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Pull up a chair across the counter.
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Your one-stop shop for a variety of perspectives around Jesus and Christianity.
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I'm Grant Lockridge and I'm here with Noah Asher.
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Noah is an award-winning author.
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He is the author of Chaos, overcoming the Overwhelming.
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And Noah, just tell me why you decided to write a book.
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Yeah, well, thanks for having me today.
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And this book Chaos, was basically born, written out of my own chaotic journey Years ago.
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I was incarcerated and tried taking my own life because I felt like I had nothing more to live for.
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And in that moment, that season of trying to find purpose again, I realized that so many people, when they're in the midst of chaos whether it is incarceration or addiction, or the loss of a loved one or even divorce to understand that, hey, there is purpose in your pain, but the pain was never your purpose.
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And just to help people walk through that journey.
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Cool.
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So if you don't mind me asking and feel free to be like I don't want to talk about it, but why'd you go to prison?
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Or?
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Jail or whatever it is, why'd?
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you go to prison or jail or whatever it is.
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Yeah, jail is first and then prison, but it was really from it all stemmed from addiction and it all stemmed from just selfishness, but addiction was the main thing.
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I talk about it in the book and because of my addiction, I let it control me and rule over me.
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And, funny enough, I grew up going to church and so it's like I knew who God was, but I don't feel like I really had a relationship with him.
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And it's kind of like the old saying of I knew the hymns but I didn't know him, him.
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And so that process was long and drawn out, because even while I was incarcerated I thought, because of the weight of sin, you know, and the weight of, sometimes, the guilt that we feel within our sin, it was so heavy upon me because I knew right from wrong but I was still doing wrong and it led me to a deep, dark pit.
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But in that pit it was an opportunity to grow closer to God as who he really is, as my Father, and really dive into that I talk about in the book, how we're not a lost cause but we're a found child, and that's something I just tell myself over and over and over again in the midst of my own chaos, something.
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I had to tell myself over and over and over again in the midst of my own chaos.
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Yeah, so describe kind of the process of you know.
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A lot of people will either have that like one moment where they're like, hey, I met Jesus for the first time.
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Or you know that long season I was more of like you know a long season kind of guy.
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But describe to me kind of that process of your, you know, coming to Jesus.
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Testimony.
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Yeah, for me it was.
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While I was locked up I was kind of manipulating the system.
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I thought, okay, god, I know you love me and if you love me you won't want me to be in pain and so get me out of here.
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Or if you're not going to get me out of here, take my life.
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Let me come home to you, jesus.
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Either way, I want to go home.
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I want to go home to my house and to my cozy bed, or I want to go home to you.
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And I prayed that over and over again.
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And then I just kind of had that moment where I'm like no, I'm here, and if I'm here, I'm going to do this thing for real.
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I had all the time in the world, of course, not much to do there, and so in that season I realized you know what?
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I'm going to stop saying God, why me?
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I'm going to start saying God, use me.
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I'm going to figure out how I can make this happen, even behind bars.
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And so for me, a lot like you, it was a gradual opportunity where it's like I knew who God was, but I didn't have that full relationship with them and it took the bottom falling out for me to really lean into him a little bit deeper.
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That's awesome.
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So how long would you say?
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Like you've identified as a Christian?
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That's a good question.
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I would say right now you've identified as a Christian?
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That's a good question.
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I would say, right now, a full-on Christian.
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Six years, that's how long it's been since I've gotten out and I would say that in that time I've learned a lot.
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I got baptized and it's just been a great journey of growing more of who he is.
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And it's not like there's any, there's no hidden agenda, it's just me in love with my Father and it's awesome.
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I love it.
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That's cool, man, so something because you said like, kind of you thought that God was real, right, yeah, for a long time, and then you know you eventually gave your life over to God.
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I just find it super interesting.
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That's something that I've been thinking about a little bit this past week of like the nature of belief and what it means to actually like believe in Jesus and the things Jesus said, and that's just so.
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That's tougher than you'd think to grasp, because it's like you can think that God is real, you know, you know that God's real, but what does it mean to like put your full weight into it?
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And can we even put our full weight?
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Because it's like we're not perfect people, so I don't know, that's just something I've been kind of chewing on.
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Yeah, and for me it was because I grew up going to church and I'm from the South and so we focus more on don't push the button, don't push the button, and then if you push the button it's like you are a failure.
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And so, because I grew up with that mindset, it was one of those things where I knew he was real, and at this point I've sinned.
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So now it's like, well, there's no going back, and so I'm stuck in this cycle of, well, I've already messed up, but there's no way to get back to him.
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And so it wasn't until I literally had no other option.
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I couldn't run no longer.
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I was in a place of no more running.
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And that's when I realized, oh, he never wanted me to run in the first place.
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Like when you look at the prodigal son story, it was always the father who ran toward the son.
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We have to be willing to, to accept the embrace, and for me I was not willing to accept the embrace because I didn't think he could love me, because I was a sinner, still am, but we, because we all are.
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But it was just you've made God angry and there's no turning back at this point.
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And I realized that's not the God that I serve.
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Yeah.
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So I'm interested more, and also in the process of writing a book.
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One, where'd you get the idea?
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And two, how do you actually go about writing?
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First of all, how many pages is that sucker, because when I got it it was a lot longer than I expected for somebody writing their first book.
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So, first of all, impressive that you wrote just a ton.
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A fresh book.
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So, first of all, impressive that you wrote just a ton.
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And second of all, you know how'd you write that much?
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Well, it started out I was writing letters while locked up.
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I was just writing letters to my parents and telling them hey, I'm going to get through this, we're going to get through this, and it was almost therapeutic for me just to be able to share what something I read or something that I really felt like I was working on while incarcerated.
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And I was writing these letters.
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Well, my mom, who is super mom after I got out she gave me this vintage suitcase and inside it had every letter I had ever written to her, and it was hard to read some of those.
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Looking back, but I realized, wow, there's some depth in here, and so I started taking it and formulating it into a book.
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But I did not want it to be some other prison book or some other story like autobiography memoir, because no one knows who I am, so there's no reason to write a book about me.
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So I wanted to share some of my story because I feel like I wanted to have that moment of saying, hey, you're going to get through this.
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How do I know?
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Because God's gotten me through it.
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So I wanted to give that encouragement there.
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But I wanted to write a book based off of what I felt like God showed me while I was in the midst of my own chaos.
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And now chaos, like I mentioned earlier, doesn't come in just the form of incarceration, it comes in the form of loss, Like I lost my dad while I was editing this book and I asked if I could.
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I told the editor I said can I please have this book back?
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And I want to add some stuff about my dad, because for someone reading this who's experiencing loss, I want to be able to relate.
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I want to be able to explain how that that season felt of losing my father.
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And I've also experienced illness.
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About a year and a half ago, we could not figure out what was wrong with me.
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I just kept getting worse and worse, and finally we figured out it was lupus, but for a while I was just in a wheelchair, could not walk, and now here I am, I run two miles every day.
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And so it's just explaining that we can.
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While our chaos may look different than one another, we can all overcome that which overwhelms us.
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And so, to go back to the question of how to write it, it's just leaning into taking personal experiences and then, of course, first and foremost, the foundation of scripture and then connecting all the dots.
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And for me, my goal and my prayer for every, on every page that people will find is hope, help and humor.
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Those are the three H's I want on every page for my reader and I hope that's the case.
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And one thing for me when you're writing a book, something that Pastor Mark Batterson said and he's the champion of authorship, he's an amazing, amazing author and pastor he said that all ologies can be pointed back to theology.
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And when he said that, it has always resonated with me.
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And when I think about the intricacies of the brain and you look at neurology, it's like, oh, wow, it can truly be pointed back to theology.
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You can point back to God and go, wow, it can truly be pointed back to theology.
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You can point back to God and go, wow, there has to be a God because of just how intricate even our brain is.
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And when he said that, I try to incorporate that in my writing as well.
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I like to discuss science, I like to discuss history and just show other examples where we've seen someone come through from chaos, you know, and from overwhelming to overcoming.
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Yeah, so describe to me kind of your views on grace as far as you know being, you know, incarcerated guy.
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I mean, I've talked to so many people like this guy, talian Chavijan, that we interviewed.
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You know he just has a massively cool stance on grace and how much like how big God's grace actually is and like you know, I'm a sinner, so, sweet mama, I need some grace.
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So just describe to like you know I'm a sinner, so, sweet mama, I need some grace.
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So just describe to me you know kind of your views on grace as a guy who's kind of been through it a little bit.
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Yeah, I actually love this question and I laugh a little bit because I always have this friend that just I picture him in my mind.
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I remember going to a Christian bookstore with him one time and I was looking at this book and he goes oh I don't like that author because he talks too much about grace.
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And I was thinking like, how do you, how do you, read the Bible?
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That author talks a lot about grace throughout.
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But so that's pretty much.
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When it comes to grace, it's like it's.
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It's found all throughout scripture, from the very beginning to the, to the very end we see God's grace come about.
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And I have a chapter in my book called a hater's going to hate and we have to do what the wise philosopher tells us Taylor Swift, you know, shake it off.
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But uh, I look at the life of the, the transformation of Saul to Paul, and, and that transformation.
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I love that transformation.
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I can connect in a lot of ways to that story.
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But for me, one of the hardest things that I think we look at with other people's sin, nature and people's sin is we look at it and we go.
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Well, I know I have a little bit of trash in my yard, but their yard looks a lot dirtier and so they focus in on someone else's trash.
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And when we look at the life of Saul to Paul, I'm starting to understand that if we don't believe that Jesus can turn Saul into Paul even today, then we've missed the boat on the power of Jesus.
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Even today, then we've missed the boat on the power of Jesus Like it blows my mind how easy it is for us to look at the parting of the Red Sea and go, wow, that's a great miracle, god is powerful.
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But then when we look at someone today and go, wow, they had a heart change, we don't look at it with the same amazement.
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But that's what God does.
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He's still in the redemptive, he still has redemptive power and it's through his grace that it's possible.
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And I also look at the Grinch in my book and how you know, the one with Jim Carrey.
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We see him going down the mountain and he comes down with all the gifts at the end of the movie because he had a heart change.
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And he stands and he goes I'm the Grinch that stole Christmas and I'm sorry and the officer standing there and all of a sudden the mayor comes up and you see Jim Carrey with his arm stuck out and he goes aren't you going to handcuff me, put me in a chokehold, blind me with pepper spray?
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And the mayor goes.
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You heard him, officer, and I recommend the pepper spray and the officer's response was yes, I heard him.
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He said he was sorry.
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And we see the Hoos do what the church should do, right, where we see them welcome the Grinch in, they sing together, they even eat and dine together at the table and that's a beautiful picture of what the church is supposed to do in that setting.
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But unfortunately we come across mayors who recommend the pepper spray and those people who are doing that they don't understand sometimes that Jesus already took the pepper spray for us all and it's resting in that realm of grace to understand that his love is great enough to cover not some sin but all sin.
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I didn't think the Grinch was a Christian movie, but now I'm not too sure.
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It's very holy.
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Kirk Cameron should play in it, right.
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No, that's a good metaphor.
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I saw just a lot of hilarious metaphors of, like you know, pop culture, funny little things here and there, of like you know what was the first thing you wrote?
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Was it Wonderwall?
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It wasn't Wonderwall, it was Third Eye Blind something.
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Yeah, I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah.
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That cracked me up.
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I was like, hey, he's pretty bold putting that on the first page, dude, that's good stuff.
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What's funny is there's one point where I talk about how Christians always say this adage of God doesn't give you more than we can handle, and I say that's crap.
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God doesn't give you more than we can handle.
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And I say that's crap.
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And then I actually I say below it.
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I go kind of like in parentheses.
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I'm like can I say crap in a Christian book?
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And.
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I'm like, okay, that's poop.
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And what's funny is my the Christian publisher actually came back to me and said, yeah, you can't say the word crap.
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I said that's so funny, cause that's the whole joke of can I say crap in a Christian book?
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And the answer is no.
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I guess I can't, because they made me take it out, but I left it.
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I was like that's poop, that's how I left it.
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And I was interviewed by this music magazine and I love music and so I was so honored.
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But they were talking about how I went from James Taylor to Taylor Swift in the same chapter.
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I was like, yeah, let's go, let's go.
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They do.
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That's so interesting because I've read a lot of Christian books that aren't published by.
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Necessarily, I don't know who published your book.
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It was like a subset of Zondervan, right, or something.
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Yeah, yeah, okay, I don't know.
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Where did I see that?
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Did I read that somewhere?
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I don't know.
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It may be on the back or something, but yeah, it's the the thing about Christian books and I love I've read, I've read so many is some of them are just very deep, very great, and I wanted to have that raw vulnerable or vulnerability throughout the book.
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But I also wanted to make people raw vulnerability throughout the book.
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But I also wanted to make people smile and make people laugh, because I think when you can joke, especially in the season of chaos, when you can joke about your chaos, you own it instead of it owning you and I want to be able to share that's my personality in a nutshell my dad's funeral.
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I shared a joke and my friends laughed and they're like, can we laugh?
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I was like, yeah, he, my dad would have.
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So let's do it, and that's one thing that I never want to.
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Um diminish or demean someone's chaos and the pain that they're feeling, because pain is real.
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Um, but I do want to put a smile on people's face.
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That's why I say hope, help and humor throughout.
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Yeah, that's cool man.
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Yeah, I don't like taking things too seriously myself.
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I don't know if I'm you know I won't even get into that.
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I've got there's some dark humor in funerals for me, right.
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I have a lot of dark humor and I have to scale back a little bit in the book, but it was.
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I'll put it this way.
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People always ask me like what, how do I start writing?
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And it is true, there is an element where I do turn on some great like worship music and try to get my heart and my mind in the right head space, you know, in the right heart space.
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But then a lot of times I will turn on the office.
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No lie, I'll turn on the office and just have it in the background as I'm writing.
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And it's just something about that.
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That fun, that funness brings out the creativity while I write and it really does help.
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So I like it.
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I like it.
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Yeah, that's funny, but put the office in the background.
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There's some people that are just like silent writers, that are like I don't want anything, and there's some people that are just like jamming, doing whatever.
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So and I have the office.
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I even quote back to Grace.
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I quote Michael Scott in the book.
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I say everyone deserves a second, second chance.
00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:17.862
That's from that's Michael Scott so that's his that's his view on Grace and I love it.
00:20:17.862 --> 00:20:18.684
I'll take it.
00:20:19.914 --> 00:20:23.884
So where is this like, where's this book taken, you Cause I know that?
00:20:24.023 --> 00:20:29.503
Oh, thank you this is the first book you've ever written right yeah or am I making things up?
00:20:29.624 --> 00:20:31.376
okay, this is the first book you've ever written.
00:20:31.376 --> 00:20:38.556
You know you're just some dude that, you know has a story, which to me, is my favorite type of dude.
00:20:38.556 --> 00:20:45.367
So like, yeah, you know you're, you're just, you know, wrote you a little book.
00:20:48.455 --> 00:20:49.856
Where is that book taking you now?
00:20:49.856 --> 00:20:53.862
I'm so glad you asked, because right before we jumped on this actually.
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Well, let me back up All proceeds for this book I'm using to provide copies to prison libraries and rehab centers across.
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America, oh heck yeah.
00:21:02.654 --> 00:21:04.076
And so that's really cool.
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But then I just signed, before we jumped on this podcast, I signed a document that has me producing the audio book for this this month, and by next month it's going to be available for free on eight, eight hundred thousand inmates tablets for them to listen to yeah, and so I'm very pumped about that because for me when I was, I would go to these chapels while in prison and you'd have these guys and god bless them.
00:21:40.097 --> 00:21:43.640
I'm so thankful that they showed up a lot of times.
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That's the hardest part, just showing up.
00:21:45.526 --> 00:21:57.500
But you could tell some of these guys they didn't have some crazy prison story, they just are volunteering and sometimes they would tell me hey, you're going to get through this, and I'm like am I.
00:21:57.701 --> 00:21:58.695
Like will I Like?
00:21:58.695 --> 00:21:59.558
How do you know that?
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Show me, and for me.
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I love that.
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I don't really hear that when I speak in prisons and rehab centers they don't ever say to me oh, you just don't know what I'm dealing with.
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Because they know I do understand, and so that relatability helps when it explains that, hey, like you do have a fighting chance when you get out, like you do have a fighting chance when you get out.
00:22:23.342 --> 00:22:35.471
I thought when, by signing a deal, my little few years that I did was going to turn into a life sentence, because I've heard all these horror stories about you know hard to get a job or to do this, hard to do that.
00:22:35.471 --> 00:22:53.563
And here I am, I'm sitting in my office, I have letters from US senators congratulating me and encouraging me and I'm just so thankful for every one of those steps congratulating me and encouraging me and I'm just so thankful for every one of those steps and I'm so thankful that God has his favor, has been upon me to help me get to where I am today.
00:22:53.563 --> 00:22:59.527
And I don't want it just to be for me, I want it to be to help others.
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In fact, in the book I talk about, of course, joseph's moment where he went from the pit to the palace and in between he was in prison.
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But it was Genesis 50, 20 that truly changed my outlook on my own chaos, and it was that what the enemy intended for evil, god will use for good.
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And normally that's all we see of that verse, that's all Hobby Lobby puts on the wall heart.
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That we see.
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But the verse doesn't end there.
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It says what the enemy intended for evil, god will use for good, to save many lives.
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To understand hey, god's not only turning things around for you, he's turning things around for you to help others.
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And that's where I say in the book it's like, hey, you go from pain to purpose, but don't stop there.
