All right, all right, join the Journey family, friends, and guests. You're listening to Join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter. Thanks for joining today. We are reading Jeremiah 5 through 7, and I am in the podcast studio with faithful watermark member Ben Stogner. Hey, Emma. Did I get your last name right? You did. I didn't check before.

I just went with it.

No, that's great.

We just met.

We did.

And I would love to hear a little bit about what God's done in your life and more about

what you're up to today.

No, thanks a bunch.

I'm glad to be a part of it.

So thank you all again for having me here. You're so welcome. Yeah, my name is Ben Stogner. I just kind of a little bit about me. Yeah, so I'm grateful to say that I had their privilege of being raised in a Christ-centered home. And so throughout my childhood, was faithfully disciplined, both by my parents and just by the folks at our church back home. And I'm really grateful for that. Whenever I was younger around age nine, I accepted the Lord in my heart and got to do that with my parents, which was a really cool privilege.

And it was great because at the time, you know, I didn't know all the depths of theology to become a theologian.

But I knew the basics and the Lord allowed me to just understand the gospel in its simplicity.

And so as a child, got to know him and got to learn what it means to walk with him and walk closer with him and continue to be matured by him. And so he did that in a lot of ways through my upbringing of, you know, continually being involved in my church, but then also through a lot of really faithful friends through my junior high and high school years. What did college look like then? I had the opportunity to go out of state

for school. So that's kind of what brought me over here to Texas. Where'd you go? I went to Baylor. Nice, sick embarrassed. That's right. And, you know, going out of state, I didn't necessarily go with a bunch of friends from my hometown. Unfortunately, you know, I didn't know a whole lot of people going the Baylor.

Sure, which makes sense.

Out of state.

Out of state, it was about an eight-hour shot from where I was from.

And so I had the opportunity at that point to continue to trust the Lord and what a new season looked like, what a new place looked like back in the college things, what new friends looks like. But again, got to see how the Lord really just faithfully took care of me and continuing to provide really good friends for me. And again, you have just the fruit of discipleship in that, but then also the joy of fellowship. Yeah. And just continue to get to walk with the Lord in that. And obviously, he's continued to refine me ever since I came to know him as a young man, but it's been a blessing and a privilege to walk with the Lord. It's an incredible joy. And even now, it's great. Now as a man who's married.

Yes, you got married. Yeah, has a family in Dallas now. My wife, Grace, and I have two kids, Eloise and Walt. So fun. We've been going to Watermark now for just over six years. And I have really enjoyed getting plugged in here. I've gotten to serve with students, and so started in sixth grade with a group of young guys from Lake Highlands, and I've gotten to grow with them.

They're going into 10th grade now.

Just like young men like yourself invested in you, and you were their age.

Yeah. It's been a huge passion of mine, and it's been a lot of fun to get to do.

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