Reading our Bibles regularly can be a challenge, but we're all on this journey together.

We're praying that this podcast inspires you, helps you better understand God's word, and builds your faith.

This is Join the Journey with your host, Emma Daughter.

Thanks for joining.

I am in the podcast studio with today's Devo writer, Mr. Pan Sakunga.

Hey, happy to be here. Did I get your last name right? It's Sakungel.

Sakungel. Yeah. I was practicing. A little more. Pan, I'm so glad to have you in here. We just met this morning. I know you're a faithful member of our body, and I would love to hear just what God's done in your life. How'd you come to know the Lord? And then fast forward, what are you up to you these days?

Yeah, great. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I grew up going to church. My mom took us there as kids. I totally hated every minute of it. The kids were totally

mean to me and just had a terrible experience. So I didn't really have a great experience going to

church. I would say that in high school, through the kindness of one man, did come to an intellectual

understanding of who God was that he died for me. So I put my faith there, but it was a

faith that was really based on kind of facts and a lot of head knowledge. And my day-to-day

life was more about trying to follow the rules as best as I could, which was basically

terrible and aggravating and frustrating. And so at some point in college, I decided that I was done with all the guilt and the shame part of it.

So really launched me on a 10-year-long bachelor party, essentially, which took me to Los Angeles, took me back to Dallas, where I'm from.

And through a series of events, you know, at some point in my life was really searching for, you know,

I've been living this Dallas lifestyle, which I'm having a lot of fun, but I should be doing

something more worth my life. And so God led me to the Watermark at the time, 5 p.m. service

because I was never going to make a Sunday morning service. And through the people of Watermark,

really just started challenging me to take small steps of faith that just allowed me to gain trust in him.

I think what I would just say, Emma, is that I had this expression, which is that rules without relationship lead to rebellion.

I was definitely, I had a lot of rules and a lot of rebellion, but it was the

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