Brad Miller 0:00
Back on the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. It is our pleasure as always, to seek to help persons to understand that they all have a god given life of peace, prosperity, and purpose that helps them overcome adversity and achieve this peace in their life. And we're glad to have you with us here today. And today we have just a great guest with us who's done a lot of what we're talking about here overcome adversity to have hope in his life and ability to share that with others. He is from Matt Crump ministries. Hashtag God's got this His name is Matt crop. Matt, welcome to pathway to progress. Hey, thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be here. It is awesome to have you here and you my audience probably can't see you but I want them to go to your website eventually and see this awesome, awesome beard you got my man it is really they have to I've got so much work involved with so many to look at it you know, you got to get over there to God's got this or what's your website again, as well.

corrupt God God's got this love God's got this dot love you need to get over there and check him out lots of cool stuff on this website. It's all about his story though. It's about his story that mad have which is an awesome story of hope in the midst of, of challenges of adversity of things in his life so mad we I gotta say a lot about you and let's hear from you what just tell us a little bit about your story about how you got through some really rough patches in your life and created Matt Krupp ministries and God's got this.

Matt Crump 1:31
Thanks. Thanks, Brad. Yeah, there's a I could probably talk for five podcasts right now. I've had a I've had I feel like a cat. I feel like I've had at least nine lives so far. He's He's really brought me through so much. I think probably where I would start would be most recent in in my life. Back it up. I've been a follower of Christ for for a little over 30 years and I don't claim that I have arrived in perfection at all but

Unknown Speaker 2:00
I'm working on it.

Unknown Speaker 2:02
Yeah. On to perfection on to perfection, right. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

Matt Crump 2:07
I'm working progress. I think, you know, back in 2011, I had to go in for a hernia surgery, had a botched surgery and had to go back to Duke to get work done. And that's when a doctor looked at me and my wife said, we just looked at my husband's back, she looked at and said, Oh, we can't do the surgery that's looked at and found out I had melanoma cancer.

had a couple of surgeries and fast forward a few months. They said things look good. I was all clear and started doing my follow up visits every six months then to a year and then finally after about three years it was over. They thought I was good. So I just went with my life. 2015 I ended up on stage at church getting ready to lead worship started coughing and started coughing up blood. That's not good. That's not a good now, I said the wall. This is different.

I went through and did worship got it all done. And then I'm pig at it just like I was the first time with with my back stuff. So I just went, went back to church went back to work on Monday and started having some problems started having some headaches and I went back to the house and that night, we went out with the family came home. And all I remember was the next day evidently that entire night. My family we always got together and prayed and they all came together. We all prayed together, talk together. Everything's cool, except I don't remember any of it.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
I remember coming home from dinner, and that was it.

Matt Crump 3:35
The next day, I started seeing flashes, lights and everything. You were kind of a blackout state or something like that, or what was going I was having. I was having seizures and I blacked out. Wow. Yeah. And I didn't know that either. So I ran to the hospital. This is after I'd already been diagnosed with stage four cancer. It was in my adrenal gland. I'm on my leg and I had a lung tumor. So I drove to the hospital and it was a 45 minute drive.

Well, my wife works at a hospital. So I went there to replace instead, they did some work on me and the doc came in and she said, Well, I've got bad news for you. And I said, Okay, she said, Well, you have a bleeding brain tumor and the anus is on the way, we're going to rush you to Duke. And I thought it was kind of a joke that because they work with Robin, that was kind of funny. I was like, Okay, this, she goes, No, I'm serious. This is bad. You have to go right now. Oh, my God. And it was crazy. Yeah. might have been an expletive or two at that moment. And yeah, we were scared and went in I had had the surgery within a day or two and, and,

and the recovery was, was the worst surgery ever had in my life with the brain surgery, it was the worst. And I could understand when people go through things like that, how they would want to kill themselves. And that is, it's crazy. And people you know, they talk about, you know, in the Christian world, some folks they commit suicide, you go to hell, and I was, I've kind of re rethought that process over my life. I think

There's there's definitely consequences for things but sometimes people they just aren't thinking right things just go crazy and you just don't know me got the job. Right. But I mean, I was to the point where I wanted to kill myself I thought I couldn't handle the pain anymore. I thought it was over. I was ready to say goodbye my kids, and I just couldn't handle it. But But God, so he really started speaking life to me and encouraging me and I had friends that were encouraging me and that's where where that hope button kind of kicked in. I'd already been saying God's got this at this point. So now I had people tell him I'll make them and by to tell me Well, you know, God's got this you know, God's got in my oh my god, I wish I never said that in the first place. Right? But right did and what it did was it brought a great accountability in my life, that accountability was what gave me some strength to push into to make my fight and that hope that we have on the inside. You know, I tell people all the time when it comes down to to happiness and joy. That's one of the things I was really needing because I felt very depressed.

Unknown Speaker 6:00
I was on a lot of drugs, a lot of medics and the medicine was really messed with my head. And I felt like

Unknown Speaker 6:08
I understood the difference between happiness and joy at that moment. So happiness,

Unknown Speaker 6:11
there's happiness and unhappiness, but in the dictionary, there's no such thing as on joy. Right? So,

Matt Crump 6:18
you know, happiness is an emotion. And I felt like wow, okay, there's no joy and joy as a gift of the Spirit of God, he's already in me, that means I have joy. So I had joy even though I was in a bad situation even though things can go sour. I still had this joy and that joy really was what welled up inside of me and one of the byproducts of that was happiness. Happy Yes sir. Right and start writing songs again started digging into life. And before you know it, I'm I'm running 120,000 miles an hour again, like little squirrel that I am. So that really is what gave me some strength at that point in my life to really move into what God's got me doing right now. And now you are a proof

Fear of hope. And yeah, I love that terminology. Well, thank you. That was definitely enough. What does it mean to you to be a purveyor of hope for others? Well, that's that's good question. I never really had thought of the word didn't even go through my mind in the past. And it really just popped in my head one day it was the Lord totally. I'm just not that good. So

I looked it up in the dictionary, and I thought, Oh, my God, this is this is me. It's, it's a person who's just somebody who really, really is transformed and really pushes into people's lives and, and helps them to get to that place, right. It's somebody who's who Pervaiz, someone who digs in who's who strives who moves forward who has passion, but that's me. And my biggest thing at that point was hope. I mean, I've always been a type of guy who wants people to to have hope to experience that there is more there can be more.

Unknown Speaker 7:55
Look at me, I'm dying. I still have joy. I still have hope and I

Unknown Speaker 8:00
I believe that somehow, some way I'm going to survive if I don't, I'm with Jesus. The worst thing for me is saying of mine and my kids and my wife, right. But at that point, I felt like they all know what's going on my daughter, she says to me, which kind of bums me out a little bit, but she says, I will Dad, you know, whether you live or die, and it's okay, I just I know where you're gonna go. So I'm not really worried about it. I'm like, No, you need to feel bad about it.

Unknown Speaker 8:25
I'm appropriate Guild, Tara.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Go

Matt Crump 8:30
ahead. So I think it's powerful to have even some of that legacy already working in my family's life. And my daughter goes after it. She's She's She's an evangelist at heart, my son. He's coming up in his 80s he followers too, but he's finding his own. So anyway. Yeah, that's one of those things that people always ask me. How do I do what I do? Why do I do what I do? Help me do this. Can you help me do that? And I thought, you know, that's what it is. That's who I am. I am. I'm a purveyor of hope. Right? Well, actually, that's not who I am. That's an identity question. My identity

Is that I am a child of God. I'm a follower of Christ, right. And so the byproduct of that is I get to do things I get to be a pastor, I get to be a worship leader, I get to be a speaker, I get to be an author, I get to be a songwriter, I get to do these interviews, like I get to do all this kind of stuff. I get to be a purveyor of hope. Those are things I do, but who I am, is a follower of Christ. I am a child of God, and He tells me who I am. That's my identity. So if you lose certain things, that's what helped me to feel like if I die, I want okay, because my identity is not wrapped up in those things. I can't go there. So that's, you know, that's the thing now you have a sense of purpose and direction and meaningfulness in your life. Whereas if you chose to, you could let you know that cancer diagnosis and all the pain of brain surgery that could beat you up and put you down and out. And the thing is, it does for a lot of people, doesn't it Matt?

Unknown Speaker 9:51
meaninglessness. Yeah, I have to make the choice. I have to I have to overcome adversity, and we have an adversary. So he will do things to try

Unknown Speaker 10:00
distract and destroy. So things will happen that comes across my path to make me think about stuff I could I could think about death I can think about leaving whatever. And the other the other adversary we have I know a question you've got coming my way of I'm skipping ahead to another answer but

Unknown Speaker 10:18
is that we have two adversaries really in life the two biggest things Satan, of course, and and me, you were we are we are our worst advocate. We are the most evil things on the planet, right we we need a transformation through Christ to be changed from from good to bad, a new creation, right? But our nature, in itself is sinful evil, we want to do bad things. We want what we want. So I had to overcome myself. I have to overcome myself to which is one of the biggest obstacles I have. What were some of the things you did were some of the bold actions you took to overcome yourself and to push back against the evil one. What are some of the things you did? Yeah, I think well accountability and personal relationship.

Unknown Speaker 11:00
They're vital. When people have a vested interest in you, it really, it really becomes intentional transformation at that point. It can be like an iron sharpening iron scenario. It could be a mentor or somebody that's pouring his life into you. So, I'm all about this, I'm all about this.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
If I don't have to take the long road or the wrong road, show me how to do it. Right? Always have an adversary, he'll do anything, like I said, to do to destroy us to take us to a different area. But if you live from a posture of confidence, and faith and accountability and love and all those types of things, it'll propel you into another. Another area of life that you're not in one used to come to the other stuff. It's like a there's an old song that came out a long time ago. And it says Some Glad Morning, when the witness life is over. Yeah, I will fly away. Okay. I think that

Unknown Speaker 12:00
The craziest song of planet Earth I'm sorry to offend everybody here's the deal. I don't want to wait to start flying. I was promised abundant life and it wasn't for the by and by it's for right now on this planet I can enjoy life right? So people say, Man, I hear you're dying of cancer doctor says you got eight months to live, you're dying of cancer, okay? I don't choose to die of cancer. I choose to live life and there's a big difference. It's a mindset and a decision and I've made a decision that I'm going to live life I'm going to live life to the last breath I take whether I die of cancer whether I die of a bus hitting me whether I die because I'm 175 years old my god that'd be crazy but

Unknown Speaker 12:40
but that's that's that's living abundantly, man where to go. It's how you do it. It's it's jet fuel. Those relationships, those accountabilities those moments is a jet fuel to transformation. It really helps you to overcome adversity. But in order to do that, you have to be empowered. And I take it you know, we've talked a lot about faith.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
Already but you are empowered by, by your spiritual life by God in your life that's given you a sense of your purpose and direction. Just say a little bit more about your spiritual life, about God's place in your life and how that empowers you to do some of the things you've been doing to be helpful to other help be helpful and helpful to others. Sure. I told you about the whole nine lives thing a minute ago, which I have to write down because I never said that. That's a good one. write that one down, man. I like it's funny. But it's true. I when I before I knew Christ, I really didn't know much about him at all. I didn't I wasn't raised a Christian. I didn't go to church when I was a kid, a couple visits here and there but nothing, no intentional and serious.

Unknown Speaker 13:41
And I ended up into a life of drugs, alcohol, women, the whole the whole scene, and I loved it until I got to a certain point where I just felt like I needed more didn't know what it was.

Unknown Speaker 13:55
I couldn't get drunk anymore. I couldn't get as high anymore. All these issues. I wasn't satisfied.

Unknown Speaker 14:00
With the with the relationships anymore, just whatever. And somebody talked to me about Jesus ended up getting stuck in the desert I was in the military and we were in the desert got assigned on guard duty for all of the tanks in the middle of desert for one week me and one other guy and one other guy was a follower of Christ and I was not so and he was also a former drug addict so God kind of trapped you there sounds like a trap me trap me good and I got a lot of great information great a lot. A lot of great.

Unknown Speaker 14:33
Life ported to be was out there. I did not make a decision to follow Christ what was out there that week. But a few days later, we were back out to a mission. And at that mission, I just could not stop thinking about everything you said. It's like everything was on blast in my head. I heard every word he was saying over and over and over again. I was ready for a relationship I wanted things change and I read to his to his vehicle as a man let's do this. I'm ready and hate took me and we started walking

Unknown Speaker 15:00
way from all of our unit and we walked up to this big mountain in the desert. And we got to the top of the mountain, it was literally Have you ever been in the desert before at night time is gorgeous. But we got to tell us a mountain was a full moon and the moon was beaming right down to the peak of the top of this mountain and we stood there and that's where I gave my life to Christ. So I literally have had a mountaintop experience where Jesus

Unknown...