Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Ambassador Hall, I wanted to, I wanted to ask you, you talked about how your inspiration
for the fast was this passage in Isaiah fifty eight
and this motivated you and this, this, this was such a powerful motivation for you that,
that you were willing to end your career over this,
You were willing to do something you thought, you know, I think this is going to
put an end to this whole
this, this whole congress thing all the good I feel like I'm doing here I'm willing to sacrifice any of that going forward
because I think this, this is really powerful
and I'm going to this
and then you went and, and
when you told people about this
and you said you were doing this
you said you, you didn't tell them your motivation
because you, you said
that they would've thought you were crazy.
The questions I have are 1)
can, can you envision a world in, in which you would've told them and, and, and 2)
do you think that's a good place for us to be? I mean is, is that the direction,
it seems to me this class has kind of,
it's kind of what we're talking about is getting to that sort of direction where we can say
my faith wants me to do, you know,
my faith motivates me to alleviate poverty and I'm going to share
with you my faith-based reasons as
well as my, you know,
less faith-based reasons for, for alleviating
poverty or for doing something else good.
I didn't
when I announced
that I was going to do this have a fast I, I didn't say my inspiration was Isaiah fifty
eight
but when asked
why
would I do this
I, I didn't hesitate
and
I didn't want to, I didn't, but I didn't, I've seen so many elected officials use
faith in such a way that it was
odious to me
and I didn't want to be that, but
I would often say
people were also
ask me
not only in my district but reporters and staff I'd say "Well turn off your camera.
Let's talk" and I would talk to them about faith and I'd tell them
you know my personal belief and why.
So, I never denied it and matter of fact there were several articles on it, but
only if asked
because I believe if you try to push faith and religion down people's throats people
will run and they will get mad and, and
it's it's not necessary
because God is a big God, he can take care of himself.
I learned this lesson from my wife.
When I first became a believer I tried to the shove
my faith down her throat
in that every night I would say "Jan,
would you like to receive Jesus tonight?"
You can imagine how far this went and
my friends would come over and they'd say "Tony, what's new?" And I'd say "You're not going to believe this
but I,
I believe in Jesus." And they "Oh my gosh." And
my wife would kick me under the table
and everybody would look up to the ceiling
and
my wife said "You're not going to have any friends.
What are you, are you a nut case?
So, after six months of asking her,
she, I stopped because I was getting nowhere and she was getting mad at me.
Six months later then she became a person of faith after I said nothing.
I did not nothing.
I said why did you change.
She said because when you stop preaching
and speaking
and acting like a jerk
I saw your life change.
I saw your life change towards me, your children,
towards your job.
Said I knew that it was real and it was good
and I wanted that.
So, I come at it by learning this lesson from my wife that you don't
have to preach it,
you've just,
hopefully you show it
and people will ask you
what motivates you, you know, they're always going to ask. Good.