Hey, you're listening to the follow-up episode of Just Being Intentional with Thomas Harris.
I am Stewart White.
I'm the producer of the show.
And this little segment is designed specifically to ask some questions that I thought you guys
might be asking as you're listening to Thomas in the episode.
So in this very first follow-up episode, Thomas in the intro episode was talking about
his life and everything that led up to this point.
So Thomas, a couple of the things that popped into my head, there were a few moments, but
the moment for me that stuck out the most was -- you got emotional a couple times.
And one of them was when you said you completed your training in the military and the Navy,
and you got out of that, why did that hit you so hard?
What was it about that moment that even now reflecting on it causes you to have this
visceral reaction?
Yeah, I mean, even getting emotional even thinking about it now because I'm so grateful
that God had got to provide an out for me.
I mean, that was the means of giving me another chance to start over.
So I seriously embraced that opportunity to have a clean slate.
And I just think of everything that had transpired from making that decision to join the military.
For me, it was an act of obedience to putting that in motion.
And I just followed what I was really even knowing what I was doing.
I was always aware that there was a God, I often felt this presence even before I knew
who he was.
I felt like there was someone much bigger than myself that was watching over me.
And every time I felt that presence get close to me, I would run away.
And then God and his infinite wisdom and providence would kindly stick his foot out and he
tripped me up.
And my circumstances were a result of continuing to run when I needed to stop.
So when I think about how he gave me the opportunity, one, to take upon the oath and serve this country
to defend and whatever the cost was.
And I saw that training all the way through and I got to where the uniform that not too
many people in the world get to where.
And I did it not even thinking about what could happen, what possibilities were, the worst
could happen.
But I signed myself for that and I just looked back and I get emotional because I think of
everything that has happened from that point, meeting my wife and starting this journey,
which is something I could never foresee prior to that.
Because when you go from feeling like no one cares, if I didn't wake up tomorrow, what
did even matter to people?
Because you can know that people love you, but still not know people love you.
You know, if that makes sense, but he gave me purpose and that's where it all started.
So that's why it hits hard when I think about that.
Does that make sense?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
So if I'm hearing you correctly, that was one of the pivotal moments that changed the trajectory
of your entire life.
You talk about your faith, which would you say had more weight?
Like a lot of people talk about their faith, but it seems to be something for you that might
be even greater of a trajectory change.
Like you thought, I'm going in the military.
This will give me purpose.
And then that decision led to meeting your wife, a girlfriend at the time.
And then now you've, she's taking you to church and you're hearing this presentation and
all that.
Like how did that change your life?
Yeah, I said in the episode that there was for all of us, there's one defining moment that
we have in our lives that changes the entire course of the rest of your life.
And for me, the decision and the follow through of joining the military was that moment.
You know, like you said, that was the pivotal moment.
That was the moment that changed everything because if you look back, we have the beauty
of hindsight where we can look back and see all these pinpoints of events that have happened,
the people that you meet and the decisions you make along that journey.
You know, you know, this is where it started, you know, Frodo started with putting the ring
in his pocket and went on an incredible journey from there.
Like if he never got that ring, would he have left the shire?
Probably not.
Would have made for really boring books and movies, too.
Correct.
You just think about it.
So I love to look at movies.
I'm a movie guy.
I love to look at movies and see like how this pertains to real life.
You know, defining moments based on one decision that changes everything.
That's what it was for me.
So I'm forever grateful for the opportunity to join the military.
And now I'm being benefited greatly because of my time of active duty.
Yeah.
That's really amazing.
Nothing else like I mentioned the emotional moments.
You spoke about your father and very sensitive issue there, too, his death by suicide.
And it seemed to impact you in the trajectory.
Again, I'm using that word trajectory a lot in how you wanted to be and what not to do.
And then also looking at it and going just not being something is not the same as being
something.
And so you spoke about a few things.
Could you go into a little more detail on that?
How did that affect you in being a husband, being a father, being a man?
Yeah.
Um, all of us, every single one of us sees something in our parents that we don't like,
that we want to do differently.
Like I have a very opinionated oldest daughter who sees things and she'll tell it like it
is.
You know, I wanted to do better.
I wanted to be better than than what my environment taught me or didn't teach me.
I mean, it shouldn't take a kid to look around in his environment and say, it's got to be
better than this.
And that's what I saw.
I saw the things that I didn't want to be the possibilities that I did not want to play
out.
And I think I was intentional about that.
Well, I even, without even knowing that I wasn't a believer at the time as a kid, but I was
very in tune with my conscience.
And God was there before I even acknowledged he was there.
And he was showing me things that I should do differently.
So I consider myself a cycle breaker.
The norm was not right for me.
So with my parents, you know, they were very young.
My mom was 16.
My dad was like 19.
They're not going to know any better when you're that age, having a kid or having two kids.
But I just knew that I wanted to be for my family something better.
And I give credit also to the guys that I surrounded myself around that were doing life better
than I was.
And the hope was to have some of that rub off on me and I'd be better for it.
So it sounds like you're saying you aspire or aspired to be like the people that you were
surrounded with.
And when you were surrounded with friends that were going nowhere or the opposite of nowhere
like downward, it had an effect on you.
But then when you made that intentional choice to be around people who had ambition, had plans
and healthy ambition to that that had an effect on you.
Yeah.
And I want my kids to be even better than the examples they've been given.
And I hope that their kids have are better.
You know, I want that to continue.
And this part of living a legacy is like their kids have a life better than you ever had
and you want their kids to have a better life than they had.
So it's just kind of in the sense of paying it forward.
But you fall down along the way and then you keep getting back up and you keep trying harder
and you just rely on God to just be your guide in that process and help you make better
decisions today than you did yesterday.
That's awesome.
Well, so let's wrap it up with one final question and this is something I think people
might be thinking about is if somebody is thinking I need to change my trajectory.
And maybe like you did, maybe it's the military.
What advice would you give them that they could act on or not act on that would possibly
help them determine what to do?
The beauty of working in homeless ministry is I get to pretty much say whatever I want
in those conversations.
I get to challenge guys.
John McArthur said it best.
Hard words produce soft hearts, but soft words produce hard hearts.
So speaking of truth, given people the truth, but from a place of love is the difference
maker.
If I'm just telling you you should do this and there's no love behind it, there's no
care.
Like I am rooting for your success.
Then it's like a clanging symbol.
But if you know that I'm telling you this because I love you and I care about what happens
to you, I'm going to be one of your biggest cheerleaders.
I'm going to take some success in your success because I'm investing in you.
So we have to be truthful on one another.
And that means that some people are going to be in a place where they're ready to receive
it.
And some are not going to be ready and they're just going to be like, they're going to
feel like they're attacked and you're judging them.
But that's not the intention.
The intention is to challenge you because I believe you can do better.
And I take my story, you know, for instance, like I had to believe I can do better.
Otherwise I would just be another statistic and I wasn't going to let that happen.
Yeah.
That's so good.
I would imagine if I was inspired, first of all, in hearing what you had to say.
And I hope that people listening and I know people listening were inspired as well.
So I encourage anyone like if you have any questions, anything like that, check out the
show notes.
We'll have an email that you can reach out and contact us.
If for some reason you're listening to this episode first, go back one episode and listen
to episode one of just being intentional with Thomas Harris and you will be all caught
up.
And then you can have a little more context to this one.
So we really appreciate you taking the time and listening tune in to episode two next.
Thank you, Brian.
I appreciate you.
Yeah.