Save America Ministries

Guest (Male): This is Viewpoint with attorney and author Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is a one-hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now, with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Crismier.

Chuck Crismier: Some have said that comfort, a comfort zone becomes a prison. Others have said that comfort kills the soul. Some others say that comfort actually is an addiction, that we become addicted to comfort, and therefore it prevents us from doing the things that we ought to be doing.

So I have a question for you as we launch into the program here today on the near edge of the 250th anniversary of the political birth of our country. There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. 56 of them. They came from different nationalities all conglomerated together here from the 13 colonies.

And every one of them signed this Declaration of Independence saying, well, here is what they said right at the end of their declaration: "Because of this and support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

I would like for you to think real hard about which one of those three words or phrases engenders comfort: pledging our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Would you be one of the signers of the Declaration? If you knew that Great Britain was not exactly happy with you, would you sign that declaration with a big John Hancock signature like he did, saying, "If we don't hang together, we'll hang separately"? It doesn't sound too much like comfort, does it?

So our country was not formed in comfort. It was formed in conflict. It was formed actually by commitment and a kind of conviction that was deep in the soul that led people to do—56 men, honorable men, some of whom were very wealthy and lost it all. In other words, there was great risk at what they did. It was not a comfort zone. Our nation was not born in comfort nor will it be sustained in comfort.

And so that's what we want to talk about here today on Viewpoint. I'm glad that you've joined us. It's conversation with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms. And I had a very unusual experience this week. I received my weekly edition of Epoch Times. Great newspaper, by the way.

There was a special article called "The Cost of Comfort." And as I read this article by Molly Engelhart, I was so gripped as to how serious and how important this issue really is. And so I called her, tracked her down, called her, and what I found amazing was she responded to the call. It may have caused some discomfort for her in her schedule, but she responded to the call and she's joining us here on Viewpoint today. Molly Engelhart from Texas. Molly, it's good to have you on the program.

Molly Engelhart: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. A few years ago, they asked me to write one article on regenerative agriculture, and it just kind of led from there. And then I wrote some about the sanctity of life. And there was a good response, and now I write a daily column. I don't know exactly when that started, maybe a year ago that I started writing more regularly, almost multiple times a week.

Chuck Crismier: Well, I think you indicated to me that you actually get up at 4:30 in the morning and write these columns from 4:30 to 6:00. That's not exactly the comfort zone for most people, is it?

Molly Engelhart: No, sir. So what I am most well-known for is going from being a vegan chef in Los Angeles and a liberal to becoming a very faithful, conservative cattle rancher in Texas. And so I wrote a book about this, and it's very much what I speak about is how nature brought me back to the Lord.

And so I often am talking about these things. I go across the country, I speak, but I had the blessing of... I literally was praying for a job that I could do before chores in the morning and not interfering with the rest of my ranch life and my children, and we have a restaurant on the ranch and all this stuff. And so I prayed for that and I received it.

And so I'm so grateful for this job because not only does it help support my family, but I get to have conversations with people like you and on this platform. And I just had a nurse, Andrea from San Antonio, that drove out and had lunch today at the restaurant because she read an article and she was moved to come see what we're doing. So on big scales and on small scales, I get to touch people's hearts and help turn their minds back to God, back to humanity, and back to what's really important. And that is just the greatest use of my life here on this planet. So I'm so grateful to God and the Epoch Times for letting me be part of what they are doing.

Chuck Crismier: Well, I'm looking at your picture here that shows in your daily article or weekly article anyway, and you indicated that you had five kids, one adopted. This is quite a story. That's not exactly a comfort zone for most women as they see themselves as Americans today, is it?

Molly Engelhart: No, sir. I was very liberal and so indoctrinated into the "work hard and have family later." And it... I didn't have my first child till 37, and imagine that I was still blessed with four biological children and Osmar also came to me and he came as an unaccompanied minor during the first Trump administration.

And then some conflict in his home and he came to a volunteer day at our farm and we ended up being his guardians through his special juvenile case with his parents. And he's now an American citizen and he's married and he moved to New Mexico and he's farming as well.

So I am really lucky that my views of the world didn't block me from being able to have a family because I have so many girlfriends that have great careers and they're lawyers or beer brewers or restaurant owners, and they didn't ever have the chance to have children. I call them the accidentally childless clan. I'm 48 years old, and there are so many women my age that just thought it would happen later and later came and it didn't. And so four children, three home births, and none of that is comfortable, but it is all what we are designed to do and the greatest honor that I've ever been given is to mother children.

Chuck Crismier: Well, you've indicated in your article that whatever form it takes, discomfort has an incredible ability to dominate our attention, that discomfort often occupies more space in our minds than joy, and one inconvenience can overshadow a dozen blessings. In other words, discomfort becomes a command performance in our lives and therefore drives us into comfort when really we ought to resist in many ways the desire that has trapped us into a world of comfort because it's keeping us, it's addicting us, it's keeping us from actually progressing in our life and fulfilling the things that God would have us to do. I really was gripped by this article. We're going to talk about it in more detail when we get back. Molly, so thankful that you have joined us here. Friends, this is Viewpoint, and viewpoint is human destiny.

Guest (Male): Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bible in school. Divorces were practically unknown, as was child abuse. In our once-great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Crismier and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint, where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the Fourth Commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org.

Chuck Crismier: Has the pursuit of comfort become somewhat of a prison for you? Maybe a prison that you didn't even realize you were in. A prison without bars but still has you trapped. Well, here is an interesting comment. The pursuit of physical, emotional, and intellectual ease slowly dulls our ambition and prevents us from reaching our true potential.

True growth requires breaking out of safe routines, facing uncertainty, and embracing the struggles that build our lives. The idea that absolute ease lulls us into complacency is a timeless truth echoed across philosophies and literature. So identifying the areas in your life daily where you consistently choose the path of least resistance, you need to challenge yourself to do harder, a more productive thing. Allow yourself to sit with moments of uncertainty instead of masking them with instant gratification or numbing distraction.

That's just one of numerous different comments and quotations that I've come up with, including comfort that kills the soul. Our guest today, Molly Engelhart from Texas, she is a regenerative farmer and rancher at Sovereignty Ranch, and we're going to talk more about that in a few moments. But she is joining us because of an article that she wrote in the last issue, for the last issue of Epoch Times called "The Cost of Comfort." So you say, Molly, that comfort has a cost. What do you mean by that?

Molly Engelhart: It is that we have started to optimize our lives for the least resistance in every way. We want our lives to be comfortable and any discomfort now seems like something is wrong. But if you think about humanity for the last thousands of years up until very recently, it was rather uncomfortable to be human.

And we have tried to eliminate discomfort from every different thing, but then we also have no ability to push through anything. One slight discomfort has us be like, "Oh, I give up." Think about how many of your friends started a business and then quit before it took off, or we put up with things that are not good for a long time because the this little discomfort seems easier than the big discomfort of changing something.

Chuck Crismier: You know, I was thinking, Molly, back in the eighth grade, I was enrolled in the first algebra class that that school had ever had in the eighth grade. It was in the Sputnik era when the satellite had been launched by Russia. And so America was in this fervor for mathematics and science and so on. So I was in this algebra class and I had done extremely well in math all through school and now I was confronted with a situation where for some reason I didn't get it.

And for 30 days in this algebra class, I was beside myself. And I went to friends that seemed to be getting it, I talked to my mother and so on, and for some reason I didn't get it. And I struggled. How can I do this? I'm not going to pass, I'm not going to do... And then I decided, you know what? I'm just going to have to persevere and see what happens.

Guess what? As a result of that, my eyes were opened, I understood it all, and what was it? Eight years later, I ended up teaching the first algebra class in another district in California. I would never have been able to do that if I had not pressed through in that simple thing for 30 days in that algebra class. And that just may seem like a very small thing.

But there's so many things like that through my own life that I see. If I had given up, if I had given up after the second year of law school because I found it very different than my other kinds of reasoning in schools where I had graduated summa cum laude in college, but all of a sudden I was challenged. It didn't feel good. Didn't feel good at all. But I had to press forward and did because of my wife's encouragement. We need a lot of encouragement, don't we, to press through in difficult times?

Molly Engelhart: Yes, and that's what I'm trying to teach my children because I noticed the same thing with them and that they tend to... "Oh, I couldn't find it. I need help." And I always tell them, I will help you with anything, but I will not do for you what you can do for yourself. Because I want them to be able to do things, I want them to have hard experiences.

And my oldest biological son, he's a little bit chubbier than my other children I would say, and he's not... his hand-eye coordination... he's very into fish tanks and he's very smart in many ways. His hand-eye coordination is not the best. And even though he's the oldest, he was the last to learn to ride a bike. And I could have just said, you know, "It's not his thing. He keeps falling. I don't need to keep pushing it."

But I didn't. And I tried pushing, I tried different things. And then there was this kind of fish he has... a lot of natural fish tanks he wanted that we're going to have to drive to Austin for. And I said, "Sure, we will get you this fish if you can ride your bike, change gears, ride uphill, ride all the way around the field, ride to the house, ride to your cousin's house, come back. You are totally great at riding your bike, we will go and get you this fish."

And I will tell you that in four days, after months of... I mean my husband tried, "No TV, he can't have TV if he doesn't..." Like we tried all different things and the fish was the one that got him. And now he has a little jeep and he is not using his jeep and he's 11 and he's riding his bike. He works at the restaurant here on the ranch two and a half hours a day after homeschool and he's riding his bike down. He's like, "Oh, it's dinner time, I'm going to do 15 minutes of riding my bike before dinner. I saw that that's good for exercise."

He's... and he feels so good about himself. His dad was in Mexico when he learned and so he was just couldn't wait to show his dad how good he was. And I can just see that the confidence... If I had just let him, you know, the mother, like, "Oh, he's struggling. It's been nine months, he hasn't learned to ride his bike. I guess he's just not a bike rider," that would have been not a service to my son.

Chuck Crismier: Right. Well, that kind of empathy is emphasized so much in our liberal culture today. Everybody has to cultivate these feelings all the time, but they can actually steal what needs to happen for our kids. Empathy can be a good thing, but it can also be destructive, can't it?

Molly Engelhart: Yes, I speak about this a lot because I had an eating disorder when I was a teenager. And imagine if my mother had been like, "Oh, we should affirm. You are fat and we should get you some diet pills and you should go throw up. Let's go get you some laxatives." Like that is what we're doing with all this gender ideology.

We are affirming something that is a child whose body is changing, whose hormones are changing, who is confused. And we are not being the adults in the room, and I don't mean we, myself, but I mean as a society, the adult in the room has to say, "I understand that you're confused. I understand it feels weird for your body to be changing. I understand all of that. And no, God doesn't make mistakes. You were born in the perfect body, and this too shall pass," just like my bulimia passed.

But imagine if my mother had affirmed my bulimia. "Yes, you should go throw up. You are fat." That would be crazy. But bulimia and these ideologies that are happening in high schools right now are both social contagions. They are both something... I had an entire girl group of friends in high school. Everybody had an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia. That's not because we all had an eating disorder. It was the cool thing, like we all got to be feeling like we're fat. We all got that idea, and then it was real for us.

But my parents, perfect no, but they were the adults in the room and they said, "Uh, no. Absolutely not. You're not fat. You're imagining things. Pull yourself together. No, no, you can't drink diet Snapple and diet pills. Absolutely not. That's not happening." And that they just put an end to it. Like that's it. No, we're not playing this game.

And I think that we have validated people's feelings to no end. Being uncomfortable happens. Thinking you're fat when you're not as a teenager is a form of body dysmorphia. It doesn't mean that we should validate the body dysmorphia because it's dysmorphia. We're not relating to reality.

And that is the beauty of nature, that is the beauty of living on a farm is you can see everything very clearly. A seven-year-old, my daughter, one time said, "Well, we are not going to have any babies this year if we don't get a bull." And I said, "You're right. We harvested the bull. We haven't gotten a new bull." We're going to. She's like, "Well, we better do it faster. There's not going to be any meat next year."

So my daughter who's seven could understand that girl cows... and she said, "The girls jump on each other plenty, but without a bull, you're not going to get babies." Yes, that is all a true story that a seven-year-old can understand when you're observing creation and God's design.

But we are so disconnected from nature. We're so disconnected from our food. We can only believe these lies that society teaches us because we live so isolated from the perfection of God's design. And whether that's that we're obese because our food calories are so easy and available that we just OD on calories but we're missing nourishment...

Chuck Crismier: Well, that bull was going to have to go through some discomfort to provide another bull, wasn't it?

Molly Engelhart: Yes, that is all part of it. And the cows are going to get chased around and jumped on. It's... it is... there's no level of... there's no life that is comfortable. But we are the only mammals on the planet—I don't know if you know this—that do not prioritize reproduction anymore.

Chuck Crismier: Isn't that amazing? The very thing that God said we were to do, we say, "No, not quite so much. I don't want to feel uncomfortable."

Molly Engelhart: But every mammal prioritizes water, food, and then reproduction in that order, and sometimes shelter but not all mammals require shelter. We have prioritized shelter, or translation comfort. And I would say that there's many things that are an extension of shelter in our culture that's extension of comfort. We have prioritized that over everything else so that we are unwilling to do hard things. "Oh, how can you have so many children? It must be so hard to pay for everything for them. How can you be a farmer and a restaurant owner? Those are the two hardest ways to make a living."

Nobody said... Do we think long-suffering meant to be staying home and watching things that start with a P and scrolling on TikTok? No, that is not what long-suffering is. And the first thing that God asked us to do was tend to the garden. And maybe that is because when we are tending to the garden, we can see the truth. It's very clear. His design is everywhere and it's perfect. And I just think we've just got so far away from tending to the garden that we are confused because we're not seeing the truth, we're just seeing the algorithm that's telling us lies.

Chuck Crismier: I want to dig a little deeper into this—the ranch, the garden. You run what is called Sovereignty Ranch. You have a website sovereignty ranch.com. Sovereignty is spelled—let's see, how do we spell sovereignty? S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N-T-Y. Is that it?

Molly Engelhart: G. There's a G. S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N-T-Y.

Chuck Crismier: Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. And what can people find there?

Molly Engelhart: We have 40 beds of hospitality. We have different spaces like for conferences. We have a 200-person room and then we have a 50-person room for church groups or for big conferences. We have a main stage on the field. We have 40 head of cattle, we have a hog program, we have goats and sheep, and many other kinds of chickens, meat chickens, regular chickens, and then 40 beds, and then we have a restaurant.

So we are a working regenerative farm that invites people to come be on the farm, eat the food of the land. We only serve protein that we grow here on the ranch. The goal is that 100 years ago we were all eating food from within 100 miles of where we lived or from the land that we lived on. And we've forgotten that there is some perfection and coherency in how God created everything. And so I believe that food in its whole form, the way God created it, is what will heal us. And so I want people to come here, eat the food, enjoy what is the fruits of my labor, and feel that feeling to eat food of the land that you're on. It just feels different.

Chuck Crismier: Well, Molly, are you extending an invitation to my wife and I?

Molly Engelhart: Yes, come on out anytime you want. You can record from my podcast studio and come visit. We have plenty of space.

Chuck Crismier: We will. We will definitely come out and spend a day or two with you there at Sovereignty Ranch. I think this is a tremendous thing. Now, the story is so amazing because you came from California, Liberville. You were involved in liberal thinking there in many different ways. You had restaurants there. And then all of a sudden you're in Texas with Sovereignty Ranch. I want you to distill that story as quickly as possible so we can get back to the cost of discomfort. We'll be right back.

Guest (Male): There is so much more about Chuck Crismier and Save America Ministries on our website saveus.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on His mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a factsheet on the state of the marital union, a factsheet on the state of ministry marriage and morals. saveus.org. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at saveus.org. Also a letter to pastors, the Hosea Project, saveus.org, and many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website saveus.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's Viewpoint broadcasts live and archived. Save America Ministries website at saveus.org.

Chuck Crismier: Amazing, my friends, what would have happened if the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence had said, "You know what? This is going to cost too much. I can't do this. I'm fairly wealthy, I have prominence, and I'm not going to take the risk. My neck might be put in a noose. Britain might come after me. No, I can't do that. I'm going to pursue comfort." Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine that, friends? Well, here's another thing. Can you imagine Jesus saying, "You know what? I don't think that cross thing is worth it for me. I know it's going to cause a lot of pain and I'm just not going to go there. I want to feel comfortable," so He decided not to go to the cross.

I want you to think about that. Or how about the disciples that went out everywhere around the world? All but one lost their lives because of what they did. Why did they do it? Is it because they wanted to pursue discomfort? No, it's because they had a purpose. That's why they did it.

We've got to link that here today on Viewpoint, and Molly Engelhart is the one to do it. Molly, let's... I've laid the foundation for that there. Let's go back to California for a quick moment. You had a bunch of restaurants there but they weren't anything like what you have at the Sovereignty Ranch. What were they like?

Molly Engelhart: No, sir. I was a well-known vegan chef. I had a large five restaurants. We were doing over $40 million a year, and they were vegan. I was successful by all outward measuring.

Chuck Crismier: What part of California were you in?

Molly Engelhart: I was in Los Angeles, California.

Chuck Crismier: In where?

Molly Engelhart: Los Angeles.

Chuck Crismier: Los Angeles. Okay. Well, I was in Pasadena, the whole Los Angeles basin.

Molly Engelhart: Yeah, so I had a restaurant in the One Colorado building right between Il Fornaio and Sushi Roku, what used to be the Gordon Biersch building. But yeah, so I had five big restaurants and they were all vegan. And I believed that that was the pathway for humanity, that was the right thing to do. I believed that fully. My husband when I got married was undocumented. I... You would look up a "bleeding-heart liberal" probably in the phonebook or dictionary or whatever and then there would be a picture of me.

Chuck Crismier: Well, what happened to you, Molly?

Molly Engelhart: A few things happened. Mostly COVID, but before COVID, I had an experience where God told me that the abortion I had when I was a younger 22-year-old was not my choice to make. And he showed me this tapestry of all of life and how every life is intertwined and that by sucking one abortion vacuum sucks one string out and it messes up the entire tapestry and that He has a wider vision and my vision is so narrow.

And I remember saying, "Well, what do you want me to do?" and I just wanted this terrible vision to be out of my head and this thought to be out of my head. And the voice was very clear that I was to never in my life to promote it, pay for it, and never under any circumstance do it again. And so this is when I was very liberal, I didn't even tell anybody that this happened to me. But I knew that I had had this vision, I knew that it was real.

And years later, a series of events happened where a bunch of things happened in my restaurant. My ex-husband was drunk and all this thing happened and they ended up sleeping with one of my cooks that night. And I was like, "Please never tell anybody that this happened, it's sexual harassment, it's wrong, blah, blah, blah."

And two weeks later I find out that I'm pregnant and I know what I have to do. And I go back and I say, "We have to get married." And he's like, "We have to get married?" And he's younger than me, he's undocumented, he doesn't speak English. It feels like a big shame that I would even acknowledge that I'd slept with him, let alone that I know that God asked me to marry him and have this child. That seems crazy. But I know the vision I had, I knew that it was real. I tell a few friends, they're like, "That was obviously a hallucination, just forget about it." And I said, "No, I have to do this."

Chuck Crismier: All right. So you married him and he is your husband today.

Molly Engelhart: Yes, 13 years later we've been married. So that happened and that started me on my journey to more conservative values, I would say. Having a child, getting married, being married... My husband's a Catholic from Mexico, so his values... I was so liberal that I assumed he was brown and so probably he was liberal, right? That's how broken my mind was.

So that started, and then COVID, I was selling my businesses for $31 million and the government came in and said, "No indoor dining for two and a half weeks," which led to two and a half years. And I lost the $31 million, I lost my retirement, but I not only lost that, I lost my income and my restaurants went out of business one at a time over the next several years.

Chuck Crismier: So much for wonders of California's freedom.

Molly Engelhart: Yes. And I realized through all of these different things, veganism is a psy-op. There is no food without death. And most of the ideas that liberals espouse are not based in any reality and they all have an underlying message that we are a plague, we are a pestilence, we are a problem that must be managed on this earth rather than that we are the keystone species and we belong here.

And God has asked things of us and we have responsibilities to be the keystone species. And so in that realization, I realized that regenerative agriculture is the stepping into that. And I realized that that requires animal agriculture. And so that is how someone went from being a vegan chef, super liberal, to a super conservative Texas cattle rancher. That's how that transformation happened. And really only through God working on my heart could that be possible. And really He led me here to Texas. Sometime when we have more time, I'll tell you, but it was only by the grace of God and miracles that I was able to get this place and that I am here and I don't totally understand why He wants me here serving, but I am obedient.

Chuck Crismier: Well, it's interesting. I appreciate so much what you're saying here because in your piece in the Epoch Times you say you're pursuing what you believe God has called you to do. People often ask me how I do it all, and my response is what keeps me moving is purpose.

You know, it reminds me when I was back in college, the professor talked about Viktor Frankl coming out of the Holocaust and he said this: "He who has a why to live can withstand almost any how." In other words, can endure, can persevere. So what you said when God keeps you moving with purpose, that's the how or the why you have to live to do what you do. You have purpose. And why is it that so many people today seem to lack purpose? They just have a sort of lollygag kind of whatever kind of a life. Whatever. They do not have a sense of purpose. Our young people, millennials and Generation Z, are just accentuating the lack of purpose in so many ways. So what do you say to people that are listening today or may have children or grandchildren or whatever and they're struggling with the lack of purpose? What would you say?

Molly Engelhart: I think it starts when they're young. I think that it's all by design. We've removed the mother and the father and put the children in public school so they could be indoctrinated and it is time for us, the grandparents, the aunties, the uncles, the parents, to step back in and remind each and every one of us about purpose.

Because when you meet someone with purpose and you meet someone who is lit up and is being obedient and following the Lord's plan for them, it is contagious. You can see in that person they have something that I want and it's not riches and wealth and a car that you want. You can see there's something in them that is contagious and that you will desire from a better place of desire than just envy.

And I want to be that ripple effect in the world. I'm not trying to have the biggest, the best ranch, the whatever, the most successful restaurant. I want to be the spark that lights the next candle and the next candle and the next candle because one candle can light an entire dark room. And we have a lot of dark rooms right now and I want to be that spark that gets the next person and the next person.

And people often say to me, "How do you know when you're being led and how do you know when it's just what your ego wants to do?" When you're being led, there's always some level of surrender. You always have to give up some of your comfort when you're being led, almost every time there is some giving up your comfort.

Chuck Crismier: You know, it's interesting you should mention the word surrender. That is one of my wife's favorite words. And we have a song, I don't know if you're familiar with this song, "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all." I don't think the majority of people, even professing Christians in this country, have a clue what that really means.

Molly Engelhart: I don't think so either. And we sing a little made-up song in the shower every day and it ends with, "And the Lord is leading, the Lord is leading, the Lord is leading." And so I have my kids having that in their head as the subconscious underlying message because I want them to be in that mindset, not "I want, I want, I can get, what's the easiest pathway."

And I mean I... if you saw my ranch, we're out, we're out there. And you have to drive six miles from town to get to the restaurant and people always tell me, "This is a terrible location." And I laugh and I say, "I had locations on Colorado in Pasadena, on Sunset Boulevard... like I know what a prime A location for a restaurant is. This is where the Lord is asking me to serve."

And so here I am serving and I'm being obedient and thank you for being part of the community that's supporting it and making that little extra trip to come out here. And so because I don't know... I can't see the wide angle that the Lord can see from, and that is what He showed me in that vision when I was younger about my abortion is that I was looking from such a very narrow viewpoint. And it was from a narrow viewpoint of comfort that this was not the circumstances that I wanted. It was all about me. It was all about my comfort. And I made a decision that was not mine to make and He showed me that. It was all about my comfort.

Chuck Crismier: Well, you've come to the conclusion also as you state in your article that it appears that we are in effect addicted to comfort. We don't call it that but we're addicted to comfort and it's paralyzing us. We'll talk about that when we get back. Stay tuned, friends. Molly Engelhart our guest today. I hope you're being spoken to as she speaks.

Guest (Male): Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore 1st Century Christianity for the 21st Century? Jesus said, "I'll build my church." Is Christ by His Spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st Century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family, and it was said by all who observed, "Behold, how they love one another." Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click "Sell Church." We can revive 1st Century Christianity for the 21st Century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's saveus.org. Click "Sell Church."

Chuck Crismier: Many sociologists, psychologists, and cultural commentators are arguing that Americans have developed an addiction to comfort. Solutions, easy solutions have become a default mode that can shrink personal growth. Not only that, another article tells us that comfort kills the soul. It doesn't do it all at once and not loudly. It kills silently. We get so used to our comfortable lifestyle, our routines, our kids, our homes, our little luxuries, that we stop pushing ourselves. We don't want to step out of it because we like how easy and familiar it feels. Yes, even going to church, friends.

But that's exactly when growth stops. The growth of your character, the growth of your mind, the growth of your body, the growth of your strength, you can build a life on. The truth is comfort feels good in the moment, but it often leads to regret later. So what does the soul really need? Well, the moment you fight through the little discomfort, getting up, letting go of that cozy moment, you might feel something shift inside you, urging you on, no longer paralyzed with comfort.

Our guest today, Molly Engelhart, with her article in Epoch Times called "The Cost of Comfort." What a tremendous article this is and she's sharing her life with us here on Viewpoint beyond what she even says in the article here. And she says the question is not what feels good, the question is what we're called to build, protect, create, steward, and become. When purpose is present, people routinely accomplish things that once seemed impossible.

Molly, I have to tell you, you're basically defining the whole pattern of my life and that of my wife and I. Since we were married 60 years ago in California, we have been called to do a variety of very hard things. At least to us they were hard. They challenged us at every single position, every single position.

And one of those happened to be during about a four-year period before I began going to law school. I was involved with a friend in mountaineering. I had never done anything like that before. Climbing, rock climbing, peak climbing, in snow, in freezing temperatures, in all kinds of situations.

And I'll tell you, my friend had a cardiovascular system that wouldn't quit. He was so patient with me. But what I learned during those times and I called him after 50 years of not talking to this gentleman, I called him last week. And I wanted to tell him how important it was that he had worked with me and helped me along those times because what we did there, striving against discomfort, fear, discomfort and so on, taught me so much that enabled me to do what I do today here on the air.

So many stories like that, and I appreciate what you've been through here. What do you say to people if they don't seem to have purpose? How do we get purpose? Do we have to hear an audible voice from God or do we have to be tuned and have such a desire reaching out to him that he will actually direct our path?

Molly Engelhart: Both. Some people are going to have an audible voice and I was just talking to my friend the other day and he was saying how he feels disappointed that he's never had like that audible voice and he's struggling with what he wants to do with his job and with this. And I said, "You know, God speaks to all of us in different ways."

But if you are not fulfilled in what you're doing, then you have to figure out, "What do I want to provide to this world? What do I want to cause in this world?" and then create how you make a living from there. But it may not come in the voice speaking to you, it may come in the whispers and nudges. And we've all heard the parable of the guy who's drowning and everybody... "God, you didn't send anybody," but he had sent the friend and the dog and the canoe and the big... And he's like, "No, God's going to save me." Well no, God works through all of us.

And I have literally been on my knees and begged for help and somebody shows up the next day with some kind of money that came... some kind of job for me or business or something. And does that mean that that's not God and it was this person? No, of course it's all interconnected. It's all His money, it's all His. And so I think we have to... there's a yes-and, that whether you hear the voice or you hear the call or you hear the nudge.

And my mother always used to say God whispers and then He screams. And she used to talk about where there's lessons to be learned and when we ignore the lessons in the beginning, then the lessons get louder and they get more aggressive and we don't want to make God scream, we want to listen to the whispers rather than getting to the scream.

Chuck Crismier: I was sitting in my law office in Pasadena, California in 1992 after 18 years of law practice and I heard the Lord speak to my heart right there saying, "Son, you've been pleading the cause of men long enough. I want you to plead my cause in the land as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation." That's what I heard.

So I said, "Okay." Now here I am at the height of my career. Every year has been better than... except for one. Every year, I'm prominent in the area, San Gabriel Valley there in Pasadena. I'm prominent in law practice, I'm prominent in ministry, and now He says, "Now, I want you to leave everything you have, sell everything, your home, your business, and go to the place that I will show you." And that's what we did. That's why we broadcast from Richmond, Virginia now, the birthplace of America.

Now, you think that felt comfortable? No. I had no idea what that was going to mean. I did not know what that was going to mean. But fortunately that came on the heels of several other situations where the Lord had spoken to me and I had to act, not because I knew what was going to happen but because I depended on what He said. Like running for the state legislature in our bicentennial year, 1976 and then again in 1978. I had never done anything like that in my life.

And the Lord said, "This is what I want you to do." I walked a thousand miles door-to-door throughout the entire San Gabriel Valley, the 42nd Assembly District, because we had no money. That was the only way I could campaign. Do you know that doing that was like climbing? It was like pursuing. The purpose was there. I did it. A thousand miles, literally door-to-door. What was the import of that, since we didn't... since I didn't make it? It was God was preparing the way for the next step. That was necessary for me to do even what I do on the air today. So purpose is such an amazing thing and the purpose can continue to change as we seize upon one purpose that God gives us, then it can be amplified in the next step and who knows where it will lead, right?

Molly Engelhart: Yes, and we don't have to get caught into "this is forever." Like everything is a season. And so sometimes I remember praying and praying for that there would be more money and abundance would come more easily. And I remember hearing God's voice so clear and He said, "Do you have enough right now?" "Well, yes, but these bills are coming." "But do... why do you need to know right now how you're going to pay those bills in two weeks?"

Chuck Crismier: Well, that reminds me that during one of those campaigns we devoted so much energy and attention to that that we didn't realize we didn't have any groceries. And one day we got back from church and there were several bags of groceries sitting on our porch and we hadn't told a single soul. How did that happen?

Molly Engelhart: God. But life is supposed to be like that, I think. Don't you think so?

Chuck Crismier: It is.

Molly Engelhart: It is like that. And I mean when I was leaving California and I was convicted that this is where God wanted me to be and I was in escrow for my property in California. I had equity there, but I had no cash. Zero cash. But I needed to move my cows, my greenhouses, everything.

I got on my knees and I begged. I said, "God, I hear you. I see what you want me to do. I have no possible way. It's not like I can borrow $10,000. We're talking about semi-trucks of farm equipment and cows and sheep and everything to move to Texas. I don't know how to do it." And there was things had to be done on the property, like adjustments.

And I didn't know how to do it. I got on my knees and I begged for Him to find a way and that He knew better than me. And all the ways that I knew that man knew, I didn't know. And at 4 in the morning, which has always been a unique time for God to speak to me, my phone dinged and it was Kanye West and he said, "No, I'm not going to do whatever I'd asked him about." And I was like, "Okay, thanks." And then he said, "But I'd asked him if he wanted to invest in this other project."

And he said, "But just send me an invoice for consulting." I said consulting on what? He goes, "I'll get a farm and you can consult when I get a farm." I sent an invoice. I was very unclear if that would actually happen. I said for how much? He said $300,000. I sent Kanye an invoice for $300,000. And two weeks went by and I didn't receive the money and I thought, "Well, let me check with his accounts payable. I've never done business with him before." And the guy said, "Oh, mom, so sorry. I'm so sorry. I missed your thing." He wired the money and in a matter of weeks we took 40 semi-loads from California to Texas.

And when I got all settled here and the Christmas tree was up and the kids were settled, I texted Ye and I said, "Thank you, you're an angel. This would not have happened without your support." And his phone number was changed and I never spoke to him again.

Chuck Crismier: Who would have ever believed that that would have come from Kanye West?

Molly Engelhart: Nobody would have. And who would believe... and it was at 4 in the morning that God told me to go back to this property and I tried to ignore him and look at Instagram. And then he woke my father up at 4 in the morning to say to go back to this property and then Kanye texts me at 4 in the morning. And so I know, I get goosebumps even just right now telling the story and I've told the story... I've given testimony in churches and stages across the country and I still get goosebumps when I recognize that I was willing to be that obedient and that out on the skinny branches for Him. And that is really what's the most important thing. It's God can be... can move mountains if we are for whatever He wants as long as we are following what He wants. We can go with the river or we can go against it.

Chuck Crismier: Yeah. Purpose makes discomfort bearable. Perhaps that's the real danger facing our culture. It's not simply that we have become addicted to comfort, it's that many of us have lost touch with purpose. And that's true for Christians. This program is dedicated to professing Christians. My... this program is not an evangelistic program to non-believers.

It's dedicated to discipling people who profess to be followers of Christ but aren't doing it. They don't know how. They don't know how to press on. They do not know how to walk by faith. They do not understand how to respond. Everything has to be comfortable, and if it's not comfortable, well then it's out of the question. It's not that many of us lost touch with purpose, we just... we just don't have purpose.

The question is not what feels good, the question is what we are called to build, protect, create, steward, and become. When purpose is present, people routinely accomplish things that once seemed impossible. These are the words directly from Molly's article in the Epoch Times called "The Cost of Comfort." Now, if you want to know where what issue this is in, it's in the June 24th to 29th issue of the Epoch Times, the opinion section, section A13. Section A13. It is well worth your getting, your reading, your highlighting, and then re-reading it maybe even once a day. Certainly once a week. This is so important.

Molly Engelhart: Also available online. If you can also go to the Epoch Times website and go to the opinion section and go to my name and it's... they're all it's right there under my name. So you can read online if you are not someone that wants to get the physical newspaper too.

Chuck Crismier: Very, very good. Okay. sovereignty ranch.com. Spell sovereignty again for us.

Molly Engelhart: S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N-T-Y.com.

Chuck Crismier: sovereignty ranch.com. Friends, you want to be encouraged? Hey, how about making a trip to sovereignty ranch.com? Encourage Molly, and she'll encourage you. It may be her whole family that'll encourage you. We need this kind of encouragement in times like these. Maybe this is a whole longer new declaration of independence. On the contrary, maybe this is a declaration of dependence—dependence upon the Lord to give us direction and purpose and the will to proceed. God bless, be a blessing. Thank you, Molly, for joining us here on the program. And friends, become a partner. Send your gifts by faith to Save America Ministries, P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255. Don't wait for the other guy to do it. He's not doing it. You're the hand of the Lord today.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home.