Faithbase

Well, thanks for joining. I want to tell you a little bit about my life. I have been so blessed beyond belief. All the things that God has given me and the opportunities that he has put forth in front of me. Growing up in a little small town, Bryson City, North Carolina, there's less than 1,500 people that live in Bryson City. The county, right out of about 10,000 people, 88 people graduated my senior class. So, very rural, very mountainous town in the mountains of the Great Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina. So, growing up in that area, there was a lot of common themes, right? You had the outdoors, you had school, athletics, and church. And it was kind of amazing, from my house, I could actually, within a half a mile, I could pass my church, go to my school, and see the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So, that small community, you gain a lot from the people that surround you. But there was no person that meant more to me and about my faith than it helped give me my foundation when my grandmother, Leona Shuler, an incredible lady. Matter of fact, she actually got her driver's license when she was 67 years old. And yes, I was in the first two wrecks that she had, both of them coming out of our church. So, this lady was incredible and remarkable beyond belief. I'll never forget watching her tithe in church. She would come and pick me up, and we would go to Sunday school, and then we would be in church, and I would watch her. And I knew my grandmother didn't have a lot of money. And I would watch her, and she would open her little purse and have the little twist purse, and she would have two $5 bills in her purse. And she would take one of those out, and the other was for the remainder of the week. So, she was giving back so much. I mean, far more. I mean, very, very giving, and not only to the church, but those around her. But the important thing was how she would tell me about Christ, and she would always be reading the Bible if I spent the night with her at night. And I would watch her. She would talk about her faith, but she wasn't always necessarily—it wasn't the words that she said, but it was really her actions. It was the things that she would tell us, and it was how she lived her life, and the kindness and the giving that she would do. And then that she would always give credit and praise and the glory to Christ. That was my grandmother. I mean, so as all the grandkids, as we watched her, and as she continued to give us an incredible gift, but it was really her message to us, and the way that she walked on this earth, that she really gave me something that no money could ever buy. No amount of time is more than the time that she gave me in the Word. So, I am so grateful to her. And so, when I was a senior in high school, and I had accepted Christ in my life at an early age, but it was really going into my senior year in high school that I really needed to make a big decision. I was being highly recruited by a lot of schools in the country. I went to Miami and Notre Dame and Florida and Alabama and Tennessee. So, I went to all these different schools, and, you know, was that the right fit for me? What was going on? And I'll never forget I told my grandmother that I was having a very difficult time making this decision. And she says, well, have you been praying about it? I said, yes. She goes, well, you have to get closer. I mean, she goes, you need to spend more time in prayer. You need to spend more time with your relationship with God, and He'll direct you. And so, that was kind of my grandmother's and our messages about the guidance and direction. And so, she gave me, you know, what I consider my verse, my life verse, and it was Proverbs 3.6. In all of our ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path. And so, this was really the first time that, you know, I'd always ask for guidance and direction with God, but this is something I knew that was going to impact the rest of my life, where I was going to go to school. And I'll never forget when she told me, she goes, Heath, you've got to get closer. Well, I guess I was a young teenager and decided that it obviously has to be that I'm not physically getting close enough to her. So, I'll never forget, I said, now, how can I get closer to God? And I knew what she meant for me to kind of be no distractions around me, to really focus on Christ and really deep into prayer. And so, I'll never forget going, there was a road in Bryson City that was supposed to connect the state of North Carolina to the state of Tennessee. And it was called, we all locals called it the road to nowhere. It was a broken promise that the federal government was going to build a road along what was the Fontana Lake into the state of Tennessee. But it actually, you know, like in 1948, it actually stopped, they stopped building the road. So, it actually went into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and really led nowhere. We always called it the road to nowhere. But in my life, it led to every direction that you could ever imagine. And so, going in, so I decided to drive out this road and there was a guardrail off at a look off area and it would overlook. You could see the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. You could see Fontana Lake. Just an incredible place. And so, I felt like that was the perfect place to go and pray. And so, I would get out of my car and I'd sit on this guardrail and I'd be deep into prayer. And, you know, I was asking for God's guidance. And sometimes it would be so much silence, you know, because I was truly having a conversation. It wasn't like it was a prayer and it was continuous. I know we're supposed to continue into prayer, but it was like me having and asking God's for, you know, help me, you know, understand what this is all about. And so, week after week after week, I was doing, but it was like God wasn't answering my prayer. Like, tell me where I need to go. Just, I'm asking, but if you'll just give me that bolt of lightning or something that says, hey, you need to go to the University of. I was sitting ready to go. And I had gone to all of my official visits and I narrowed it down to the University of Tennessee and the University of Alabama. And both had really great, incredible coaching staff, great teammates. And I had actually gone to official visits and it really come down to that decision-making process. And so, I'll never forget, I went back to this road. And that day was an overcast day, really rainy. I couldn't see the mountains. I couldn't see the lake. But the only thing I could see was this road. And I'll never forget, there was no use sitting over the guardrail and looking at the scenery. So, I kind of walked up and down this road. And that was God's message to me, that that road had been closed for decades. And it was his way of saying that I need to pave that path to Tennessee and to take that next step and, you know, to almost join those two communities together that had so much in common, Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. And so, I chose Tennessee because of God's guidance and because of his direction. And my grandmother, I'll never forget her, when I went to tell her where I was going to college. Because she knew what a burden that had been to making the right choice. And as I walked through the door and she looked at me and she said, I know you're going to stay close to home, which meant Tennessee. So, that was a remarkable moment that she knew when I walked through that door of her house that God had given me that direction. And it's amazing what, I mean, it's amazing from what has happened in my life that that one decision, because I had looked to God's guidance, has given me so much. That road had been paved to Tennessee. And once I was at Tennessee, I knew that God had chosen the right place for me and put me with the right people, my coaches, my teammates, the community around me, the fans that the state has. And so, as I'd gone through, there was a lot of other decisions I needed to make and things and choices that I was faced with. And I'll never forget the time that my mom had given me a gift also. That was something that was important in high school, but it forever became even more important in college in some choices that you make. You know, small town, my dad was the mailman, so every single person that you run into, if you did something, your parents would know it before you got home. One of those type communities. So, you know, choices were important. Now, I'll never forget my mom. So, Swain County High School, going into the eighth grade, was considered high school. And so we had an elementary and we had a high school. And so, you know, my first day, my mom told me when she left the house, she goes, Son, I have something for you in your notebook. So when you get to school, make sure you get that. So I'm thinking, oh great, this is, I'm, you know, I'm two lunch monies, or I'm getting two lunches, or I get an extra snack. I don't know, it has to be something that fits in a notebook. So I'm thinking a little extra cash along the way. So I'm thinking, this is awesome. I'm in high school. She's looking at me as I'm almost an adult now. But it wasn't. It was none of those things. But it was probably the most thing that I cherished the most. It was a message that she gave me, and it says, Heath, make each and every decision as if I am standing beside you. I'm like, wow. Every decision in my life, I'm in the eighth grade, every decision that I'm making as if my mom's standing beside you, I'm like, wow. And then it went on to say, for when I am not there, Jesus Christ always is. That's pretty incredible. Through high school, but even more so in college, those decisions that you're facing or the people you're hanging out with, it's not only did I have my mom wasn't there. Oftentimes in high school, I mean, I go from high school, now I'm in college, I'm on my own. And I look, and my mom's not there. She's not present. But I always know Christ was. So making those choices and those decisions, it really come down to not embarrassing the family name, not embarrassing my teammates, my coaches, the fans, so in the decisions and choices that you make. So that was always one of the best messages that my mom gave me growing up as a kid, something I cherish the most. And you combine those decision-making processes with Proverbs 3.6, and they just really interlink together, that it's really about God's guidance and God's direction. So I was faced with a very challenging and one of the most difficult decisions of my life, which was do I turn pro after my junior year in college, or do I stay in college and be with my teammates? My brother was my wide receiver in college. My girlfriend, who ultimately became my wife, Nicole, was at school at Tennessee with me. So I had every reason. And there was one thing that I really never spoke publicly about when I made that decision that was always burdensome to me, and I felt not embarrassed, but I didn't want my parents to feel like that it was an issue for them. But in order to stay in college and protect the financial liability of getting hurt, you could get a Lloyd's of London insurance policy, a risk policy on your body if you had a career-ending injury. But it was very expensive, so much so my parents would have to take out a second mortgage on their home. So I was faced with a lot of decisions. I just was runner-up to the Heisman Trophy. We were going to be highly ranked. I had every reason to stay in college. So I was praying about it while I was on campus. We were in the middle of the season. We went to the bowl game. I was just wanting to go to the road to nowhere. I just wanted to get closer to God, be where those decisions were made in my life. And after the bowl game, I could not wait to get back because I was really torn with all the decisions that was being made. I had not gotten that clarity. It was really that God had not spoke to me. I'll never forget driving back to Bryson City from Knoxville, Tennessee, after our bowl game was over. I'll never forget it. I was at my parents' house, and we were saying hello, and we were talking about the bowl game that we just played. And I knew it was January by that time, so it was a little colder in the mountains. I'd been praying so hard to God to give me that message. I'll never forget driving my car, passing Victory Baptist Church where I grew up, passing the high school, passing the football stadium, and driving up to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The gate was closed. The entrance to all the places that I had made some really important decisions in my life, that gate was closed. And I had been praying so hard that God would give me the guidance and direction. And when it was closed, I knew he had spoken to me, that although it hurt so much to leave not only my brother and my girlfriend, but my teammates and my coaches and the fans, but it was God's direction. And I just could not. For the life of me, I was overcome with joy and happy, even though I knew it was such a hard decision to make. But it was God's direction, and he had given me that message, and he had given me that place in my life. And I am so grateful because so many things have happened in my life based upon so many of those decisions. So I went to the NFL and got injured my first year as a starting quarterback in the league, playing for the Washington Redskins, and injury after injury. And I ultimately played for the New Orleans Saints. And things had been so awesome in college, just so incredibly awesome. I mean, the paved road, I mean, all through athletics had been so easy. And got to the NFL, I put forth the same amount of work ethic, the same everything, but it just wasn't clicking. It wasn't there. I mean, it just wasn't the direction in which I wanted it to go. I had a plan, right? I had a plan. But it's really God's plan. And I say this now often is man plans and God laughs. I had a plan. It wasn't his plan for me. And so because I had a career and an injury, it put me out of sports. And I love business, and business is kind of, you know, that's kind of like, that's truly my sport, and it always has been, and I love it. And kind of a serial entrepreneurial. And God had a different direction for me. And during those months was challenging. But I had my wife with me and Nicole and I finally got married and after dating for seven years, it couldn't have been more incredible. That road to nowhere was where I knew I had spent time on the road to nowhere. That's where I proposed to my wife on that very place where I had made so many decisions in my life and God had given me those directions. And so having an incredible family life has been so awesome and I really kind of, you know, there was a time that we made kind of a decision. We moved from Tennessee to North Carolina back where my wife is from and I never thought I would leave Tennessee and to be honest I never knew why but we were just kind of led that direction and it was for whatever reason it was God, you know, putting me in a situation to run for Congress. I mean I had no political aspirations, none whatsoever, and that time was just, you know, almost immediate. I mean he was like, this is what you need to do. I mean there were so many times and I did go to the road to nowhere and I prayed about it but everything came back to give back and I never forget that was my grandmother. I mean I watched her give to people her same age. She would go to the senior center in Bryson City and she would help serve lunches to people and I watched her giving back and the only thing she had, she didn't have money, she had time and time is far more valuable and it's what she was kind of giving. So this country had meant so much to me and it was time for me to give back. So I never intended to be in Congress in my entire life, that was never on my radar but it was an incredible time and it was God who put me on that path and there were so many times because athletics is awesome and my time in college and NFL was great and a lot of focus is put on athletics but nothing was more challenging than being in Congress and making those decisions and really at no point in time in my life before that that I ever felt like I needed God's guidance and so I was not one of these guys that voted based upon politics. That was the last thing I ever thought about but what was most important to God and how we move our country in the right direction. So we have in the Capitol, most people don't know this, but there is a little small room just off the Capitol, just off the house floor in the rotunda and it's a really small room, it's probably 10 feet by 10 feet, has a coat on it and so that was the prayer room and that was my sanctuary, that was where I would go to pray and it has this incredible stained glass of Jesus and has all the states on it and so that's where I would go to pray and because I couldn't get back to Bryson City, North Carolina, it was my place and so all those hard decisions that you're faced, I look for God's guidance and it was incredible that making those type of decisions that only impact the US but actually impacts people all over the world and what that actually means because our God has no borders, there's no United States, there's no separation, it's all God's people and so I knew that it was those type of decisions I had to make. So I had been so blessed and I want to leave you with one last thing, remember I told you that my mom gave me a gift in the eighth grade and it says, Heath, make each and every decision as if I am standing beside you for when I am not there, Jesus Christ always is. So now I've rewritten that message to myself and it says Heath, make each and every decision as if my wife, Nicole, my son, Navy, and my daughter, Island, are watching every decision I make as if they're watching for when they are not there, Jesus Christ always is. God bless and have a great day.