it's our life We've experienced this we did live it together Together.

02:21 - Speaker 4
I mean just, for a year.

02:22 - Speaker 3
we had nothing. We had nothing, we had a little company doing $600,000 a year. I was buffing cars in the garage.

02:28 - Speaker 2
For a lot of people that's. I mean that's a lot, but that's little from the-.

02:32 - Speaker 3
But it was a 60-year-old business. My grandfather started in 1901. 60 years old at that time, and the whole business was buffing cars.

02:55 - Speaker 2
Get to that, though, because I want to know where did you meet? How did you meet?

02:58 - Speaker 3
Oh, that's cool, that's amazing. Go ahead.

03:00 - Speaker 4
Okay. Well, I'm a cougar. Okay, what does that mean? I'm nine months older than him. I see, I see Okay. We met at Pasadena College, which was a few years ago, yeah it's now. Portland.

03:18 - Speaker 2
Nazarene.

03:18 - Speaker 3
University but at the time it was Pasadena College, and so we met there.

03:23 - Speaker 4
We met there and it was the night before he started his freshman year and I was a big upperclassman, a sophomore, so that was he can tell you what I had on.

03:32 - Speaker 3
Oh yeah, that was, that was a moment 60 plus years later that was 1960. 1960. So 64 years ago, coming up in this September. But six years, well, six, three and a half years. But yeah, I could tell you where we were. I could tell you what she wore I went to. I didn't have to go to college, I was going into family business is the way I looked at it.

03:56 - Speaker 1
Thank God, I did.

03:57 - Speaker 3
But I said I need to go. I just want to get a wife. Well, I met her the night before my freshman year started. I was done. I could have just quit. I didn't. I went on and finished four years and became student body president and all that. But she drug me through all my classes, right?

04:11 - Speaker 2
Yeah, but he did Because you're the brains, aren't you the brains? That's what I've heard. Yeah, that's right, you've got your accounting and math and all your skills.

04:19 - Speaker 3
Yes, yes, I love business. She got one B in college. One B. She only got one B. She took all these classes. She worked 40 hours a week, paid her own way, got one B, worked for General Motors Made more money than him, did she? Oh, yes, but let me tell you that's one thing we have in common. We both have the distinction of getting one B in college. I didn't get any A's, but I got a B.

04:48 - Speaker 4
And I think it was a C that I got.

04:54 - Speaker 3
So she helped me through college, pulled me through. I did, and she has all the strengths I don't have. She is so organized and she's every penny and I just, you know, let's go and build something. And I see the big picture and I want to go and I tell her I like to make money and I like to spend money and she takes care of everything. She keeps you safe to be able to do that.

05:16 - Speaker 2
So you're so. So people don't have the wrong idea, because people, we have a tendency to do this as humans. Oh, what does barry and karen know about suffering they, they had. They had the silver spoon, the golden spoon. What do they know? And that's not the case. In fact, you guys, it's pretty amazing because the Lord has blessed you tremendously. But if you were reduced tomorrow to pork and beans, you know how to do that.

05:43 - Speaker 3
We're ready. We're ready. Our joy is not in any of this stuff.

05:46 - Speaker 1
This stuff's all going to go away.

05:48 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, and it may well. It could go away soon, who knows?

05:52 - Speaker 2
So can you share after your? I mean, I know we have to condense this time-wise, but so you fell in love in the school and you were married and you did this family business. You were given a $5 allowance, but eventually things began to come together.

06:11 - Speaker 4
Not for a long time.

06:12 - Speaker 2
Not for a long time.

06:13 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean seriously. It was not like we had a year of suffering. First off, the business was started by my grandfather in 1901. Then there was three brothers that continued on. The oldest one of those brothers passed away. So my dad and I owned half the company and his half-brother and his two sons had half the company. Problem was they weren't Christians. They never waxed a car, they couldn't read a balance sheet, they didn't trust anybody with a tie and they couldn't understand what I was doing. I wanted to go retail, they wanted to go retail. So they fought me. I mean hard for 30 years, really 40 years, to keep the business small.

06:53
To keep it. They didn't want that, you know. They just didn't want to go. They were making more money than they ever thought they'd make. But they hated me so much, and so every board meeting was a trial and we had outside board members, and because they might always win board votes by one vote, I'd just sneak by.

07:13
But we were just right on the edge all the time and very close to bankruptcy many times. And then you know they were in charge of all production. That's what they did and they would hold up shipping the big order to the big chain that was doing a promotion that next weekend. Deliberately, Deliberately, it was their business, but I mean the things that. So the trials we had in business and fighting through all that, Of course we had no money, we had no stature, and how do we break into the business? And that's just trusting God.

07:45 - Speaker 4
But we always drove a beautiful car. Oh yeah, we always had a good car. You would have to because that's your common car. That's our common car and it was a company car.

07:51 - Speaker 2
Yes, but the difference.

07:52 - Speaker 3
I'll just say right quick the difference was we were serving, giving sacrificially, all that with no joy. We knew that we were missing joy, and so we prayed together about God. We want joy. How do we get joy?

08:09 - Speaker 4
How do we get it?

08:10 - Speaker 3
We're so busy doing everything Long story short, but through an amazing guy that stepped into our life who had more joy than we'd ever seen. He was getting it from sharing his faith, and we'd never put together sharing faith and having joy.

08:25 - Speaker 2
And you and I have talked a lot about it.

08:28 - Speaker 3
It's the two sides of the same coin having faith and sharing faith. Once we started on that path, it just opened up everything. And so then we knew our business is our pulpit, not our business, not our God. And so we started using the business. So as I grew the business and was making those sales calls and getting turned down, it didn't bother me.

08:48 - Speaker 2
So, rather than focusing on business success, your vision both of you, it was let's use this company for the glory of God, absolutely, absolutely. So many people need to hear that today.

08:58 - Speaker 3
Well, so when I got turned down, I got turned down a lot. You say I had a sore nose because of all the doors.

09:03 - Speaker 1
That were hitting.

09:04 - Speaker 3
I mean, nobody knew us. Nobody knew us. We're a little—I'm a punk kid from California and you know the retailers across the United States, and most of them Jewish. They had no regard for me whatsoever.

09:15 - Speaker 4
Well, don't forget, we started doing all of these trade shows.

09:22 - Speaker 3
We did housewares trade shows, boat trade shows, national hardware show, national boat show, all these shows. And she was a truist.

09:26 - Speaker 4
And yes, he was an introvert, all right. No, oh, yes, I've never been an introvert. No, so we would have these little 10-foot booths at these huge trade shows, you know, and we would go in at night and even set the booth up ourselves.

09:44 - Speaker 3
We didn't have money to have a set up.

09:45 - Speaker 4
We didn't yeah, so I would go out into the aisle and I was always looking for these red badges, because they were the buyers.

09:55 - Speaker 3
And so I would talk to them. I did. She had them all warmed up. Now they're happy.

09:59 - Speaker 4
Then I would— they would come into the booth and Barry would sell them. We were quite the team, or we'd go into these big receptions and we'd try to network you know and I hid behind Karen.

10:07 - Speaker 3
I literally hid behind Karen. That's hard to do because she's about four foot two right.

10:13 - Speaker 4
Well, she was taller then I had six feet taller.

10:16 - Speaker 1
She would start the conversation.

10:17 - Speaker 3
But once she got it going then I'd literally jump and say I'm her husband, but, and say I'm her husband, but seriously, we went through that. But every time I had a door closed I loved on those people. I loved on them.

10:29 - Speaker 2
No matter what.

10:30 - Speaker 3
No matter what.

10:31 - Speaker 2
And I would say I understand.

10:32 - Speaker 3
I'm going to earn your respect.

10:36 - Speaker 1
I'm going to be back.

10:36 - Speaker 3
You would tell them that I would tell them that I haven't gotten there yet. I understand, Help me. I said what do I need to do?

10:40
You tell me you teach me so they all began loving on me and rooting for me. But I didn't deserve it to be in their shells. I would have been a failure and then that would have been good for anybody. So they taught me. So at the national convention, the big trade magazine had a a dinner and they asked me to come. We didn't want to go. We were dead tired, uh, because we didn't lose that. Leave our booth for anything bathrooms nothing. We had to be there because we might't leave our booth for anything bathrooms nothing. We had to be there because we might lose a connection. So we went there that night. They said we have all these awards. Now this is our vendor of the year award and all of you have voted who our vendor of the year is. And this year it's Barry Meguiar from Meguiar Car Wax. What we're not selling one of them. We weren't a vendor Incredible. We weren't a vendor Incredible. We weren't a vendor we're not selling. We were not, not.

11:28
One of them were our customers and they voted me vendor of the year because they loved me, Wow, and they wanted me and they wanted me to come and they they wanted to buy the problem, but you just got to do some things before we dare put you on our shelves. So that was when you start doing that. You just say if I live for you and my folks aren't getting everybody into heaven, then it's going to happen. I don't know when, but it's going to happen.

11:53 - Speaker 2
What kind of story in the world says you get the award first?

11:57 - Speaker 3
That's crazy. That's crazy, that's just. You know. We wrinkle effects of that down to college students. They go to Christian college. They've learned all this. They've probably all their lives. Now they're going to go out and get a job. They forget everything.

12:10 - Speaker 1
And if they're hyperventilating about it or they're going to get an interview, or whatever stop it.

12:14 - Speaker 3
Yeah, go in there and be focused on you want to lead that people move that person closer to Jesus.

12:19
Yeah, if they turn you down, it doesn't matter, because God has the place. He will make it happen. Stop trusting yourself. Trust God. Your job is to move them closer to Jesus. It changes everything Once you take your folks off this what you got to do and say I'm going to use this opportunity to lead people to Jesus, and you know what it makes them love you. I mean, you can't get people bad when you tell them God loves you and you're manifesting that self to them. Meanwhile, god's got a whole plan and all of a sudden now we end up being the number one selling car wax. But it's over a period of years, it didn't happen overnight. But in the meantime we had all kinds of huge problems. We lost our daughter when she was 49 years old, that's right, I talk about a tragedy.

13:03
I was dying in the hospital and the doctors gave up on me.

13:06 - Speaker 4
We didn't lose our children, but I never thought you were going to die.

13:09 - Speaker 3
No, we were fine, I never thought that People come to all of the United States giving their respects. You know I trusted.

13:15 - Speaker 4
God, she said I even kept my tan.

13:16 - Speaker 3
What year.

13:19 - Speaker 2
That's what Newport Beach will help you with. Yeah, we'll help you with.

13:22 - Speaker 3
Yeah, what year was that? That was 2010.

13:25 - Speaker 4
Yeah.

13:26 - Speaker 3
Wow, and we had a joint venture partner. My family sold out to a joint venture company, vulture. Yeah, that's true, and they tried to throw me out of my business and never lost my joy, and God took care of that so easily.

13:45 - Speaker 4
Well, he would walk. Am I going to break it? You want to know this.

13:48 - Speaker 3
Yeah, go, you, go girl, you go girl.

13:50 - Speaker 4
I'm sorry, I should not have done that huh, no, but when he? Would go to work in the morning. We kind of had a balcony up above the front door and I would Quote him scripture as he's going out the door.

14:02 - Speaker 3
Wow, oh yeah, barry, wait, I got the scripture for you today, which would stay with me all day, and it came down from above, as though God was speaking it upon you. This blessing fell like a mountain, but she's a prayer warrior, bible study leader and all, and she's just always there In the critical times of our life. We just talked our way through them and then committed to the Lord. We said, god, we're trusting you.

14:26 - Speaker 4
We're not trusting anyone else. Also, the people that God has brought into our lives over our time together has been incredible People that we have. I know. One of the most important people in my life was Gwen Wilkerson, who was David Wilkerson's wife who was crossing the switchblade. I just learned so much from her on what a godly Christian woman does. It was incredible.

14:51 - Speaker 3
They were best friends for 40 years. The Wilkersons were best friends for 40 years. How did that happen? God just brought. If God knows you're hungry, he'll bring people into your life that will mentor you.

15:00 - Speaker 2
That's true, you know, that's true.

15:02 - Speaker 3
It's amazing what he does. We look back now. We say you can't get to where we are now from where we were. You can't. And it's not because we're good, it's not because we're smart. We know that.

15:13 - Speaker 2
Speak for yourself. That is classy.

15:19 - Speaker 3
Not because I'm smart. I was smart, I got here for a while.

15:22 - Speaker 2
That's right.

15:22 - Speaker 3
That's your move. But the fact of the matter is we've run to every evangelism class. We've run to everywhere we can go, every personal special speaker, taking notes. Our entire six years of living we've chased after God. Yes, we have. He knows our hearts. He's been number one all the way through. When you do that, man, he just enriches you and he gives you more than you can ever expect in your understanding and knowledge and closeness and intimacy with God. And so we were just talking about it the other night. We have no fear, we have no anger, we have no worry. We have no bad days. We have bad days, but they're good days because the bad days God's up to something.

16:03 - Speaker 4
Yeah Well, I've seen so many things that have come our way. You know, after so many years, you realize God is there. And so now, when things hit, I'll say, okay, satan, get thee behind me, you know, and how he'll try to bring it back to remembrance again and again. And I'll just say, you know, trust God. And I've just given this to God and I just tell God, I just can't wait to see how you're going to work this one out. He does, he does. It's incredible.

16:32 - Speaker 3
The one time I was low ahead of Karen. We had a daughter who was often getting inside things and distressing us and I wasn't worried, but she was, and this went on for a period of time.

16:45 - Speaker 2
I'm a mother, you're a mom and she's a mom.

16:48 - Speaker 3
And she's trying to fix her. That's right. And one day she came in to me and she says okay, I give up. And what's that she says? I gave her to the Lord.

16:55 - Speaker 2
You did, I just gave her to.

16:57 - Speaker 3
You know, within two weeks I won't go into the story. It's an amazing story. Within two weeks that whole situation cleared up.

17:03 - Speaker 1
It wasn't about the daughter the trial was here. It was me.

17:08 - Speaker 4
God wanted to get a hold of her heart. That's how he does it, totally.

17:11 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and he had most of her heart.

17:12 - Speaker 2
but there was this one thing the mother and the daughter that's a very Abraham Isaac thing on the hilltop.

17:16 - Speaker 4
Yeah, right, right.

17:19 - Speaker 2
You have to give up. And then there's the victory People who don't know the Lord. They don't understand. We could be speaking Chinese. They don't get it. They don't understand where you know.

17:29
Jesus says if you want to find your life, lose it. Well, what kind of a silly comment is that? But he says if you hang on to your life, you're going to lose it in the end. That's ridiculous. The joy in life is actually us possessing nothing. It the joy in life is actually us possessing nothing. It's him possessing everything. That can't be true. But to the world that doesn't know Christ, they think we're nuts and I used to think people were crazy. Until you come to Christ and he begins to move and work in your life.

17:57
I love what you said a moment ago, you guys, about the bad days, the bad days, the bad days. My bad day is when I don't wake up soon enough to realize that the bad day can be a really good thing. Right, because what you just said, the temptation is there to be whatever. It is, even grumpy. And again, I just read in a book recently about spiritual warfare and I thought it was fantastic. Whoever the author was said that when they have a bad thought, temper or temptation that they immediately stop and say Satan, this is from you, yeah.

18:35 - Speaker 3
Every time.

18:36 - Speaker 2
Yeah, every time yeah. And I remind you, Satan, that without you I wouldn't be having this attack, and this attack my father knows about. You can't do anything to me without my father knowing about it. Perfect. And so because of that, you have to leave. And it was just so practical, it was so conversational.

19:00 - Speaker 3
We had an individual who was attacking us for years, trying to destroy our reputation on social media. He's still there today and did everything he could.

19:10 - Speaker 2
They have like three viewers, three followers.

19:12 - Speaker 3
Well, I don't know, but well, no, it hit the news. It was on KFI radio here locally, it was in the LA Times. It was getting traction and he made me look like an absolute Jesus lunatic fool but one thing the register in Orange County would not print it no, they were very good to us.

19:36 - Speaker 2
They knew us they were in their backyard.

19:38 - Speaker 3
They would not print that. That was. That was quite amazing, but the end result was we came down to a crisis and it was horrible what he was about to do to us.

19:46
That day without going into details, and we labored with it all night long, each of us in our own way, praying and crying, and we sat in bed that morning and we said there's, there's, there's no scripture that allows us to do this. We have to turn the other cheek, we have to go the extra mile. I mean, the scripture is very clear. We both, we have no choice. So in those moments and we had a number of them through our lives we prayed out loud to God and we said, god, we trust you, we forgive him and we love him. Once you love him through us, we want we love him. Once you love him through us, we will love him. Wow, you know what that did? That ended in anger, not just for him, but for our entire lives. We had no anger. You were set free. We thank God for him. This is a key, because God set us free from anger because of him. And then what happened to him? How can you love me after all the crap I've been?

20:46 - Speaker 4
giving you Yep, yep. Said that several times to me. I never said a bad word to this person.

20:50 - Speaker 2
Never, never, never once Never attacked him.

20:53 - Speaker 3
And all that. We just refused to do that. And you know what? Now I'm mentoring him and he's a Christian and he's solid and and I think, what if I had said anything? But I never, there was never one word I said to him that was bad, never once.

21:10 - Speaker 2
You know, haven't we botched up this thing about forgiveness? We think I think so. Yeah, we think, uh, when we're instructed, taught, we read, we're told, do you need to forgive them? Why would I do that? I would never do that. I don't want them to have the satisfaction of knowing we've completely botched it up.

21:24 - Speaker 4
Well, you're the only one that hurts.

21:26 - Speaker 2
Well, exactly, but people don't realize that. They think never will. I'm going to forgive them. You have no idea that God gave you the ability to forgive somebody, to set yourself free, because until you do forgive them, they own you. They own you Right.

21:40 - Speaker 3
Exactly. You're going to be bitter. Everything they do is going to stab you again and again over and over again instead he went on doing stuff and we laughed. We laughed when he was trying to hurt us still, because that went on for years and we laughed and we said he can't hurt us anymore there's no way he can't hurt us anymore what a power, what a power.

22:01 - Speaker 1
This is where Christianity becomes real in your life.

22:03 - Speaker 3
It's not just. You know I'm on my way to heaven and we accepted Jesus Christ. That's fine, a lot of people are there. But if you want to have peace, the past understanding, you want to have joy every day. You want to know God's answering your prayers, you want to know God's direction of your steps, you want to live in that sweet spot with God, just live for him. Live for him, share him. That's the number one thing we're called to do is share him. When we share him, god speaking through you, you have intimacy with God. It all works. It's amazing, it's all one. It's not disparate type pieces, it's all. This is living for Jesus. You know, letting him shine through us and love people through us. It's really special. Hey, 60 years of marriage. Can you believe this?

22:42 - Speaker 2
She hung in there for 60 years 60 and a half, isn't it Getting there Almost 61. It's moving. So I'm going to do with the time remaining. I'm going to do like a shotgun round real quick just like real quick answers. Where was your first kiss?

22:56 - Speaker 4
Three months I went without a kiss.

22:59 - Speaker 2
Three months Was that because he was slow, without a kiss. Three months, was that because he was slow? Yeah, that's embarrassing. Yeah Three months. We went three months so should I move on to the next question then?

23:08 - Speaker 3
Move on. It was a different time. Okay, it was 1960.

23:12 - Speaker 2
The 60s were crazy, it was. Well, it was for some. How about you? And? Lisa huh, but for us.

23:17 - Speaker 3
There was, you know.

23:18 - Speaker 2
Oh, I don't know, I'd have to think about it. But seriously, there was such respect.

23:22 - Speaker 3
And nobody would even imagine that today, if you don't go to bed the first night, something's really wrong. But I didn't kiss her. It was three months before I kissed her the first time, finally taking her to the dorm room, I kissed her for the first time.

23:34 - Speaker 2
Wow.

23:35 - Speaker 3
And we were three months in that's amazing First apartment or home.

23:43 - Speaker 4
Back in those days. First apartment Was it an apartment?

23:46 - Speaker 3
It was, where was it In Pasadena. Yeah, stairway Third floor. Carried all the furniture up the stairway.

23:55 - Speaker 4
I had a guy chase me one time when I was coming home from work and I remember running.

23:59 - Speaker 3
It was not the safest place Running it was in Pasadena.

24:01 - Speaker 4
It was.

24:02 - Speaker 3
Yeah.

24:04 - Speaker 2
First vacation.

24:06 - Speaker 3
Hawaii, hawaii, of course, of course, but my parents paid for it, that's even better.

24:12 - Speaker 4
Hawaii's been our place you won the.

24:14 - Speaker 3
Marlin, we went, it was awesome, and so the Royal. Hawaiian Hotel. You know that's our place, yeah yeah, yeah, I Hawaiian Hotel you know that's our place. I don't know if we'll ever go there again, but we've been there 60 times. We love Hawaii, just the music.

24:28 - Speaker 2
Just the whole, thing, huh.

24:29 - Speaker 3
Yeah, we went to Duke's the other night for dinner and they're playing the Hawaiian music, just reminiscing, right, just like.

24:32 - Speaker 2
Okay, I'm there, that's right, that's right. First car. Now this is a big question, because your car, that's your world, but first car. I think somebody said it was a company car at first. Well, yeah, but the first car for us my first car is 57 Chevy 57 Chevy. Is that a two-door or four-door?

24:51 - Speaker 3
Black bell-air hardtop, hardtop.

24:55 - Speaker 2
Two-door bell-air hardtop White on top, black on the bottom.

24:57 - Speaker 3
No no, no, all black. We're black car people, all black.

25:00 - Speaker 4
All black.

25:01 - Speaker 3
Two-door or four-door. Two it's a Bel Air, so it's a two-door coupe Without a post.

25:08 - Speaker 4
It's in our garage.

25:09 - Speaker 2
I was just going to ask you Do you have it.

25:11 - Speaker 3
So we dated that and it's a very special car for us to go around in today. Oh my gosh.

25:17 - Speaker 2
That is incredibly awesome. It is what it is. What should I ask you before we wrap this up? What should I ask you? What do you want people to know? That?

25:28 - Speaker 3
they're not going to know any other way. Ask us what's happened to our love Is our?

25:34 - Speaker 2
love as strong now as it was back when we first. Barry, what's happened to your love after all these years?

25:37 - Speaker 3
That's a great question. We laughed. It's awesome, it gets better and better and better and better when you're with the Lord. I have all kinds of issues in my life with me. She has all kinds of issues with me, you know, but she's very forgiving.

25:56 - Speaker 2
I can hear Lisa going amen, I understand. Yeah, I mean, I'm a type.

25:59 - Speaker 3
A, you know, it's just like but she's been very patient with me.

26:02 - Speaker 4
He rewarded me. But, After 60 years. Guess what he bought me.

26:08 - Speaker 2
I think I know, but I'm not sure.

26:11 - Speaker 4
Go ahead, a red Corvette Z06.

26:14 - Speaker 3
Corvette Z06. A what it's called a Z06.

26:17 - Speaker 2
A Z06? Z06. Yeah, that's kind of the high-performance bet and you drive it, don't you. I do, but you know why I did that. I hear—yeah.

26:28 - Speaker 3
Here's why it was for her 60th—she always wanted a Corvette, but I looked that—I gave her a nice gift when we both turned 80, when she turned 80. But you can't—you're going to turn 80. That's not by choice. I mean you're going to turn 80, right? This is 60 years. This is 60 years of putting up with me and all my ideas, and always wanting to go, I'm just like let's go, let's go, and she goes, and she never has said no.

26:58 - Speaker 1
This is what's amazing.

26:58 - Speaker 3
She's never said no. She's never said I'm too tired. I don't know what's amazing. She's never said no. She's never said I'm too tired. She's never said I'm too old to do this. None of those.

27:07 - Speaker 1
We get up regularly at 4.30 in the morning, in the dark, to catch a plane.

27:09 - Speaker 3
She's awake before me and she's smiling. We love our life together. We live our life together. It's just. It's so much better. Is that because we're good? No, it's because the closer you you get to god, the closer you get to each other, to where you just you just. It's just god. If you don't have god to set your relationship, you're missing the best part, because it just takes it. It makes it like I wake up in my heart. I just can't believe this guy was still married to me and we're gonna face this day together. And every day has challenges, yeah, but um, and when they're bad, we say okay, what are you up to now, god? How are you?

27:45 - Speaker 2
going to work this one out. What's amazing? Lisa and I will look at your schedule. We're trying to figure out time to be together, the four of us and I've got Lisa. We have a pretty crazy schedule, honestly Insane For us. It's insane, insane.

28:03
But when we look at your calendar, I honestly we do not know how you guys do it and I and I'm not making this up what it's not unusual for them to say well, uh, we're in california on monday, we're in, we'll be in detroit wednesday, we'll be in miami on friday, we and all of these are shows and events for the company and all of these things that are going on. And yet you guys not only maintain friendships with people. I want to just say to the world that one of the greatest joys that we've enjoyed having you guys in our lives is the quality of people, the type of people that you have surrounded yourselves with. I don't like the word surrounded yourselves. I think your type of nucleus, who you guys are, has drawn a certain type of people to you guys that love God, their mission. They're on purpose, like you guys are every day.

29:02
They're on mission, they're on purpose and they love God, and so the people that you have around you are not only drawing from you you guys are not only going 100 miles an hour plus but they're drawing from your example. I mean, look, we celebrated with you guys recently your 60th wedding anniversary, and that room was packed with people who were saying, "'when I grow up, I want to be like them'".

29:31 - Speaker 3
That is an epic.

29:32 - Speaker 2
That is a God-honoring thing that is so rare today.

29:35 - Speaker 3
Thank you. Our goal is first love Christians. You know he said to the church you've left your first love. You've left, you've departed me. I know you're honoring me, you know good teaching for bad, all this, but something else is capturing you. We have lots of Christians that we go out to eat and we'll bring up God, and they immediately go to another subject Immediately. So in our stage in life, and we don't know what the future is going to hold if things get really tough. I don't want our friends turning us in.

30:08 - Speaker 1
I want friends.

30:08 - Speaker 3
I can trust, you know. So we just like we hang out with people who are first love Christians. You talk?

30:15 - Speaker 4
about God. They're talking about God all the time, or the sermons. They're excited about the.

30:20 - Speaker 2
God and talk about you and talk about our pastor and talk about our sermons. We'll get together and we'll find out what Dave's doing in Vegas, coming up soon at the stadium and then you find out what Dana's doing regarding this or what maybe Dr David is doing regarding the other.

30:36 - Speaker 3
On church on Sunday, we have these great conversations about your message.

30:40 - Speaker 4
Yeah.

30:42 - Speaker 3
Well that's exciting to hear about and we're all growing still from your message over lunch. And that's not always the case with Christians. They're. Often they want to talk about the ball game or something. Sometimes I get pictures. There are people who will take pictures where you guys move into a restaurant on Sundays and take it over.

30:56 - Speaker 2
Oh yeah, and the place gets real quiet because your table is big, and loud, all about God and the manager.

31:05 - Speaker 3
All about Jesus. Are you there preaching at what we're?

31:07 - Speaker 2
doing no, I'm still working. He's preaching, you're still preaching, I'm still preaching, yeah, he's preaching, but I hear people are saying, oh, my goodness, and it's so precious, because it's like this storm that rolls into town of glory and it's just awesome and we don't like to leave you glory and it's just awesome and we don't like to leave.

31:25 - Speaker 3
You are kind, it's like, with that kind of connection with people first love Christians. You never want to leave. There's no such thing as a quick, and then we got to run. Nobody wants to leave.

31:34 - Speaker 2
I think that's the Holy Spirit, I think that's the Spirit of God working for these lives. I've never seen anything like it.

31:37 - Speaker 3
We get back at 4.30 in the afternoon, but it is being first, First love Christians folks, if you want to hang out with people who really love on you and be there for you and they're excited about God, no matter what goes on in this crazy world. We don't know what it is. We need to be surrounded right now with first love Christians.

31:51 - Speaker 2
So you guys, that first love Christian begins with knowing the gospel, and that is that, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten, only glorified One, and only by the way that word, and only by the way, that word, means that there's no other Savior coming, that God gave his only begotten son, that whosoever that's you, that's us would believe in him. That word, belief is to pull up and put rest upon. It's like what we're doing with these chairs right now. We're sitting on these chairs. The Lord wants you to set your life upon him. Rest in him, yes, and you will not perish, he says. This is the Word of God. He says you will not perish but have everlasting life.

32:33
And so Barry and Karen have been faithful to do that and we just wanted to take a quick time to honor that so that you guys might know a little bit about them. You can find out more by going to Ignite your Life. You can get a hold of their book and find out more. They're also available for viewing at the Real Life Network. You can download that app free on your device and look at all of their programming that's available about sharing your faith, keeping a Christ-centered and a Christ-focused life. So, as always, you guys, our jingle is what we mean. It's time for us to live out. That's what the world needs to see right. They need to see us living our life outside the walls of the church. It's time for us to live out what we believe in. It's time for real life. And, barry and Karen, thank you for being with us.

33:22 - Speaker 3
Love you guys so much. We're so blessed by you.

33:25 - Speaker 4
We are blessed, we're so blessed by you. We are blessed, we're blessed.

33:31 - Speaker 1
This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.