 This might be a chapter in your life, but God is not done with a full story. He has a God story for you. I'm Amy Schaefer, I'm here with Sydney and Tom on Hope Today. Hi. Hi, Tom. What's happening today? What kind of stories are we gonna be? I get to share my story today. We're gonna have all of our hosts share their story and I get to be the one to kind of kick it off. I'm gonna share my God story today. Now don't change the channel because you heard that. It's gonna be fun and it's gonna be enjoyable. I think I enjoy just remembering where God has taken me. It's incredible. I'm really excited to hear your story. I know we've heard over the years bits and pieces and so we're just really excited to just open up a little bit about ourselves, our worlds, our lives, things that God has carried us through, walked us through, the promises that we've seen come to pass. So we are just really excited that each of us are gonna take a time to share a moment, a part of our story, to encourage you, to inspire you, so you definitely want to say it too. Everybody's got a story, right? Well, sometimes we're in like a moment, right? And we think that this is the end of the story or this is the final story and really you might just be in the middle of something and God's not done writing this full beautiful chapter of your life. So I would just say, stay put in the hard places. Let that God story come to fruition in your life. You know, Tom, it's not always just in the good times that we seek, I mean, but it is in the rough times as well. I think I learned more about God sometimes through the rough times. I hate saying that because I don't really want, Lord, don't want any rough times, but we do learn a lot about God through those rough times. Sydney, we wanna pray for the situation in Florida. They're going through a rough time right now. Yeah, so we know we have viewers that are in Florida just with Hurricane Adalia that was like moving up like the coast and different places and we know people have lost their lives and just the flooding and the devastation. And so we just wanna say that you are on our hearts and we're thinking of you. And I know there's just so much in the season, just even not even with Hurricane Adalia, but there's so much extreme weather that's happening. So many things that are going on in our national world, but we just wanna take this moment to specifically lift up all of those who've been impacted by the hurricane. So Amy, do you wanna take a moment? Yeah, I mean, we have a family from our church there right now in that area and they're showing the videos of the hurricane and the flooding and all that's going on and driving through the waters and full boat houses floating away. So God, we just come to you in the name of Jesus and Father, we just thank you for your protection. God, we ask that you restore and redeem and you build back up again that that is what you are the master of. You're the master rebuilder. You renovate things. You bring them back. And God, I just thank you that you'll send the right help. You'll send the right workers, the right laborers. God, I thank you, send food, supplies, whatever is needed for your people, God. And we just ask that something beautiful will come out of this conversations, moments with you, people getting right with you, people getting closer to you. We thank you, Lord, for even your hand upon them right now in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Woo, we were praying for fires last week and floods this week. And it's just important to know that God is with us through the fire, through the storm, through the floods, through every season and every moment in life. Yeah, he is with us truly all of the time. And you know, speaking of fires and floods, and maybe you are walking through a really hard season in a difficult time right now. We just wanna take a time to say, you know, you can always give us a call on our prayer line at 888-665-4483. We are always here for you 24 seven because we know that you need sometimes that extra encouragement. Well, without further ado, we are just really excited because Tom, right now, he is going to share his God's story. You know, you see him here on Hope Today. He's the CEO of here at Cornerstone Telstra Network. He does so many other things, but this is a moment that we're going to get to know Tom a little bit better. So Tom, take us through your journey and your experience. Who are you? Tell us. Well, let me say this. We had a family that, we had Christian heritage in our family, but my dad and my mom were not really following the Lord as I was growing up. And my dad, he had kind of grown up in the church, but had kind of gotten away from it. He was a good dad. He was a good guy, but he was, you know, he still had his things. He liked to go to the bars. He liked to, you know, he was smoking and everything. And he just, he was still a good dad, but it wasn't following the Lord. And my mother, she was kind of like a, her sister had become a Jehovah's Witness. So my mother was kind of like a nominal Jehovah's Witness. And, but my dad knew the importance of church. And so he would take us to church and drop us off. You know, and he started to get healthy. He started to do the jogging craze of the late 60s. Okay. And he would take us to church and go jog and come back and pick us up. Or it was my grandmother, she went to that church. So she would take us to her house and then he'd meet us over there. So I had a lot in my, of my early experience was at my church. And anyway, they taught this thing. They taught this, there's their young Tom right there. But my church taught this idea of the age of accountability. Have you ever heard that? The age of accountability, well, they were big on the age of accountability. And I'd be 10 years old going, I haven't reached age of accountability yet, Lord. But you know, the age of accountability is when you come to the place where you understand that we're responsible to respond to the gospel. So at about 12 years old, I couldn't fight off the conviction any longer. I went forward and prayed to receive the Lord at the altar. Now, nobody prayed with me, guys. Nobody prayed with me. Yeah, that's the church I got saved in there, but nobody prayed. I just asked the Lord to forgive me and my sins and come into my life. And guys, I felt something. It felt like the Lord lifted something off of me. It was a real experience. And I know it's not, you know, it's not necessary. A lot of people, they come to the Lord, they don't necessarily feel anything, but I felt a real touch from God. And I knew I was saved. But I went through all of high school, kind of quiet. I was a quiet kid, very wallflower-ish even. And I didn't really tell anybody about my faith. I knew I was a Christian. But I remember praying and like, well, I wonder if God accepts that prayer. I wasn't like secure. I didn't have a secure base in my salvation. So I'm getting ready to go to school, choose slippery rock, it's about 70 miles north of here. And anyway, my dad says to me, cause he was concerned. Here I'm going to a secular university, you know, and he says, maybe they have Campus Crusade for Christ up there, and I'd never heard of that organization at all. Campus Crusade for Christ. And I'm like, okay, well maybe, you know. So I walk in guys, this is how the Lord sets you up. I walk in to the dorm first time, take a turn towards the information desk. There's a bunch of posters, organizations asking people to join. And there's a bright pink one right behind the guy. I mean, you could not miss this. And it said, are you a Christian? That's a, are you a Christian? And it said, if you are, come fellowship with us, Campus Crusade for Christ. And Thursday night, seven o'clock, seven 30, whatever. And I went there. But it's interesting what happened before. I got invited to a frat party the night before. And I went to that. And they asked me to join their fraternity. And then I went to Campus Crusade. And they said, hey, we have a Bible study in my dorm. They had a Bible study. And I was like, I don't know if I really want to get involved with this Bible study, but I did. And, you know, it was a crossroads. It was really like a crossroads in my life. Look, if I joined the fraternity, it's not the end of the world, but maybe I don't follow the Lord so closely. So I didn't join the fraternity. I did join Campus Crusade. So that was, that was a role. Did you say that was like the moment you, you sort of became bold about your faith or you stepped out with your faith? It started that way. Because what happened then is I got real involved. I started teaching Bible studies. By the time I was a senior, I was one of the student leaders. In fact, I was in charge of evangelizing a dorm or a wing of a dorm. There was this big dorm. They said, you take that wing over there. And I meant, I knocked on every door. We had like a survey. We'd knock on a door and say, we'd like to get your opinions on religion. We have a religious survey here. Well, college students always want to give their opinions on things and so we would take the survey. And then the last question was, if you could know God personally, would you be interested? And I only ever had one person say no. Everybody would say yes. Shows you there's a hunger out there. And so then I, so I started to, you know, see people come to the Lord. And then I graduated. I was working a regular job, but well, back up here halfway through, something happened that was tremendously important in my life that didn't happen to me. It happened to my sister. She started going to community college down home and she ran into these two Christians and they were the craziest people she ever met. They were like on fire Christians. Now this is right about the height of the charismatic movement, okay? And my church, we were not part of the charismatic movement, good solid church, but not part of that. My dad was always open to it though. And he even took us up to Russ Bixler's church when I was in high school. We went up there a few times where we saw the move of the spirit. I went to Russ Bixler's church. I'm like, wow, these people, they're all like speaking in tongues and there's like hands in the air and there's all this going on. So I was open to that. So anyway, about halfway through my college, you know, time at college, my sister starts going to this church because these young Christians invited her to their young adults group. It was called Power Group. It was led by a guy named Doug Tunney who we've had here on the air and he was on fire for the Lord. And I went to the group sometimes and I'm like, these people are on fire. We go to Sunday night services. This little church in Elizabeth Township, Alliance Chapel that sat about 125 people would have 250 people packed on a Sunday night and the spirit was moving. And there were like demons cast out of people when people were speaking in tongues and falling out in the spirit and raising their hands. I'll tell you the first time I put my hand up towards the Lord, I went like this. It felt like it had a red light on it too. I felt so strange, but I began to seek for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and I sought the Lord. And I sought for like six months, nothing was happening. I would sit, hey, it was the 70s. I was sitting on my beanbag chair, okay? In my dorm room, praying to receive the baptism. And I worshiped the Lord and nothing. What was I expecting? Well, I was expecting to speak in tongues. I was expecting that there would be this manifestation of the spirit. And I was seeking that and I went home and I went to that Sunday night service and everything's great and the worship leader, he said, if you've never spoken in tongues, if you've never been filled with the spirit that way, if you've never been gifted that way, open your mouth. The Lord says, open your mouth right now and I'll fill it. And I went, nothing, nothing happened. I talked to him like 10 years later. I said, hey, it didn't work, okay? Anyway, so I finally, I had a summer job. This was in the summer of 76, especially how old I am. But anyway, I went to Jesus 76. There were these Jesus festivals. They were kind of like Woodstock for Christians. And I went there, there was 35,000 people there and it was fantastic. And back in those days, everybody came. And when it came time to lead the prayer time, Pat Robertson came out to lead us in prayer. So Pat says, get in groups and hold hands of like 15 people. So there's 35,000 people in groups of 15. And he said, pray for the person on your left. I really didn't even know this group I was with that well. But I prayed for the Lord, bless this brother. I pray, let those you better. Pray for the person on your right. Lord, I pray you bless this sister that she would be full of spirit. And then Pat said this, he said, pray for yourself. And I said, Lord, I really want, I said, fill me with your spirit, nothing. So I started to really get straight with God here. And I said, God, if it's your will, I'd really like to speak in tongues, nothing. So I got sort of mad and frustrated. And I said, Lord, I claim I can speak in tongues by what it says in your word. And guys, I was hit with like a bolt of spiritual light thing, I'm serious. I was hit, my head went down, I saw a white light. I began to speak in tongues like and not stop. I mean, I had an experience with God that day. I mean, seriously. So how does that encounter completely just change your life? Well, it changed me. I mean, I was walking with the Lord before that, but all of a sudden I had this renewed sense of who God was, this different sense, this powerful sense of who God was. I went back and I was, again, a Bible study leader. I went back to school just a few weeks later and that organization is a great organization but they're not particularly open to that gifting of the spirit. But I just, and they saw it in me. And I just wanted to serve the Lord. And a short while later, I was reading in the Living Bible, which is what I was reading at the time. And I read a verse and it became my life verse. And it was this. It was Acts 20, 24 in the Living Bible says, but life is worth nothing unless I use it to do the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus, the work of telling others the good news of his mighty kindness and love. And that's been my life verse ever since that whether I'm at a regular job, working in a warehouse like I did for many years, or whether I'm here or whether I'm a church, I'm telling people about Jesus. That's the key thing, so. Do you feel like that baptism of the Holy Spirit helped empower you in any situation in your life to be bolder? I mean, was there a significant difference? There was now the high only lasts for a period of time. Okay. There was God began to mature me and open me up. People think I've had people tell me, you're an extrovert. And I'm like, well, I grew up, I didn't grow up that way. Well, it's nothing wrong with being an introvert or an extrovert. It's just that I've, the Lord has opened up my heart and life to share with people. You said you were a wallflower. Yeah. And you're here every day on television. I always say. Telling people. I tell people, I would be the last person, if my class voted who is the last person it would be a television host. It would have been, I would have been voted, okay? Because it just wasn't that way, you know? And so anyway, just moving along here, I had again, being a wallflower, being kind of shy. And I had, again, I'd grown out of that, but I really had never dated or anything. So I decided, well, what am I gonna do about this? So I decided to pray for a girlfriend, right? So I put it in my prayer list. Lord, please provide a Christian girlfriend for me. And about two months after praying that, I met Jean out in Iowa. There we are. That's me with hair, actually. Anyway, we were both, she was from Iowa. I was from Pennsylvania. We met the summer of 77 on an outreach with Campus Crusade. They had a whole summer outreach, summer project, they called it. And we actually went out with like three weeks, well, the first date was like, with three weeks ago, our first date was biking. Well, how prophetic is that, right? And we realized that God was doing something in our lives and it was in 1980 that we got married. And we just, you know, and it was like, I don't know why God went 800 miles when I prayed. He found somebody 800 miles away and moved us both 1600 miles away. It's where we met, you know? Yeah. And you have a beautiful family now. Yes, there's us a few years ago. It's interesting. I think I'm about 40 in that photo, which my son is gonna turn 40 next month. So God has certainly taken us, and it's funny, Amy, when I met Jean, one of our first big talks, I said, hey, I just wanna be involved in leading people to the Lord and starting churches. That's what I wanted to do, you know? You know, and I have been involved in some sort of missions, ministry, or something ever since that time, you know? Whether I was working a regular job, I was still doing something that involved ministry. And of course I was in YWEM for a period of time, did a lot of street preaching, a lot of ministry on the street, seeing people come to the Lord. I tried to put a figure on it. If you count like the teams I was on, the ministry here, I've seen maybe 10,000 people come to the Lord, and I've probably prayed with a few hundred personally myself, but I've trained teams and brought teams and trained prayer partners here and seen people come to the Lord. And so, look, and I always tell people, like, I'm just a dude, I'm a guy. I didn't go to seminary. I have just followed the Lord. And I love people that have gone to seminary and learned the Bible really well, but I think we all have this step we can take. We all have this place we can go. And it's just a matter of being obedient. And listen, stumbling many times, up and down, having tough times, having great times, having difficulties some brought on by myself, other ones brought on other ways, but God has been faithful the whole time and has, you know, he's blessed me in so many ways. I can't even begin, including coming to Cornerstone. Do you know that when I was in college, in 1976, a friend of mine called up and said, hey, you wanna go to Russ Bixler's church? He's gonna talk about channel 22, which is what it was gonna be at the time. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, why not? So we went up there and I heard the vision for this ministry. And I had never, so it was 21 years after hearing that that I started here in 1997. So God was just setting things up. Again, never expected to be involved in Christian television. So glad to be, so glad to be able to talk to you and to be with you guys and to touch lives every day. It's just been a joy. You know, I think just hearing your story, like the thread, I think of you like at slippery rock and rock, like Jesus is the rock that we stand on, but there's so many people who are on that slippery slope that they're either falling one way or the other. And I think it's so amazing when you were just sharing even the beginning of your story, how you were in your dorm and you're like, you're in the van just like, come on to Jesus. And look how God used that, planted that seed for all along your life that you've been planting that seed, telling people about Jesus. That was like truly incredible. That was really inspiring and heartfelt. Thank you. I enjoy, I love hearing other people. I can't wait to hear you guys' stories. And you know, and for everyone out there, you have a story too. I always say, I'm just, I'm just this guy, you know, and God just takes us our regular selves and he walks us through. And you remember that scripture guys that said, not many among you are wise, not many among you are all these things, you know? But all we are is Jesus people following him. Right, and I love too in your story that when you were filled with the Holy Spirit, how he, one of his jobs is he's a guide. He's our leader, and he led you to the right place, to the right ministries, to the right people, to the right gene, to the right wise, the right woman. I mean, it's amazing how when you ask, if you ask God, it's not like he's ignoring you. He will answer. If you knock, if you seek, you're gonna find him and you're gonna get an answer. And that's exactly, you said, I want this gift of speaking in tongues, you know? I want the Holy Spirit. And boom, you know, struck. And you know, what was I searching for? I really wanted God. I wanted more of God. I didn't understand all the things, but I wanted God. I wanted, and to this day, that's what I want. I want God, you know, to know him and make him known, as YWAM says, it's just, you know, begin with knowing him and then make him known. Go out from beyond ourselves. It's not about just what I received. That's important. I'm not diminishing that. But then it's what do we do with it? And speaking of letting God, we wanted to know God and be known. We're gonna take a quick break when we come back. We are in the midst here at Cornerstone Intelligence Network. Many of you have already joined our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, and we are on day three. So we're gonna take a moment to break bread. We're gonna read the word and we're gonna inspire you. We'll be right back. No matter your age or circumstances, God wants you to move forward. Join bestselling author and teacher, Dr. David Jeremiah in a masterclass, revealing how to live fearlessly. You'll discover that it's never too late to find your purpose. Dr. David Jeremiah reveals powerful ways for people of any age to live a life that's meaningful. Inside forward, you'll uncover strong Bible teaching coupled with incredible real life stories and practical biblical insight. Learn how God wants to expand your dreams, give you divine direction, equip you with tools to overcome fear and much more. Request your copy of this life-changing book when you support Cornerstone Television. Call 888-665-4483 or give online at ctvn.org slash donate. Find air times for a turning point with Dr. David Jeremiah at ctvn.org. Donate and request his book forward. Thank you for your partnership with Cornerstone TV. We're so glad you're joining us on Hope Today. And like we just mentioned, we are in the midst of our 21 Days of Prayer. It is day three, and if you want to get involved, you can go on our website at ctvn.org slash journey that's ctvn.org slash journey. And we have a 21 Day Prayer Guide where we have scriptures, different prayer points that you can go through so you can join and link arms with us. And today's prayer focus is on greater focus on things that are above, and our scripture comes from 2 Corinthians 4-18, and it says this. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Amy, what are your thoughts? Take us away. Well, I love whenever we're pulling up a scripture like this and we're gonna pray through it, or we're praying it out, or we're applying it to our life. I want to read it in its context of exactly what was happening before it. And so this is really important for this scripture because if you just read that scripture alone, you're thinking, oh, it's about light things like things that we have, and I don't focus on things that we have, I focus on, but it's really not talking about that at all. As a matter of fact, it's pretty shocking what we're talking about. We're talking about being hedged in, pressed on every side, trouble, oppressed, cramped, crushed, death, actively at work in us. All these things are taking place in us. I mean, this is where you're feeling, it's, he says, do not become discouraged, utterly spiritless, or exhausted, or weary for this light and momentary affliction, this distress, this passing hour. Then he says, since we consider and look not to the things that are seen, those things that are pressing us, those things that are crushing us, those things that are trying to depress us, those hard times, those situations, but we look to the things that are eternal. How can we look through this through the eyes of faith? How can we look through the things that are not seen? How can we see the victory through this persecution, trouble, and that is where we will find the victory, that it is Christ that lives in us. It is that resurrection life that's in us. That's why we don't focus. If you just focus on, that's so hard, and you just focus and focus and focus, it's like you've become pressed and crushed and overwhelmed and depressed. But if you think, God, you're gonna take this, and this is just a light and momentary affliction in my life, in this God story of my life, and you're gonna take it and you're gonna work it out in my heart and in my life and in this situation, and I'm expecting and I'm believing that you're gonna work it out for good, and I'm gonna see God working in my story. You know, we don't think it's light and momentary when we're going through it, do we? It doesn't feel light and momentary. It doesn't sound light and momentary, but compared to eternity, what Sidney read, the things that are seen are temporal, they're temporary. They're things that will pass away, all that affliction will pass away too. We will go through hard times in this world you have tribulation, Jesus said, but take courage, I have overcome the world. I look back over my life since it was my day to tell my story, and I see affliction and I see not persecutions like the early church, but some persecutions and some things that were difficult, but it's momentary, light affliction compared to the weight of glory that is gonna be ours and glorifying God in the future and right now. I just love this so much, it's like, I just wanna say thank you, Tom, for just letting us into your world and just to see how God moves so mightily and powerfully in your life, and we just hope that this moment, this show encourages you to know that God is in the midst of your story, that there's a chapter that is being written, that there's a story that is being told and that he is with you in the midst of it all and so your light will shine to other people that will lead them to Christ. We love you and we'll see you tomorrow.