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Summary:
In this episode, Ishmael Morris shares his personal testimony and journey of faith. He discusses his challenging childhood, growing up with a mother who struggled with mental illness, and the difficulties they faced as a family. Ishmael also talks about the impact of his mother's miraculous recovery and subsequent passing. He shares his experiences of marital struggles and frustrations, and how a prophetic encounter led to a spiritual awakening and a deeper understanding of God's love and grace. Ishmael emphasizes the importance of pursuing a relationship with God and exploring the depths of His character. In this conversation, Ishmael Morris shares his personal journey of pursuing God and removing idols from his life. He discusses the importance of pressing into God and seeking revelation. Ishmael recounts divine encounters and moments of confirmation that have shaped his faith. He explores the topics of spiritual warfare, uncompromising living, and stewardship of money. Ishmael also shares the significance of receiving divine guidance for naming his children. He concludes by sharing a powerful testimony of healing through prayer.
Takeaways:
- God's love and grace are available to everyone, regardless of their past or circumstances.
- Prayer and the power of community can have a profound impact on our lives.
- Marital struggles can be overcome through unity and a willingness to communicate and seek God's guidance.
- Encountering the prophetic can lead to a deeper understanding of God's presence and His desire to communicate with us.
- Continually pursuing a relationship with God and exploring His character can lead to a transformative and fulfilling faith journey. Pressing into God and seeking revelation can lead to divine encounters and moments of confirmation.
- Removing idols and compromising areas of our lives allows us to develop a deeper relationship with God.
- Stewardship of money involves returning a portion to God and being open to His guidance on how to give.
- Divine guidance and confirmation can be received through prayer and seeking God's will.
- Encountering the Holy Spirit can lead to healing and a deeper understanding of God's power.
Chapters:
Introduction and Background
Challenging Childhood and Family Struggles
Difficulties with Mental Illness and Unstable Situations
Growing Up with a Strong Christian Influence
Mother's Miraculous Recovery and Passing
Marital Struggles and Frustrations
Prophetic Encounter and Spiritual Awakening
Realization of God's Love and Grace
Continued Pursuit of God and His Character
Foundational Piece: Pursuing God and Removing Idols
Revelation and Pressing into God
Divine Encounters and Confirmation
Uncompromising Life and Spiritual Warfare
Replacing Compromise with God's Word
Understanding the Spiritual World
The Blessed Life and Stewardship of Money
Giving 10% of Every Dollar
Ripping Out Idols and Developing a Heart for Giving
Divine Revelation of Baby's Name
Encountering the Holy Spirit and Healing
In this deeply moving episode of the Changed Podcast, we are honored to share the compelling accounts of Ishmael Morris, whose life story unfolds like a tapestry woven with threads of faith, adversity, healing, and divine encounters. From the evident struggles of his childhood, marked by his mother's mental health challenges and miraculous moments of divine intervention, to his own profound spiritual awakening and encounters with God, Ishmael's narrative offers an intimate glimpse into the transformative power of unwavering faith and prayer.
Ishmael's journey is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, guided by a steadfast pursuit of a deeper understanding and relationship with God. Through his experiences, listeners will explore the intricate dynamics of marital unity, the nuanced challenges of stewarding resources in alignment with divine will, and the impactful realization of cultivating a direct, personal relationship with God, including a renewed focus on the often overlooked Holy Spirit. His testimony illuminates the complexities of navigating life's trials with faith, highlighting the essentiality of surrendering to God's will and the remarkable outcomes that such surrender can yield.
As Ishmael goes into his personal encounters with divine healing and guidance, his story becomes a beacon of hope and a source of inspiration for those seeking to deepen their own faith journey. His reflections on the moments of divine intervention that have punctuated his life—ranging from the healing of a simple earache to the miraculous recovery of his mother—underscore the boundless compassion and power of God to affect change in our lives in both subtle and profound ways.
Moreover, Ishmael's narrative is enriched by his candid exploration of the challenges and triumphs of his marriage, offering an honest and insightful look into the ways in which faith and divine guidance can transform relationships. His journey toward achieving unity with his wife, Ellen, underpins the episode with a powerful message about the significance of partnership, communication, and shared spiritual growth within marriage.
Listeners will be particularly moved by Ishmael's experiences of learning to listen to and act upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit, leading to moments of unexpected generosity and stewardship that have profound impacts on both his life and the lives of others. His testimony is a vivid illustration of how living in alignment with God's will can open up new avenues for blessing, fulfillment, and purpose.
This episode of the Changed Podcast is not merely a recounting of Ishmael Morris's life story; it is an invitation to reflect on the depth of our own faith, the openness of our hearts to divine guidance, and the ways in which we can each step more fully into our purpose and calling. Prepare to embark on a journey that traverses the valleys and peaks of human experience, guided by the light of faith and the transformative power of God's love.
Ishmael’s Testimony:
Creators & Guests
Guest
Ishmael Morris
Ishmael Morris is a dynamic speaker, entrepreneur, and devout man of faith, whose life journey is a testament to the transformative power of unwavering belief and divine guidance. Born and raised in the heartland of America, Ishmael's early life was marked by significant challenges, including navigating the complexities of family life with a mother battling mental illness. Despite these hurdles, he emerged with a profound sense of resilience, compassion, and a deep-seated desire to pursue a closer relationship with God.
What is Changed?
Welcome to 'Changed' a podcast celebrating transformative encounters with Jesus Christ. Each episode unfolds powerful testimonies of profound life changes, providing inspiration for your spiritual journey. Join our community, drawing strength and encouragement to deepen your relationship with God. Witness the irrefutable evidence of lives dramatically changed by His love. We're here to inspire hope, reinforcing God's relentless pursuit, and sparking the desire to seek a life profoundly transformed. Let's chase after God together. Your journey to deeper faith starts here.
Brent Stone (00:00.49)
Hey, we're back with the Change Podcast. I've so excited. I've been long anticipating this episode. This is my friend Ishmael Morris, and he is from the town where the Kansas City Chiefs play, which is Kansas City. And we're excited about being able to have him talk a little bit about his testimony. And Ishmael has been, we've been getting to know each other now for the last couple of weeks, and super excited about his background.
because it is going to bless you all as he goes through his story and his testimony and his encounters with Jesus along the way. Ishmael, why don't you just take it away and just share with us your background, your story, your testimony, and your encounters. We'd love to hear them.
Ishmael Morris (00:46.955)
Yeah, absolutely man, I appreciate it. Yeah, I guess getting into it, man, I've had some pretty wild spiritual experiences and been spread out a little bit over my life, but especially the last about two years have been, I think what a lot of people would call dramatic, and it's just really amazing what the Lord has stepped down into my life to do and to connect with me when I did not deserve it and I was not frankly,
looking for him the way that I probably should have been. And so I really hope that whoever's listening to this, that this is an encouragement that, number one, there is zero question of whether or not there is a guy out there, and there's zero question if he is just absolutely in love with you, and if he wants more to be a part of.
to be more part of your life, there's zero doubt in my mind. And I know it not just for me, but for every single other person. And I wish I had more time to talk on all the other pieces of it, but we're really gonna focus on what the Lord has done in my life and some of the things that he's said to me and the circumstances I've been in and many things like that. So.
Yeah, I guess getting into, I grew up in a small town in Kansas here, Hillsborough, Kansas, about 2,500 people. And it was just me and my mom. My mom, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time on her because it's really a really foundational big part of my story. And so I grew up, again, it was just me and her. We were on welfare, had absolutely no money. My dad and my mom got pregnant out of wedlock and then annulled and separated before I was born. And so it really was just me and my mom.
had struggles with schizophrenia and some mental illness along the way. And, you know, I'm growing up in a small town in the 1990s Hillsborough with, you know, an African-American dad and a white mom, both have, you know, my dad lived an hour away in a different town. And so definitely a challenging time for my mom because she was a
Ishmael Morris (02:48.403)
you know surrounded by a town of people who knows work is very interesting places very unique situation you know small town gossip small town everybody knows everything however it was a there's something very unique and special that the Lord has done there may for another conversation uh... but with uh... man with their just pockets of people that really love the Lord and he's it feels like there's almost an extra attention on some uh... some things there
Maybe in that space, but anyways, there's also a lot of judgment and some racism and a lot of other things And so it was kind of a challenging time for her. And so she spent she grew up with some Some physical abuse from family and so she they think that's possibly where some of this Mental illness stem from and so she struggled with a lot of things and I remember a lot of times You know, I have many stories But a couple of the bigger ones were one of the earlier memories I have when I was about three years old
You know, my mom was great and she was an amazing mom, loved me always, took care of me always, worked hard for three jobs for most of the time that I knew, remember her growing up. But when she would get off of her medication, that stability started to slip. And generally, it was hard because I saw her as this woman that loved the Lord and saw many amazing experiences around her. But she also, with some of her mental illness, would start to blend what she felt like was the Lord telling her things.
and her own mind telling her things. And so that was quite the paradigm that I saw growing up. And so what would happen is she would feel like the Lord was telling her to get off of her medication, which was really a stabilizer. So she would just stop taking it, and then she really would start to go down on a backward slide. And so when she, I remember what time she got off her medication, and she, in Hillsborough, they had a little fly around, so they would have a tiny, tiny airport. And...
On one Saturday a year you could go to the little airport and get a ride in the plane And they would take you up do one clip quick lap around the town then set you down and they get the next person, right? so The next day was a sunday And so I remember my mom waking me up really early. It was still dark outside and I was probably three or four and she said Um, hey, it's time to get up gather your things. The lord's telling me we got to get away and so
Ishmael Morris (05:06.547)
You know three or four. I don't know any better. I said okay grab my favorite blanket remember We had some canned goods etc and the next thing I remember Somehow we are in the plane at the little runway just me and her it's like Dawn is coming up so it's kind of getting light outside. I remember just looking down at my lap Sitting on my favorite blanket. There's all these canned goods around me and she has the plane started
She has no clue what she's doing, but she's trying to take off, you know, and at that moment Somehow somebody runs onto the airfield I don't know even know why they were there and jump in the plane and kind of take the keys out and off She goes away till uh to this small mental hospital in nearby town And so many stories like that including, you know times where a friend and I were riding in a car together To go or his friend was spending the night. My mom decided that she uh, and this was probably third grader under
And a friend and I were in a car together, or spending the night at my house, and my mom decided she needed to go to a neighboring town that was 30 minutes to an hour away. And so we got in the car, both of us in the back, you know, at whatever age, eight or under, and she knew that she was low on gas, but she decided it was a time that she was gonna trust and test the Lord, and so she didn't wanna get gas. And so we drove all the way out, and we basically were in between these towns, so there was nothing out there.
and she runs out of gas on the highway with one son and then another little kid in the car and before phones before cell phones right in the in the mid 90s and so She has nothing to do and it was like dusk And so I just remember her being gone for a really long time And so she made whatever you know process the decision-making and she left us to in the back of the car on the side of the Highway, and she hiked like six miles or something. I don't know how she got there I don't even remember. I just remember was a really long time and
Brent Stone (06:30.791)
Man.
Ishmael Morris (06:57.875)
went to a gas station.
And I just remember her coming back with a gas can and a trucker dropped her off and she had like a small gas tank You know and they filled the she filled the car with gas and it was enough to get her to the to the next town but lo and behold we got to the next town and she decided she was gonna trust the Lord again and Didn't get gas and then on the way home. We ran out of gas again and this time we pulled off on like a side road In a small town or in the country and I just remember it was it had to have been fall or something So it was kind of cold in the car. We had a blanket in the back
And we were sleeping. It was nighttime. It was just me and my buddy and my mom. We didn't have any communication. We were just kind of stuck there. And didn't know any better. And I just woke up to a police officer knocking on the window with a flashlight in there, you know, the frosted glass. And he's looking in, seeing two kids in the back and a woman sleeping in the car. You know, not a good look. And rolls down the window.
He asks my mom what's going on and my mom doesn't even respond. She just kind of looks at him and I know what she was thinking. You know, she's trying to she's like, Lord, you know, and she started praying. She's like, love this car start. She tries to turn the keys and it doesn't start. And he like reaches in and, you know, thinks she's trying to leave with these kids. She's not even responding to him. So rips the keys out of her hands, drags her out of the car. We go home in a squad car. She goes off to, you know, jail. And then, you know, I have probably 10 to 15 stories like that of different.
Variety but uh so that was pretty much out of it, but in that we heard a lot of stories from her That made it complicated to just think that the Lord was not also working in those circumstances And the most specific one I remember you know many times she heard one time she went to the she would come home, you know from being at this mental institution and she would be coming back into stability, but she would remember one time she told me she's like I line I got there and
Brent Stone (08:22.467)
Yeah, yeah.
Ishmael Morris (08:49.015)
She's just praying that the Lord would use her and be with her and protect her. She's, I can only imagine what that feels like to be so confused, thinking you're following the Lord, but then going down, I mean, just has to be a lot in your own mind at that time, right? But she said that she lined up, or she got up to the door and started walking down the hallway at the mental institution. And there are all these doorways that led to these patient rooms. And she said that she started walking down the hall and all of a sudden all the patients just started lining up at the door. And they were like, what are you doing?
like we know why you're here, why have you come here, things like that. And she proceeds to tell me that she was able to minister to and to witness to many people that were in there. And I know that she felt that there was some spiritual warfare that was fought in those places as well. Again, maybe a story from that time. So anyways, so that's what I grew up with, right? So I grew up with this, like this.
Brent Stone (09:40.374)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (09:43.151)
probably Pentecostal, churchish, you know, my mom spoke in tongues, I had no idea what that was, she didn't really explain it well to me, it's confusing, I always thought it was weird, you know, I still remember it to this day, hearing it, you know, the annoyance in the head with the way, you know, all the stuff, and, but I didn't know that was any different, you know, I just, I didn't know how to label, right, and we'll come back to that, but, so I went through that and, and you know, many, many stories throughout my life, but.
Then I was safe probably around five, really early on, grew up in the church and had good believers around me, Christian people around me. But I feel like the majority of my life, I always was, I prayed a lot, my mom did an amazing job. Genuinely, she, as much as I can remember, especially having four kids of my own now, been married for almost 10 years this May.
She did an amazing job almost every single night that I can remember from the youngest age possible until I was 16 We did a short devotional and a prayer and a Bible story every night So it was just this process of not just reading the word But her goal was to get the word inside of me and so I could know the Bible right and I think again That allows the spirit to work even more is when we know the word inside of us, right? We'll come back to that maybe another podcast, but so with that
That was her goal and I had no idea what was going on. In Awanas, some Bible memory verses, like the whole thing. And she was so passionate about the Lord. And so her jobs throughout the year, we had no money but she was always working multiple jobs keeping things afloat. But she was absolutely the poster child for.
what I would say, bivocational work and living, right? So her job or her goal was to find whatever job she could do that would allow her to witness probably the most in her income, right? So, and so she was, you know, at five years old, I can remember her, as soon as I went to kindergarten, she was opening up a gas station, one of the two gas stations in town at like 5 a.m. So I was getting myself ready, getting cereal, getting dressed and getting, you know, a mile across town walking or riding my bike to kindergarten, you know, from day one. And so, you know, different time, different place in the early nineties.
Ishmael Morris (11:49.905)
you know, small town is very different, but would never let my kids do that now, right? But, you know, so I was, I knew this independence from a very early age, but also I, you know, my mom worked doing that, but she also worked in the nursing home, the local nursing home, and she would clean the floors and she would do the things, you know, janitorial stuff, but her purpose was to be closest to the people who were closest to meeting Jesus, because they were closest to dying.
Right? And so I have recordings of her witnessing and sharing testimony, her testimony with people through that. And so that's the type of environment I grew up around with a woman who was just passionate for the Lord, but also had a lot of issues, right?
And so I saw both sides of the table on that. And then I can only imagine, you know, as a father now looking down, I didn't know what the outside world was thinking or anything as a kid, now looking like how the community must have seen her and how my friend's parents and families must have seen her, you know, it was a lot. You know, I can imagine it was quite a bit. But, so fast forward to when I was 16, about to turn 17.
We found out that she had a rare type of leukemia. They gave her two weeks to two months to live December of 2007 And I honestly never really thought I was like why would
Why would God let her die? Like I genuinely did not think that would happen because her entire life, I never really met someone more devoted to everything they do being pushed towards advancing the kingdom than her. So I'm like, she's 40, you know, 48 at the time. I'm like, you know, there's no way. And so fast forward from December to March 4 on my birthday, 17th birthday, we're sitting in the hospital here in the city in Wichita.
Ishmael Morris (13:35.143)
and the doctors come out, she'd been through a little bit of chemo, hair was almost all gone, you know, she's laying on the bed unresponsive. She had an internal temperature of 109, over 109 degrees. I think your brain starts shutting down at 106, 107, something like that. They tell us, you know, she's got at most a couple hours to live, you know, minutes to hours, something like that. And uh...
Brent Stone (13:47.637)
Wow.
Brent Stone (13:55.938)
Great.
Ishmael Morris (13:57.031)
Aunt and I believe my uncle were there and I was there maybe a couple other people but I just remember walking over to the window and Overlooking the parking lot I can still see it to this day, and I just remember praying like It's very simple. I was like Lord. I don't know what it is. I'm just not ready. That was it and Man, it was probably 20 or 30 minutes later Not a whole lot longer than that maybe if that and the doctors came back out They're like hey, we don't know what's going on, but she's actually
her body temperature's coming down, she's actually becoming a little bit responsive, et cetera. And she ended up, over time, getting better, coming back home and going back to work, right? And so, over a couple of several weeks, maybe a month or two. And so, miraculous. And I found out later that my aunt, so my mom worked for, or worked for, she was a missionary in Mexico for five years before I was born, doing different things. Excuse me, but she also.
Was involved with I hop and frankly all of these things, you know I think it was in Chicago But all these places across the country before I was born and I had no idea like I even to this day I don't really know a lot about her before you know, I was born and so Yeah
Brent Stone (15:04.546)
Just real quick, a lot of people listening might not know what IHOP is, but IHOP isn't International House of Pancakes, it's International House of Prayer. You shouldn't say something I didn't know until like I have a buddy in ministry was like sharing with me, this was like a year and a half ago, and he's like, yeah, we were at IHOP. And I'm like, for how long? We were there for hours just praising them.
Ishmael Morris (15:10.443)
Yeah, yeah, sorry. I'm glad you clarified that.
Ishmael Morris (15:21.487)
Seriously?
Ishmael Morris (15:28.746)
Yeah, right. Years of your...
Brent Stone (15:30.926)
in the spirit and all this stuff, you know, and I got like one sitting kind of thing. I'm like, oh, this isn't this isn't the restaurant. He's like, oh, no.
Ishmael Morris (15:37.219)
Yeah, very different. Yeah, it's a ministry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, that's so funny. Yeah, no, I'm so glad you said that. Yeah, absolutely, so sorry. So she's involved with that ministry and all these things. And so, you know, yeah, and so I am, I found out that my aunt had called this on all the contacts that she had and just was asking for prayer. And so she had...
Brent Stone (15:42.198)
Sorry, I'm sorry to take you off course.
Ishmael Morris (16:03.459)
She'd done all these things and so apparently we just had this volume of people all praying I guess about the same time that I was pretty you know which I didn't realize so anyways So fast forward to like April or something she ended up coming back home Maybe late March and going back to work. You know it's going through chemo again, and I was like yep That's it like Lord. I knew it. You know but at this and at the same time you know our relationship was not
great, I will say. You know, I was in my teenage years and, you know, looking back, I was like, man, you know, typical teenagers kind of stay away from their parents more than they had before anyways, but also I was fully starting to understand a little bit more about how frankly weird, you know, my mom really was, you know, between the whole dynamic. And I was involved in sports, playing multiple sports, and friends became my life. And I just wanted to get away from all of that. And so, you know, it was going on with my mom. And so I was like, you know, I was just gone a lot.
Massive regrets of a lot of that, but I was just gone a lot during that time and so But then back in June 2008 July. Sorry 2008 She actually ended up going back on a hospice in the house started going downhill again And then in the end of August she was in the hospital She'd been back in the hospital for a couple of weeks, but I talked to her on a Saturday night It's like the 24th or something like that of August in 2008 talk to her on a Saturday night on the phone
I said, you know, hey mom, how you doing? She's like, I'm doing really well actually. I walked 12 laps around the hospital. The doctors think I might be coming home soon. I'm like, amazing, that's fantastic. And you know, again, I still was like, well if the Lord brought her back the first time, the second time is just a.
Another notch in the belt of her testimony of what he's done in her life right like that's all this is gonna be So I'm like great. I honestly that's amazing, but I honestly didn't expect anything less and so we hang up the phone I stay up late watching Saturday Night Live. You know back in time when it was good and I remember I went to bed late like after 1 30 in the morning something like that in our house We lived in this tiny little house my mom bought for $10,000 back in 1990 You know the internal I was joke the internal you know the temperature the AC inside It was in the summer especially was what?
Ishmael Morris (18:12.049)
it was outside. Windows were open in August, that's what it was. So I had this little screen that was open and my bedroom was a one bedroom and they converted the loft from the attic for my mom. So I slept in the one bedroom that was on the porch and I remember laying down in the bed and just thinking to myself and praying and just being like, just feeling this peace about everything with my mom. And my prayer was very simple and it was Lord,
I feel peace about this and I'm good. So whenever you're ready to take your home, I'm good with it. Almost verbatim that. And not thinking it would be for a long time. And then I woke up at about 5 a.m. to my grandma and my aunt and uncle outside on the steps and they were calling my name through that window and I went and opened the front door and they said, hey, your mom passed away this morning.
And turns out it was within 20 or 30 minutes of me praying that prayer time of death, you know, so saw these bookends of The Lord working miraculously on those things. So that was my first experience in our podcast is called the change podcast But I would say that's not the moment that I was changed, you know that was that was a changing moment in my life But it was not the moment that I was really changed. I'll get to that a little bit. So anyways
Brent Stone (19:21.007)
Sure, sure.
Brent Stone (19:24.981)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (19:29.343)
Stick it in my notes for time purposes. So Yeah, I would say beyond that, you know, and that again that was the first week of my senior year high school So it's kind of a wild time But the Lord was looking back the I believe Jacob says in the Bible. He says he's looking back and he's like man The Lord was here. The Lord was present and I didn't know it
And I really felt like that was a large part of my life. Like the blessings, the people that came into my life, friends and families that rallied around me. And I mean, it was a full community effort and made me feel as good as I possibly could have felt. I didn't go down a crazy path. I didn't drink till I was 21. I wasn't doing a ton of crazy things, chasing girls. I wasn't, I would say that I lived within the guardrails of...
biblical morality, honestly, for the majority of my life. And I just had good people around me to keep me solid and that obviously the foundation of what my mom laid for me, you know, I would say something that I almost forgot, but I would say that not having a father, especially my father, specifically, I won't say that for everybody, having a father is wonderful as a dad.
necessary, but not having the father that I had present was the best thing that could have happened to me probably right because What my mom did is she looked at me and what I knew from what she taught me was The only father figure I had was God in the Bible, right? It was this is what how a heavenly father acts. This is how a heavenly father loves This is how a heavenly father should treat you etc. And so I just didn't know right So I had this void and he never wanted to be a part of my life, you know And I was like, you know, I that was hard for me to understand
but at the same time it was absolutely for the best and so I would say that beyond that For the next 14 13 or 14 years until I was 31 Approximately I was kind of just bobbing along like I said within the guardrails and morality But but looking back I was a lazy Christian, you know, I was still going to church I was still you know praying and reading my Bible probably less frequently should seasonally right as we all do But I was always generally involved in some kind of Bible studies
Ishmael Morris (21:39.691)
But, and honestly, I really thought that was all that the walk of a believer was, right? Just, Lord, I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna do these things, I'm gonna be involved in Bible study, I'll pray, try to learn more about you through the Word. And then, if there's opportunities for me to be fruitful, as the Bible asks us to be fruitful, just step into that as we find it. But man, there is so much more than that.
So much more and I had no idea and no one ever told me I didn't have any I didn't know you know and so I hope that this is an encouragement the things that have happened in the last Community courage for everybody so along the way I got married in 2014 and 27 18 we had our first daughter and then in a in a
Three-year window we had three babies and the last so now we have four right and so the last three of those kids We have four the last three or within 30 months no twins So we just had 14 months apart and then 16 months apart from that so we had zero 14 and 16 months You know so it was just really it was it's a lot right so it's life is life is a lot right now, but in that time
Brent Stone (22:51.406)
Woo!
Ishmael Morris (22:52.059)
You were, yeah, exactly. So in that time, so two boys and two girls, or sorry, two girls then two boys. So in that time though, we had been living in a house, our first house we bought for about six years or five and a half years or something. We had started my business and things were going well. Got involved in a couple other businesses on the side and so we decided we were gonna build a house, right? Then the Lord's been very blessed in a lot of ways. But so we were gonna build a house and so we,
sold our house in 2022 in November and we moved into a rental while we were moving into that time when right 2021 sorry we sold our house in 20th in November 21 and we're going to move in and COVID and all the craziness was still kind of delaying a lot of the
Supplies and all that so got kicked out longer. So we're in a rental house Well, I moved my wife was like seven months pregnant when we moved So I moved our entire house mostly by myself between like 8 p.m And like 1 or 2 a.m. For like two weeks straight because it was just down the road great situation But it was a lot and so we had two babies that were
Two and a half and under at that time, my wife was pregnant and I was moving everything plus running business. It was a lot, right, for us. And so my wife's father had actually gotten sick with a kidney disease about three months, nine months after we got married and ended up passing away back in 2015. And so when that happened, a lot of things happened to my wife emotionally. She really started to struggle with debilitating anxiety and depression.
I mean, she was a different woman than the woman that I married for a lot of the time. And so it just, a lot of things changed. So it wasn't as always as easy. And then as we started having kids, things got more and more pronounced.
Ishmael Morris (24:39.719)
As far as just like not communicating well, not enjoying, you know, it wasn't easy being it wasn't as smooth and just comfortable being around each other all the time, you know, Etc. And so as we got into this hard time of living in a cramped space in our rental house and three new babies because our son was born in January of 22. So shortly after that. So we had three kids three and under and we were living in a cramped space. My wife's going through postpartum and you know depression and some of these other things like it was
It was just hard, it was a lot. And I emphasize that because that was a turning point in my life right there. Because at that point, neither of us ever wanted to get divorced, like that was never on the table, right? But we just didn't have what I would say is a good marriage. And I've been looking around at our friends, like you know, what is, I know that their marriages aren't as good as they maybe appear on the outside, but they have to be better and more fun, more than what we are anyways. We just weren't having, it was a time we were just not having a lot of fun. And...
It got to the point where my wife Ellen, she's like, I need help at the house. We got these babies, I'm struggling mentally with a lot of different things.
rightly so, right? And she's like, I just need you home. And I'm like, well, I get that, but I'm also trying to run these businesses and I have these Bible studies that I wanna go to and be affiliated with this and meet these people and I have to walk in these circles, et cetera, for my business. And sometimes that involves evening stuff. And it just was, it was a fight. It just felt like it was always a fight for what I wanted to do in my businesses and then being with my family, disconnect. So it got to a point where it was so much,
It was so much that in end of January, early February of 22, I told God, I said, basically told him I was done. I told him I was going to drag the ship. And what I meant by that was, essentially what it was is I was no longer going to teach and lead my wife.
Ishmael Morris (26:40.423)
I was going to do what I felt was best for our family. And if that meant being at a business event in the evening, I was going to do it. If it meant going to a Bible study or go to this church event or whatever it was, I was going to do it. She was either going to get on board or she was going to get left behind.
and totally the wrong attitude to have, right? But I was just so, I was so frustrated with everything that I was done. So I was like, I told God, I'm gonna drag the ship and I meant it. I was like done. Like no matter what she said, no matter how arguments was, I was gonna go do what I needed to do. So.
And that was on the heels. The reason that was so much. So after we got back from the hospital, we had COVID, the flu, and my daughter had an ER visit all within like a week or week and a half timeline amidst all that postpartum and amidst the small house, all this stuff. So it was just this culmination. So fast forward a couple of weeks, end of March, 2022, um, meeting up with a, a past or mentor friend of mine who I had not seen in many months. Uh, but we'd known each other for probably eight years or so at the time. And, um,
I'm going to a diner here in town to get breakfast. And on the way, I had a thought, not even a prayer, I had a thought, and it was, I'm gonna bring up all the marital struggles that I've been going through. And then I immediately thought, you know what, I'm not gonna do that if the Lord wants to bring that up, if the Spirit wants to bring that up, I'll let him bring that up. That was my thought. And so...
I roll into the diner, we start talking, it's been like a couple of minutes, tell me about your life buddy. He starts telling me he's been down in Dallas at this big national prophetic conference they have down there. And even though I grew up in, I miss this, even though I grew up in a variety of churches, right? A couple different churches between the Vineyard, between a non-denominational church and between, Hillsboro is a Mennonite community predominantly, Mennonite and Baptist community. And so,
Ishmael Morris (28:35.251)
After my mom passed away all I went to was the Mennonite church in town because it was big all my friends were there It's where I'd wanted to go for a long time But my mom and we've been going to a different town for church forever So I grew up seeing the full spectrum of churches, right? I saw the speaking in tongues I saw the anointing with oil I saw the all the heavy prayer the long services and I also saw the more Mennonite side Which is probably a little bit less of focus and emphasis on the spirit more heavy into the word, which is good Just different right and it was
structured services so I've kind of seen the gamut right I've seen it all and so but in that he tells me he's been down at the prophetic conference in Dallas and I'm like hmm you know I don't really know at the time how I feel about that you know it's just it feels kind of kind of odd right I'm like bitch I'm really trying to not put the Lord in the box but I'm like I just don't know what I think about it but I trust this guy completely with everything
Brent Stone (29:19.662)
Thanks for watching!
Ishmael Morris (29:29.547)
Absolutely 27 I think years in the top of the Air Force like absolute stud everything he's touched this guy has been blessed Substantially everything he's ever touched has just turned to gold the Lord has been with him for all his life. He ended up Quitting a job. He's very successful at and getting into ministry a couple years before that So he's in his mid 50s now, but so we meet
And he tells me he's been down at this prophetic conference. And in that prophetic conference, there's like a thousand people there, right? And he's sitting in the second row, the first couple of rows, and the guy's walking around stage talking about people that have been healed at that conference and all these different things. And he's like, his name's Steven. And so the guy he's telling me this and the guy says, you know, I feel if your name starts with an ass, stand up, you know, and I'm like, you know, personally, me, I'm like, oh, OK, here we go. You know, weird, wonky, wild, whatever. And then he says the guys.
telling people with the S to stand up, S name to stand up, but then he said he completely stopped and he wheeled around and he looked at Steven, my friend and mentor, and he points at him and says, you stand up, and Steven looks around like.
me and all these people he's like yes I have a word of the Lord for you so Stephen stands up and he says you are about to level up in the spirit and then he proceeds to tell them about two or three different things that Steve had been praying for on the way down right almost as like validation or like confirmation the Lord speaking through him right and so I'm like holy cow that's not and this thing is like recorded televised I'm sure we can find it but um
Brent Stone (30:53.479)
Yeah, yeah.
Ishmael Morris (30:55.907)
But I'm like, I'm sitting there in this diner, just like this, you and me, and I'm just like, holy cow. And all of a sudden, his, Steven's face, just like, his demeanor totally changed. And then he looked up from.
And also he was coming on the tail end of a 40 day fast, right? So this guy is in the middle of a deep fast, in the middle of just getting this word that he's about to level up in the spirit, right? So then he's looking at me, and he looks at me with this completely different demeanor, and he says, and now I have a word of the Lord for you. He says, until you are in unity with your wife, you will never step into what the Lord has called for you. And then he actually told me something else that I won't share on here, but it was another word from the Lord for me. But, man.
So in that moment, it was not just like someone, hey, I have a word for you. It was like a physical, tangible feeling. He told me that, but the best way I could describe it is like if you've ever been watching a movie that's been like building up to this super intense moment and you kind of have that bass that's in the background that gets heavier and heavier, and you don't even know you're listening to the bass until you're like.
Until you're in the moment. You're like it's been building up and you're just watching that was what it was I felt this energy physical tangible energy. This is like vibration that was going on It was like my vision was like almost tunnel vision. It was I've never before since felt anything like this and It just was this actual energy tangible energy And he proceeded to tell me that until you're in unity with your wife You are never going to you will not step into what the lord has called for you and uh told me a couple other things
Brent Stone (32:11.862)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (32:31.479)
Holy cow, so we sat there for like two and a half hours talk. He told me that again at the end after he kind of reverted back to like normal Stephen, right? And anyways, so I'm like, whoa, like this is a lot. So at the end of the breakfast, I go to the bathroom and the door closes, just me in there. And I think to myself, why haven't I told my wife this? What I meant was why haven't I told my wife? Because again, poor communication, whatever.
But I just had not ever been like, I really want to be, have a better marriage. I want to be in a better space with you. I want better connection, essentially unity, right? I want more unity with you. And I just never effectively communicated that. I just continued to downslide in the frustration of my marriage. And so I had that thought, why have I not told my wife this? And immediately following that thought was the first time I heard the voice of the Lord. And he said, because she was not ready.
And I just stopped in the room. I was like, what was that? Like that, you know, holy cow, mind blown, right? I was like, that's wild. So anyways, in the Bible says that you will know a false prophet by examining their fruit, right? And so I've always been a big proponent of not prosperity gospel and also.
like the prophetic stuff and all the gifts this year, I've been like kind of, you know, not believing, but kind of hands off. I just never have really been able to tangibly see it. And you know, I was a science major in college, got my bachelor's in science and definitely not using it now, right? But in biology, but so I'm like a science, like analytical guy, like that's what, you know, I'm in finances, so I'm analytical in certain areas.
And I'm like, I need facts in order to believe, right? I need facts. I have that open box because I've seen some things with my mom, but also I need the facts. So this was all very new for me, as you might imagine at that time. I go back to my office and man, I start praying and talking. I was just so excited. I never felt anything like it. I tried to tell my wife about what happened and I was so pumped. I could not. And so called her, finally she called me back. I was like, I can't tell you over the phone, gotta tell you in person.
Brent Stone (34:25.17)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (34:41.915)
Looking back there's spiritual warfare like I've I haven't seen in a long time like it was Well, that's not totally true, but a crazy spiritual warfare. I just didn't know what to recognize it I tried to tell her every night for a month for four weeks every single night. I tried to
just tell her that interaction, that encounter, and something was in the way, whether she was not, neither one of us was not in the mood to tell it, like just all these crazy things. So I had something on the way home happen that day that was just nuts and skewed everything. I was like, I gotta be in the right mindset to like share all this with, anyway, so it was crazy. But eventually I did, and then it was like all that stuff just like stopped, went away. We'll talk back to that another time. Because if, for anybody listening to this, there are a lot of things that I might say.
I don't know who all listens to this or who all is going to listen to this, but talking about the spiritual things and then the Lord doing this and the Lord doing that, that language, just try to, if you're not familiar with that or comfortable with that language, try to reframe it because I may have been skeptical about that a lot. Just reframe it as, because I could say the Lord did this, but what I could really mean is
the circumstance came up where this happened and I saw the Lord probably providing for that. Sometimes I know it's the Lord providing, sometimes it's the circumstances where he could have provided, but sometimes I'm like, yeah, absolutely it was God. A lot of these times, absolutely I know it was God. But just try to have your mindset just open to what the Lord has in your own life as you go through these type of things. But man, anyways, I probably butchered how I explained that.
Just don't discount something because it seems really strange, you know, or seems like it's overly spiritual, you know, just Take a little pause and just hear the rest of the story. So I mentioned that you'll know false prophet by his fruit I had fruit falling off the trees like there was a somebody shaking the apple tree is just falling all around is crazy The conversations that I was having, you know
Ishmael Morris (36:36.419)
I didn't even know what was going on. I just felt, you know, multiple times, I felt like I should just call this person that I never called, called her, was able to, and I didn't even know what I was gonna say. I just shared with her what happened. And then at the end of it, I was like, just know that the Lord hears your prayers. And she just breaks down crying because of all these things, right? I mean, so multiple experiences like that, prayers of the Lord, I just pray for an opportunity to share more of you with this person. I like, in the-
8 a.m. in the shower right and then at 10 a.m. that person comes into my office We haven't talked in like two weeks Just randomly comes in and sits down and is in the right Space time and vulnerable mindset to hear and receive what I have to say. I mean just over and over and over Several different things like that, right? So much fruit so that set me off that was a moment that I was changed rent that was changed number one truly or you know to change 2.0, right so
Brent Stone (37:22.079)
Yeah, totally.
Brent Stone (37:27.202)
Sure.
Ishmael Morris (37:27.779)
But from that for the next several months, it sent me on this course of like, holy cow, my mindset was just wide open. It was not only do I understand that God exists because of the Bible and because I've seen experiences before through other people, like when things happen to you, you know. Like it's not always easy to articulate to other people in ways that you're like, I just wish you could have been there in my body, in my mind to like know what I know, right? Just wanna take what's up here and put it in your head. But.
Brent Stone (37:54.535)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (37:55.343)
I know that God is real. I know that he exists and I know that he stepped down into my life and I'm gonna tell you, I didn't deserve it at all. I was not doing anything extra spiritual for him to come down and talk to me. Man, it is 1000% by his grace and by his love and what I've come to, and finally also what I've come to fully believe and also know that it was from a lot of prayers from people before me.
from when I was young, possibly in very likely before I was born, I mean, I tell you stories from another podcast probably, but prayers matter, words have power, and the Lord hears you, holy smokes, and being prayer over your kids, over your family, like God hears that, we'll get into that another time, but it impacted my life dramatically and it was not of my doing, it was not of my doing. So forever thankful, forever grateful for the Lord.
Brent Stone (38:27.181)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (38:54.547)
hearing, listening, and acting in my life. Very undeserving. So from that moment, I just set onto this trajectory. It was like, I was kind of bobbing along as like a Christian that I thought I was doing mostly everything. Could I have been a little bit more fruitful and more intentional in my conversations? Yes. Could I have probably stopped having drinks with my buddies as often? Yes. Could I have probably started another Bible study? Could I have been in the Word and prayer more? Yes. But I felt like I was just
doing pretty decent for a believer. And little did I know there was just entirely another level in another world that exists. And I'll even preclude that with there are substantially more levels and things of understanding and walk with the Lord well beyond even where I've been very fortunate and blessed to be at with him now.
I don't even know what I don't know and I just know that there's so much more and I know that there are people that are far, far beyond me in their relationship with the Lord and gifts and things like that. So yeah, so it's something on the trajectory of just learning about them. Like
what is like this Bible that I've been reading, it's not just like these old stories, like these are like truths, like people were living these lives and this is the character of God. Look at how he interacted with Abraham. Look how he interacted with Adam and Eve. Like look at this. And so you start diving and dissecting some of those stories and it just gives you his character and his love for people. And so I was just pursuing Jesus and God, right? Out of the Trinity. If you're a believer, just know God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. It's...
It is the Trinity. Okay, we can get into that if anyone doesn't believe that look into it That's the biggest thing I'd say if you have any questions about anything I say Or anything that goes on or even in your own life The biggest thing that you could do wrong the worst thing you could possibly do is not look into it God wants us to question him. He wants us to look for the answers. He made the Bible
Ishmael Morris (40:48.635)
full of different details that are almost hidden until you look for them, right? Just like Jesus taught, teaching the parables, he made them more complicated where you have to be willing to look into it in order to have understanding. So that's the furthest extent of my preaching, Brent, that will. So, but that's a huge foundational piece of this because why...
Brent Stone (41:03.099)
Amen.
Ishmael Morris (41:09.523)
I started having more and more revelation of the Lord and pressing in and had many, many experiences since that moment I mentioned, is because I started pressing into God and looking for the answers. And it's not something that is unique to me. This is something that, especially after talking to many, the Lord has been fortunate to be introduced to many other people that have dramatic stories as well. And it's always the same.
they had an aha changed moment and they start pressing in and they start removing idols from their life like your time, right, like TV and the things you're watching and what you're thinking and what you're listening to and they shift that attention to the worthy King Jesus who deserves all of that time and all of our attention and all of our thought along the lines that we still operate our businesses and sort our family, right, but when you start pushing into that is when you start getting to know him on a level you've never thought because he's after your heart.
Right, if you're, yeah, he's after your heart. So give him your heart. Figure out and look into what it looks like for us to give him our hearts. So with that, I, how we doing on time? Terrible, typical 42 minutes, okay, we're doing all right. I'll go through the rest of this. So anyways, I started on a wild trajectory pursuing God, whatever it looked like. I was listening to a bunch of different sermons, to podcasts, I was talking to everybody I could talk to that were further down the road than me spiritually.
and just in a lot of prayer in my word, like Lord, what do you have for me? I dedicate my life to you, my family, all these things. You can have, yeah, whatever, my money, my time, my business, whatever. I was in the process looking backwards of figuring out how to move my life and my business and my family and taking that out from my stewardship and my operation and moving that under the operation of the kingdom. And I can get to that later down the road. So then.
I had a pretty wild weekend, September of 2022. It was in the end of September. I was sleeping one night and I woke up to four even hits on my forehead just like this. It was like, I don't know if you can see it, but it was like.
Ishmael Morris (43:17.935)
Just like that, right? Enough to like, first one kind of like drew me out of my sleep and it fully, you know, mostly woke me up. And I thought it was my daughter who had earlier come into bed with us, but I'm like, she was three or maybe four or whatever at the time. She doesn't have quite the rhythm, she's rhythmic, but she doesn't have enough to do exactly like that. And I was like, Lively, it was my daughter's name, Lively, what are you doing? And no response, no movement from her or my wife, right? And then I had this thought.
And the thought was that happened, so I would know this is not a dream. And then it was the second time I heard the voice of the Lord. And he said, I have a specific plan for you. And then I fell back asleep. He was like, he waved someone and I was just like, like out, right? It's literally looking back. I'm like, what? That is weird. You know, just anyway, so it was very funny. But none of the moment I woke up and I was like, that was weird. 100% knew that it happened. I knew it was not a dream. It like.
I was fully awake as that happened. And then I didn't tell my wife. So it was Friday going into Saturday. So that happened Saturday in the morning, early a.m. sometime. And then Sunday, my wife goes to Target. And keep in mind, we've had three kids and our youngest was six months at that time, approximately. Born in January, I guess, so eight months. And runs into our OB at Target. We've been frequent flyers at our OB because, you know.
three babies in three years, plus the front end stuff and the back end stuff, you know. So we've been seeing her for well over four years, pretty much consecutively, and we had never one time seen her outside of the office. So she runs into her target, and they're talking briefly, and she says, are you ready for more kids? And Ellen says, oh no, I don't think Ish wants anymore, and maybe I want one more, but definitely not right now. And Ellen tells me, she's like, she looked at me, and it was kind of a weird look, and she said, I think he's more, Ishmo's more ready than you think he is. And
And then they almost like oh, haha, you know, and then they kind of like left and whatever and I laughed when I heard that I'm like, yeah, right like this is life is like just a bowl of chaos right now like no chance and so we were living in our new house at the time already at this point and so Then you know, I thought that was
Ishmael Morris (45:29.035)
I just kind of dismissed that honestly. Well, I shouldn't have dismissed it for too long because the next day was conception. So we ended up starting the process of a new baby the next day, right? So it was this Saturday, Sunday, Monday combo. And yeah, it was wild. So then to try to breeze through some of this, there's so many little mini stories that deserve like their own attention or honestly even sermons about what the Lord has shown me or what I've learned through this. So Ellen has
felt like with all of our four children that she is received the name that she's supposed to name it from the Lord, from the baby, for the baby. And I've always honestly been very skeptical of that because I'm like she wasn't exactly like diving in heavy pursuit of God at the time. It's not like she wasn't doing anything, but she wasn't, you know, it's like why? The question of like why, why would the Lord just reveal a name of a kid to you? What's the point of that, et cetera.
But she's got these names that come into her mind and she can't get them out. It's like everything else is Irrelevant she can only think about that one name and it's a random, you know Usually it's a name that's not on our list or something like that, right? Well So this time six we end all these names are like six to eight weeks along she gets the name and she's been right with the gender every time because of this the name she gets right even the baby that we lost five pregnancies and Man so She gets the name sailor
And she's like, I think I got the name, and I was like, oh, sure. You did. Like there was a couple in our church like a year prior that had named their girl that and I loved it. Told my wife and she's like, no, I don't like that name or whatever. And then all of a sudden, miraculously, you know, she can't remember that interaction. I'm like, yeah, OK, sure. You know, definitely is a definitely is the Lord this time, you know. But also, I'm like, who am I to say that the Lord's not doing this? You know, so I'm keeping the keeping the box open and.
But so she's like, it's a girl, you know, whatever, but it was our fourth and we had two girls and a boy, so we were gonna not find out gender on this one. So we go along and then in the first quarter of the year, she ends up developing a placenta issue. And so she ends up having all these like crazy bleeding situations that just look like we're having miscarriages, et cetera. So she's like in and out of the hospital. Eventually she's on bed rest at home and then bed rest in the hospital. So for a month she was in the hospital between April and May of 23. And so during this time,
Ishmael Morris (47:49.451)
extra time in my pursuit of the Lord because I have to be home with the kids, you know, it was a chaos trying to juggle life at that point, but I was listening to sermons. So in that time, Brent, I ran into the first sermon series that changed, like was the next level of changing my life. It was by John MacArthur and it was called, it was about Daniel and it was, as I completely, I think I wrote it down here actually.
Ishmael Morris (48:17.907)
uh... it was the uh... uncompromising life is what it's called and so it's all about daniel in a deep dive into how through all the hardest and most insane circumstances of being ripped away from his family they were probably all killed you know he was in line for royalty or whatever in
with the people, the Hebrew people, and was ripped away, made into a eunuch, like he just totally indoctrinated him as a teenager, right, at the same, similar age that I would have been when my mom passed away, and they gave him all this nice stuff and essentially were brainwashing him to get him to go back after they trained him to go back and essentially have authority over his people, which hopefully would be more well-received. Anyway, so it's a deep dive on all that and how he...
Compromised on areas that he could compromise but was uncompromising No questions on areas that he should not compromise and for him, right? It was the what he shouldn't eat and we have probably all a lot of us know the story of Daniel But but also who we should pray to and who we should worship, right? And the seeing the Lord's faithfulness through that and so that was just the it was the right time, you know the right place it was just like a revelation for me where the
It just opened my eyes to how the Lord is faithful. And again, coming on the back of, I know that God is real. And I also knew he's unchanging, right? The Bible says that God is an unchanging God. And so I'm like, man, he was so faithful to someone who was so faithful to him. And I'm like.
I started looking at my life and I'm like, where am I being compromising? And I realized that it was being compromising a lot of things in my life, even though I was in the best place in my spiritual relationship with him ever. I was spending a lot of time on Netflix and Amazon Prime, watching movies and shows that had nothing to do with the spiritual world and advancing my relationship with God and what I realized and what I'd already known through business and a lot of other things, right, is we only have so much capacity up here. And so what we put in is what we get out. Just like what's on your heart is what ends up coming out of your mouth. And so,
Ishmael Morris (50:08.807)
I'm like, I'm putting not God things in my mouth and in my heart. And I'm also just like putting God in there with it. And I was like, I'm compromising on all these areas. And a lot of it wasn't like I was watching terrible things, but it was stuff that just wasn't.
If I was standing in front of God, he'd be like, why were you doing, what was the value in that? I'd be like, there was no value. It's a time filler. I was looking for happiness and fun and fulfillment in shows and in TV and in all these things. And it was the temporary fulfillment. And what I had realized along the way is that the living water of the Bible and of Jesus was...
I was substituting external things because they were faster and more tangible, at least in my mind, right, than what I was getting from the Bible and from my interaction with the Lord. And so I immediately started substituting. I was like, I'm done. I cut it off and I started pushing into the Lord and I experienced just crazy, many, many times crazy things. But so after that series, he talks about how there was an angel that was coming to visit Daniel. And there was an angel that was coming to visit Daniel.
He says sorry. I'm late Daniel. I was held up by the prince of the principalities of the region Which was the prince of Persia? I think is what it says, but especially spiritual warfare I was a an angel fallen angel of the enemy of that fell with Satan who was holding held holding up an angel of the Lord and I'm like
wait a minute, I thought if it was like God's authority, then it just like went through. Like this is his will, it goes through. So obviously there's some kind of disconnect with the Lord's will coming up against, you know, it didn't hold him up forever, but it was a delay, right? And so I'm like, well, that's not how I thought things operated. So it made me go into, well, how does the spiritual world work? Like how does, if that was then, and things haven't changed, then how does all that work now? So.
Ishmael Morris (51:58.591)
Ended up finding a series from MacArthur also that was God Satan and angels It went through everything that the Bible says about who God is and what his character is and what he's like who? Satan is what his character is and what he's like and what angels who angels are what the Bible says about them What their character is and what they're like and it was everything that I needed It was a huge blueprint of the spiritual world, but it did not give me the day-to-day details of like now, right? so then I Was like alright Lord. Well
I need more. Like that doesn't, I started praying. I was like, God, I just need some answers. Couple days later, I had a work event that made me think of a buddy that I had not talked to in like four years. And for a couple reasons. And so a great, good relationship just were separated from having to talk to each other all the time. And I just thought of him and I messaged him, hey man, how's life going? And he said, doing great, feeling, doing great, feeling more free than I ever have. And I was like.
heck does that mean? You know and I was like sounds good tell me about that like what is that and he proceeds to just reply with a sermon series from Robert Morris who I had not heard of at the time. He's a pastor of a church down in Dallas of Gateway Church, massive church down in Dallas and he talks about free indeed is a really in-depth a good sermon
on spiritual warfare now, like in our lives and what the Bible says about it and all these things. It was exactly what I needed, everything I needed. I'm like, this is enough. And so I recognized the Lord in that, right? That was absolutely Lord orchestrating that. And then immediately following that, had a series that popped up called Free Indeed, which if you guys haven't seen that, heavily massively recommended. It is about, or what did I say, Free Indeed?
Brent Stone (53:49.691)
Yeah, you did. Free indeed.
Ishmael Morris (53:51.075)
Yeah, what was, what's the, I gotta write this down. Can't believe it's been so long since I started talking about this. It's the blessed life, sorry. So free indeed is the spiritual warfare one. And then the blessed life is his same, his Robert Morris again, but it's on money and everything the Bible says about tithing and giving and how to steward our money. But he has a very unique, unbelievable testimony. He was rough life, I'm not gonna.
get into a bit of rough life and the Lord got saved and it's like 17 or 19 or something, but he frequently communicates with the Lord, you know, I don't know, frequently, right? When you watch the series, it all seems frequent, but the Lord used him to teach people about money. It is crazy. And so I'll tell you why it's truth, why I know that it's true. So I listened to that and I've been setting aside money and tithing 10% for as long as I can remember, right? That was something my mother indoctrinated or, you know, got into me. And so,
But when I started running my business and other businesses, we had commercial and developmental real estate and some side private equity, side business, et cetera. And then my business where we all of those things, we have money coming in and out, some of it is money that I never touch because it's principal and interest return, all of it goes back out, 1031 exchanges, things like that. It goes to pay staff, money that I don't actually at the end of the day profit from.
So I didn't really know how to handle giving that money. I'm like, well, I don't know. But so I'd just been setting aside my income that I kept, 10%. I'd set it aside in the bank account at the end of the year. I'd kind of pray along the year, Lord, if you have anybody that you need me to give this money to, et cetera, and then I would give it to where I saw fit, essentially, if I didn't hear anything or come across a circumstance. As I watched that video at the very end, Robert Morris says, so he has this thing, he says,
He was like, I was reading in second Kings and it's with Solomon and Solomon or maybe his first Kings and he slaughters the typical as he took over from David, David's son, Solomon. I took over from David, David and Solomon, massive lovers of the Lord, extremely blessed. Solomon takes over from David. I think the typical ceremony was they sacrifice like a hundred bowls or something like that. Well, Solomon steps in and sacrifices like a thousand, right? And God comes to him and says, ask anything of me and you will have it. And he says,
Ishmael Morris (56:17.667)
I wish for, you know, he's like, I asked for more, more wisdom to guide your people, right? And, you know, it says this please the Lord and whatever, so he got it. Well, so Robert Morris then says, at one point in my life, God actually asked me, he said, ask anything of me and you will have it. And he said,
you know he's like crying and he's like I asked him for a wonderful long lasting relationship with my wife and I started crying you know it's like 12 a.m. and I'm on a Wednesday night I'm sitting there holding my baby you know and whatever who's sleeping on my chest and I'm bawling I'm like Lord that's what I would ask for that's what I would ask for you know and along the way by the way our relationship had gotten a little bit a little bit better but it still wasn't good you know as far as communication all that stuff and but so the next day I woke up
And so I had this feeling, by the way, it wasn't, I didn't hear a voice, this is really important. I didn't hear a voice, I didn't have a thought, it was just, I just had this feeling that immediately after watching that, that I should give 10% of every dollar that comes into my bank account. Specifically that thought. Give every dollar, 10% of every dollar that comes into my bank account. As soon as I felt that, I was like...
I really thought it was like, kind of felt like my own thought honestly. And I'm like, that's a scary number because again, a lot of that money I don't keep, it goes back out, right? So it's, you know, not something I touch. And like, Lord, that's a pretty scary number. And I was like, I need you to affirm if that's what you were asking of me. And I got no affirmation.
So anyways in a short time with it right so it was like you know went to sleep woke up the next morning And I was like you know what I'm just gonna step into that faithfully because I know he's spoken to me before and I'm just gonna start doing this and if he shows me something else, then I'll do something else like no problem But I'm just felt it so I'm like I'm gonna step into it So got on my computer before everybody woke up gathered up all the money that I had in my account And you know I hadn't been setting aside has been crazy timeline with my wife. You know we had
Ishmael Morris (58:22.543)
I'll come back to that point in the story as well. So gathered up all the money that I should have set aside and I gave it, right? Never been in my life more happy to give money, ever.
That day I called my buddy, I had a two hour one way drive out to see a client and called my real estate business partner, shared with him what I had been through. He'd been up to date on my life and I was a strong believer as well. And he starts breaking down, he tells me about this dream he had had. And long story short, it was all about this, all of his real estate projects were going sideways and then in his dream he was just thanking God for all of his struggles, all of his blessings, all of his family, all of his trials.
Thank you God for everything like I owe you everything whatever you have of me. I will do it shows like this It was much longer, but it's this beautiful prayer and dream of just surrender to God right and I'm like at the end of this I'm just like holy cow like I was calling to tell you something like you were you were the one you know speaking to me and so that was that and So we'd had this commercial round we bought this ground rezoned it We had this small commercial section that we'd had listed for sale for like a year, right? This is
middle of last year. And the next night, my real estate partner calls me and he says, hey, you're not going to believe this. I actually got a call from a realtor I've never met that has a client that I don't know who said they remembered our property, which had come off of, had fallen offline, the listing or whatever, it dropped off because there was no interest. And
They had some he remembered it and he was interested in it. So it wasn't even listed anywhere. It had been up for a year No bites, right? He's like, hey, he's got a plan. He wants to buy it. Whatever. So I then I'm like, holy cow. That's that's wild. Like thank you Lord. Like that's I feel like that's kind of affirmation, right and Later on the next week I was talking to my My main primary business partner in my business about everything that had been going on I was just sharing with him what had happened and I told him the amount that I had tied
Ishmael Morris (01:00:32.139)
I also mentioned that the ten times the Solomon thing, the ten sacrificing ten times and then also about the commercial ground. I told him all these dollar amounts. I told him what my percentage was of the development. I told him what my dollar amount I tithed was and he looks at me and he's like, do you know what that number is? I was like, no. I didn't even really think about it.
the number of your percentage, because it was the total number, and he did the math on what my percentage was, he said that your percentage of the deal for the real estate is exactly 10 times what you tied. And I was like, holy cow, no way. And then I was like, you know what, it's actually not, because it was like $28 less than I'd rounded up, right? It was like $28 less. So I went in my bank and looked, and it was $20. Then I was like, you know what, I don't know what we actually listed that ground for. And so I messaged my business partner.
in real estate and he told me and it was like $5,000 less than what I thought it was and I did the math and it was just a few dollars more, like a couple hundred dollars more than ten times what I had tied. So to me that was a hundred percent affirmation and I said this in the first time I shared this with a lot of people but the Lord doesn't ever give me, he would never...
The Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. He would never give a word to me or affirmation to me that only Brent would need. And he wouldn't give Brent an affirmation that would work for me but not for him. He would give to me what I needed. And in the moment, that is exactly what I needed to know, that it was affirmation. Because we actually didn't even end up selling the ground. But we got the numbers there, right? And so I was like, Lord, I'm like, I'm a thousand percent in whatever you have. And so just...
Honestly, I've never been so excited. I look forward to payday so that I can move money around to give it immediately. And so what I realized in this though guys, was not that I was gonna get blessed and that's what I'm excited about. What I realized was that I had a heart issue that I didn't even know about money. This is super important.
Ishmael Morris (01:02:43.775)
my heart was I liked seeing that balance build up in my bank account almost as like an extra cushion throughout the year. I liked seeing it and I liked the control of being able to give that money where I wanted to and instead so I wasn't giving a whole lot to my local church because they're doing all right and I wanted to give to the ministries that were speaking into my life so I was given to MacArthur's ministry you know it's given a couple different places and what I realized was from the blessed life is that we are called biblically to return our first
of whatever that looks like to the storehouse, which is our local church, right? And then, so there's tithes, those are tithes. Then there's offerings, which are gifts above that, and then there's extravagant offerings, et cetera. But offerings and extravagant offerings are something that the Lord puts on your heart to do. It's not something that you're just like, oh, I'm gonna go give away my house and expect that the Lord's gonna reimburse that, right? It doesn't work like that. You need to hear that from the Lord. Anyways, so.
What the Lord did through that in my life was ripped out these idols of pride and comfort and seeing in control of my money. And since then, just to fast forward time, so we're running over an hour here, since then...
I've been praying for, you know, fairly frequently for the Lord if he has anyone that I should give money to, to let me know. And he shared that with me. I've had numbers, dollar amounts pop into my head that I was like, was that me or was that like that was weird. And then later that day, someone would call me and tell me, they're like,
One specific time someone was like, I really hate to bring this up and I never asked for money before, but he was entering into ministry, quitting his job, he'd been bivocational for a long time, quitting his job and stepping into this. The same day that I heard those numbers, or had numbers in my head.
Ishmael Morris (01:04:27.639)
And actually I was on the phone with him and I had those numbers come into my head when he just mentioned that he was gonna be raising his own money. Had a dollar amount, a monthly and an annual amount, monthly and annual amount. And later he called me that day, he's like, look, I've been avoiding this, but the Lord's really put on my heart that I need to ask you and one other person to support my ministry. He's like, don't, like just pray about it. Just, you know, and he was real nervous. He didn't wanna tell me, you know, because we were kind of friends, right? So he's like, I don't wanna.
and I just started laughing. I kind of made him feel uncomfortable on purpose a little bit and I was like, don't worry about it man, the Lord already told me the numbers I should give you. So yeah, absolutely, the Lord will work in anybody if he has your heart. So all this is, everything that I ever say in here, it is about your heart with the Lord and so getting your heart. So anyways, let me go back quickly to what happened with my wife. So she's in the hospital, on bed rest, we don't know the gender, and then in May, we have an emergency C-section.
She says to me, I was like, should we pick out a name if it's a boy? And she's like, no, because if it is a boy, I'm gonna question everything that I've ever heard, I've ever thought, is this from the Lord, is this not? And yeah, so we didn't pick out a boy name. She's like, it's a girl, I got the name. Okay, sounds good. And by the way, Selah is in the Psalms a lot, so that's the name she got in six to eight weeks. And it means, a lot of people think it means to pause and reflect. And she'd been on bed rest the whole time. So we're like, ha ha.
like, Lord, you got us, like, good one, you know? And so C-section, emergency C-section time, I run to the hospital, get my gown on or whatever, the full body suit, curtain goes up, they do the surgery, baby comes out, I look over, it's a boy. I'm like, that is a boy. And she's like, no it is not, you know, and whatever. So we get a little bit of time, baby needs to go to the NICU for some minor stuff, and so she's getting blood transfusion, going through the whole game at a crazy time.
and I'm in the NICU hanging out, I'm just like, I'm really pumped because I'm like, man, the dream I had, or well not the dream, the night I had the Lord or an angel or something tap on my forehead and tell me I have a specific plan for you was the same weekend of the baby. So I'm like, man, maybe this plan is, I feel like this might be for my kids.
Ishmael Morris (01:06:40.135)
in some capacity. And so I'm like, this is a boy like this is, you know, wow, this is crazy, even that our family is just all good. And my wife is furious. Ellen is just really mad. She's like, I'm questioning God. I'm questioning everything I've ever thought or heard from him. Like, what is this? And I'm going to reply to her on text because she's in, you know, going through all this stuff. And I remembered in that moment as I went to reply, what had happened with our second daughter and with our second daughter.
We didn't tell anyone the name, we told them gender, we didn't tell the name, and her name's Violet, so we didn't tell, that was another name that Ellen got from, she said she got from the Lord, which I believe she did. And the reason I believe that is because right after she was born, in fact, the same couple that I just mentioned that had gotten bivocational and was going full-time, that the Lord had put on his heart to ask us to help fund their church or a salary, his wife.
They come over, bring us food, and he says, after Violet was born, he said, the night before Violet was born, my wife sat up in bed and looked at me and said, and know what they're gonna name the baby, they're gonna name the baby Violet. And again, we hadn't told anyone the name. And so they told us that, and we were like, that is so weird, and I've known the wife from growing up, right, from small town. And she's kinda had a history of like, knowing some things she shouldn't, you know. And...
And I was like, that is wild. But it was really like a why. It was another one of those moments, like why would the Lord reveal that to you? And after, and we forgot about it. For years we forgot about it. And then in, so that was October of 2020. Now here we sit in May of 2023. And in the moment I go to reply, that memory just immediately flooded my mind. And I was like, holy cow. I was like, don't doubt the power of the spirit in our household and the Lord working. Do you not remember when the Lord revealed our daughter's name to Kendra before?
before she was born and she was like, oh my gosh, I forgot. So anyways, we go pray together, like Lord, what do you want us to name this baby? We don't really get anything. So we start going down the path and making the decision. She ended up liking the name Wilder and ended up picking out middle name Stone. And we tried to fit Selah in there, didn't really fit well. And so...
Ishmael Morris (01:08:49.147)
ended up with Wilderstone and we're almost ready to solidify the middle name, right? And we messaged our friends from a different state and said, it's a boy, we don't have a name yet. And he goes, oh, let me give you two suggestions. And the names were Rockwell and Rourke. And he's like Rockwell and his explanations were that one was for Peter, the rock, which Christ Church was built on. And the other one was
for like the rock in the wilderness when the Israelites were wandering, that was like a symbol of God's faithfulness to them, right? And he had no idea any of the things that had been happening to us outside of the baby. He knew we had told them the story of the dream that weekend, right? The three-day, you know, events, but they knew nothing else. And all of a sudden he comes with two rock names, right?
And when we were deciding on stone, which we didn't tell them. And so I'm like, oh man, does that solidify it, Ellen? She's like, no, she's still mad. She's like, no, it doesn't solidify it, I don't know. And later that night, I'm messing around, and I was like, you know what, maybe I should look at what stone translates to in other languages. Maybe there's some cool connection in there. And all of a sudden on Google, it popped up, and it said, Ishmael, obviously my name, father of the Arabic nation.
Right because you know Abraham and Sarah had Ishmael with her while Abraham and Haga had Ishmael and then they get cast off And then you know the whole That's basically how the Arabic nation started. So I was like, oh, that's interesting I actually don't know a ton about that so I clicked on it and then I was like, you know what? I wonder what stone translates to in Arabic and The first thing that popped up from the bump
which is a web bump.com baby name website and some other, two websites back to back, both in Hebrew and Arabic. Stone backwards from, again, Arabic and Hebrew translates to Selah. And I was just like, holy cow, like, Lord, that's like incredible, unbelievable. Right, so then we're like, all right, yeah, that's it. So we lock it in and go home and anyways, had those experiences at home between the...
Ishmael Morris (01:10:49.395)
the Blessed Life series where we found out about the money and then also the free and deep time after that and then Just was a really sweet time with the Lord learning a lot I shared my testimony for the first time where it was recorded at a church that my same pastor I met in the diner shared at his church and So many things have happened since then but the one of the main ones that I'm probably For getting a little bit of this but for time's sake I'm in December of this year of 23
So just like a month and a half ago, I was, I had felt that I needed to develop more my relationship with Holy Spirit, the person, not the power, right? Because even though I grew up the way, in the church systems I grew up, it was always like God and Jesus, God and Jesus, and like the Holy Spirit was kind of this acting force. Didn't really know a lot about it, or think about it, it was always just God and Jesus. So really felt this push and this call to... Um...
dive into that. And so I'd started this series. First of all, I developed an earache over the course of a week. It had gotten consistently stronger every day to the point where after I grew up, I grew up drinking this lake water, like swimming in this lake, horrible blue-green algae, all this stuff. So my immune system's humbly, my immune system is macular. Like, thank you Lord. Like I don't get sick very often. The metabolism is great. Like just whatever. But this was really getting me. Like it was starting to get bad.
It's my recommended call medicine out. I did I was on the way to pick it up from after work By myself on the highway and just started the first sermon series from Pastor I found online named Vlad who has an amazing testimony as well you might recognize him if you see him as one of his eyes is a little bit a little bit off from birth or something, but
man that guy is incredible, incredible story. But he has this online class that's free and it's about diving more into developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit. So I finished the first course, got a phone call, interrupted, was gonna go back to it, had this thought. And the thought was, I haven't really prayed for my ear. Or really anything else that's ever been wrong. You know, I'm not sick a lot, but I just never really prayed for myself. Just take medicine, whatever. And my first thought was, genuinely.
Ishmael Morris (01:13:01.623)
that's a complete waste of his time because this isn't that bad. And then I was like, well, that's really dumb. Obviously I know it's not, nothing is a waste of his time, right? And then my next thought was, it's not, can he do it? Because I know that he can, but will he do it? And I was like, you know what? I was like, I'm just gonna pray for him. So I took my hand off the wheel, put my hand on my ear, and I said, Lord, I just pray that you heal my ear, just like that, put my hands back on the wheel. And about five seconds later, I felt this little pop in my ear. It was like,
somebody like afflict water in my ear or something. It was probably the drainage that was coming from that. And it just, it was bad enough that I had the, felt the tube in my throat was inflamed. I turned my head, I swallowed, I could feel it all. Tugging on my ear all the time. And I just felt this pop and it just kind of went down my neck like that. And I was just like, I was probably a zombie in the car. I was like, I was scared to move, scared to think. I was like, there is no way, there's no way that just happened. And I was like this, and I just remember, I turned my head to test it.
because I was scared to do anything. I was like, there's no way that was real. And no pain, swallowed, no pain, no grab my ear, no pain. In fact, it felt better than it had been before it was hurting. And I just started screaming in my car and I can only equate it to, I was just like, yeah, like no, you know, doing the whole thing. You know, people driving by and you're like, this guy's listening to like heavy metal or something crazy, right? And, but I can only equate it to, I probably reacted the exact same way that the, the
blind man from birth and the paralytic acted in the Bible when they got healed and I'm just a little ear infection. Like I was going nuts, man. I'm like, this is nuts. So that was wild, man. I got home, I told my whole family, you know, I spoke, I shared with everybody, my extended family when they came over from, for an early Christmas. So it must've been like the first or second week in December. And then I shared with my other side of family. Like I just couldn't get enough of telling people. I'm like, this is unbelievable. And...
man, just really increased my faith a lot, and in a lot of ways. And so if you ever have doubts, does the Lord heal, does he work, does he speak, I am a living walking testimony about that 1,000%. And if you start, I think what I have found is that I grew up almost in echo chambers, and so if you're on the more charismatic, Pentecostal, et cetera side, where it's just heavy on the spirit.
Brent Stone (01:15:11.001)
Sure.
Ishmael Morris (01:15:19.271)
Like sometimes we're all humans, right? And so we kind of fail in being in Steering that or even discerning that like almost a little bit like my mom did like when is it the Lord? When is it me? Sometimes we feel that it Builds almost this wonky. Maybe we don't communicate it. Well with people who aren't experiencing that right? That's that echo chamber You can talk those that language to people that have been through it or that feel that but if you're not Haven't gone through that or don't have aren't at that place in your walk with the Lord like that sounds real weird. And so
We essentially build these little tribes all around when the reality is that we serve a God that is over all of that But we all have different experiences with him because we are the hands and the feet Of the body of Christ and the arms and the legs and the toes everybody has a different piece But they are with the lord and so they're in their walk and so as we press into him as I encourage all of you and hope this massively increases your faith as we Yeah, I hope so man, I hope everybody takes this and looks for truth in this like lord, what do you like?
Brent Stone (01:15:56.825)
Amen.
Brent Stone (01:16:08.126)
It's going to help a lot of people. It's going to be good.
Ishmael Morris (01:16:17.515)
I pray very frequently, I say almost every day, but I pray almost very frequently, Lord, I want less of me and more of you, show me truth. Like I don't wanna ever walk in a space where I think like my mom did, like where I think something is me or think something that's the Lord, speaking to me or I should do this or whatever. But, and it's me, I don't want that. And so Lord, only truth. And when you pray those things, and the Bible, this is specific in the Bible, last preaching part, right? But.
Brent Stone (01:16:40.248)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (01:16:42.623)
As we pray these things, like when our will lines up with what the Lord's will is, with what God's will is, it says what a good father would withhold gifts from his son, right, or his children. He's, what father would withhold good gifts from their son, that's what it is. The problem is when we pray a lot of times, we think that we only ask for the things that we think are good for us, but he sees not only what is, would be possibly good for us in the moment, he sees what's gonna be the best for us in the near future.
Brent Stone (01:16:54.719)
Yeah.
Ishmael Morris (01:17:11.767)
long future, whatever that is. Absolutely.
Brent Stone (01:17:13.286)
Or in the spirit and in the spirit and the spirit is timeless. I mean, he's he operates outside of time and. But yeah, man, this is gosh, this is man. This is so good. Listen, I'm like super encouraged. And I know our listeners are encouraged. We're for everyone that's tuning in today. We're going to have more with Ishmael because him and I are buddies. And we've talked quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.
Ishmael Morris (01:17:20.774)
Yes. Thousand percent.
Brent Stone (01:17:42.21)
And his whole journey is just encouraging as an understatement. So I just want to say, man, thank you. Thank you for coming on here. And thank you for just sharing and just everything that you're doing to just walk out everything that you have been changed through, but also just
listen to the Holy Spirit and to know that taking action on his word and his voice and the impartations that he's given you is just awesome. And with that, I'm going to include in the show, I'm going to include how you can reach out to Ishmael if you want to find him, talk to him, just read more about him, see what he's about. There's actually a link to another testimony that he did at his really...
Ishmael Morris (01:18:22.639)
Yes.
Ishmael Morris (01:18:31.899)
Absolutely.
Brent Stone (01:18:40.158)
awesome church venue. It's just awesome. I've watched it. It's great. And you'll be able to go and check that out as well. And it's going to bless you. So I want people to know that they can also find you there as well. But with that, until next time, keep walking out your change, everybody. Thanks so much.