Mike: 00:08

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. I am still in Ontario in Oakville.

Mike: 00:23

Is this Oakville? Or

Matt: 00:24

This is Oakville, baby.

Mike: 00:25

Oakville. Yes. Oakville. We are at Hope Bible Church at the Biblical Counseling Coalition Canada Conference where the theme is identity. And I'm joined with us.

Mike: 00:34

You guys are wondering who you just heard from momentarily. That is our special guest, Matt King. He's the executive director of Broom Tree Care. And we wanted to bring him on for several reasons, but he's one of the exhibitors here at the conference. Matt, how are doing, brother?

Matt: 00:48

We're doing well, man. So blessed just to be sitting with you, hearing what God is doing in The States. As you're learning what God is doing in Canada, hearing what God is doing in The States. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: 00:58

Excited.

Mike: 00:58

Yeah. Matt, man, if you could just I definitely wanna get into your testimony, man, because it's I literally I was trying to do, like, the grown man cry last night. Was, like, trying to look away so that

Matt: 01:06

You did it. Like Did

Mike: 01:07

you see me welling up a

Matt: 01:08

little bit? And your beard absorbed your tears. It was perfect.

Mike: 01:11

I was anointing the beard. Know, Psalm, what is it? One thirty three. The the when the brothers joined together in brotherhood and the the oil just seeds down to the beard. Anyway, that's the real inspiration of beard balm and beard oil.

Mike: 01:23

Anyway, when we get to that, but just give us just BroomTree's existence, what you guys do, and then obviously from there you can jump into your ministry, which is why, as you said before we hit the record button, why BroomTree exists.

Matt: 01:34

Yeah, absolutely. BroomTree, we got charitable status nonprofit and it just launched in the late fall. And it exists to do counseling intensives, walk with counseling cases, but one of our big drives is that we could create free resources that if you are somebody who is hurting or you're walking with somebody who's hurting, you could go to our website and access articles and the vision of our articles and our growth assignments is that in a five minute read, you would be spiritually encouraged and you'd be practically equipped whether you're the hurting person or walking with the hurting person. Here's a truth of how God sees me, here's a truth of how God moves towards me and here are some steps that I can walk out that can actually be practically implemented into the situation.

Mike: 02:26

That's really cool, Why the name Broomtree?

Matt: 02:30

Why the name Broomtree? If you grew up in Sunday school, we all know one Kings 18. One Kings 18 on the felt board was Elijah, fire from heaven, prophets of Baal, it should be the peak of a prophet's career. This is when he now gets the book deals, this is now when he gets to be on your podcast.

Mike: 02:52

I like the modern interpretation. Yeah, it's a good modern commentary.

Matt: 02:56

Yeah, I'm not in this seat anymore. And what I love about the word of God is that it is so real, so raw and so honest that one chapter later, after what should be aesthetically the peak, one chapter later, Elijah is freaking out, he's running away, he walks away from his community, he goes into the wilderness with no resources whatsoever and he just asked God what I call like a moral suicide. God just kill me. And in first Kings 19, he then goes under the broom tree and there the Lord ministers to him. And when you read the care plan of the Lord, it's fascinating because you see that like Elijah, he wakes up and the Lord has already seen Elijah when Elijah's just been asleep.

Matt: 03:49

And the Lord already has this care plan ready for Elijah. He wakes up and what does he find? Bread and water. What do you not find in the wilderness? Bread and water.

Matt: 03:58

And then he goes back to sleep. And then what's the care plan of the Lord at that point? Repeat, wake up, bread and water. And what I love about the Lord's care plan is like, God doesn't need to change the circumstances or the environment for him to do what he wants to do in the heart of his hurting child.

Mike: 04:19

Yeah, that's good.

Matt: 04:19

And then it ends by just saying, and Elijah went up and went forward in the strength of what God provided him with. And so you see this epic high in '18, this incredible crash in '18, and then you see the sustenance of the Lord in a way that he now goes forward on mission for God.

Mike: 04:38

Yeah, that's awesome, man. And so you mentioned obviously that with that anchoring the purpose of your ministry and wanting to be that for others. So who is this for?

Matt: 04:47

This is for anyone and everyone. I believe we all have moments in our lives where we have the Broom Tree moment. And I don't care if you're a pastor, a missionary, a congregant, a seasoned believer or a new believer. We have these moments in life where we need to go under the broom tree and allow the Lord to minister to us. And so we've been really blessed by being able to take care of senior pastors, missionaries, individuals, just Christians in general, and just being able to bless them.

Matt: 05:19

So I'll put it this way, if you know the name of Jesus, go under the broom tree.

Mike: 05:24

That's good, man. That's good. Would you as you were sharing with me last night, but can you just share your testimony being a pastor and then just maybe academically some of your pursuits there and psychology and everything, but how all of that culminated and came to a head in 2019.

Matt: 05:40

Yeah, never ever thought I would find myself in biblical counseling or really in counseling in general. In my life, I pursued a degree. So I have a Bachelor's and Master's in Psychology and Counseling. And I pursued those degrees honestly to pursue law. I wanted to know how you thought, I wanted to know how you feel, to hurt you and shred you in court.

Matt: 06:00

I have a passion for Aston Martins and McLarens. Being a lawyer is a good way to obtain said objects. And then God started to woo my heart to, you're actually gonna use whatever counseling training that I've blessed you with Matt, like I'm gonna use that to help my hurting people. And honestly, it was a wrestling match for a while, it's not what I wanted to do, it's not what

Mike: 06:23

Yeah, had a Jacob overnighter?

Matt: 06:24

Yeah, I'm a pastor, trust me, there's no McLaren. There's no McLaren in my garage. And so really then entered ministry and have been able to just walk with hurting Christians in a church context for years now. But then it came to a real head in 2019 when I needed to go under the Broom Tree. And so what happened one morning, it was a Sunday morning, I'm a pastor, I've got job responsibilities and I woke up earlier than my alarm, which if you know me, I don't do that.

Matt: 06:55

And I was feeling really strange physically, something's off, something's not right. And it was just progressing really quick where I'm like, why is my body not listening to me right now? Why does everything feel delayed? It is the only way I know how to describe it is I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a step. But then it felt like it took a long time to even coordinate it.

Matt: 07:18

And then not that long after I'm in an ambulance going to the hospital, I'm on life support. I'm flown by a helicopter. I live up in a place in Canacol, Muskoka, so our hospitals aren't exactly robust. So we had to get me down to Toronto where

Mike: 07:31

Their care plans aren't exactly. The Lord's care plans.

Matt: 07:35

Yes. And so they had to fly me by helicopter and the next two weeks I'm in the ICU and really for the next eight months I'm in the hospital and it was completely unforeseen happening. I still don't have a diagnosis, but essentially what happened is I couldn't hold oxygen levels and my body got paralyzed for a while. And even to this day, like the right side of my body is like, numbish, A lot of kind of motor functioning issues. I had to relearn how to walk.

Matt: 08:06

I had to relearn how to do buttons on a shirt. I'm literally sitting with trained professionals using a pretend like knife and fork and like simulating here's how you cut food. And it was as though I went from being an adult male to a toddler trying to just figure out life all over again.

Mike: 08:26

Yeah. You were telling me last night just to put it in perspective is, would you say you had a two year old at the time and you guys were both like walking, learning to walk?

Matt: 08:34

So it is so funny because nobody appreciates toddlers learning how to walk more than me. Like when most people are like, good job, buddy. I'm like on the floor with them, like a CrossFit coach. Get it. I'm so proud of you.

Matt: 08:49

It's so hard to relearn how to walk because I spent months relearning how to walk with being attached to the ceiling by a leash so that I didn't have weight bearing on the leg just so we could focus on how to move a leg properly to yeah. It was a whole reset. And so whenever see a toddler learning how to walk Yeah. I am stirred to encouragement.

Mike: 09:08

Yeah. That's cool. In your testimony, just some of the things that you were sharing with me last night that I just was fascinated by, just the honest human response and God's grace in all of that. But just talking about just feeling obviously suffering when your body, you're limited beyond your you're so limited beyond your ability to even grasp what's happening, and yet still be mentally there, but your body not responding and just the places, the emotional places that you went that you didn't even feel like existed.

Matt: 09:38

Yeah. So in the journey, Broom Tree Care is birthed out of my need to go under the Broom Tree. And I find some parallels with Elijah, not the 18 chapter Elijah, the 19 chapter Elijah. I had no idea how dark things were going to get in my soul. I essentially finally finished getting out of the hospital.

Matt: 10:01

I moved back home and not long after COVID hits. So now there's all this isolation paired with the last six, seven months of just wild medical stuff. And so I didn't even see it happening. It just darkness came over me like a slow growing root and came to this point where if I can be completely honest here, I came up with a plan to end my life. And it's a strange thing to say that as a lead pastor.

Matt: 10:28

It's a strange thing to say that as a counselor, but because who should have it together? It's the lead pastor. But I got to this place where like we didn't know how much Matt was gonna bounce back physically. And I see it happening at the time, though the rearview mirror is a lot easier to see. My medical situation paired with my identity.

Matt: 10:49

And now I'm like, I'm a shell of a pastor because I keep having all these complications and I can't run and I can't do as much for the kingdom. And then my wife was so amazing. Like, she would stay with because I was in the hospital out of town. So she would stay with the kids on the weekdays and then she would drive down to hang out with me on the weekends. And she was such a godly woman and steadfast anchor in my life.

Matt: 11:16

But that almost made it harder for me because I'm like, wow, like you you could really be an awesome way for another guy that can perform and can do. And now I'm like, am I ever gonna get on the floor and laugh with my kids? What kind of dad are my kids? And by the way, when I got sick, we found out two days before she was pregnant with our third. Everything is wrong.

Matt: 11:37

Everything is off. Lord, you've overlooked something, God. Please hear my sarcasm in that. And with these different identities of I'll never be the same husband, I can't be the same pastor, I can't be the same dad. And then it came into identity in my relationship with God where I bit this root lie that God is like this really nice coach, and I'm an injured player.

Matt: 11:59

And he has to honor his contract with me, but I can't be used anymore. I'm an injured player and I'm permanently benched. And so between my relationship with God and looking at my marriage and looking at my kids, I'm like, maybe I just need to bow out and just end it. Go be with him where I'm not the injured player anymore. You know, let my wife have some relationship.

Matt: 12:20

She doesn't have to be a nurse to think. You know what is so fascinating? As dark as these thoughts are, they didn't look dark. They looked like light. And I feel like getting sick was actually my seminary, where I got to this part where sometimes things are so dark that there's distorted thinking in the darkness, but it's hard to articulate how it's distorted.

Matt: 12:42

It's hard to see that it's actually dark because there's just intoxicated thinking in the darkness. And so I just got to this place that I had never been before. Didn't sign up for it. Didn't ask for it. Didn't want it.

Matt: 12:56

Everything's wrong. Everything's off. And I just got to this part where I'm like, maybe I need to just not be here anymore.

Mike: 13:04

It was as you were saying that a moment ago, it reminded me of the Lord saying when he proclaims himself to his people and what's captured in scripture, is darkness and light are the same to him?

Matt: 13:14

What I love is that where my compass needle was spinning and I couldn't find what way was north, what way was south. My God had twenty twenty vision. And in the deepest, darkest cave, he's found there. And if you're listening, and you're in the deepest, darkest cave, there's actually a way to know the Lord in a unique way at that part of the cave.

Mike: 13:36

Isaiah forty five seven, man. Light and darkness makes God light and darkness. Like, it's the same to him. And then for us, just to do a quick search in my Logos guy, this is Logos is not sponsoring this episode.

Matt: 13:47

You you gotta them as a sponsor. Their packages will be cheaper.

Mike: 13:50

I know. So as we're having a conversation, you're like, oh, man. That tagged scripture verse in my mind. And so just being able to go and search or whatever. But it pulled some of my pieces from my library together.

Mike: 14:00

But in biblical context, light and darkness are fundamental elements created by God, both serving his purposes while they are often used as a contrasting symbol in scripture. And then, like, I say unfortunately, because in those moments, it it feels very unfortunate. But now post experience, you're like,

Matt: 14:16

yeah.

Mike: 14:17

It was the best thing that actually happened to me.

Matt: 14:18

It's like The worst, best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Yes. Like, I I wouldn't change it. As horrific, as scary, as overwhelming, as defeating as it was, I would not change it because I know him differently as a result that I didn't know him like this before when I had mobility, and I had my rhythm, and I had my full energy to do kingdom work and all these things.

Mike: 14:47

Isn't that ironic that, like, literally everything you just said is a portrayal of what it means to be, like, have this light filled life and productive and fruitful, and yet your experience was the exact opposite And how you felt about that, but just realizing like biblically, and then God knows this as creator, but to us in our human experience in the flesh as scripture talks about it. But in our flesh, it's like that darkness is we hate it so much. We want to we want to stop it much like your experience and what you shared. And yet darkness isn't equal to God.

Matt: 15:19

It's a servant.

Mike: 15:20

It's subservient to who he is, because that which is why when Isaiah, you know, expresses that, like darkness and light are the same to God because he transcends those things. He is

Matt: 15:29

light. Yep.

Mike: 15:31

So in him, is no darkness or shade. Yep. Yeah. Or shadow as James says it. So, man, I just appreciate that story, Matt, because it literally goes against just the dominant sort of posture of Christianity that's, let's say, mainstream, maybe to some extent evangelical or maybe some sort of hyper charismatic type stuff.

Mike: 15:50

However, regardless of the denominational bent, but this is something that all human beings, Christians experience. And in my experience as a counselor, to bring it back to that, because you were talking about, like, not really wanna be a counselor, but realizing the more that we experience these things, man, we're actually able to sit, be that light to somebody and just share with that. So I just I find it fascinating how God uses that regardless of denomination that in our flesh we hate darkness, and yet that seems to be the the active ingredient in God's sanctification. Darkness and suffering seem to be synonymous depending on the experience and circumstance. Any thoughts on that, man?

Mike: 16:28

Obviously, what you've been through.

Matt: 16:30

I think when, as a Christian, when you're in the dark moment, it feels like the darkness is your master.

Mike: 16:35

Right.

Matt: 16:36

But when you look to the Word of God and you look to the Spirit of God, you realize not only is darkness not your master, darkness has a master. That master we call savior. And when I, it's six years later since this has happened, but then seeing how God has used that darkness just for me as a son of God, like not even professionally, like just for me and my understanding of who God is and how God works. It's changed me as a son of God. But then seeing how God is now taking that darkness and the lessons and the power of what has come from that darkness And now it's starting to reverberate out where Broom Tree Care now exists or right now in my spare time, I'm studying in Toronto, I'm doing a research thesis on shame and guilt in God attachment and understanding what the difference is between shame and what the difference is between guilt and how when we experience shame, it will affect how we approach and view God.

Matt: 17:37

How do we counsel individuals who are going through that experience? The Lord first did a profound work in me as just a son. He wanted to meet just Matt, not professional pastor Matt, not counselor Matt. The Lord is, I'm going after my son, my image bearer that I knit in his mother's womb, and I'm gonna meet him because I love him, I died for him, and I'm gonna show him I'm in the dark cave with you. And as a byproduct, it's changed who I am as a counselor and as a pastor.

Mike: 18:08

Yeah. I find that just so fascinating because to me, it's like a living example of what scripture expresses that he in those darkest moments, like, he becomes our light because it to him, it's alike. Yep. It's just yeah. The very place that we fear the most to go, believing that God is not there, and he actually that's probably the most that he's there to our experience, but we fear going there.

Matt: 18:29

A 100%. My heart loves the light aspect. I did like, in my flesh, I hate the dark aspect. I want all the good stuff of the light. All I want to do is skirt broom trees.

Matt: 18:42

All I want to do is skirt the darkness. But maybe you're here and you're listening and you're going through something. Good luck in a Genesis three life, avoiding darkness and hardship and trial and suffering. Just good luck. It's not gonna work out.

Mike: 18:56

No. No. And that's the thing, like, luck, we need grace.

Matt: 19:01

That's it. Like, at the end of the day, none of us are getting before we see the Lord without suffering, without trials, without difficulties and without remixes. We're in a Genesis three experience, but there's unique grace and unique shepherding for his sons and his daughters who are going through that.

Mike: 19:23

Yeah. That's good, man. And something on your website here, hope and healing for the journey, moving those mountaintop highs that we experience spiritually to those valley shadow of death moments. The Christian life, like the Lord doesn't deliver us from those things. And yet he purposefully uses all of those things to fashion and form us and transform us into the image of Christ.

Mike: 19:45

Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story, brother. Just in closing though, what's the best way for them to contact you?

Matt: 19:50

Absolutely. You can go to our website, www.broomtreecare.com. Click on our resources page. We've got articles even live right now on like, how do you meet kids in anxiety? How do you like start to deal with your thought life?

Matt: 20:05

And give it a five minute read, be spiritually encouraged, and be practically equipped. And if you wanna reach out to me personally, can use our email. It's info@Broomtreecare.com.

Mike: 20:16

That's cool. I'll put that in the show notes. And just to Matt's point, and it's funny, I was making this joke last night. It's just the two words that I'm gonna be leaving Ontario saying is process and resources.

Matt: 20:26

Oh, my wife's American. Root for this. Our fight in our home, is it pasta or pasta? So that's our Y'all say pasta? Okay, we say it right.

Matt: 20:37

We say pasta. Wife who's American pasta.

Mike: 20:40

Yeah, to me it's not like whether who's right or wrong, it's just how it rolls off. And past is interesting.

Matt: 20:48

Process.

Mike: 20:49

I I like the ah versus the oh. Like, I I totally get it. I just it's just funny, like those nuances.

Matt: 20:54

Oh, Oh, yeah.

Mike: 20:55

But I just I really I do actually like resources and process better. It just has a it sounds more intelligent. Absolutely. But in all seriousness, though, on the website, as he was mentioning the resources, just some of the articles there are just what are the ones I'm seeing here. And it's just even the most recent, at least on the website.

Mike: 21:13

Yeah. Is raising courageous children. And so you've got different contributors.

Matt: 21:18

Yeah. So what our vision is since almost dying, I when I read James that my life is amiss, I'm like, yep, got that one. So I'm desiring in my vision that I believe is from the Lord is that we're gonna rule individuals who have specialties in counseling, who have a passion first for God and then for walking with people, and that they would contribute articles that could spiritually encourage and practically equip Christians who are finding themselves in the darkness.

Mike: 21:49

Cool. So in the get in touch, would that be the same way for them if they on hearing on what you just said of just maybe partnering with you guys and being a contributor to just helping resource stuff?

Matt: 21:58

Absolutely. If you're listening and you have a passion in biblical care that you wanna contribute something that could really bless somebody who's going through something or they know somebody who's going through something, reach out and let's build the database as large as we can to the glory of God for hurting saints.

Mike: 22:18

Sweet. Matt, thank you again for joining me, man. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening. And again, if there's anything else that you'd like for us to talk about, please email us at topics that speak the truth dot org.

Mike: 22:27

Thank you for listening. We'll see you guys next time.