Fun bit of trivia about this talk. I've never actually been asked to give walk-up music for a talk before. So the day I had it all picked out, I'm a big Pearl Jam fan, it was going to be a Pearl Jam song I was coming out to, and the day I had to pick, I come from Maine and it was a typical Maine spring day, which is, say, it was about 38 degrees, raining, just awful weather. One of the office in Robert Plant is screaming at me about coming from the land of the ice and snow, so hence the immigrant song, intro music, and we're here to talk about something that immigrants care a lot about, which is freedom. Now for those in the audience who may be free software people, we're not going to be talking about freedom as in free software, one, because I don't like to have that conversation very much, and two, we don't have time. What we're here to talk about instead is freedom as it pertains to choice. We're going to look at, you know, essentially some of the choices that are available to you and what that means, both for better and as the title says, for worse. So to do that, we're going to cast ourselves back, and we're going to go back to 1998. Now 1998, some of you in the audience, at least from what I could see from yesterday's session, were probably in high school during that time, I don't want to talk to you, that makes me feel super old. In 1998, I was a systems integrator, and we'll come back to that in just a minute, but that same year, a company was founded, some of you may have heard of these guys, another fun bit of trivia, that actually wasn't the name, the name was actually mis-filed on the original paperwork, and they just stuck with it, it seems to have worked out all right, some of you probably heard of that brand. In 1998 also, the Voyager spacecraft became the furthest, the man-made object furthest from our sun, so props to NASA for sending that out. A book was released, some of you may have heard of this, this actually was released the year prior, made it to the United States in 1998. And a movie about a boat, some of you may have seen this, judging from the fact that in March of 1998, this movie became the first movie to crack the billion mark for worldwide sales. So what's the point here? The point is that it was a simpler time. It was a very different time, and it's not necessarily just when we look at things like media and books and so on, it was a simpler time from a technology perspective. So as I said, I was a systems integrator, so my job was running, sort of running around to different businesses and helping them build applications. Some of the companies in the room I probably worked with at that time. And the job essentially was to build these applications for a variety of reasons, but the interesting thing is that the number of choices that went into building these enterprise applications was pretty minimal, it didn't seem like that at the time, it seemed, we had these complicated bake-offs and brought all these vendors in, and it seemed like a difficult thing to do, but particularly when we think about just what are the core decisions that get made, aren't that many of them? So platform is sort of a big one, right? And the interesting thing is that there weren't really many choices to make in terms of the type of platform that you were going to build on. Because basically, we talked to most of our customers at the time. You were probably going to go down one of two paths, Java or Microsoft. If you went the Java route, which a lot of the businesses that we work with did, there really wasn't any argument. Everybody built applications more or less in the same way. Three-tier architecture, spread across servers, you're probably going to use a Java application server. And within that category, you're probably looking at two vendors. Sometimes we'd have as many as three or four, but it usually came down to either BEAs, WebLogic, or IBM, for WebSphere at the time. And it wasn't just with application platforms. Databases were the same way. When we, in 1998, would walk into a customer, we would talk about building these applications, and we talked about databases. We didn't say relational because that was just assumed. If you had a database, it was going to be a relational database. Because the ratio of databases to answer, what's the question? Was basically the setting. And when you look at relational databases, again, you didn't have that many choices to make, right? You basically are probably picking from two or three vendors more often than not. We ended up on Oracle. So this was the world, right? This was all of you in the room who build enterprise applications. This was how it was done, right? You looked at sort of a world in which you pick from a very, very small number of vendors. And there was essentially an agreed upon approach for how we build things. Now we fast forward to the present. World looks very different. For a variety of reasons, I wrote a book called The New Game Makers. We don't have time to go into that whole spiel. But the important takeaway from here is that developers for a whole variety of reasons have been empowered in ways that we've never seen before. They've been empowered to make choices. So again, in 1998, we didn't have the ability to go out and get free software and assemble architectures ourselves. We had to essentially work through channels and buy the software to implement it. Today, thanks to open source, thanks to the availability of low cost hardware, from a cloud perspective, among two other factors, developers can make the choices themselves. Half the time, when we talk to businesses, the platforms that they're built on were started by developers who never asked for permission. They eventually showed up and said, hey, this is what we built, using free software, using low cost cloud platforms. So that's great, developers are empowered, they can make these choices, they are the new game makers. But those choices, not surprisingly multiply. Because if you think about the difference between if you have a CIO or some other decision maker within an organization, and you're making some decisions, not gonna be too many decisions that can get made. If you think about organizations such as many who've been on stage in the past couple of days, who have thousands, tens of thousands in some cases, but developers in each one of them is making individual choices, not surprisingly. You see a lot more diversity in terms of the choices that are made. So this leads to what we refer to internally as the Cambrian explosion of software. Now, we didn't come up with that term. We borrowed it from a gentleman by the name of Brian Aker, who was one of the original architects from iSql. And basically what it refers to is that the Cambrian period in life, for those of you who are geologists or probably pan-intellogists, I guess. Basically, when you think about the way that life evolved, it's meant millions and millions of years, first to get to unicellular organisms, then to get to multicellular organisms. And that process took years, millions of them, literally. And in the Cambrian period, from a geological perspective, there's this tremendous explosion of life. All sorts of new life forms begin to emerge in a very, very short span of time, geologically speaking. And this is the Cambrian explosion. Now, we're seeing exactly the same thing play out from a software standpoint. We've gone from a world that we just talked about, where you have a small number of commercial options, you don't have that many choices to make. Now, you have all kinds of choices. New software is arriving every day from every corner. And as we'll see, this is good, but it can be a challenge as well. So when we think about it, we're talking about the platform earlier, the Java application server that was the standard in 1998. Today, it's not even picking between the platforms, it's which kind? As Kim was saying, in the opening, you have questions like, how do I think about Kubernetes versus Foundry? Well, guess what? That's actually a pretty narrow segment of the choices that are available to you. You have to sort through, as a user, as a developer, as an ops person, whatever your background, through an incredible array of options. So before you even get to product selection, before you even get to talking to vendors, you have to figure out, how am I going to do this? What am I going to use? What is the correct approach for what I'm trying to do? Same with the database. As I said before, it used to be, the relational database is the answer. Now, what's the question? Today, we'll talk to developers, we'll talk to enterprises. In many cases, using four or five different styles of database on a single project, they're relational for this piece. Some sort of big data for a lake that sits behind it, in memory caching all manner of different persistence mechanisms. So again, you can see how these begin to multiply. You can see how all of this choice begins to add up. And that doesn't even get to the speed, the rate in which these things are arriving. So as a non-comprehensive sort of list of platforms that have emerged in the last couple decades. So 1997, we see the emergence of the J2E application server, VA, WebLogic, WebSphere, others certainly that we could mention. 2007, we see the emergence of hosted platform as a service. Force.com came out first, Google App Engine shortly after. And then obviously the project that we're all here to talk about, Cloud Foundry kicked off the open source, PassMovement in 2011. Containers, now somebody's going to nerd snipe me in the audience, I'm sure, I'm not saying that containers were invented in 2013. Containers have been with us for a very, very long time, dating back to the mainframe in fact. But 2013 was a company called Docker, popularized them for the first time they blew up. And in 2014, AWS introduces a service called Lambda. So again, this is not comprehensive with lots of platforms that are left off this list. But if you are in the audience, you think about building an application, these are some core choices that you could make. In terms of building different styles of application, obviously. Now what's important about this list? Well, from our perspective, it's the pace. So you have 10 years before the first two, six years after that, then two years and then one year. So the point here is not just that, hey, we have a lot of choice and there's a lot of diversity and there's a lot for you to sift through, it's that choice is actually accelerating. It's picking up. So the choices that you have are not only wide but they're widening faster as we go along. As I'm sure every single one of you encounters on a day-to-day basis, right? You think about this, it's just huge array of technology, open source technologies. Again, Cloud Foundry being the one that we're here to talk about. But Cloud Foundry is a piece of the puzzle as we'll talk about. So it's not just with projects either. Some of you may have seen this as an eye chart, you're not meant to read this. What we're trying, the point that we're trying to make here is that this is essentially a plot of our language rankings. We do them twice a year. We look at data from GitHub and data from Stack Overflow. We correlate them and we produce a ranking, a plot. And again, the point of this isn't to try to pick out where anyone language is. You can go to the website and look at that in more detail if you like. But the point rather here is to emphasize the fact that very much like projects, languages have exploded in terms of usage.  Probably, that's the majority of projects. Today, we may have two, three, four, five languages used on a single implementation. You're gonna have a couple different components because people are increasingly using a best tool for the job approach. So when we look at this plot, we have 10 to 12 languages that are very popular at the top. We have another probably 12 to 14 that are, again, very popular, not quite as popular in a tier two. But what does that mean? It means that we're looking at two dozen, potentially three dozen languages that are widely in circulation within enterprises. It's a totally different world. Totally different world. And obviously, some platforms called Foundry Among Them have adapted to that and have adapted to this multi-run time world. But the point is that we live in an age of choice. We live in a world where you have a huge array of options. You have a huge number of choices that you can make for every project that you implement. Now, from a developer perspective, on one hand, that's a great thing, right? Because all of a sudden, back in the day, back in 1998, I didn't have any of this available to me. I couldn't take pieces, high quality free software, or I should say open source software, off the shelf, assemble it on hardware that's gonna cost me pennies per day and build something. And companies, for example, that can, in the case of WhatsApp, right? You can essentially have a huge multi-billion dollar valuation with a tiny team. That's possible because of all of this choice. It's available to you. So what's the catch? Well, the catch is, not surprisingly, the choice does not come without a cost. So it's an excellent book, I recommend it, if you haven't read it, it's by Barry Schwartz, and talks about energy choice. And choice is this thing that we tend to treat as an unmitigated good. That's something that we must preserve at all costs. And in large part, that's true. Choice absolutely is something that you need. Nobody wants to be locked into a single option, a single approach. But there are diminishing returns over time.  And we see this playing out now in a variety of markets. So probably most of you in the audience don't deal with this every day. But the explosion in JavaScript frameworks has been absurd. It's a job of people like us to look at, monitor, and evaluate new technologies as they emerge, but JavaScript frameworks is basically impossible. And that's our full-time job. Now imagine, sort of as most of you in the audience are, your full-time job is not keeping up on the stuff. Your full-time job is doing what you do. So what's the point here? Well, the point is that from the technology standpoint, it begins to cause friction. So Tim Bray, most of you probably know, is essentially a legend in the field. Works for Amazon now, has worked for Google, and lots of other places over the course of his career. Very, very smart developer, still actively developing. And he has observed this, which is there's this cost. There's an overhead to his widening base of knowledge that you need to have to remain relevant as a developer. Marco Arment, some of you I'm sure in the audience use his Overcast podcast application. Others of you may know him from, I think he's employee four or five, I believe at Tumblr. And he's gotten to the point, as a famous developer who makes his living, essentially building products. They're available on the web and elsewhere. And he's gotten to the point where he's lost almost all interest in being a web developer. Why? Because of this choice. Because there's too much choice, there's too much arriving too quickly, and it's difficult to process, it's difficult to keep up. So, okay, you're probably sitting here saying, that's great, I guess it's a mixed bag. What do I actually do about it? And this is gonna sound trite, but bear with me. The simplest piece of advice I can give you is to think. There's no, unfortunately, magical solution that is going to solve all of your problems. There's no single answer, single approach that's going to be appropriate in every workload, for every application. But what we want and we recommend all of you to do is to think about the implications of the choices that you make. So again, I don't have time to get into it here. There's a fantastic sort of vision, I guess, or methodology that's by Clayton Christensen, who many of you may know from the innovators dilemma, and he talks about the job to be done. In other words, what are you trying to accomplish? And that, in the context here, is likely going to be whatever the application that you're building. That is fulfilling some purpose, that is doing some job at your company. Now, Cloud Foundry, or any other software that you use, is going to be a part of that. But it's not going to be the entire solution. And the difficulty is that, and the reason I have containers as a background here, is that you will very frequently see people pick up and identify one technology and say, this is great, I'm going to solve all of my problems. Okay? Well, how? Because the simple fact of the matter is, is that no piece of technology that you use is going to solve all of your problems. What you have to think about is the job to be done, what are you trying to accomplish, and how much of that job can be accommodated and can be solved or addressed by the piece of software that you're using. So essentially you need to take a wider vision in terms of what you're using. Just as important, you need to think about the choices that you're making. And more importantly, the choices that you don't want to make. As an example, we talk to developers every day. And one of the things that we see increasingly over time is that developers are opting out of choice. You know, there's choices they just don't want to make. So, you know, when they're using a cloud platform, in many cases, they're just going to default to whatever the cloud platform is going to offer them for a variety of services. Messaging, database, take a pic. Is that because they've decided that this is the best tool for the job? Maybe, probably not. In many cases, they're just opting out of that choice.  I don't want to sit down and have to evaluate a dozen databases. This thing's pretty good. I'm going to use it. And there's nothing wrong with that in many cases. As long as you are conscious and cognizant of the fact that you have these choices and you've taken a step back and thought about what are the choices available to me, which are the ones that matter, and which are the ones that I care about? How do I think about the choices that I make per platform? So back to the sort of Kubernetes, you know, versus Cloud Foundry, a question that Kim raised and has certainly come up a number of times at this conference. Those are going to imply different choices, right? They have different implications to them. It's not, you know, for me or for anybody in this room to say, to be prescriptive and say this is a solution in every case, but you have to think about the choices that are made. Cloud Foundry is opinionated, is going to make certain choices for you. May or may not be the best approach. Kubernetes is going to make a different set of choices for you and open or close choices for you. So part of what you need to do is understand the choices that are implicit in the technology that you're using. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly for all of you, is the value. Think about the value of the individual choices that you make because organizations in many cases are making decisions without any eye or any sort of essentially tension to the long-term value. Does this sort of make a difference for my organization? Is this a high value thing for me to do? You know, going back to the cloud services, many organizations are looking at this and saying, am I getting any value out of running my database? Am I getting any value out of running, you know, messaging service, streaming server? Probably not. So is that something that I can outsource? Maybe. Again, it comes down to thinking about the value. But most importantly, and the thing that I would leave you all with is think about all of this on an individual level because so many talks at conferences, you know, so many conversations that I have with people in my lot of work as an analyst are going to talk to you about numbers that are enterprise, essentially important to enterprise, right? You know, efficiency and return on investment, cost, value chain, et cetera. But the key for me, for all of you, whether you come from an ops background, app dev background, or both, is basically think about the value to your day, right? On an individual level. So sure, I can have a conversation with each of you about the benefits to your organization for any one of these pieces of technology. But what I need all of you to think about is, is this a good decision for me personally? Is this addressing something that I need? Is this making my day simpler? Is this fun? Do I like using this? You know, and conversely, is this going to solve a whole bunch of problems so I don't have to deal with it? And with that, I am actually two minutes over. I'm out of time. This is where you can find me online. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and have a great conference.


Hey everybody at Radiant Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Western Michigan, I'm very familiar with you guys because I was raised in Whitehall, Michigan. It's about an hour and a half northwest up on the coast, right on Lake Michigan. You got White Lake and you got these two little tiny towns called Montague and Whitehall. Whitehall is where I was actually raised. And so I have such a deep, deep love for Western Michigan. And I just want to say, first of all, your pastors, pastors Lee and Jane Cummings, oh my gosh, two of the great, great leaders in the body of Christ in the United States. And I sincerely mean that. Lee and I just jumped on a podcast in this coronavirus time just a couple of weeks ago and I'm telling you, wow, was I just so impacted by his presence. I mean, he carries an authority from heaven that I admire and I love. And so we were talking to one another and we said, hey, Mother's Day is coming. And I just want to say what a privilege and an honor it is to be able to speak to you on Mother's Day. Now your pastor requested this and I want to say, I felt to bring a message that would combine both the time we're in along with speaking to the hearts of women and why mothers are so important. So here's what we got. There is a book that I read called God, Where Are You? Finding Strength and Purpose in Your Wilderness. You know, the book came out last January, but if there's ever been a time that this message is needed, it's right now. So I'm going to basically cover about a chapter of it in this message, but I want to say this to you guys right now, this is what I want to do. If you just go to messengerinternational.org. So that's messengerinternational.org. This will be right on our front page, okay?  We're going to send a signed copy to you. And that's what I want to be able to strengthen what I'm sharing with you by doing that. And so to open, I want to go to the book of Ecclesiastes. Here's a very, very familiar portion of scripture, but I want you to listen to it carefully. First one says, for everything, there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. So everything has a season, okay? There are seasons in our life and each of those seasons has a purpose. And that's what we're in right now. We're in a season and a lot of people are asking questions. They got their arms up in the air. They're saying, what's going on? I mean furloughed people, people laid off, people not knowing where their next paycheck is going to come from. We have people that are fighting the actual disease of coronavirus. We have all this stuff going on. Our nation's basically on lockdown. We have been this way for the past five, six weeks. What is going on? I don't see this in a negative light. And you're going to think I'm crazy when I say what I'm going to say, but I've had more joy the last six weeks in my heart than I have had. And I can't even remember how long. And I'm going to explain why and you'll understand why when I get through this message. But it's very, very important that you understand that if you don't understand the season you're in, you're going to behave incorrectly. Therefore you won't get the desired results that God has out of the season. Let me give you an example. You know, we live in Colorado and people come here all the time to go skiing. So I want you to get an image of this. Somebody flies to Denver. They've got all their ski equipment. They load up the rental car. They drive up to Breckenridge. They get all suited up. They've got their goggles on their helmet. They've got their skis on to get on the chairlift. They ride to the top of the mountain.  Now, why do they fall flat on their face? Because it's August. There's no snow on the ground. What they should have done is they should have put a mountain bike on their chairlift. See, we here in Colorado, we enjoy the summer months, probably more than the winter months. And what we do up on those chairlifts is we bring our mountain bikes up and we ride down the mountain. And so because the behavior was incorrect for that season, you got a scraped up face. And that's what's happening. People don't understand the season. I love First Chronicles chapter 12, verse 32. It says, the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. Listen to that. They understood the time. So how do we say it today? You know, if I was talking to a millennial right now, I'd say, hey, this is the why behind the reason, behind the season. The Bible says understanding we use the word why. Why are we in the season? What is the purpose for the season? Why are we going through this? Well, I want to put a title on this season that we're all going through right now. I call it a wilderness. And a wilderness is not a negative time.  This is not negative at all. This is extremely positive. And by the time I'm finished, you're going to understand why a wilderness is not only a necessary season, but it's a very exciting and important season. So if you look at the people in the Bible, all the Old Testament, New Testament, all over, people had wilderness experiences. In the Old Testament, for everybody, it was a physical place.  You got Moses on the backside of the desert, tending his father's sheep for 40 years. You've got David going through a 12-year wilderness where he's living in caves and sleeping as a pillow with rocks. And he's living in the land of the Philistines. If you look at Daniel, it's in a lion's den.  If you look at John the Baptist, he's in the actual wilderness of Judea. He's in a desert. If you look at John the apostle, he's on the deserted island of Padamos. Paul said, I went to the wilderness of Arabia and that's where Jesus revealed himself to me. So for them, it was a physical place.   And that's not a bad time.  Matter of fact, it's important enough that I go over there. So if you have your Bibles, just turn over to the book of Job chapter 23 and listen to what Job says. He said, look, I go forward, but he's not there. And he goes, he says, I go backward, but I can't see him. He said, but when he works on my left hand, so he is working, he's right there with Job. He, when he works on my left hand, I can't perceive him. So in other words, Job's looking for God everywhere, but he can't find him. He can't discern him, but God has made a promise. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. So the wilderness season is when, even though he's there with us, we don't perceive him. There are two types of the presences of God that the Bible speaks about, all right? The first is the omnipresence of God. David said, where can I go from your presence?  The other presence of God, which is valid, is the manifest presence of God. That's what Jesus said in John 14, I will manifest myself to my followers. What does manifest mean? It means to bring out of the unseen into the realm of the seen, the unheard into the realm of the heard, the unknown into the realm of the known. It is when God reveals himself to our senses, we sense him near us. That presence is totally absence and a wilderness, but his omnipresence, he's still with you. Because he said, again, I'm gonna repeat it. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And so when we go through these wilderness seasons, it's very easy to slip into a behavior that is going to be detrimental for us. If you look at the children of Israel, God only intended them to be in the wilderness for one year. Yeah, read it carefully, one year.  So here's the truth we take from that. You can't shorten your wilderness experience, but you sure can lengthen it. I'm gonna say that again. You can't shorten your wilderness experience, but you sure can lengthen it. How do we lengthen it? By having behavior that doesn't correspond with the season. Now Paul writes about the children of Israel in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.  Now listen to that. They're an example to us today. So we learn from them. And Paul tells us why the children of Israel didn't enter into their destiny. God was bringing them out of Egypt and was gonna bring them right into that Promised Land one year later, but they never went in. They ended up dying in their desert. And Paul said, hey, learn from this because God doesn't want you to die in your wilderness. He wants you to fulfill the destiny he's placed on your life. Why? Because the destiny he's placed on your life is gonna build people. It's gonna build the kingdom. And it's important. It's important to God. It's important to me. It's important to you. It's important to all of us. All of us fulfilling our destiny is so important. So if you look at why the children of Israel didn't fulfill their destiny, Paul gives five reasons. Number one, sexual immorality. Okay, we get it. We understand that. Number two, idolatry. That's putting something before God. And let me just be really blunt with you right now. Okay, if you're binge watching Netflix, Hulu or, and you're not spending time in the Word of God, you are making a really bad choice right now. Okay, you're putting pleasure, you're putting pleasure above time with Him. God's given us like a sabbatical so we can spend more time with Him, not so we can spend more time catching up on all the TV programs we've missed. Okay, you need to get that. I know that's what the world's doing right now and that's all they know to do. But I'm not talking to the world right now. I'm talking to people who wanna walk with God. That's why you're watching me right now. You wouldn't even watch me a minute if you didn't wanna walk with God. So I'm trying to give you the wisdom of the season right now, okay? So here's the deal. They committed idolatry, which is putting something else before Jesus. They tempted Christ. So we've got sexual immorality, idolatry, tempting Christ. And then they lusted after other things. What does the word lust mean? It means they intensely desired other things. So let me just bring it down to reality, okay? If you're binge eating, you're desiring other things other than God. This is not the time to give your flesh what it craves. This is the time to say, wow, God's put me in a timeout. Now is a timeout a bad thing? No, a timeout is to say, hey, I wanna show you some new things because I'm gonna show you by the end of this message that in the wilderness is when God reveals himself to us in a fresh way. If we handle it correctly, I'm gonna show you all through the scriptures. And this is what he's about to do with you. This is what he's about to do with me. That's why I said I have so much joy right now. I have more joy in the last six weeks than I've had in the last 30 years on a concentrated six week time period because I know what's coming. Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. I know some of you right now, you may be battling the sickness, not knowing where your next paycheck is gonna come from.  Are you kidding me? Do you think God's going? Jesus, what are we gonna do? Jane down there in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she just doesn't have a job. Do you have any openings when this whole coronavirus is open? Are you kidding? Jane in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I'm making up a name right now, okay? Do you realize you are about to be promoted? And if you get this revelation now, you'll handle that promotion so much better.  It's cause I'm so excited about what's coming. I know what's coming. It's so good for you. God has great plans for you. He has a future for you. He's not sitting there going, oh gosh, what do I do? Coronavirus yet? Oh, I just, what are my churches gonna do? They can't even gather. It's Mother's Day for goodness sake. No, he's not saying that. He's saying, I have a plan. I'm so far ahead. If you look at Joseph, the brother said, we're gonna destroy the dreams. And God said, oh yeah, I'm so far ahead of you.  So this is a time of rejoicing because we've got a joy that's set before us. So back to the children of Israel. Number one, it was what? Let's think about it. Sexual morality. Number two, putting things before Jesus. Number, I'm gonna put it in our language, okay? Number three, tempting Christ. Okay, number four, lusting after other things, right? Number five, complaining. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, complaining? How can you put a complaining in a list like that? I mean, that just doesn't fit. Now let me tell you something. I want you to understand this. Complaining is a very serious offense in the eyes of God. I will never, ever, ever forget the time when I was complaining and the Holy Spirit confronted me on it.  I mean, why would it cost the children of Israel their inheritance? And God said, complaining basically says to me, God, I don't like what you are doing in my life right now. And if I were you, I'd do it differently. And I realized, wow, that's a slam on his character. And so, see, you don't wanna complain in this time. I'll never forget the time I was on a four-day fast. And I woke up on the third day and I heard the Holy Spirit say, as soon as my eyes open up, I hear the complaining in your heart. And I went, oh my goodness. And I literally rolled out of that bed to my knees that morning saying, God, I'm so sorry. If you have a renewed mind, the Bible tells you as a believer to renew your mind according to the word of God, you can't be negative. You can't be discouraged. If you're discouraged, if you're negative, that means there's an area of your mind that is not yet renewed. Now, did I get this way overnight? No, I've been walking with Jesus for 40 years. And if you ask my children, they will say every day they got up, they would see the light out of my office at 5.30 in the morning and I'm reading my Bible. All my sons will tell you that because they had to get up at 5.30, go to school. They'd come right downstairs. There was the office on and dad's in his Bible coloring up his Bible like you see here, okay? Because why? I understand that my mind has to be renewed.   I don't want that. I want to think like a man of God.  God loves blessing his children, but we have to get our thinking in line with what he's doing in our life. And so it is so important right now. God said, hey, take a time out. You know, the government, I'm even going to have the American government help you and give you some paychecks here. I mean, it's amazing what's happening. And God's saying, don't spend this time worrying. Why are you worried about tomorrow? By you worrying, you're saying that I'm not God. I can't provide. You know, George Mueller, love it. George Mueller was brought up in a very affluent family in Germany and they sent him off to his higher education after a short time. He said, you know what? He actually, George Mueller made fun of all the Christians in university. He persecuted them.  But he got radically touched by the presence of God at a Bible study. He got saved and he came back home to his dad and said, dad, I'm not finishing education. I want to be a missionary. And his dad was furious, cut off all of his financial aid because his dad was very wealthy. So George went to England. He started a church and he was furious because in the church in England, he was at the wealthy people got the front row seats. So they literally paid for their seats. And George said, I'm not doing this. He eradicated it. Well, after time, God felt like George should start some orphanages. And he started doing orphanages because he saw so many kids on the street that had no mom, no dad. And what happened was he had several of these orphanages and one of the orphanages, they ran out of food, completely, totally out of food. And he had 300 kids in this orphanage. And the orphanage mothers, the ladies that were helping him said, what did we do? He said, have all the kids sit down at the cafeteria.  And as soon as he said, amen, this is a true story. A knock came at the door and the person there said, I have three huge loads of bread. And I just felt like I was supposed to bring them. So he unloaded all this bread. Those 300 kids had bread. But then a few minutes later, another knock came at the door and it was a man who said, I have a milk cart and my wheel busted. And by the time they come and fix the wheel, all the milk will be spoiled. I don't wanna see it go to waste. Would you happen to need some milk? He gave him enough milk to give 300 kids a drink of milk and bread. They all had breakfast and they never locked again. David said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor their seed begging for bread. Now, Israel, you gotta remember, there was a reason that God brought him into the wilderness. Why would God bring him into this wilderness? He said, there were two reasons I brought you in here to humble you and to test you. So let's talk about these. Number one, humility. All right, David had a wilderness, okay? A 12 year wilderness where he lived in caves and deserts. He had to go into the Philistines. I already just spoke of that, right? King Saul, who was David's leader, he was the first king of Israel, he had no wilderness. Now, King Saul had this appearance of humility. I mean, when Samuel, the senior prophet in Israel comes up to Saul and says, you are God's chosen. When Saul's like, who am I? It's like my family is the least in our clan and our clan's the least in all of Israel. And on the inauguration day when God called Saul's name to identify him in front of all of Israel, they couldn't find him. Want to know why? He was hiding in the equipment. He had a humility. Everybody thought, whoa, this guy's humble. But after his first victory, you know what he did? He built a monument to himself. Yeah, and you know what? He thought he was big man on campus.  There is a pride in him that wasn't evident. It looked like he was truly humble. So people who don't go through a desert really don't have true humility worked in them. God said, I brought you into this desert to humble you. Okay? That humility is so important. Why? Because God says in Isaiah 57, I dwell with the humble. I dwell with the humble.  Therefore, I don't want to false humility. I want a real humility. Real humility doesn't mean that you're weak bone and spineless. That actually repelled me from the word humility. When I was a baby Christian, I was like, oh, I don't want to be spineless. I'm an athlete. I mean, I played varsity tennis at Purdue. I played the USTA circuit. I played junior Davis Cup.   But then I started thinking about David. David comes to the battle and his brother says, you're full of pride. And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Elab, his oldest brother said, you're full of pride. But yet one chapter earlier, the prophet of God comes and says, there's a king among your sons, Jesse. Jesse thinks it's God of the Elab and even the prophet thought it was Elab. But God said, I've rejected him. There's only one reason God rejects. Pride. So the very thing that Elab has, he accuses David of having. Yet God says, David's a man after my heart. So humility is not being weak because David says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine? He said, obviously you guys won't fight him. God had to find somebody that would. Sounds very arrogant, but he's not. He's totally dependent on God and completely obedient to him. Moses wrote the book of Numbers. But do you know what he wrote in chapter 12 verse three? He said, now the man Moses was the most humble man in the whole earth. It takes a lot of humility to write that you're the most humble man in the whole earth. Jesus said, come and learn from me. I am humble in heart. Jesus basically said, I'm humble. Let me teach you about it. So humility, what is it? It's our complete utter dependence on God and our resolve to be obedient with him to him. Humility and the fear of the Lord run very closely together. And God says, through humility and the fear of the Lord our long life riches and blessings. So hey, look, there's a blessing to being truly humble. And that humility occurs in the desert. So if you look at David, he is constantly depending on God. I mean, his own men want to stone him. And he says, let me first ask God what to do. He didn't move. Saul has men leaving his camp. The Philistines are at 30,000. He's less than 2000. And he goes, I felt compelled. He wasn't dependent on God. He didn't obey the word of God. So God teaches true humility in the wilderness.  Now, why do we have a problem with tests? Why? I mean, let me read Job's word. I'm right here in verse 10 of chapter 23. He says, but he knows where I'm going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure gold. Pure gold. Listen to the words pure gold. Now, why do we have a problem with tests? Our midterms and our finals in university, right? Come on. We all hated them. But can I tell you, the very last trip that I took was over the Pacific Ocean. That was about six, seven weeks ago. And can I say this? I am so glad the pilot passed the test. Why? Because he and I didn't end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Down at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Do you know what tests do? They only reveal what's in you. When I was going through a very intense time, oh my gosh, I was so angry at my wife. I was mad at my pastor. I was mad at everybody. I was mad at my friends because they're not giving me the sympathy I'm going through. Through, because I was going through trials like I'd never faced before. I was in my first desert experience. And I remember it started scaring me how easily I got angry, how upset I was at everybody. And after six months of this, I went outside one day and I said, God, where's all this anger coming from? I say, I'm more bitter and angry right now than I was before I got saved. I said, what do I cast out? And that's when the Lord spoke to me and he said, you don't cast out your flesh, you're crucified. But he said, son, look at your gold ring. And he said, does it look like pure gold to you? And I said, yeah, it looks like pure gold. Now my ring was 14 karat gold. And for those of you who don't know, 14 karat gold means 14 parts out of 24 parts is gold, 10 parts out of 24 parts, it's other metals. It's impurities, it's copper, it's zinc, it's nickel. And so in other metals, he said, but it looks like pure gold. I said, yeah, it looks like pure gold. He said, what happens if you put it in a furnace and heated up a couple of thousand degrees? I said, well, it liquefies, the whole thing liquefies. He said, then what happens? I said, well, the impurities, the copper, zinc, nickel and other metals, because they're lighter and molecular white, I have an engineering background. I said, they come to the surface and God said, they appear, right? And I went, yeah, they appear. He said, you keep asking where all this anger and bitterness is coming from. He said, it's always been in you. He said, it was visible to me, but invisible to you. Just as the impurities are invisible to me on this right now. He said, it was invisible to you. He said, but I and my love for you have brought you into this furnace of affliction. And now all these things are beginning to surface that are already, that are in you. He said, what you do with this will determine your future. Listen to me, listen. He said, you can keep blaming your pastor, keep blaming your wife, keep blaming your friends. And he said, well, I'll go back down. We got to start this thing all over again. You know, the Israel just went around in a circle for 40 years. That's all they did, go around in a circle for 40 years. Cause why? They wouldn't let go of their impurities. They wouldn't let go of their unbelief. They wouldn't let go of their character flaws. See, is it really that important for you to be right? Is it really that important for you to get even? Is it really that important for you to get back at your mother-in-law? Stop and think about it. You want all those impurities going back down into you? It's not worth it. So God said, or you can own it. And he said, if you own it, he said, you know what I'll do? I'll take my ladle and skin these impurities right out of your life. See, God gave us a free will and you have to understand God will not violate your free will.  I'm Italian, I can say it, okay? I'm 75% Italian, at least as only 37% Italian. But anyway, don't tell her I told you that. For years, oh, we're Italians, we're hotheaded. No, own it. There are things about our cultures that are not godly. There are things about our cultures that are godly. Okay, I grew up in Western Michigan.  Now I'm Italian, I'm Italian, I'm also Dutch. But there were ways about our culture that were very healthy, but there were ways about our culture that weren't. Why? Because the principalities over those regions developed that. And you see, Jesus came, I said, you can have life and have it more abundantly. He's given us grace so we can change. He's put his nature in us so we can change and we can live like him. That's why the Bible says he who says he abides in him ought to walk as he walked. I'm not supposed to walk as my ancestors in Italy walked. I'm supposed to walk as Jesus walked. Now if my ancestors in Italy walked godly, then I'm supposed to walk godly. But here's the job. When we get saved, our spirit is just like Jesus. God puts his nature in us. But then one day this body is gonna get a new, we're gonna get a new body. This body's going back to dust and I'm gonna get me a brand new body. It's gonna be just like Jesus. I can walk through walls. I can eat fish. I can fly in the air in front of people. But this soul, it's my responsibility to cooperate with God to get the soul saved. That's why James says receive. He says it's Christians. Receive with meekness, with humility, the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. He was writing that to Christians 15 times in that book. He said, my brethren, so your soul has to be renewed. Your soul is getting saved. It's in the process. And that's why 40 years ago right now I would have been totally negative. I would have been so upset. I would have been complaining. But what happened? The word of God changed me. And now I got joy. I'm thinking why do I have this joy? Why? Now believe me, I have deep sorrow for the people that are suffering from coronavirus and the people that are suffering unemployment. Don't get me wrong. But I'm talking about I got joy. Why? Because my mind's been renewed. See what I'm saying? See, this is what means when it says Caleb and Joshua followed God wholeheartedly. Hey, they got the promised land because they wholeheartedly followed God. They wholeheartedly allowed his word to transform their thinking. See, your thinking determines the course of your life. Oh yeah, the Bible says that Romans chapter 12, go read it, it's absolutely amazing. It says be transformed, not by a miracle, not by a service where the presence of God comes all over you. Uh-uh, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It takes the word of God renewing our mind to where our character begins to change. So here's the two things, reasons God said I brought you in the wilderness, to humble you and to test you, refine you. Think of refine. That's what Jesus said to that church in Laodicea. He said, hey, I counsel you. You have need of nothing. You think you've got everything, but I counsel you to buy gold refined in the fire. Why? So that you can be white, so that you can be pure, so that you can receive all that I have for you. Do you understand God wants to bless you? He wants to bless you so huge because he loves you. Moms, I'm telling you, moms, I don't know what it is, but women have this tremendous sensitivity to the Holy spirit, to the word of God. And I'll be very honest with you. It's like, I get so angry when people say women can't be in leadership. I'm like, I've met more godly, wise women than I have men. And why are you taking a few scriptures out of the New Testament and putting women into a box and when probably 60% of the church is women? There is a sensitivity about moms.  I'm so grateful that she was patient with me. You know, God's been patient with me. My mom was patient with me.  And to be honest with you, I wonder why she didn't. My grandfather, my grandfather sure thought, he actually said, oh, if you were my boy, I was a mess. I was a mess, but my mom was patient. And I'm gonna say something, guys. Watch your wives. Watch how they spend time with Jesus. Watch how tender they are to what he says. And you know what? You'd be really smart to listen to your wife. You know, when I do the stupidest things is when I don't listen to the counsel and wisdom of my wife. Yeah, there's times I know that Lisa might be speaking out of fear, but that's maybe one in a hundred. But I'm gonna tell you, I'm married to a godly woman. And does that mean she's perfect? No, has any of us perfect yet? No, we're on a process of being transformed. Okay, we all are.  I see a sensitivity in women that I love, I admire. And you know what? God made it that way. You know, it's not just males are created in the image of God. It's male and female. Go read it in Genesis one. It takes a man and a woman together to represent the image of God. I mean, how could God create? It specifically says God created females in his image. He created the male and female in his image. How can a female be created in the image of God if she doesn't have attributes that God has? So in other words, there has to be attributes of God in a female that didn't exist, doesn't exist in the male because he put his attributes in both male and female. Hey, think about that one for a few minutes. You know, I'll never forget this. You know, one day I was like so mad, I was praying an hour and a half every morning, right? And Lisa wasn't doing that. Lisa would get up, pray 10 minutes in the shower, or she, you know, this and that. Later on, I learned she prayed all the time. But anyway, I'm making these decisions because I gotta be the man of the house, right?  And we suffered as a couple. We suffered. We're young, married, I'm so insecure and my role is being head of the home, right?  And thank God Lisa didn't look at me and say, I told you so. She could have though, but she didn't. And then one day I was so frustrated, I'm gonna get my pen out so I can show you this. And I said, I said, God, I've had it. I pray an hour and a half every morning. I go outside, I pray an hour and a half every morning and I'm making decisions. You make me the head of the house. I'm making decisions and she's got better wisdom than me. And Lord said to me, he said, sign draw a circle. So I drew a circle, okay? So he said draw a circle, see that circle? Okay. He said, now put X's all over that circle. So I put X's, X's, X's, X's and I'm just doing this in my prayer time, right? I got the X's all over the circle. He said, so see, there's the X's. He said, now draw a line right down the middle of the circle. I drew a line right down the middle of the circle. He said, that's you, that's Lisa. He said, when you were single, you were complete in yourself. He said, but when you became married to Lisa, you became one flesh. He said, so now you don't make complete, you and Lisa make complete. I went, whoa. He said, do you know what the X's represent? I said, what do the X's represent? He said, information that you need from me to make wise decision. He said, you're making all the decisions for the family based on half the information from me that you need. And I went, oh my gosh. He said, if you were smart, you would draw what I'm putting into the heart of Lisa out and don't do it in an intimidating way where she doesn't want to share with you or she tells you what you want to hear. He said, draw it out of her. And I went, wow. Changed my life forever. I'm telling you, changed my life forever because I started listening to her and we started making good decisions. And life is all about wisdom to make good decisions. I mean, wisdom is the most important thing you can get. Proverbs 4.7 says that. It's the most important thing you can get. Well, guess what? Half the wisdom you need, guys. God's given it to your wife. So why don't you be smart and draw out of her? Draw out of her heart the way she sees things. Now anyway, back to our wilderness talk. There was a little rabbit trail for some of you, okay? So why is the wilderness so important? Well, let's talk about it. Moses is on the backside of the desert. What happens? God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush. Joseph's in the dungeon and God reveals himself to Joseph on how to interpret dreams. Are you tracking with me? David's in the wilderness and God reveals himself to David. I'm your shepherd. I'm your fortress. I'm your rock. I'm your defense. Are you tracking with me that this is getting good? This is really good, isn't it? Okay, watch this. We're not done yet. John the Baptist. He's in the deserts of Israel until the day of his manifestation. But what happens in those deserts? Luke chapter three tells us the word of the Lord came to John in the desert. So God revealed himself to John the Baptist in the desert. Are you listening to this? John the Apostles on the deserted island of Padamos. And that's when God reveals to him, to him, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Oh my gosh, are you following this? I mean, Paul gets saved and goes to the wilderness of Arabia for three years. And that's where he gets the revelation of grace. The wilderness is where God reveals himself. But if I'm watching Netflix 12 hours a day, how do I get the revelation of God? I'm gonna get the revelation of some TV series.  And I'm gonna act like the rest of Israel when it's time to go in and take the promise and I'm gonna say the giants are too big. You said, John, you're acting a little passionate right now. Hey, look, this is the way I look at it. I like the NFL. And when I watch John Gruden on the sideline or when I'm watching some of these great NFL coaches, they're not wimpy. They realize I'm in a war and I have a 60 minute war and I gotta win this war. And they're tough on their guys. And I think sometimes we need a little tough talk because we love each other. See, not because we're trying to shame each other. If you're trying to shame anyone, oh, that's so wrong. It's because I love you enough to speak the truth to you because I don't wanna see you suffer the consequences that Israel did dying in the desert. God reveals himself. Listen to this. I'm gonna go to, Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 40. The prophet says, comfort, comfort my people. How do I comfort? Okay. Listen, it's the voice of someone shouting. Oh, not talking nice and sweet? No, they're acting like John Gruden on the sideline trying to get his team to win. Shouting, clear the way through the wilderness. Oh boy, for the Lord. So where is the way of the Lord prepared in the desert? Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. What is that way called? It's called the highway of God. It's called the higher way of God. It's called the way of God that brings blessing and benefit to you. Oh my gosh, make a straight highway through the wasteland. See, where is the straight highway made? In the wasteland, in the wilderness, okay? For our God, fill the valleys and level the mountains and hills, straighten the curves and smooth out the rough places, then listen to this. This is why I got so much joy. The glory of the Lord will be revealed where in the desert. That's why he said, your deserts will become a fruitful field because that's where God reveals himself to us in a fresh move of his spirit. Listen, I really hope you do get ahold of the book. God, where are you? Because basically I covered about one chapter of this, one chapter and there is so much more. I didn't even talk about the new wine, the new wineskins. I didn't talk about how do we keep from getting bitter. I didn't talk about the fact that there's gonna be three groups of people that are gonna emerge in this time we're living in right now. Oh yeah, there's three groups of people, but it takes so long to describe it. It's in the book of Malachi. But anyway, there's so much more in here. How do you draw in the times of the desert? How do you draw from the wells? So anyway, I hope you get ahold of the book. God, where are you? Like I said, I got about a chapter out. I'm not doing this. I'm not saying this because I want an offering, because I want anything else. I'm saying it because I really believe this will give you the understanding so you'll be like the sons of Isikar that you'll know the season you're in so that you know the right behavior. And it's such my hope that you behave in a way in which you receive your destiny. I love you guys so very much and I'm so proud of you. It's been such an honor to speak to you.  So I wanna pray for you. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for my brother, my sister, I pray for all the moms, I pray for all the dads, the sons and the daughters, the grandfathers, the grandmothers. And Lord, I'm asking in the name of Jesus that your presence, that you would refresh them, but it would be an oasis time even right now that they would sense your manifest presence. Let them know by the sense of your presence that you are pleased. And if you are praying with me right now and you say, I've been complaining, I've been murmuring, I've been lusting after other things, I've been binge washing, just say this to me, say, Father, forgive me. Forgive me for wasting this precious time that you've given me to draw close to you.  What a powerful word from our friend, John Bavere. I love what he said about our behavior, our response in the wilderness. That it's all about that. It's all about how we respond. And so what I wanna do is I wanna ask you a question before we close. The question is this, how is the Holy Spirit speaking to you today about how he wants you to respond? You may not have felt the pressure of the season that we're in as much as some other people, but all of us have felt it to some degree. God is always speaking. He's always prodding and adjusting or leading and guiding us into an area of change in our life, from glory to glory. And you know, he finds us in the wilderness. I love that scripture in Isaiah. It says, clear the way through the wilderness. God wants to clear the way, raise up the valleys, lower the hills, straighten the crooked to make way so that all of the distractions could fall to the side and we can hear his voice saying, I am the Lord. Today I believe that the response for some of us is that God is drawing us to himself. And our starting point, our response in the wilderness is to say yes, finally and ultimately to surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about believing in God. I'm not talking about joining a religion. I'm talking about you recognizing your own brokenness, your own sinfulness, your need of a savior and the gift of salvation that Jesus has won for you, paid for for you when he went to the cross and he died in your place, paid for your sins so that the wages of sin would not be your lot in life but you could receive the free gift of salvation, eternal life spent forever with God. Heaven would be your home. And you can live in this life in relationship with him. Have your sins forgiven a brand new heart, the slate clean. Today for some of you, that's the response that the Holy Spirit is drawing you and saying to you, it's time for you to ultimately surrender. Give your life to Jesus.  For some of us, we're already saved. We're already on our way to heaven. We have a relationship with God but yet there are some things in our life that we need to lay down and say, Lord, I'm sorry for allowing that to monopolize my time and my energy. I've grumbled or I've complained or I've not trusted you. I've not believed you. And the response that God is looking for is a response of humility. It's coming back and instead of taking shame on us for how we've responded, it's to say, Lord, right now I stop and I'm gonna humble myself before you and say, I'm sorry, forgive me. Give me a new spirit, give me a new heart, give me a new attitude. Help me now know how to renew my mind to receive that ingrafted word of God. And so your response is just one of humility. It's to just say, Lord, in the wilderness, here I am, speak to me. I'm sorry for allowing other things to get in the way. For some of us, the response that God's looking for in the wilderness is we're weighed down with the burdens. We're even weighed down with the voice of the enemy and his accusations and his lies that have told us that the wilderness is our graveyard. We're never coming out of this. Today, the response that God is looking for is for us is to reject that voice and to literally say, Lord, I will listen to no other voice than your voice. I'm not gonna give in to any other leadership. I want you to lead me and guide me. And today, to once again, let hope arise in your heart and say, Lord, if you'll lead me, I will follow and let the peace of God that surpasses all understanding come and flood your heart and your mind. Here's what I wanna do. Today, I wanna pray before we go. And if you are someone that needs to surrender your life to God, you need to invite Jesus Christ into your life to be your personal Lord and Savior. Right now, where you're at, I want you to join me and pray this prayer. Say this with me, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name and I repent of my sin, living for myself and being the master of everything. It's so wrong. I was created for you. And Lord, I'm asking you right now to forgive me, to wash away all of my sins, all of the stains and give me a new heart. I want to be born again, a brand new beginning. Jesus, come into my heart, be my Lord and my Savior. Teach me how to follow you. From this day forward, I belong to Jesus. I am saved. Heaven is my home. I have a purpose that I shall fulfill in Jesus' name. Amen.


Well, I like painting over things a whole bunch basically just like Sometimes I just get the thing wet and just like see what's underneath there. It's like I Paint layers and so some of the layers get covered up But then I can like find them again under there and I'll like let it drip and stuff and You know get all these weird effects that way I was drawn to art at a very early age Used to design things bicycles Houses Eventually, I just wanted to draw you know weird things Things from my imagination Well, I'm not a struggling artist. I don't I don't think I'm really trying that hard. I went to college for art where I failed beginning ceramics twice, but I Took me five years to graduate I owed about $26,000 which wasn't that bad, but I paid it back in the army So college was a good experience go to college kids. It's fun. I happened upon Andrew's work Walking by June Fitzpatrick gallery on High Street one evening with a friend headed to dinner and we just decided to pop in and I just was really Taken with the work. I who is this person? I thought you know who who is doing these Incredible things Andrew was sitting the show, but it took a little while to Get it out of him that he was the artist. I have never gone into a gallery and promoted myself I cowardly Lishly Email them and I'm kind of done with that now like I just use Facebook and they Contacted me now and as we talked then he pulled out this Tattered tape together portfolio spilling out with all kinds of sheets of paintings You know, it looked like he just would paint on any surface. He could get his hands on cardboard acrylic Then he explained that When he was in the military he couldn't have Large-scale pieces of paper and this had to be portable and so that's why he was painting in that scale Being in the army definitely influenced me as an artist It made me do smaller things Things that could that are more portable Portable things Brought me that gave me that discipline, you know to finish the mission Woofing is very It's a good thing to do. I would suggest it to anyone woofing willing workers on organic farms you get to Experience all kinds of strange things. I worked at a whale watching place and got the worst sunburn of my life I think I almost died. I worked on a beef farm, but I'm a vegetarian. So and that was a great place to work Okay, these are looking good. I got this pink paint. I've never had anything like that before. It's very fluorescent. So Now all my paintings have like fluorescent Pink in them. Hmm Just destroying Destroy everything Just sort destroy all my paintings and just start over Every time See I'm seeing the circular Shape here now So then maybe I can go in and add some detail or something So the first piece That I got that day at June Fitz Fitzpatrick gallery Is the is the largest piece that I have? all of these rabbits it's been hanging in my kitchen ever since and So when I'm cooking I just I go in there And I could go in there forever And I think that that's one of the things that draws me most to Andrew's work is the depth of the work and How long I can spend in there? It's like being in his mind, you know, it comes from inside of him It's not his perception of something he's seeing outside of him But these are actually the the characters that are living in his inner Landscape in his in the cells of his brain it feels and And that and these rooms these rooms maybe of his dreams It makes me feel great that people collect my work and come back and buy more things That's that's what I need is more people like that I am represented by the robert fontaine gallery in miami, which is a big deal for me. They're Taking me to art basal switzerland in a couple months and it's the biggest opportunity I've had So I'm really looking forward to The future in that aspect and also garner narrative in louisville, kentucky represents me and they You know, it's an up-and-coming gallery there really nice Really excited about that both of those were you know, facebook contacts Ad me as a friend on facebook and your abbot I just want to get better at everything, you know and just live live a good life do the right thing You know, I just want to you know, I believe in god, you know, I just want to do the right thing I just want to live and you know experience life and just Be be the person, you know, I'm supposed to be or you know, everyone everyone wants to do that Everyone just wants to do what they're supposed to do. I think I'm doing what I'm supposed to do Circular shape that I keep seeing There's goes in like a telescope That one's finished


I'm Anthony Davies, Associate Professor of Economics at Duquesne University. In this series of videos I'll be talking about statistics, but statistics like you haven't seen them before. Things that the average person on the street would like to know about statistics without any of the pain. Click on the video to get started.