 This isn't clickbait. In fact, it's kind of a long time coming. Let me explain. Well, actually, let me just tell you a story. I write around 11 years old. I'd watched a Living Waters YouTube video, and if you're not familiar with Living Waters, this is Ray Comfort. He does evangelism videos on the street, and I watched one, and it finally clicked for me. And God loves you so much, he became a human being, suffered and died on the cross to take the punishment for the sin of the world. That means you don't have to end up in hell. God can legally forgive your sins because he's the lover of your soul. And then Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death. Mario, if you give up the battle and just say, God, I'm a rebel, and you repent and trust in Christ, God will forgive every sin you've ever committed and grant you everlasting life as a free gift. Do you believe what I'm saying? Yes. It's the gospel truth, I wouldn't lie to you. I understood my sin and I understood God's grace. And from that point on, man, I was passionate about sharing the gospel with whoever I could. Whether it was teammates on my basketball team or street evangelism, that was my thing. That was my focus. And no, if you're asking, I was not perfect at it. In fact, I was far from it. I made so many mistakes and there's just so many stories that I could tell you and I will tell you about my missteps in evangelism. But at the same time, that was where my heart was leading because God had shown me how good he was and I just wanted to share that with other people. Fast forward a little bit to my mid-teen years and me, my brother and one of my good friends. We were getting into making videos and making films and this became our like big passion. I also had quite a few friends who had blogs and theological blogs and we'd get in conversations about faith and life and what it all meant to live out as a disciple of Christ. And it kind of created this perfect storm where one day one of my friends asked me, Isaac, is there any place that you share your thoughts on this stuff? And I said, no. And I went home and I made my first website. And that's kind of where Daily Disciple began. Just with the hope that I could share something that would help somebody else in their walk with Christ. Those early years of being 16 and 17 and writing for like those five or six people that would read my blog, it was exciting. I loved it. I loved writing about things that I was passionate about and what God was doing in my life. And man, like I knew it wasn't a lot of people, but to me I was like, okay, as long as one person's reading this, like that's all that matters. And ultimately it was like, I knew God was wanting me to do this. So it didn't really matter who was watching me because God was gonna bring whomever he was gonna bring to be impacted by this. And I was just called to be obedient. Now also, if I'm honest, yeah, I did want more people reading what I was writing, of course. But like at the end of the day, God was calling me to do what he was calling me to do. And I understood that and I loved doing it. So it was like a win-win situation. But then university came and that took priority. So all of a sudden, the daily disciple gets put on the back burner. And at that point, I really had no idea if it was ever gonna be revived. But then when I least expected it, an unmistakable clear prompting from the Holy Spirit that I was not supposed to be at university. In fact, I was supposed to be somewhere completely different. It was undeniable, yet terrifying. Yes, I consulted with people in my life to see if this was a wise move. I valued responsibility greatly, but at the same time, I understood, look, this is something God wants me to do. And did I understand how I was gonna make money from this? No, not really. Did I understand how people were gonna like watch me and how I was gonna build an audience enough to support my future family? Like, no, I didn't understand that either. Like, I didn't understand a lot of things. How would I actually be equipped enough to share the gospel online and help people follow Jesus daily? Well, the answer is no, actually. I didn't have what I needed within myself, but through Christ, he would enable me to do what I needed to do, to steward whatever platform he gave me. Ultimately, it was this idea of taking this step out. This is where God has called me and I'm gonna trust in him. And yes, I absolutely had a passion for it. I had made a few videos at that point and was really excited about making more of them. I had loved writing from the time I was a teenager and so it was like, okay, this is a culmination of everything I love into a mission and a purpose that God's called me. So it's game time. But at the same time, I knew it was God that is the one that was gonna make this work. It was gonna sink or swim on him. So to kind of loop back on something I already said, one of my primary anxieties when I was leaving college and trying to pursue this daily disciple thing as my livelihood, really, this idea that I would never be able to provide for my family. And that's something from the time I was a little kid, I valued the idea of marriage and kids and something that I knew God was calling me into in the future and also the responsibility of being that provider was scary because am I gonna be able to do this? And I wanted to be responsible and growing up, I always had this idea that I was gonna pursue something that was safe and that was responsible and that was secure. So I wouldn't have to worry about it because I knew worry was a big factor in my life. But here I am all of a sudden called into something that seems so crazy and so unstable and so, a path so untrodden if that's even a phrase. There's no blueprint for this kind of thing and yet God was asking me to trust him. So I left university and one of the more practical steps that I took after I did that was I wanted to fix up a room in my parents' basement to make it into like a makeshift studio. And I kid you not, literally as I was fixing up this room that we are in right now as I was putting up drywall on the wall, I was getting opportunities and different invitations to take my life in a completely different direction. But either by ignorance or faith in God or a combination of the two I don't really know, I said no and I continued on this path. Now I have to admit there have been times that I've been a little embarrassed that I've run this ministry out of my parents' basement. Look, it's like one of those things where it's like, oh, you're in your parents' basement and there's shame and there's stigma connected to it. Now with a little bit of, I don't know, perspective on it, I just see it as the grace of God really that has allowed me to be here in this room shooting all this content, proclaiming the gospel. Like I can't just imagine all the people that have heard the gospel being proclaimed from this room in my parents' basement. Like that is so cool to me. And God's provided for me in the midst of it. Like he really has come through. Okay, now that you've gotten all that backstory, I wanna share with you where I'm at today. Now for those of you who don't know, I'm 23. And the reason I share that with you is I think that we as young adults, and we as young adults, like maybe you're not a young adult watching this, but young adults, we consume so much about where we are in life. Like, okay, do we have a car? Do we have a house? Do we have a spouse? Like all these kind of benchmarks that we weigh and we see if we're behind or we're ahead. So we're always kind of measuring ourselves like based on that. And that's something that I don't want you to do. Look, we're all in different places in our life. And that's something that was really hard for me to realize. Like when I left university and I was trying to like make it in my parent's basement, then meanwhile I see people getting married and getting jobs or getting hoses or going to school for cool, like really reputable things. And here I'm just trying to figure this out. Like I felt like I was behind for so long. And you can see some early videos of my just authentic thoughts about that and feeling like that. And, but I don't want you to feel that way. I really don't because God has you where he has you for a reason. And you don't want to waste that season of life thinking that you're behind or somehow you missed the boat on something. It's like, no, use what God has given you now and be grateful for it and be thankful for it. And so I don't want you to feel like you get in a space of comparison. Okay, oh, this person's here. This person's doing this. I don't want you to feel that way and you shouldn't feel that way. So anyway, with all that being said, I'm excited to take this next step in my life and I'm excited to share it with you as well. So Daily Disciple is not coming to an end. Don't worry. Actually, it's quite the opposite. I'm saying goodbye to this room. This room that I've shot every piece of content I've pretty much ever made. I'm moving out. So some of you might know I have a lot of siblings and some of them are being homeschooled as we speak. Like they're still kids and they're still crazy and they're loud and they're noisy and that's great. Over the last few years, we've managed to kind of create times of quiet where I can shoot and my parents have been really, really great about that. Like think about 500 videos. That's a lot of time of saying to kids, you know, okay, be quiet, Isaac's filming. So they were great in that. But this whole move is partially motivated to find a quieter space and I found that space and I'm so excited about the opportunity that this presents to Daily Disciple in creating more content much more effectively and efficiently. And it also opens up opportunities for future projects and also additional content. Now, this might not seem like a big deal to you and that's totally cool, but for me, I've lived at home my whole life and so this is also like super exciting but also kind of terrifying. The vast majority of support I get comes from Patreon and those who pledge monthly and that is so huge in my life right now. And I mean, in large part, it's what I'm relying on to pay rent and to be able to move into this new space to make more content. I do have another job, but actually in September, I'm cutting back hours on that job so I can focus that much more of my attention on creating Christ-centered content. Now, to be totally honest with you, this is kind of terrifying. It just kind of hit me the other day when I was just thinking like, okay, I've been at my parents all this time and the support has been great and just being able to like focus on investing in into different equipment and stuff like that. Like it's been awesome. But now I'm moving out and now I'm relying on that to live basically and that's pretty scary. But what I've realized is focusing on God's track record, right? And looking at what he's done in my life previously and there should be no reason that I should doubt him to provide for me. Like absolutely no reason. Like when I look at his track record, man, it's faithfulness, faithfulness, faithfulness, faithfulness, he always comes through maybe not in the way that I want or the way that I think I need at this point, but he always comes through. And so even though I might be a little bit scared about what is gonna happen, I'm also so excited because of the opportunity that this brings and just the way that I've seen God move in what's going on here already. I'm getting to this point where like, yes, it's kind of scary to rely on, you know, just ministry and just going forward into the world and just trying to live off it and also do what you're called to do. But it's also so exciting because it's like, what else would I rather do something safe? Do I rather do something where I can just nestle up at the end of the day and have no questions, have no need to put my faith in God because I got it? No, like this is what God has called me to and man, I'm just, I pumped, I pumped, what can I say? I'm always encouraged by this verse. Now I just gotta find it, where is it? And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. God will provide for me and he'll provide for you too. And that's not just talking about financially, but it's also church and friends and connections and encouragement and opportunities and all the things that you think you need or you really do need in your life, he's gonna come through, he is. And it's not some sort of prosperity gospel like you do enough good and God will come through with blessings. It's like, no, he comes through because of his grace. Like even though we don't deserve it, even though we don't deserve the stuff and the good things that he gives us, the good gifts, that's part of the reason that they're gifts, we don't deserve it. But he shows us his grace anyway and he's promised us that he'll be there with us and that, yeah, we'll experience trials and tribulations and believe me, I'm ready for them and I've experienced them. But at the same time, like, because God is with you, because God is by my side, like I don't need to fear and you don't need to fear. Anyway, I've talked for long enough. I have no idea how long this video is. I hope it's not too long, but say goodbye to this room, guys. It has been a blast to be shooting in here and maybe I'll give you a little bit of a tour. I don't know, like just to give you a mental idea of what it's like, my bed is like over there. There's like a couch here, my desk's over there. We just got like a rectangle type thing going on and I've been rolling with it for a long time and I'm sad to see it go. But if you're interested in staying up with what's going on with the ministry and I guess the next time you're gonna see me is in my new place and believe me, I am pumped about that. So just the new content that's gonna come out is just gonna be so fun and so exciting. So anyway, subscribe if you haven't already and if you've been waiting to tell your friends about Daily Disciple and what I got going on here, maybe now's a good time. Say, oh, like there's new stuff on the horizon and look, we're just getting started. I'm sorry for the clickbait. I'm sorry if I scared you, but you know how we roll here. I'm gonna get your attention somehow. Anyway, thanks so much for everyone on Patreon. Truly you guys are a huge blessing in my life. You are an answer to prayer because look, when I pray for God to provide, you are those answers to prayer. So thank you so much for that. Thank you to everyone who supports what I'm doing. And anyway, this is like an acceptance speech. Now we gotta cut it before this gets emotional. I feel like a tear coming on here. Anyway, I'll see you guys next time. God bless.