Brian Del Turco converses with Keith Payne to explore how lessons from his earthly father shaped his understanding of God’s Father heart. From a tough, charismatic union leader to a redeemed man of faith, Keith reflects on the wisdom, protection, and love he received and how it points to the perfect love of our heavenly Father. Together, they discuss fatherhood, redemption, and the multi-generational impact of God’s favor and guidance. This conversation is full of practical lessons, inspiring stories, and a reminder that God can redeem any situation.

----------

See the full episode transcript below.

👉 Support the podcast (use the Smart Edit BMAC page): buymeacoffee.com/SmartEdit

👉 Enhanced show notes: JesusSmart.com/357

👉 Explore more episodes: JesusSmart.com/podcast

If this episode gave you a fresh perspective on Kingdom Living, share it with someone who needs encouragement.

Be sure to follow the podcast—each episode is designed to help you think more clearly and pursue the kind of life only Jesus makes possible.

Stay current via The Smart Edit newsletter—Elevate your faith. Live smart. Make an impact. Free. Weekly. 5 minutes to grow. Unsubscribe anytime. Sign up at JesusSmart.com.

----------

KEITH PAYNE

Get your copy of 'Stuff I Got from Dad' on Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Facebook -- Keith Payne

Carmia’s Window Charitable Fund website

Carmia's Window Facebook page

----------

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT - Stuff I Got from Dad with Keith Payne

See complete and enhanced show notes at jesussmart.com/357

Welcome to Jesus Smart X, episode 357. This is Brian Del Turco, and today we're stepping into a conversation that hits home for every single one of us because all of us have a father story. The gospel music bed you're hearing is from the Payne Family Group, a gospel group that Keith was part of along with his brothers.

I saw Keith Payne on Facebook talking about his new upcoming release, Stuff I Got From Dad, exploring how he relates his experiences with his earthly father to things about our heavenly Father—things he learned that transformed his understanding of God's fatherhood. He's on the podcast today talking about his new book by that title. It's a great conversation with an inspiring person, and I think you're going to enjoy it and benefit from it.

Understanding Fatherhood: Perfect and Imperfect

Maybe you had an amazing dad, or maybe your father was present but imperfect. Perhaps your experience with your earthly father was painful or even absent. No matter what your story looks like, your Father in heaven is not a reflection of your earthly dad. He is the perfection your earthly dad was only meant to point to, and God still can use it and show you some things. Please lean in.

God is in the business of redeeming fatherhood. He knows how to re-father us. The conversion experience in Christ is about re-fathering—Jesus introduces us now to God as Father to heal us and to teach us who He really is. This can unlock some healing and breakthrough in your understanding of the Father heart of God.

If you're new to the podcast, subscribe so that you can stay connected with future episodes. If you want to receive a weekly shot of Kingdom clarity and encouragement, you can sign up for the free Smart Edit newsletter. Just go to jesussmart.com right at the top of the homepage and you'll see the form there. You can unsubscribe at any time.

If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission behind it, you can now do that through Buy Me a Coffee. It's a simple way to fuel the work—completely optional but deeply appreciated. Look for the Smart Edit Buy Me a Coffee link in the show notes page.

A Quick Kingdom Thought: Dusted

Before we get the train rolling, I'd like to share something from a recent newsletter. We have a section called Thinking Above and Beyond. God says in Isaiah 55:9, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." So we need to reason with Him, think after Him.

Here's a quick hit thought: Dusted. In street language, to be dusted means defeated, wiped out. In Genesis 3, the serpent—Satan through the serpent—was sentenced to the dust. It was really a prophetic humiliation. God said, "On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life."

Jesus later said that we would trample on all the power of the enemy. The enemy's realm is dust level. Don't forget that our authority in Christ is above that. We can stay and live out of that place of being seated with Christ in the heavenly places in Ephesians 2:6 and enforce the verdict that's been issued. Remember that because of Christ, his place is now under your feet, eating the dust.

All right, let's lean into this conversation. I believe it's going to speak to your mind and spirit in a powerful way.

Meeting Keith Payne: A First Podcast Interview

Brian: I'm excited today to have Keith Payne on the podcast. Some of you know Keith, and some of you will be introduced to him today. We're talking about a very primal topic, a seminal topic—the topic of your father and also the fatherhood of God. We've got a big problem in the world today on this issue. Keith, how are you today? I'm glad you carved out some time for us.

Keith: Thanks for having me, Brian. This is exciting for me because this is my first actual podcast.

Brian: Your first podcast interview?

Keith: Yeah. Back in the day, we did a lot of radio and a lot of TV stuff with our music ministry, but this is the first official podcast, so you are a record breaker, my man.

Brian: Well, we're christening it right here. That's wonderful. This could be the beginning of your podcast career. Who knows? I'm glad to have you here. What can the listener today expect to hear as we talk?

The Birth of "Stuff I Got From Dad"

Keith: The book is titled Stuff I Got From Dad: Lessons from My Father. The whole concept was birthed in the last year or two of my father's life. He started to get ill, and I started spending much more time up there helping him organize things and take care of family business. As you have an elderly parent, you reminisce.

What came from those conversations was a realization on my part of the many, many lessons through the years that I had gleaned from him. Not necessarily where he sat me down and said, "Son, let me tell you about how to do X," but it was actually just experiences that upon reflection, I realized there was a real lesson there. I learned what to do and what not to do. There were lessons of what to pursue and lessons about avoiding negative outcomes.

When I started reflecting on those, I said, "Man, I'm going to start writing down some of these stories." He would reminisce about his childhood or many years ago, and then I started reflecting: I've learned some lessons here. Then it made me think of my relationship with my heavenly Father. There are also lessons or deeper meanings even beyond what I got from my earthly father.

Somebody said in a conversation, "Your dad's life was so amazing, somebody ought to write a book." As soon as I heard that statement, I felt that voice in my head—through the years I recognize it as the Holy Spirit—giving me the unction to say, "Yeah, somebody should. It's you."

On that day, I said to myself, "I'm going to write a book." I had no experience. I didn't know where to start or what the proper methodology was. A lot of this was just me writing my thoughts and trying to organize them in a way that would be accepted or easily read by the reader. The whole origin was the last couple years of his life reminding me of the things I'd learned, which then directed me toward even deeper lessons from my heavenly Father.

Fatherhood as God's Design

Brian: Would you agree with the statement, Keith, that there is no father on this planet who's perfect, and yet God uses fatherhood to teach us about Himself and to bring blessing in our lives? Maybe, as you say, information or perhaps warnings even about what not to do?

Keith: Fatherhood was important to Jesus. He referred to His Father many, many times while He was on this earth. The example, the great example of what fatherhood should be—influencing your children, providing direction—He lived that example or referred to that example. So fatherhood is important to me. I've got three sons.

The great thing about my relationship with my dad, my earthly father, is when I was a kid, I thought he was Superman because he was big and fit and could do things. He could throw a football very far and jump high. When you're a four or five-year-old kid, you look at your dad who has certain abilities and you go, "Wow, is he fast, is he strong?" I literally looked at him and thought he was like Superman as a young child.

As you grow older, though, the thing that I learned is he wasn't Superman, but he was more like Clark Kent. He was human. He was a man. He had faults, he had frailties. Learning and accepting the humanity of who your dad is also helpful because it helps you with your own personal relationship with God.

Brian: Accepting the humanity, honoring all that is good that has come down. I know there will be listeners who do not even have a father present in their life, or it was an extremely toxic or dysfunctional relationship, even abusive. Right there, Keith, what would you say to that sort of situation about fatherhood and also about the fatherhood of God?

Hope for the Father-Absent

Keith: I would say that everybody has different situations. If there's a scenario of a listener that's father-absent, with no father present, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will provide a relationship with a heavenly Father. That Father always shows up. That Father never breaks His promise. And that Father is a comfort in time of need.

No matter what situation we face here on earth, the hope and the good news is there is opportunity to create a very close and lasting relationship with our heavenly Father.

Brian: Scripture says He's the father of the fatherless. So this book ties together your relationship with your earthly father and with the heavenly Father. As you were doing the storytelling—it's really a nonfiction book, but there's story embedded in it, the story of your relationship—how did that dual perspective shape the way you approached the writing of this book?

Deeper Lessons From Heaven

Keith: What it did is put a fine tip or focus on the fact that I learned some great things from my earthly father. My dad here on earth provided some things for us—strong will, an example of never giving up, an example of trying to figure things out, an example of how to deal with people, which he had skills in. There were things I learned from my earthly father.

But when I sat down and started thinking about it, I would get a lesson or reflect on a lesson I learned from my dad, and then I would think of the nature of God or my personal relationship with God, and I would say, "Oh, wow, there's even a deeper lesson there." In other words, it's good what I learned from dad, but there's even a better or deeper way to do that or approach a particular situation.

The Lesson of Outward Appearance vs. Inner Heart

Let me give you a quick example. Dad, very young in life, showed us you need to dress a certain way. He was a sharp dresser. As young guys, it's like, "Man, dad dresses pretty cool. He doesn't wear jeans and frumpy clothes. He knew how to tie a tie."

I tell a story in the book where I ran for class president in sixth grade, and he helped me get an outfit put together. He was showing me the importance of looking right, dressing for success. He was working with me on trying to read the room, see what people are saying and doing so that you can react properly to it.

Those are good things to know. It's important to know that you should dress properly and interact with people properly. But the reflection of my relationship with God—I started thinking about the story of young David, where the prophet Samuel comes in and he's told by God, "You have to go to this household, and you are going to anoint one of his sons."

The first son is tall and big, and Samuel goes, "God, this is the dude, man, this has got to be the guy. Look at this guy." The lesson there, so clear from scripture, was that God looks on the inside of a man's heart and not necessarily his outward appearance.

The deeper lesson for me: it's good to know how to read the room, interact with people, and dress a certain way. But beyond that, more importantly, if you have a heart for God and a heart for helping people, all those other things will take care of themselves.

From Poverty to Power: Dad's Journey

Brian: Now, your dad came from one of the poorest counties in the country, and he became a powerful union leader. It's really remarkable. Did he have higher education at all?

Keith: From that part of the country, you would consider him highly educated because he did get through 11th grade. He did not have a high school diploma. He came from McDowell County, West Virginia. If any of your listeners would look up "poorest counties in the USA," it would be listed in the top five in every search or every way that you want to measure—lowest income, highest unemployment, highest drug use. It's a very, very tough area, and that's where his family was from. To this day, it is a very, very tough area.

He left there in the 50s. Historically, there was a great migration from people from the south to the north looking for work in the early 50s—auto plants, steel mills, rubber plants. Cleveland, Akron, Chicago, Detroit. There's a huge migration of people from the deep south and from Appalachia.

Part of that group came in the early 50s from Appalachia up to Cleveland, Ohio, because it was a little smaller than Detroit and there were plenty of opportunities for what they would call non-skilled labor at that time. He went to work at Ford, and within a year got involved in the union movement there.

Union Leadership and Fighting for the Little Guy

Because of his background in West Virginia, which was very strong with the United Mine Workers, there were a lot of health and safety issues with the mines back in the day. It was birthed in him—it was part of his DNA—to stand up for the little guy and to make sure that the large organization or the company did not take advantage of the worker.

He went from a high school dropout to two terms where he was the president of the second largest UAW local union in the country. There were 15,000 members when he was the president.

Brian: Wow.

Keith: He had to get more votes than most mayors of a lot of these small towns in Ohio to get elected president of that local union back in the 70s and 80s when he was involved in that.

Brian: So do you think that was the primary fuel that drove him—his concern for the little man, making sure that employees' rights were preserved?

Keith: His nature was that he loved a fight. He loved a good fight, and he loved the opportunity where if somebody was trying to take advantage of somebody, he was going to be the advocate or fight for that person.

He was such a skilled negotiator. Here's a guy with not even a high school education sitting across the table from trained HR people, attorneys, CEOs, executives from a Fortune 100 company—Ford Motor Company, a very large company. They put their most skilled negotiators on the other side of the table.

Here's this guy from West Virginia saying, "Okay, we're not going to do it that way." He became so famous or noticed for his ability to negotiate these contracts that they finally figured out there was a guy from the same part of the country who was an executive in the Ford world. They would bring him in—his name was Bill Landers. They would bring Bill Landers in because my dad and Bill Landers could talk respectfully but directly with each other because they came from the same part of the world.

Brian: How about that?

Keith: It was one of the ways they negotiated contracts back in the day. They would call in this other guy from West Virginia to say, "You got to deal with this guy from Cleveland because we're not making any headway with him." That was his claim to fame.

Brian: He was wired for this. He just had a lot of innate ability. It was just in him.

Keith: His personality was he would light up a room when he'd come into the room, and you would have to quickly assess. You couldn't ignore him. You either had to position yourself as an ally or as an adversary pretty quickly because he just had that type of charisma. Anybody that met him or got to know him, even later in life, recognized that that was part of who he was.

A Season of Grace and Reflection

Brian: I'm sure those last few years of his life, when you spent a lot of time with him and probably gleaned a lot of the material and stories for this book, was very fulfilling for you, very rewarding. I'm sure it was really a time of grace. End-of-life issues can be really sacramental seasons with people. What was the most surprising thing or inspiring thing that you learned from your dad while you were going through this process?

The Transformation: From Tough Guy to Servant of God

Keith: When he was in his heyday of being the union leader, think of every negative stereotype of the union boss back in the 70s, and he was probably that person. He interacted with people that we would call mob ties. He was beat up. There were contracts taken out on him to shut him up. He had his political opponents one time accuse him of kidnapping to try to destroy his career.

What I'm trying to describe is a tough guy. When I was a very young child, my dad was not around a lot. When he was around, he commanded respect. Within the community, he was considered a tough guy.

One of the things that was just so amazing about these last couple years of his life was hearing about these old stories and reminding myself about who he was, to see...