How Faith Helped Me Survive Stage 4 Cancer – Diego Mesa
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: We live in a world that focuses on outward appearances, possessions, wealth, material. These are external validations that we mistakenly believe makes us worthy or deserving. We live in a world that focuses on the self, that tells us to be preoccupied with comparing our lives to the lives of others. This is not God's way.
[00:00:31] God wishes us to be humble, to think less of ourselves and more about other people. He doesn't want us comparing ourselves to anyone else for He made each and every one of us perfectly and beautifully unique in His image. When we feel insecure or suffer from low self-esteem, none of that is God. It's the enemy trying to keep you from the truth about who you are, and that is that you are a divine child of God, made perfectly and beautifully in God's image.
[00:01:14] This week on Pray.com's Relentless Hope, pastor Diego Mesa teaches us about overcoming our insecurities and low self-esteem by returning to God, by leaning into our faith, and by trusting that he is in control. We learn how Pastor Diego spent a lifetime feeling insecure and how he struggled with feelings of rejection, taking things personally and being ultra-competitive.
[00:01:50] As he shares it took getting diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer for him to listen to what God had to say about becoming a healthier person. This meant undergoing a complete lifestyle change and detoxifying his thoughts, his beliefs, his habits, his diet, his work, and his exercise. Pastor Diego also teaches us that great leaders put aside their needs and wants to focus on making the people around them better.
[00:02:28] Pastor Diego explains leadership is also about coaching people not to become who we think they should be or to mold them in our image, rather, it's to support them on their way to becoming who God intended them to be. As Pastor Diego reminds us, we're all unique and we all carry with us some insecurities, typically born from childhood experiences.
[00:02:58] We carry these insecurities into our adult lives, but when we embrace our uniqueness and when we realize, that God made us exactly as he intended, then our differences become our strengths. When it comes to leaving a legacy, pastor Diego shows us that it's not what we take with us, but who we leave behind us.
[00:03:26] I'm gonna say that again.
[00:03:28] It's not what we take with us, but who we leave behind us.
[00:03:35] We learn how Pastor Diego wants his legacy to be, that he made people better, that he gave them all his knowledge, stories, memories, learnings, and resources so that they could far exceed what he did in his lifetime. We also learned how Pastor Diego has recently learned to like himself and how he spent decades searching for approval from everyone else.
[00:04:07] But in the end, the only approval we need is God's, and that's what was already given to us when Jesus died on the cross.
[00:04:27] Diego Mesa was preparing to run his fourth marathon of the year in 2008 when he started experiencing pain in his body that would forever change his life.
[00:04:41] Diego Mesa: 10 years ago, uh, 10 years ago when I started experiencing pain in my body, and, uh, we went and ran a series of tests in something that's familiar to a lot of people, but hopefully not a lot of people have to experience it. We eventually found out that I had kidney cancer, stage four. It had metastasized through my bones.
[00:05:03] And probably for a few years I had been running with cancer in my body and, uh, would go through the toughest time of my life ever. So I went through two years of conventional treatment, which was basically chemo, uh, chemo pill. And, uh, was given the doctor, uh, was the foremost, uh, kidney oncologist in the Kaiser system.
[00:05:26] And he said that I had a 50% chance to live one year, and the longest living patient that had my kind of cancer was six years. Uh, that was the prognosis. Uh, he told me if I ever came off of the chemo, I'd be committing suicide. So my faith was massive in this area. My trust, my belief that God was in control no matter what, that He created me, uh, and He would be the only one that would tell me when my life was over
[00:05:59] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, senior Pastor Diego Mesa of Abundant Living Family Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California teaches us how to defeat the odds and turn massive challenges into success. From founding a 6,000 person weekly member attendance church with his wife Cindy, to overcoming stage four cancer.
[00:06:24] This is Diego Mesa's life story.
[00:06:33] Diego Mesa: Hey, my name is Diego Mesa, actually, it's Diego Mesa, uh, Damien Diego, Joseph Raymond Damien Mesa, Jr. I have a typical Latin, uh, Mexican name, uh, I grew up in, uh, Southern California, uh, about 20 miles, uh, east of Los Angeles and outside of a stint, uh, of going to Bible school in Oklahoma. I've, uh, been here all my life and I was raised in, um, um, what we would say, a middle class, probably more of a lower middle class family with a hardworking, uh, father and a hardworking mother, typical father who worked, uh, two to three jobs, uh, to keep bread on the table.
[00:07:16] And, um, so I had a good role, a role model of what hard work was all about and, uh, grew up, uh, with a, I I have a Catholic background, so I went eight, eight years to Catholic school. Uh, now that I'm a pastor and a preacher of 33 years, I can remember that I felt a call of God, even as a young boy, and I remember, uh, my mom, uh, telling me that I said to her, I wanna work for God.
[00:07:45] And she said, oh, you want to be a, a priest, huh? And I said, oh, no, I don't want to be a priest. Um, so those were the early days that even felt like maybe, um, I would do something for God, even though as a young boy I may not have equated it well. Um, and then, you know, I had my stench of just trying to find my identity like any young teenager does.
[00:08:06] Uh, dabbling and exposing into all kinds of little stuff. Nothing, nothing really, um, major, uh, in that, but I found a lot of, um, relief in athletics. So, It seemed like, um, studying and book knowledge and intellect came very, very difficult to me. In fact, um, uh, my mom spent many, many of months reading Dick and Jane, which was the book of the day back then.
[00:08:36] People read Dick and Jane books, and it was very, very hard for me to enunciate and pronunciate, uh, words, uh, probably what we would diagnose today as Attention Deficit Disorder is what I would've had back then, a little O.C.D. Uh, kind of thing. And, uh, but back then you just simply pushed through, you dealt with it and, uh, maybe didn't have all the scientific resources that you have today, but because of that, I had a very low self-esteem about myself. Um, I had virtually a, a, a 1.8 GPA before, uh, I, I came to know Christ in my junior year of high school. So because it was a struggle, I never really, um, tried to work too hard because it was just, I couldn't remember things. I couldn't recall things.
[00:09:31] Uh, outside of the Dick and Jane book, I don't think I ever read a single book all through all the way till I was 18 years old. I never read a book in my life. Uh, prided myself on more of ditching school, prided myself on being the captain of the cross country team, the captain of the track team.
[00:09:50] And so that gave me maybe some exclusive privileges that I took advantage of and didn't have to make education important to me. Probably at the age of, uh, 14 years old. Um, I struggled in my home life with, uh, a little bit of a, even though I had a great hardworking father, um, there was some expectations that were not met. And because of that, I found some numbness or way of, uh, satisfying my pain through alcoholism.
[00:10:24] So I started getting exposed to alcohol as a 14 year old boy. So it was just simply beer, and then it would be whatever was available from vodka to whiskey. Uh, didn't really have a preference. I just simply wanted to get high.
[00:10:42] And I think a little bit of that addictive behavior, that compulsiveness would have driven that personality to want to out drink somebody, or to just numb the pain away. So that would've went on for just a short period of time, maybe like two or three years when I would've discovered in high school, um, that I was a decent, uh, cross country track and field runner, and, um, would've found my outlet, uh, in that.
[00:11:11] And then, um, went off to junior college, again, never really achieving, um, much success in grades. I felt like I wanted to be a physical therapist for a minute because I worked at a hospital and I worked in a physical therapy department. But when I recognized how much education and book knowledge would take, I knew that was gonna be a struggle.
[00:11:33] Athletics came very easy to me, so I thought I could easily become a physical education coach or some kind of, uh, trainer at that particular time. Um, a great opportunity to become a police officer was afforded to me, and that was really life changing, kind of a defining moment because we had a close friend who was a lieutenant who sat on the interviewing board of the Los Angeles Sheriff Department, and he knew at that particular time I had gone from running and I got exposed to road cycling and then I moved on to triathlon. And so we're talking about the early eighties, 1981 and 82 Wide World of sports, had the Ironman triathlon that you could watch, and I felt like, boy, I could really do that. So I early, as a young, you know, 20, 21 year old, found that I was, found that I was really good at that.
[00:12:29] Well, connecting the story with the sheriff department. He knew about, uh, a little bit of my career that was starting and some of the races or things that I had won and he said, boy, we'd love to have you and if, uh, come and work for us, cuz I felt like, and I think that deals with the calling is to protect people and to guide people in, uh, more in a natural sense than, than now I'm doing more in a spiritual sense.
[00:12:57] But it was still a calling and I think callings are, are put in us when we're in our mother's womb, as infants callings are there, and um, it's up to parents to discover individually what that calling is in their child's life. Cuz I think God puts calling, a gifting skills, talents in every single child.
[00:13:20] And it's up to the parents to discover by maybe exposing that child to different venues to find out if they're good at it, if they like it, and if it they find out that they're good at it, then they can invest in that kind of stuff. But sometimes we don't, you know, have that, um, participation taking place.
[00:13:39] So, yeah. Um, I'm sad to say kids going on to college and getting debt and, and uh, and, and, uh, you know, um, and, and, and not even using their degree that they got in college, trying to find themselves after, after years.
[00:13:53] So, uh, he said, yeah, just, uh, go on in there. You'll take the, the written test. Uh, they'll do a background, you have a pristine background, they ain't gonna find anything and you will pass the athletic. And, uh, we're, we just would love to keep you in the academy as a trainer.
[00:14:08] So like, my God, how, how awesome would that be to do something that I, two things that I would love to do, be a police officer, and then they're gonna, you know, I could still work out. Well, I took the test and it, I, it's very, very difficult for me to describe what I felt.
[00:14:28] Um, I'm reading the questions and I feel like I'm dumb. Now again, I had this 1.8 GPA or 1.7 GPA but when I came to Christ, I learned how to use discipline and that's really what it was. It's not that I was stupid or illiterate, I just wasn't disciplined because of my, uh, Attention Deficit Disorder.
[00:14:49] I wouldn't sit down, I wouldn't read, I wouldn't study. I'd be distracted by a fly on the wall or something. So I became real focused through my faith in Christ and realizing that everything I did would reflect him, and so, uh, I needed to push through my pain, so to speak. So, uh, I went from a 1.87 to a 3.8, so I, it, it could have happened, but I'm back to, you know, it happened well for me that I found out I wasn't stupid, let's say, or, or, uh, ignorant.
[00:15:20] But when I'm reading the questions, I, it's like a dumb spirit comes on me cuz I don't know the answer. It's like I'm, you know, I'm, I'm reading calculus or something in front of me because I, I can't compute it. And so I finish the test and I'm handing it to the instructor and I know in my heart I did not pass.
[00:15:40] There's no way I didn't pass. They graded it and said, you did not pass, but you could come back in six months. And I looked at her and said, thank you, but I will not be coming back, cuz I already knew in my heart that God had called me to ministry even though I wasn't really ready to do that. So that's when I ventured into triathloning and, um, found great success in that.
[00:16:05] Um, so in 1982 and 83, I did my first triathlon. It was called the, uh, the Budweiser, um, Budweiser Triathlon in Long Beach. Um, it was, um, uh, it was the, it was the first mini triathlon. It was the biggest one that had ever been held up to that time in 82. And, uh, there were 1200 contestants and mind you, this is virtually the first triathlon ever done.
[00:16:34] And I came in 22nd place and I thought, wow. And I won't even tell you about the swimming episode where I drifted 50 the yards away from the pack. Um, because I had only swam in my, the backyard, in my parents' 30 foot, 25 foot swimming pool, used to look it at the bottom and didn't know how to ocean swim. That's how, how naive I was.
[00:16:56] Uh, but, uh, amazingly did very well in that. And then in 83 I had, um, uh, made application to go to Bible school in Oklahoma and I kind of made a deal with God to say if, if I could do these next three triathlons, uh, Los Angeles Triathlon series, that's what it was called, in 83, uh, series of, uh, three races, two weeks back to back with prize money, then no matter what the outcome was, I'd get it outta my system and I'd go off and I did in August.
[00:17:28] Well, I land up taking third place, big money. I think I got 350 bucks back then. But it was a sense of satisfaction that, you know, like I, like, I don't know what movie it is, a famous movie. I could have been a contender. It was like, man, I could have did it, but it's okay. I went off to Bible school and that began my journey, uh, of, of uh, serving God in ministry.
[00:17:48] In 85 I was hired as a children and youth pastor, worked there for nine years and then, um, almost 25 years later, we started our church, abundant Living Family Church with 12 people, um, in our home. And now, you know, through the grace of God, we have 12,000 people, um, on 30 acres of land and 250,000 square feet of property.
[00:18:12] Um, and that's how we arrived there. But, 10 years ago, uh, 10 years ago, uh, at that particular time I was running marathons because athletics is a really big part of my life. I think, again, my ultimate dream would've been to be a professional athlete. If ministry didn't do it, I would've been, I would've been doing that.
[00:18:36] So, um, working out is something I love to do. It's not hard. , uh, I work out six days a week now. Uh, I would work out seven, but I recognize as a 57 year old man, I need to rest at least once a day. Um, so, um, I was running marathons at that particular time, qualified for the Boston Marathon, just to give some perspective, and, um, ran four marathons in uh, 2007 going into 2008, and in March of 2008, I would've ran my fourth run, in one year when I started experiencing pain in my body. And, uh, we went and ran a series of tests and something that's familiar to a lot of people, but hopefully not a lot of people have to experience it. We eventually found out that I had kidney cancer stage four.
[00:19:28] It had metastasized through my bones and probably for a few years I had been running with cancer in my body and, uh, would go through the toughest time of my life ever. Um, uh, um, at that particular time. So, I went through two years of conventional treatment, which was basically chemo, uh, chemo pill, and, uh, was given the doctor, uh, was the foremost, uh, kidney oncologist in the Kaiser system.
[00:19:57] And, he said that I had a 50% chance to live one year, and the longest living patient that had my kind of cancer was six years. Uh, that was the prognosis. Uh, he told me if I ever came off of the chemo, I'd be committing suicide. And, um, so my faith was massive in this area. My trust, my believe that God was in control no matter what, that he created me, uh, and he would be the only one that would tell me when my life was over.
[00:20:28] And by trying to, um, overcome all the thoughts of negativity, hearing things can be so powerful in forming images in our heads that somehow, like a, a computer or software, you have to learn how to detoxify yourself from what has been ingrained in you, whether that's a child or a grownup who hears that kind of stuff because it forms images in your head and the next thing you know, you start believing it.
[00:20:55] So that's why my faith was huge to get into the word of God and see what God had to say about my health and what I was gonna believe and trust God for. Now, I had been a Christian known God and a preacher for many years, but I had never known him, uh, in my relationship when I've had kidney cancer and how to believe in how to have a relationship and what he would want from me and what I needed to do.
[00:21:15] So it was like I, I had to, um, I had to reinvent myself. I had to, um, find God afresh and I had to find God a new and, um, after, after, uh, two years, uh, to make a long story short, I recognized, at least for me, I thought, do people die of cancer or do people die of the side effects of what they're taking?
[00:21:38] I came to terms with people don't die of cancer. They die of the side effects.
[00:21:42] When I read the side effects of that and I said, you know what? This is gonna kill me. Um, so there was a dissatisfaction within me and I had already heard what he had said. He was very clear, respectfully what he had said, he can't cure me. Uh, but a miraculously one year into it, every three months, I'd have to have a CAT scan to evaluate.
[00:22:05] I went in, after one year, which would've meant I had four that particular year, every three months, he said, I've reviewed your CAT scan twice cuz I couldn't believe what I saw. There are ca, there are legions or grows that are shrinking and then there's grows that we can't see anymore.
[00:22:24] So he said, this is equal to you winning the lottery, and in all my patients I've told very few people we're put, putting you in remission. So it's really a sign that God was answering and he was moving, which led to me saying, you know what? That is not going to make me well and heal me. Uh, I'm gonna have to trust God and maybe think about something else.
[00:22:47] And so, um, I began to search out for other alternatives and I came about, uh, upon naturopathic medicine, um, which is basically exercise, it's dieting, it's supplements, and uh, through all, uh, I met with three, uh, natural paths. The last one was in West Palm Beach, Florida, threw my chemo pills in the Atlantic Ocean and told my wife I'll never take 'em again, and, um, began a lifestyle change.
[00:23:19] Now as a marathoner, remember, I always say this, uh, I was in shape, but I was not healthy. And I think that that is kind of a template for a lot of people. They're in shape, which means that's what you physically see, whether they're in shape, intellectually with degrees, with clothes, with possessions, or how their body looks.
[00:23:41] But inside, they're not healthy. And I discovered that I was not healthy. I was not healthy because I didn't eat properly. I was not healthy because I did not deal with negative emotions very well. I was not healthy because I was a workaholic. I was not healthy because, uh, I didn't rest well. And all of that became poison and very toxin that ran my immune system down to nothing, so that when cancer came in, my immune system could not attack it. It was not strong enough, which led to the downfall.
[00:24:15] But here we are, 10 years later, I've not seen a doctor, had medication, nor a CAT scan, uh, in eight years. And we are 10 years from the original diagnosis and eight years since I, um, came off of, uh, chemo and have radically changed my lifestyle.
[00:24:35] So, um, I exercise, I try to get as much, uh, sun as I can, which is vitamin D, I call it God radiation. I do, uh, infrared saunas to get the toxins out of my body, stresses out of my body. Um, I will do lymphatic massages, which cleans out my lymphatic system, which is our garbage disposal. I drink plenty of water. I try to eat as raw and organic as possible.
[00:25:01] Um, but amongst all that, and again, the engine that drives my health train, if I was to build a, uh, you know, a train, it's, it's the engine is faith and all these other things that I just made mention of are the cars behind it. So my faith was really huge, in three and a half years, um, I got up every morning and read, uh, 20 minutes, 175 healing scriptures. And so that to me was the Bible says, um, you know, that the word is medicine to our flesh. And I chose to believe that if I could be diligent to take pills and get blood tests and, uh, high blood pressure pills and cat scans, why wouldn't I not be diligent when it came to my faith?
[00:25:44] So, um, that was real huge, but probably one of the most important things that I discovered on this journey, and, and we like instant everything. Nobody wants to wait for anything. My journey took about three and a half years to four years before I was pain free and 100% back to the person I was.
[00:26:06] Now, 10 years later, I tell people I'm stronger today as a 57 year old man than I was as a 47 year old man. Because I'm not only in shape, I'm healthy. And one of the greatest things that I discovered in peeling the layer that took the onion, so to speak, that took years. And if time was not my friend, I would've never discovered that.
[00:26:27] Cuz I remember back then I said, Lord, if you heal me by this date, I'll still be able to run this marathon. Because I wanted to run New York next, and then I wanted to run London next. So when I couldn't make New York date, I said, well, okay, we still got another three months and then I'll run London.
[00:26:43] And uh, so that kind of tells you maybe , all my perspectives and priorities weren't right, that God said now we're not gonna do that for a while, um, because there's some things I want to deal with. And it, it was number one, this, that Diego internalized things a lot because of my position, but it's also the position of people's lives.
[00:27:04] I didn't deal with rejection very well.
[00:27:07] My rejection in my profession is when people don't like my sermons, when people don't like my leadership. When people leave my church, when people Facebook or talk about me, when people say things aren't, aren't true, um, when staff members maybe leave or I have to fire people, I internalized all those things and I'd hold on to them for days and sometimes weeks and months, either blaming myself or saying I should have done something better or are they going down the street now to another church?
[00:27:44] And I internalized all that and I recognized, why would I ever do something like that? That's not healthy for me to do that. How can I do what God's called me to do when I'm looking backwards all the time? Am I that insecure? Am I, am I, am I that competitive? That I care that much? And, and so that probably is the greatest truth that came out of this.
[00:28:08] I'm not saying I'm perfect and I don't, you know, it's not like water off a duck's back now, but I will say the pain is a whole, the sting of the pain is a whole lot less than it's ever been before, cuz I catch myself now when I begin to say, when I'm, especially like I'm, I mountain bike a lot. I may think about someone in my head, I say, let it go Diego. Let it go and let's move on. Or something like that.
[00:28:32] So that has created this journey. Probably what I'm most passionate about now is just raising up young leaders and pouring my 33 years of pastoring into making young people great leaders, whether it's ministry or whether it's just, uh, life itself.
[00:28:51] Wherever God leads them is just sharing and pouring in and stepping aside. And, uh, they're gonna do things different than me, but that's okay, uh, I just love to have the relationship. I, I'm young at heart, so uh, I may not be hip on all the latest things, but at least I try to, uh, be knowledgeable and not resist and, uh, support them.
[00:29:14] Like tonight we have this big young people thing that's going on here, and we advertised it for months, all these new Christian hip-hop artists, I thought to myself, I don't even know one of these hip-hop artists, and I thought to myself, but that's okay. It doesn't matter if I don't know them, the young people know them.
[00:29:30] As long as they come and show up, then I'm here to, you know, raise the money for that crew, have built the building for them, and support the leadership so that that could go on.
[00:29:39] So, um, married to my wife, um, for, uh, 35 years, three children, three sons, and now six grandchildren that I pride myself in.
[00:29:51] Um, I love the iceberg principle. I believe that what's under the water is more important than what's above the water, and people are more attracted sometimes in our society to what's above the water, but I care more about the character and the integrity and the values and the priority, and that's often done under the water. And so that's what makes me, I want to hear "well done now, good and faithful servant."
[00:30:17] I'm nothing more than a servant of God. I am still that young kid that had insecurities that didn't read books, um, that thought he was dumb, um, that drank too much. And, um, I want to go back and help people like that. So I'm really passionate about reaching people that, um, are hurting people that are lost.
[00:30:40] And we live in a world where there's brokenness all around us. They may not always be crying out, but they are in, in their way. And I wanna be sensitive to that, to that cry when it comes and be able to help people.
[00:30:55] If it's all about what I want and what I like and what I choose, then you're never gonna be a great leader. Leaders give up the right, and I think that's the premise of Jesus. Jesus was a great leader. It was never about Him. It was always about the mission that His Father had given Him.
[00:31:19] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, senior Pastor Diego Mesa explains how true leaders have to give up the right to think about themselves, how they must put their own desires aside in order to help the greater good of the group. His definition of leadership shows us how it's not about ourselves, but rather about the mission that God gives us.
[00:31:50] Diego Mesa: Leadership is really important to me and, uh, it's, it's actually one of our founding pillars within this church. I want to choose to be an example to people. So leadership is huge. If I'm gonna propagate that, I have a school, uh, a leadership university, uh, that I did for about seven years more than 10 years ago before, uh, my illness took place, and then this year we're restart, uh, this year would be our third year from our relaunch of doing that, and 75% of the classes, 40 years and younger, and only 25% of the class can be older over 40 years old cuz I really wanna invest in young people and I don't want the older people to dominate.
[00:32:34] So in that class, we're gonna learn everything about 33 years of ministry. Not just the knowledge part, but really the application part and trying to get them, uh, to be great leaders in their homes and their businesses and in society and in church. And there's just, there's just some things that I recognize, um, are needed in our society when it comes to leadership. I think you get a degree in, in a university on, on leadership, um, but I think that there's something missing in that.
[00:33:06] Uh, we have kids, we have generations now that are more knowledgeable, more intellectual, and more confident in more fields than ever before because of the internet. It's just made us smart, very, very quickly. But at the same time, I recognize young people are just so fragile emotionally.
[00:33:25] They, uh, they can't handle rejection very well. Um, there's a sense sometimes of entitlement that things are given to them, that any time a rejection comes their way, they want to attack that and judge it and label it. Um, it's the syndrome where everybody on the baseball team gets a trophy, so nobody has to earn anything.
[00:33:47] So, um, I wanna be able to, to navigate and help through that. So my, I have definitions of leadership. Leadership, leaders have to give up the right to think about themselves. That's what a leader is all about. If it's all about what I want and what I like and what I choose, then you're never gonna be a great leader.
[00:34:08] Leaders give up the right, and I think that's the premise of Jesus. Jesus was a great leader. It was never about, Him, it was always about the mission that his Father had given Him. He said, not my will, but Your will be done. Everything I do, I'm here to please the Father. And I think that's what leadership is all about.
[00:34:31] It's about giving up the right to think about ourselves. So it's preferring someone above ourselves, whether that isn't how I treat someone and how I love somebody and how I care for somebody and how I serve somebody. And so I think if we have that mentality, we would not have all the abuse that we have, especially when it comes to the epidemic against women today.
[00:34:54] You know, a sexual harassment it, it's a male driven society that feels it has the right, and I'm not trying to be political in any way or or anything of that nature, but that is a selfish ambition or desire within us that when we watch a commercial, why do we have to see a, a girl in a bathing suit to sell something.
[00:35:17] Why do we giggle about it? Why is there a joke put behind it? Uh, what goes on in man caves and all those kinds of things. So I think that that's an example. Maybe it's an extreme example of what leadership need not be. So, you know, you got a lot of people who don't want to be role models. I don't know why you wouldn't want to be a role model, you know, you know, I think it was Charles Barkley years ago that said, I don't want to be nobody's role model.
[00:35:42] Well because of your influence, your platform, call it, acknowledge God or don't acknowledge God, but you have mo you have more than most people do. And no matter what our platforms are, we all have platforms of influence. We, people are always watching us and we can always influence people. And so I think that there is a level of exampleship and there's a level of role modeling, uh, that must be exhibited by, by all of us because somebody will always be affected.
[00:36:12] I've heard people say, for the longest time, I could do whatever I want because I'm not hurting nobody. Wrong. Somebody is always going to be hurt by what you do. A child, a, a neighbor, uh, somebody, a, a, a, a spouse, uh, there's an infinite effect of what takes place when something is introduced by, by one generation or by one person that causes a ripple effect or what I call an open door or a window that now makes it, it's acceptable.
[00:36:46] It's now tolerant because someone opened the door for that. And I just think leadership is bringing back standards, ethics, integrity, morality. I don't care what definition you want to use, but these are foundational. Leadership begins in the home. It's, if we could go back to a strong structured home, I think we'd, we'd answer all the ills of society today, but our homes are just so dysfunctional.
[00:37:15] So we need men to be men and fathers to be fathers and husbands, to be husbands and wives and and children, and bring back the family environment for the emotional makeup that's so necessary in our society. So I think for me, um, there, there has been a struggle with, uh, self-esteem issues, uh, again, because whether it related, and I think everyone has it though. Everyone has it because you're, everyone's picked on one way or another and made fun of. It's the nature of adolescence, I guess.
[00:37:47] And, and so whether it's your God forbid, big ears or ugly hair or big feet, it, it just seems like we always listen to the negative part and it's magnified versus the positive.
[00:38:00] And now we go years or a lifetime, uh, carrying that weight on us and we think that that is a hindrance, um, to succeeding, whatever that endeavor is. But I choose to now, as a 57 year old man come to the point, and it's taking me all this time to say that that's what made me unique. That's what made me different.
[00:38:23] Even in my struggles and my issues and my weaknesses, I could use them really to my advantage. And I always say when I was a little kid, um, kids used to make fun of my big thighs and I couldn't buy regular, um, jeans or pants in a store. I had to go to the hefty section and I would tell my mom, I wanna buy jeans where all the other kids did. She says, you can't fit into 'em.
[00:38:48] Well, little did I know when I became a teenager and would begin to run and bike, that is what worked best for me. Now, I love my big thighs kind of thing, and I think if people could begin to turn, the Bible says, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. God doesn't make action as, yes, some bad things happen to us, but we could use that to catapult us.
[00:39:09] To a testimony, to a platform, to a ministry, to help other people and let it be our drive, our motivation to spark us to be better, to be better people. So for me, it was recognizing that I am loved by God. I'm really loved by God and I'm, and I really am unique. God did not make a duplicate, nor a copy of another Diego, and until I begin to start doing Diego, really well, um, then I'm gonna emulate somebody else and maybe God will never be able to use me to reach the people that I'm called to reach. So, I, I've grown out of the fact that not everyone's gonna like me. I'm not gonna be accepted by everyone. People are gonna see my flaws, but that's okay because I'm not called to everybody.
[00:39:56] And I think individuals like a Mother Teresa, has inspired me to be a great leader. Somebody who more than 50 years have sacrificed their life back to the leadership equation. That's sacrifice, that's struggle. Never wanting a platform, never wanting a paycheck, never wanting a title, um, just did the call of God on their lives and found great satisfaction that individuals like Billy Graham who've had 50, 60 years of successful ministry without integrity.
[00:40:24] And I love, I love his Modesto Manifesto that he made up, which was just simply accountability with the four men around him that would hold him accountable. That he didn't lie, that he didn't cheat, that he stayed away from temptations. And I think that's what we need. Anybody who usually falls, it's because they fall alone in isolation.
[00:40:46] They have a secret lifestyle. So I think great leadership and, and great character comes with the people that we surround ourselves with. And just a lot of, a lot of us, uh, because of low self-esteem will never be transparent because we think we'll be judged. But in fact, I think when you find the right people and that takes a process of time, it's not easily found, then those are people you can be honest and be held accountable to.
[00:41:10] So individuals like that, my dad, who worked very, very hard, um, taught me again the discipline of hard work to, you know, if you're gonna start a job, to finish a job, um, I think he's been a hero, my mom has been a hero. Um, how I was raised with a mom who prayed, so going off to school, uh, uh, or waking up in the morning was not an alarm clock, it was hearing my mom pray.
[00:41:35] Uh, and that just put roots with within me, even as a Catholic, uh, in those days to hear, uh, my mom, to hear my mom pray. Um, so those are some of my heroes, uh, that have shaped my life.
[00:41:49] I think heroism to me would be, um, to do things that make you feel uncomfortable. The challenge of doing the uncomfortable, not always doing what we like, that that ought to come very easy to us.
[00:42:04] Uh, so I, uh, okay, so I, I ran a marathon. Because I ran a marathon, does that make me a hero? That would not be a hero to me because I, I naturally, innately love to do it. But if I walked across the street to someone that was homeless and talked to them, that's my definition of a hero because that does not come innately to me.
[00:42:27] That challenges everything within me to love someone different than me, and that makes me very uncomfortable and break down cultural barriers or, uh, stereotypes in my mind. Um, that's what a hero does. A hero, again, I think does things that makes them uncomfortable in their lives. So I, I, I, if somebody had a great achievement, I just would look at them and say, did that achievement come naturally to you? Or did it take a lot of work of uncomfortability and inconvenience? And, uh, so, and then my other definition is, am I, am I a hero? Let's just say in athletic terms, am I a hero? Because I had a great game? Let lemme tell you back, am I a hero because I had a great play? Am I a hero because I had a great game? Am I a hero because I had a great season? Or am I a hero because I had a great career?
[00:43:22] We're so quick to label heroism as one event, and I think it's a lifetime of being a 360 degree leader. I could be a hero on the stage, but am I a hero in my home? I could be a hero when I'm on the limelight is on me, but in the secret when no one's watching and I could get away with something, am I a hero?
[00:43:48] So heroism would be, are you a 360 degree leader where someone can walk completely around you and judge your life and say, I think that that's what a hero is, naturally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, in his home with his, you know, on the job, off the job, nine to five off the clock, all those kinds of things.
[00:44:10] I, I think, um, you know, because there's, there's this, um, disciplined athlete within me, um, I sometimes can put my discipline's expectations and lifestyles on other people, and I, I, I can't do that. Not everybody is wired like me. They didn't come from my upbringing, they didn't come from my experiences, they were not exposed maybe to some of the things I was exposed to.
[00:44:39] So I gotta try to meet people where they are and try, let's just say on a scale from one to 10, if I meet you at a one, my job may not be to get you to a 10. Can I get you to a two? And if I meet you at a five, my job is not to get you to a 10. Can I move you to a six?
[00:44:57] Hopefully I'm not moving you backwards, or else that probably wouldn't be good leadership, but that's what I try to tell myself is, um, because I think then you get into, uh, legalism, you get into the law, you get into judgmentalism. Um, you, you separate, you push people away, uh, the people get disappointed and frustrated.
[00:45:21] And so if, if as a runner, let's say you came to me and said, Diego, would you train me for a marathon? I'd say, absolutely.
[00:45:31] I, I don't care what your credentials are. I don't care how you run or what you have not done. I'd feel honored doing that. And whatever I can do to get you to finish, cross the finish line, is what I'm gonna do. You're not gonna be able to run as fast as me, I would not put that expectation on you, but I'm gonna try to run alongside of you and I'm gonna try to give you the water while you're passing the mile marker. I'm gonna try to be your greatest cheerleader and say what is the best that you can do, and try to define what that would be.
[00:46:02] So I think that that's what I would say I love to do within the church is just try to make people better, people not like me, not my expectations of what they should be, but what the, what God's expectations of them.
[00:46:16] You know, uh, there was a woman in the Bible who was, um, broke the alabaster box, and she, which was an expensive perfume, and she was a prostitute.
[00:46:27] And she did that because she loved Jesus. And the religious leaders had had, uh, a problem with that because she had broke something of great value and just sort of speak, wasted it on Jesus. And Jesus tried to say, um, this woman has been forgiven much. That's why she's so generous. And I don't want to forget how much I've been forgiven and I want to be generous to other people.
[00:46:54] But I don't know what they've been forgiven of. So I don't know what the, how much they want to give. So it's not my job to determine that that's between them and God. I just want to coach them along and make them a, a better leader. And the number one way to do that is I think, by being an example to them, and, uh, for me as a preacher is to teach them about Jesus and what Jesus said in the Bible, and, you know, give them all the tools that I possibly can to be a better person.
[00:47:29] I am reminded of the quote by the, by the great, uh, author Alex Haley, uh, who wrote Roots. And he said, "when an older person dies, a library burns down." And that's a great quote because people that get old, they feel like they're worthless and they're not. They have so many stories to tell and it, it just takes young people to say, you know what? I thank God for the internet and social media, but there's some things that I can't get through that, I gotta hang around people and learn from their mistakes, and learn from their failures and borrow their wisdom. And now that puts me 20, 30 years ahead of the game as a young person, because I borrowed Diego's wisdom.
[00:48:19] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Diego Mesa talks about legacy as a way of transferring his knowledge and his resources to people in order to give them better lives. We listen to his struggle to love himself and how he depends on God for his strengths even more than his weaknesses.
[00:48:46] Diego Mesa: I think legacy is, legacy is not what I'm gonna take, but what I leave behind. What's gonna be here a hundred years when Diego is gone. And I hope that it is not a building. Uh, I hope it's not a placard. Uh, I hope it's not anything like that. Uh, the greatest thing that I could leave behind, um, is my memories, uh, is my stories, um, is my exampleship. Uh, is my lifestyle and all that is in people, that, that's my greatest legacy. It is going to be people. How many people have I made better? How many people, if, if, if in in life using these scale again, if I was a five in whatever I achieved in my lifetime, can I produce people that are sixes, seven and eights and tens?
[00:49:40] And I want to tell people that, that's my legacy is telling this next generation do not do whatever I am, and, and I'm a nothing, but whatever I've achieved and whatever I've done, I'm nothing compared to what you can be. You can do it and you can do it far better than I can do it. And so that will be my legacy, is to see people far exceed what I did and that I have taught to the best of my ability and transferred all my knowledge, all my wisdom, all my relationship, all my resources to them to make them better.
[00:50:14] Uh, I'm reminded of the quote by the, by the great, uh, author Alex Haley, uh, who wrote Roots. And he said, "when an older person dies, a library burns down." And that's a great quote because people that get old, they feel like they're worthless and they're not. They have so many stories to tell and it, it just takes young people to say, you know what? I thank God for the internet and social media, but there's some things that I can't get through that, I gotta hang around people and learn from their mistakes, and learn from their failures and borrow their wisdom. And now that puts me 20, 30 years ahead of the game as a young person, because I borrowed Diego's wisdom on how to navigate through temptation and how to navigate through sickness and how to navigate through marriage and how to raise boys and grandchildren, how to build a ministry.
[00:51:11] And so my legacy is, is that all that I am will be passed on, they will have better, will, will make themselves better. I will not retain anything, um, and that there is a true duplication and multiplication taking place.
[00:51:26] Uh, probably one of the, um, hardest lessons I've learned because, um, I'm such a, uh, a person with a driven personality, um, that's, I mean, if, if we got on the, if we went on a run today, I'm gonna wanna beat you. If we went on a bike ride, I'm gonna wanna beat you. But also if, if I was by myself, I want to beat myself, and I want to, I wanna, I'm on this app called Strava, and Strava follows all the, the, uh, runners and bikers that have ever been on that route.
[00:52:00] So you can match yourself with all the people that, hundreds or thousands of people that have run that. And so I look at that all the time, and I'm trying to beat people I don't e I don't even know, kind of thing. So I'm just saying that that competition has formed who I am kind of thing.
[00:52:18] So my, my greatest, um, thing is, is to learn to really depend on God, um, where I am gifted. I could depend on God, where I'm weak and I'm frail. That's easy to, I need, God, You to help me here. I really need him to help me where I'm really gifted, cuz there's a tendency to think the more experience I am and the more educated I am and the more gifted and strong I am, the less I need God in this area where I really need God in these other areas.
[00:52:46] But it's, I think it's the opposite. We need Him also in these other areas because I can make a mistake and, and lean on my own, on my own wisdom in, in, in, in doing that. So learning really, um, to trust God more, and probably, uh, the underlining thing, which you've heard today, and, and, and I'll be very transparent, um, it's taken me, it, it's only been in the last year that I've really learned to like myself, like myself.
[00:53:21] I'm a, I'm a pretty cool guy and, uh, I, I think I've always wanted, I've always felt like I needed to earn that from people. I had to prove that to people. I had to have the medal around me or the paycheck, or build the big church so that you would give me the approval that I so desperately needed.
[00:53:42] I've come to terms, I don't need that. I don't need anything from a man. I don't need anything. Only thing I really need is God's pleasure and God's satisfaction. And that was done on Calvary's Cross already. So I continue to remind myself today, what, what am I trying to prove? What am I still trying to earn?
[00:54:01] And I don't need to do that if I would just accept that I got a crooked smile and my, you know, I got big thighs and, uh, and I can't enunciate some, even when I'm doing a sermon, sometimes I say, what's that big word? And I'm just gonna read it really fast and hope that nobody can catch it. That's okay.
[00:54:20] That's what makes me me. And stop, you know, beating yourself up and dogging yourself and saying words like, I'm stupid. I'm dumb. Why did I do that? I know better. And we so naturally do that all the time, and I, I don't think that that's positive in doing that. So it's really been the last year where I've really learned my lesson, and that is that, uh, I've learned to like myself because God likes me.
[00:54:45] And when I've learned to like myself, uh, then I can, I can really do the best that I can do, and as, as long as I do my best, that's all that really matters. Well, even today, after 33 years of public speaking, um, there is always a little bit of nervousness and, um, specially if it's a, like Easter or a big event or a platform or arena that I'm not familiar with where I'm a guest or something of that nature.
[00:55:18] Then I, I, like anybody else, put pressure on myself and I want to do my very best. And sometimes, uh, who's in the audience can influence me and affect me. Um, so, um, it's probably not at the magnitude that it was 33 years ago. Um, but it's definitely still there a little bit. But I've learned that the more that I pray, and the more that I depend on God and the more comfortable I am with the material of which I'm delivering, then the "stage fright" is just seconds.
[00:55:57] And then you get into your gift, you get into your material and what we would call the presence of God, the gifting of God comes upon you. And the next thing you know, you're flowing and you don't think twice ab about it. Um, I, I think of the audience as, as me. I, I, that's the way I look at them. I think of them as people who, um, have needs.
[00:56:22] They have wants, um, you know, they have concerns, they have problems. And you know what, you need to help them by being transparent. That's one of my styles is I want to be very, very transparent. I wanna, don't want to, um, give the illusion that I have all the answers or I'm, I'm, uh, perfect, so that's why sometimes when I'm doing sermons, I say, here's the scripture and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a shot to interpret it the best way I can do, cuz I want there to be a open grounds for other people's interpretations and that I don't, um, have the absolut, uh, truth or revelation on that.
[00:57:02] So that helps me to say that I'm not really controlling people and talking down to people, nor do I have all the answers to people. So my style, I think, helps me to be comfortable, uh, to say, here's the little knowledge I have and I'm gonna just share it with you.
[00:57:22] I hope it can help you, kind of thing. But there's definitely still a little intimidation there, but a big, you know, if you say, Diego, what, what is your number one go-to that has made you who you are today, that your life would fall apart if you didn't have? It's prayer.
[00:57:39] It's, every day, it's, it's just a constantly all day long, I'm talking to God like He's next to me.
[00:57:46] Through my weaknesses, through my challenges, through my problems. I talk to Him with all my emotions. Um, the conversations can be, quiet, they could be loud. Um, they could be, I don't understand, they could be crying, they could be anger. But I talk to Him like He's my father. And I think that that undergirds everything that I do, especially, especially when it comes to preaching.
[00:58:12] I have kind of prayed through all my emotions and when I sense a level of his presence with me, that makes it easier for me to go. So if I ever, there are times when I feel like I haven't prepared enough and I, and I'm really nervous, so I have to pull aside and I have to pray more. And 99% of the time it's subsides. I still have that little moment when I'm gonna get on the stage, but then it goes away.
[00:58:37] Prob probably the most inspirational person in my life was, um, an elderly lady by the name of Dr. Mary Allen Strong, who, um, died a few years ago at the age of 93. And, um, she personally knew five presidents. Her husband was an ambassador, um, to Uganda, I believe.
[00:59:03] And um, she was one of the first African American business entrepreneurs with, uh, five businesses, uh, all over, um, our country. Um, she was a publisher, a newspaper, um, um, owner. Um, she achieved so many things, um, and yet she was a preacher also, and I think she inspired me. That there are no limitations, um, within our giftings and where God could use us.
[00:59:36] And the thing that impressed me the most outside of her credentials, they, they stood alone, I mean, she, she knew JFK personally. She knew Richard Nixon personally. She knew Dr. Martin Luther King, uh, uh, personally. So she knew, knew these people. But what what impressed me was she was never moved by their status.
[01:00:02] And, um, I said I want to, I want to get that way cuz I, we can get all, uh, you know, nervous or we could get all, uh, uncomfortable and act silly sometimes around people that are, are somebody in our society, but they're just regular people. And I, I wanted to just be able to make people like that feel comfortable if they ever come, uh, in front of me.
[01:00:27] But again, back to her prayer life and she could hear the voice of God so clearly that, um, her, her prayer life and her ability to pray for people and tap into the heart of God for them that would make them weep and cry was something that was very, very desirable to me. Very, as much as I wanted to run a marathon, let's say, or desire a certain position, that became very attractive to me to be able to hear God like that, and that's where I discovered it was the amount of hours that she spent in prayer. Um, Privately that gave her that gifting to be able to do that. Um, and, and how bold she was to just share her faith with a, with a stranger.
[01:01:20] So, um, she probably, um, uh, influenced me the most. I, I think the, the best things that people can do is, um, learn, uh, to forgive themselves, um, from anything and everything.
[01:01:38] Learn to forgive the person that did something to them. It's amazing how we hold on to grudges and bitterness to people that are even dead now in our lives, holding on to things. And you'd be so much more happier, uh, if you just have the mentality that I'm not impressed by anyone and I'm not easily offended by anybody.
[01:02:02] Two great extremes. I don't care who you are, you don't impress me, so you're not gonna change me, and I don't care what you do to me, cuz I'm still gonna walk in love and I'm still gonna create a great attitude and I'm not gonna hold on to bitterness and unforgiveness and I'm still gonna respect you and I'm still gonna be kind to you.
[01:02:20] And, uh, I think that, that those truths are good things to live by.
[01:02:28] Steve Gatena: When we struggle with self-esteem issues, we're really struggling to trust God. God made each of us as He intended. Yes, we have differences and thank God we do. God gave each of us different strengths and weaknesses so that he could work his divine plan through each of us individually, and he always does.
[01:02:59] God only wants us to do our best, He takes care of the rest. We have, but to trust Him and to trust that He created us on purpose, we can walk with courage and strength knowing that nothing anyone can say or anyone can do can change what God created. No one, not one word, not one action is stronger than God.
[01:03:29] We are children of God, He always walks beside us, lending us His strength, His courage, and showering us with His unconditional love, approval, and satisfaction.
[01:03:42] In Part one this week on Relentless Hope, pastor Diego Mesa taught us how he learned to let go of a lifetime of insecurities and low self-esteem. Through Pastor Diego's trust, belief, and faith in God, Pastor Diego not only beat stage four kidney cancer, but he learned how to finally like himself exactly as the person God made him to be.
[01:04:11] In part two of this three part series, pastor Diego taught us that as leaders, we have a responsibility to be an example and a role model to everyone around us, showing them how to handle rejection and how to handle feelings of insecurity, and how to handle feelings of low self-esteem.
[01:04:31] Pastor Diego encouraged us to embrace our unique selves, recognizing that God unconditionally loves us just as we are, and Pastor Diego invites us to help others embrace their unique selves too, and he explains until we embody the person that God made us to be, God will never be able to use us to reach the people that he's called us to reach.
[01:05:01] Let me say that again: until we embody the person that God made us to be, God will never be able to use us to reach the people he's called to reach.
[01:05:16] In part three of this three part series on Relentless Hope, we also learn how Pastor Diego is working to leave a legacy for the next generation, encouraging them to be more and do more than what Pastor Diego has done in his life. He also taught us the importance of prayer and how he uses it every single week to work through his emotions.
[01:05:42] As Pastor Diego explained, when we pray through all our emotions, including our low self-esteem, our doubts, and our insecurities, we can better sense God's presence with us, which makes life easier, and everything in it better.
[01:06:02] We were created for a purpose. And we were created exactly in the image that God intended. Be at peace knowing that you are a child of God. He never makes mistakes. We have to trust in Him and all His good works. And those good works include the miracle that is you exactly as you are.
[01:06:34] If you liked this week's episode, a Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, I'm asking you to share it with someone you love.
[01:06:45] You never know the impact you can make by sharing one inspirational story. My name is Steve Gatena and I'm your host. And until next time, I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
How Faith Helped Me Survive Stage 4 Cancer – Diego Mesa
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: We live in a world that focuses on outward appearances, possessions, wealth, material. These are external validations that we mistakenly believe makes us worthy or deserving. We live in a world that focuses on the self, that tells us to be preoccupied with comparing our lives to the lives of others. This is not God's way.
[00:00:31] God wishes us to be humble, to think less of ourselves and more about other people. He doesn't want us comparing ourselves to anyone else for He made each and every one of us perfectly and beautifully unique in His image. When we feel insecure or suffer from low self-esteem, none of that is God. It's the enemy trying to keep you from the truth about who you are, and that is that you are a divine child of God, made perfectly and beautifully in God's image.
[00:01:14] This week on Pray.com's Relentless Hope, pastor Diego Mesa teaches us about overcoming our insecurities and low self-esteem by returning to God, by leaning into our faith, and by trusting that he is in control. We learn how Pastor Diego spent a lifetime feeling insecure and how he struggled with feelings of rejection, taking things personally and being ultra-competitive.
[00:01:50] As he shares it took getting diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer for him to listen to what God had to say about becoming a healthier person. This meant undergoing a complete lifestyle change and detoxifying his thoughts, his beliefs, his habits, his diet, his work, and his exercise. Pastor Diego also teaches us that great leaders put aside their needs and wants to focus on making the people around them better.
[00:02:28] Pastor Diego explains leadership is also about coaching people not to become who we think they should be or to mold them in our image, rather, it's to support them on their way to becoming who God intended them to be. As Pastor Diego reminds us, we're all unique and we all carry with us some insecurities, typically born from childhood experiences.
[00:02:58] We carry these insecurities into our adult lives, but when we embrace our uniqueness and when we realize, that God made us exactly as he intended, then our differences become our strengths. When it comes to leaving a legacy, pastor Diego shows us that it's not what we take with us, but who we leave behind us.
[00:03:26] I'm gonna say that again.
[00:03:28] It's not what we take with us, but who we leave behind us.
[00:03:35] We learn how Pastor Diego wants his legacy to be, that he made people better, that he gave them all his knowledge, stories, memories, learnings, and resources so that they could far exceed what he did in his lifetime. We also learned how Pastor Diego has recently learned to like himself and how he spent decades searching for approval from everyone else.
[00:04:07] But in the end, the only approval we need is God's, and that's what was already given to us when Jesus died on the cross.
[00:04:27] Diego Mesa was preparing to run his fourth marathon of the year in 2008 when he started experiencing pain in his body that would forever change his life.
[00:04:41] Diego Mesa: 10 years ago, uh, 10 years ago when I started experiencing pain in my body, and, uh, we went and ran a series of tests in something that's familiar to a lot of people, but hopefully not a lot of people have to experience it. We eventually found out that I had kidney cancer, stage four. It had metastasized through my bones.
[00:05:03] And probably for a few years I had been running with cancer in my body and, uh, would go through the toughest time of my life ever. So I went through two years of conventional treatment, which was basically chemo, uh, chemo pill. And, uh, was given the doctor, uh, was the foremost, uh, kidney oncologist in the Kaiser system.
[00:05:26] And he said that I had a 50% chance to live one year, and the longest living patient that had my kind of cancer was six years. Uh, that was the prognosis. Uh, he told me if I ever came off of the chemo, I'd be committing suicide. So my faith was massive in this area. My trust, my belief that God was in control no matter what, that He created me, uh, and He would be the only one that would tell me when my life was over
[00:05:59] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, senior Pastor Diego Mesa of Abundant Living Family Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California teaches us how to defeat the odds and turn massive challenges into success. From founding a 6,000 person weekly member attendance church with his wife Cindy, to overcoming stage four cancer.
[00:06:24] This is Diego Mesa's life story.
[00:06:33] Diego Mesa: Hey, my name is Diego Mesa, actually, it's Diego Mesa, uh, Damien Diego, Joseph Raymond Damien Mesa, Jr. I have a typical Latin, uh, Mexican name, uh, I grew up in, uh, Southern California, uh, about 20 miles, uh, east of Los Angeles and outside of a stint, uh, of going to Bible school in Oklahoma. I've, uh, been here all my life and I was raised in, um, um, what we would say, a middle class, probably more of a lower middle class family with a hardworking, uh, father and a hardworking mother, typical father who worked, uh, two to three jobs, uh, to keep bread on the table.
[00:07:16] And, um, so I had a good role, a role model of what hard work was all about and, uh, grew up, uh, with a, I I have a Catholic background, so I went eight, eight years to Catholic school. Uh, now that I'm a pastor and a preacher of 33 years, I can remember that I felt a call of God, even as a young boy, and I remember, uh, my mom, uh, telling me that I said to her, I wanna work for God.
[00:07:45] And she said, oh, you want to be a, a priest, huh? And I said, oh, no, I don't want to be a priest. Um, so those were the early days that even felt like maybe, um, I would do something for God, even though as a young boy I may not have equated it well. Um, and then, you know, I had my stench of just trying to find my identity like any young teenager does.
[00:08:06] Uh, dabbling and exposing into all kinds of little stuff. Nothing, nothing really, um, major, uh, in that, but I found a lot of, um, relief in athletics. So, It seemed like, um, studying and book knowledge and intellect came very, very difficult to me. In fact, um, uh, my mom spent many, many of months reading Dick and Jane, which was the book of the day back then.
[00:08:36] People read Dick and Jane books, and it was very, very hard for me to enunciate and pronunciate, uh, words, uh, probably what we would diagnose today as Attention Deficit Disorder is what I would've had back then, a little O.C.D. Uh, kind of thing. And, uh, but back then you just simply pushed through, you dealt with it and, uh, maybe didn't have all the scientific resources that you have today, but because of that, I had a very low self-esteem about myself. Um, I had virtually a, a, a 1.8 GPA before, uh, I, I came to know Christ in my junior year of high school. So because it was a struggle, I never really, um, tried to work too hard because it was just, I couldn't remember things. I couldn't recall things.
[00:09:31] Uh, outside of the Dick and Jane book, I don't think I ever read a single book all through all the way till I was 18 years old. I never read a book in my life. Uh, prided myself on more of ditching school, prided myself on being the captain of the cross country team, the captain of the track team.
[00:09:50] And so that gave me maybe some exclusive privileges that I took advantage of and didn't have to make education important to me. Probably at the age of, uh, 14 years old. Um, I struggled in my home life with, uh, a little bit of a, even though I had a great hardworking father, um, there was some expectations that were not met. And because of that, I found some numbness or way of, uh, satisfying my pain through alcoholism.
[00:10:24] So I started getting exposed to alcohol as a 14 year old boy. So it was just simply beer, and then it would be whatever was available from vodka to whiskey. Uh, didn't really have a preference. I just simply wanted to get high.
[00:10:42] And I think a little bit of that addictive behavior, that compulsiveness would have driven that personality to want to out drink somebody, or to just numb the pain away. So that would've went on for just a short period of time, maybe like two or three years when I would've discovered in high school, um, that I was a decent, uh, cross country track and field runner, and, um, would've found my outlet, uh, in that.
[00:11:11] And then, um, went off to junior college, again, never really achieving, um, much success in grades. I felt like I wanted to be a physical therapist for a minute because I worked at a hospital and I worked in a physical therapy department. But when I recognized how much education and book knowledge would take, I knew that was gonna be a struggle.
[00:11:33] Athletics came very easy to me, so I thought I could easily become a physical education coach or some kind of, uh, trainer at that particular time. Um, a great opportunity to become a police officer was afforded to me, and that was really life changing, kind of a defining moment because we had a close friend who was a lieutenant who sat on the interviewing board of the Los Angeles Sheriff Department, and he knew at that particular time I had gone from running and I got exposed to road cycling and then I moved on to triathlon. And so we're talking about the early eighties, 1981 and 82 Wide World of sports, had the Ironman triathlon that you could watch, and I felt like, boy, I could really do that. So I early, as a young, you know, 20, 21 year old, found that I was, found that I was really good at that.
[00:12:29] Well, connecting the story with the sheriff department. He knew about, uh, a little bit of my career that was starting and some of the races or things that I had won and he said, boy, we'd love to have you and if, uh, come and work for us, cuz I felt like, and I think that deals with the calling is to protect people and to guide people in, uh, more in a natural sense than, than now I'm doing more in a spiritual sense.
[00:12:57] But it was still a calling and I think callings are, are put in us when we're in our mother's womb, as infants callings are there, and um, it's up to parents to discover individually what that calling is in their child's life. Cuz I think God puts calling, a gifting skills, talents in every single child.
[00:13:20] And it's up to the parents to discover by maybe exposing that child to different venues to find out if they're good at it, if they like it, and if it they find out that they're good at it, then they can invest in that kind of stuff. But sometimes we don't, you know, have that, um, participation taking place.
[00:13:39] So, yeah. Um, I'm sad to say kids going on to college and getting debt and, and uh, and, and, uh, you know, um, and, and, and not even using their degree that they got in college, trying to find themselves after, after years.
[00:13:53] So, uh, he said, yeah, just, uh, go on in there. You'll take the, the written test. Uh, they'll do a background, you have a pristine background, they ain't gonna find anything and you will pass the athletic. And, uh, we're, we just would love to keep you in the academy as a trainer.
[00:14:08] So like, my God, how, how awesome would that be to do something that I, two things that I would love to do, be a police officer, and then they're gonna, you know, I could still work out. Well, I took the test and it, I, it's very, very difficult for me to describe what I felt.
[00:14:28] Um, I'm reading the questions and I feel like I'm dumb. Now again, I had this 1.8 GPA or 1.7 GPA but when I came to Christ, I learned how to use discipline and that's really what it was. It's not that I was stupid or illiterate, I just wasn't disciplined because of my, uh, Attention Deficit Disorder.
[00:14:49] I wouldn't sit down, I wouldn't read, I wouldn't study. I'd be distracted by a fly on the wall or something. So I became real focused through my faith in Christ and realizing that everything I did would reflect him, and so, uh, I needed to push through my pain, so to speak. So, uh, I went from a 1.87 to a 3.8, so I, it, it could have happened, but I'm back to, you know, it happened well for me that I found out I wasn't stupid, let's say, or, or, uh, ignorant.
[00:15:20] But when I'm reading the questions, I, it's like a dumb spirit comes on me cuz I don't know the answer. It's like I'm, you know, I'm, I'm reading calculus or something in front of me because I, I can't compute it. And so I finish the test and I'm handing it to the instructor and I know in my heart I did not pass.
[00:15:40] There's no way I didn't pass. They graded it and said, you did not pass, but you could come back in six months. And I looked at her and said, thank you, but I will not be coming back, cuz I already knew in my heart that God had called me to ministry even though I wasn't really ready to do that. So that's when I ventured into triathloning and, um, found great success in that.
[00:16:05] Um, so in 1982 and 83, I did my first triathlon. It was called the, uh, the Budweiser, um, Budweiser Triathlon in Long Beach. Um, it was, um, uh, it was the, it was the first mini triathlon. It was the biggest one that had ever been held up to that time in 82. And, uh, there were 1200 contestants and mind you, this is virtually the first triathlon ever done.
[00:16:34] And I came in 22nd place and I thought, wow. And I won't even tell you about the swimming episode where I drifted 50 the yards away from the pack. Um, because I had only swam in my, the backyard, in my parents' 30 foot, 25 foot swimming pool, used to look it at the bottom and didn't know how to ocean swim. That's how, how naive I was.
[00:16:56] Uh, but, uh, amazingly did very well in that. And then in 83 I had, um, uh, made application to go to Bible school in Oklahoma and I kind of made a deal with God to say if, if I could do these next three triathlons, uh, Los Angeles Triathlon series, that's what it was called, in 83, uh, series of, uh, three races, two weeks back to back with prize money, then no matter what the outcome was, I'd get it outta my system and I'd go off and I did in August.
[00:17:28] Well, I land up taking third place, big money. I think I got 350 bucks back then. But it was a sense of satisfaction that, you know, like I, like, I don't know what movie it is, a famous movie. I could have been a contender. It was like, man, I could have did it, but it's okay. I went off to Bible school and that began my journey, uh, of, of uh, serving God in ministry.
[00:17:48] In 85 I was hired as a children and youth pastor, worked there for nine years and then, um, almost 25 years later, we started our church, abundant Living Family Church with 12 people, um, in our home. And now, you know, through the grace of God, we have 12,000 people, um, on 30 acres of land and 250,000 square feet of property.
[00:18:12] Um, and that's how we arrived there. But, 10 years ago, uh, 10 years ago, uh, at that particular time I was running marathons because athletics is a really big part of my life. I think, again, my ultimate dream would've been to be a professional athlete. If ministry didn't do it, I would've been, I would've been doing that.
[00:18:36] So, um, working out is something I love to do. It's not hard. , uh, I work out six days a week now. Uh, I would work out seven, but I recognize as a 57 year old man, I need to rest at least once a day. Um, so, um, I was running marathons at that particular time, qualified for the Boston Marathon, just to give some perspective, and, um, ran four marathons in uh, 2007 going into 2008, and in March of 2008, I would've ran my fourth run, in one year when I started experiencing pain in my body. And, uh, we went and ran a series of tests and something that's familiar to a lot of people, but hopefully not a lot of people have to experience it. We eventually found out that I had kidney cancer stage four.
[00:19:28] It had metastasized through my bones and probably for a few years I had been running with cancer in my body and, uh, would go through the toughest time of my life ever. Um, uh, um, at that particular time. So, I went through two years of conventional treatment, which was basically chemo, uh, chemo pill, and, uh, was given the doctor, uh, was the foremost, uh, kidney oncologist in the Kaiser system.
[00:19:57] And, he said that I had a 50% chance to live one year, and the longest living patient that had my kind of cancer was six years. Uh, that was the prognosis. Uh, he told me if I ever came off of the chemo, I'd be committing suicide. And, um, so my faith was massive in this area. My trust, my believe that God was in control no matter what, that he created me, uh, and he would be the only one that would tell me when my life was over.
[00:20:28] And by trying to, um, overcome all the thoughts of negativity, hearing things can be so powerful in forming images in our heads that somehow, like a, a computer or software, you have to learn how to detoxify yourself from what has been ingrained in you, whether that's a child or a grownup who hears that kind of stuff because it forms images in your head and the next thing you know, you start believing it.
[00:20:55] So that's why my faith was huge to get into the word of God and see what God had to say about my health and what I was gonna believe and trust God for. Now, I had been a Christian known God and a preacher for many years, but I had never known him, uh, in my relationship when I've had kidney cancer and how to believe in how to have a relationship and what he would want from me and what I needed to do.
[00:21:15] So it was like I, I had to, um, I had to reinvent myself. I had to, um, find God afresh and I had to find God a new and, um, after, after, uh, two years, uh, to make a long story short, I recognized, at least for me, I thought, do people die of cancer or do people die of the side effects of what they're taking?
[00:21:38] I came to terms with people don't die of cancer. They die of the side effects.
[00:21:42] When I read the side effects of that and I said, you know what? This is gonna kill me. Um, so there was a dissatisfaction within me and I had already heard what he had said. He was very clear, respectfully what he had said, he can't cure me. Uh, but a miraculously one year into it, every three months, I'd have to have a CAT scan to evaluate.
[00:22:05] I went in, after one year, which would've meant I had four that particular year, every three months, he said, I've reviewed your CAT scan twice cuz I couldn't believe what I saw. There are ca, there are legions or grows that are shrinking and then there's grows that we can't see anymore.
[00:22:24] So he said, this is equal to you winning the lottery, and in all my patients I've told very few people we're put, putting you in remission. So it's really a sign that God was answering and he was moving, which led to me saying, you know what? That is not going to make me well and heal me. Uh, I'm gonna have to trust God and maybe think about something else.
[00:22:47] And so, um, I began to search out for other alternatives and I came about, uh, upon naturopathic medicine, um, which is basically exercise, it's dieting, it's supplements, and uh, through all, uh, I met with three, uh, natural paths. The last one was in West Palm Beach, Florida, threw my chemo pills in the Atlantic Ocean and told my wife I'll never take 'em again, and, um, began a lifestyle change.
[00:23:19] Now as a marathoner, remember, I always say this, uh, I was in shape, but I was not healthy. And I think that that is kind of a template for a lot of people. They're in shape, which means that's what you physically see, whether they're in shape, intellectually with degrees, with clothes, with possessions, or how their body looks.
[00:23:41] But inside, they're not healthy. And I discovered that I was not healthy. I was not healthy because I didn't eat properly. I was not healthy because I did not deal with negative emotions very well. I was not healthy because I was a workaholic. I was not healthy because, uh, I didn't rest well. And all of that became poison and very toxin that ran my immune system down to nothing, so that when cancer came in, my immune system could not attack it. It was not strong enough, which led to the downfall.
[00:24:15] But here we are, 10 years later, I've not seen a doctor, had medication, nor a CAT scan, uh, in eight years. And we are 10 years from the original diagnosis and eight years since I, um, came off of, uh, chemo and have radically changed my lifestyle.
[00:24:35] So, um, I exercise, I try to get as much, uh, sun as I can, which is vitamin D, I call it God radiation. I do, uh, infrared saunas to get the toxins out of my body, stresses out of my body. Um, I will do lymphatic massages, which cleans out my lymphatic system, which is our garbage disposal. I drink plenty of water. I try to eat as raw and organic as possible.
[00:25:01] Um, but amongst all that, and again, the engine that drives my health train, if I was to build a, uh, you know, a train, it's, it's the engine is faith and all these other things that I just made mention of are the cars behind it. So my faith was really huge, in three and a half years, um, I got up every morning and read, uh, 20 minutes, 175 healing scriptures. And so that to me was the Bible says, um, you know, that the word is medicine to our flesh. And I chose to believe that if I could be diligent to take pills and get blood tests and, uh, high blood pressure pills and cat scans, why wouldn't I not be diligent when it came to my faith?
[00:25:44] So, um, that was real huge, but probably one of the most important things that I discovered on this journey, and, and we like instant everything. Nobody wants to wait for anything. My journey took about three and a half years to four years before I was pain free and 100% back to the person I was.
[00:26:06] Now, 10 years later, I tell people I'm stronger today as a 57 year old man than I was as a 47 year old man. Because I'm not only in shape, I'm healthy. And one of the greatest things that I discovered in peeling the layer that took the onion, so to speak, that took years. And if time was not my friend, I would've never discovered that.
[00:26:27] Cuz I remember back then I said, Lord, if you heal me by this date, I'll still be able to run this marathon. Because I wanted to run New York next, and then I wanted to run London next. So when I couldn't make New York date, I said, well, okay, we still got another three months and then I'll run London.
[00:26:43] And uh, so that kind of tells you maybe , all my perspectives and priorities weren't right, that God said now we're not gonna do that for a while, um, because there's some things I want to deal with. And it, it was number one, this, that Diego internalized things a lot because of my position, but it's also the position of people's lives.
[00:27:04] I didn't deal with rejection very well.
[00:27:07] My rejection in my profession is when people don't like my sermons, when people don't like my leadership. When people leave my church, when people Facebook or talk about me, when people say things aren't, aren't true, um, when staff members maybe leave or I have to fire people, I internalized all those things and I'd hold on to them for days and sometimes weeks and months, either blaming myself or saying I should have done something better or are they going down the street now to another church?
[00:27:44] And I internalized all that and I recognized, why would I ever do something like that? That's not healthy for me to do that. How can I do what God's called me to do when I'm looking backwards all the time? Am I that insecure? Am I, am I, am I that competitive? That I care that much? And, and so that probably is the greatest truth that came out of this.
[00:28:08] I'm not saying I'm perfect and I don't, you know, it's not like water off a duck's back now, but I will say the pain is a whole, the sting of the pain is a whole lot less than it's ever been before, cuz I catch myself now when I begin to say, when I'm, especially like I'm, I mountain bike a lot. I may think about someone in my head, I say, let it go Diego. Let it go and let's move on. Or something like that.
[00:28:32] So that has created this journey. Probably what I'm most passionate about now is just raising up young leaders and pouring my 33 years of pastoring into making young people great leaders, whether it's ministry or whether it's just, uh, life itself.
[00:28:51] Wherever God leads them is just sharing and pouring in and stepping aside. And, uh, they're gonna do things different than me, but that's okay, uh, I just love to have the relationship. I, I'm young at heart, so uh, I may not be hip on all the latest things, but at least I try to, uh, be knowledgeable and not resist and, uh, support them.
[00:29:14] Like tonight we have this big young people thing that's going on here, and we advertised it for months, all these new Christian hip-hop artists, I thought to myself, I don't even know one of these hip-hop artists, and I thought to myself, but that's okay. It doesn't matter if I don't know them, the young people know them.
[00:29:30] As long as they come and show up, then I'm here to, you know, raise the money for that crew, have built the building for them, and support the leadership so that that could go on.
[00:29:39] So, um, married to my wife, um, for, uh, 35 years, three children, three sons, and now six grandchildren that I pride myself in.
[00:29:51] Um, I love the iceberg principle. I believe that what's under the water is more important than what's above the water, and people are more attracted sometimes in our society to what's above the water, but I care more about the character and the integrity and the values and the priority, and that's often done under the water. And so that's what makes me, I want to hear "well done now, good and faithful servant."
[00:30:17] I'm nothing more than a servant of God. I am still that young kid that had insecurities that didn't read books, um, that thought he was dumb, um, that drank too much. And, um, I want to go back and help people like that. So I'm really passionate about reaching people that, um, are hurting people that are lost.
[00:30:40] And we live in a world where there's brokenness all around us. They may not always be crying out, but they are in, in their way. And I wanna be sensitive to that, to that cry when it comes and be able to help people.
[00:30:55] If it's all about what I want and what I like and what I choose, then you're never gonna be a great leader. Leaders give up the right, and I think that's the premise of Jesus. Jesus was a great leader. It was never about Him. It was always about the mission that His Father had given Him.
[00:31:19] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, senior Pastor Diego Mesa explains how true leaders have to give up the right to think about themselves, how they must put their own desires aside in order to help the greater good of the group. His definition of leadership shows us how it's not about ourselves, but rather about the mission that God gives us.
[00:31:50] Diego Mesa: Leadership is really important to me and, uh, it's, it's actually one of our founding pillars within this church. I want to choose to be an example to people. So leadership is huge. If I'm gonna propagate that, I have a school, uh, a leadership university, uh, that I did for about seven years more than 10 years ago before, uh, my illness took place, and then this year we're restart, uh, this year would be our third year from our relaunch of doing that, and 75% of the classes, 40 years and younger, and only 25% of the class can be older over 40 years old cuz I really wanna invest in young people and I don't want the older people to dominate.
[00:32:34] So in that class, we're gonna learn everything about 33 years of ministry. Not just the knowledge part, but really the application part and trying to get them, uh, to be great leaders in their homes and their businesses and in society and in church. And there's just, there's just some things that I recognize, um, are needed in our society when it comes to leadership. I think you get a degree in, in a university on, on leadership, um, but I think that there's something missing in that.
[00:33:06] Uh, we have kids, we have generations now that are more knowledgeable, more intellectual, and more confident in more fields than ever before because of the internet. It's just made us smart, very, very quickly. But at the same time, I recognize young people are just so fragile emotionally.
[00:33:25] They, uh, they can't handle rejection very well. Um, there's a sense sometimes of entitlement that things are given to them, that any time a rejection comes their way, they want to attack that and judge it and label it. Um, it's the syndrome where everybody on the baseball team gets a trophy, so nobody has to earn anything.
[00:33:47] So, um, I wanna be able to, to navigate and help through that. So my, I have definitions of leadership. Leadership, leaders have to give up the right to think about themselves. That's what a leader is all about. If it's all about what I want and what I like and what I choose, then you're never gonna be a great leader.
[00:34:08] Leaders give up the right, and I think that's the premise of Jesus. Jesus was a great leader. It was never about, Him, it was always about the mission that his Father had given Him. He said, not my will, but Your will be done. Everything I do, I'm here to please the Father. And I think that's what leadership is all about.
[00:34:31] It's about giving up the right to think about ourselves. So it's preferring someone above ourselves, whether that isn't how I treat someone and how I love somebody and how I care for somebody and how I serve somebody. And so I think if we have that mentality, we would not have all the abuse that we have, especially when it comes to the epidemic against women today.
[00:34:54] You know, a sexual harassment it, it's a male driven society that feels it has the right, and I'm not trying to be political in any way or or anything of that nature, but that is a selfish ambition or desire within us that when we watch a commercial, why do we have to see a, a girl in a bathing suit to sell something.
[00:35:17] Why do we giggle about it? Why is there a joke put behind it? Uh, what goes on in man caves and all those kinds of things. So I think that that's an example. Maybe it's an extreme example of what leadership need not be. So, you know, you got a lot of people who don't want to be role models. I don't know why you wouldn't want to be a role model, you know, you know, I think it was Charles Barkley years ago that said, I don't want to be nobody's role model.
[00:35:42] Well because of your influence, your platform, call it, acknowledge God or don't acknowledge God, but you have mo you have more than most people do. And no matter what our platforms are, we all have platforms of influence. We, people are always watching us and we can always influence people. And so I think that there is a level of exampleship and there's a level of role modeling, uh, that must be exhibited by, by all of us because somebody will always be affected.
[00:36:12] I've heard people say, for the longest time, I could do whatever I want because I'm not hurting nobody. Wrong. Somebody is always going to be hurt by what you do. A child, a, a neighbor, uh, somebody, a, a, a, a spouse, uh, there's an infinite effect of what takes place when something is introduced by, by one generation or by one person that causes a ripple effect or what I call an open door or a window that now makes it, it's acceptable.
[00:36:46] It's now tolerant because someone opened the door for that. And I just think leadership is bringing back standards, ethics, integrity, morality. I don't care what definition you want to use, but these are foundational. Leadership begins in the home. It's, if we could go back to a strong structured home, I think we'd, we'd answer all the ills of society today, but our homes are just so dysfunctional.
[00:37:15] So we need men to be men and fathers to be fathers and husbands, to be husbands and wives and and children, and bring back the family environment for the emotional makeup that's so necessary in our society. So I think for me, um, there, there has been a struggle with, uh, self-esteem issues, uh, again, because whether it related, and I think everyone has it though. Everyone has it because you're, everyone's picked on one way or another and made fun of. It's the nature of adolescence, I guess.
[00:37:47] And, and so whether it's your God forbid, big ears or ugly hair or big feet, it, it just seems like we always listen to the negative part and it's magnified versus the positive.
[00:38:00] And now we go years or a lifetime, uh, carrying that weight on us and we think that that is a hindrance, um, to succeeding, whatever that endeavor is. But I choose to now, as a 57 year old man come to the point, and it's taking me all this time to say that that's what made me unique. That's what made me different.
[00:38:23] Even in my struggles and my issues and my weaknesses, I could use them really to my advantage. And I always say when I was a little kid, um, kids used to make fun of my big thighs and I couldn't buy regular, um, jeans or pants in a store. I had to go to the hefty section and I would tell my mom, I wanna buy jeans where all the other kids did. She says, you can't fit into 'em.
[00:38:48] Well, little did I know when I became a teenager and would begin to run and bike, that is what worked best for me. Now, I love my big thighs kind of thing, and I think if people could begin to turn, the Bible says, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. God doesn't make action as, yes, some bad things happen to us, but we could use that to catapult us.
[00:39:09] To a testimony, to a platform, to a ministry, to help other people and let it be our drive, our motivation to spark us to be better, to be better people. So for me, it was recognizing that I am loved by God. I'm really loved by God and I'm, and I really am unique. God did not make a duplicate, nor a copy of another Diego, and until I begin to start doing Diego, really well, um, then I'm gonna emulate somebody else and maybe God will never be able to use me to reach the people that I'm called to reach. So, I, I've grown out of the fact that not everyone's gonna like me. I'm not gonna be accepted by everyone. People are gonna see my flaws, but that's okay because I'm not called to everybody.
[00:39:56] And I think individuals like a Mother Teresa, has inspired me to be a great leader. Somebody who more than 50 years have sacrificed their life back to the leadership equation. That's sacrifice, that's struggle. Never wanting a platform, never wanting a paycheck, never wanting a title, um, just did the call of God on their lives and found great satisfaction that individuals like Billy Graham who've had 50, 60 years of successful ministry without integrity.
[00:40:24] And I love, I love his Modesto Manifesto that he made up, which was just simply accountability with the four men around him that would hold him accountable. That he didn't lie, that he didn't cheat, that he stayed away from temptations. And I think that's what we need. Anybody who usually falls, it's because they fall alone in isolation.
[00:40:46] They have a secret lifestyle. So I think great leadership and, and great character comes with the people that we surround ourselves with. And just a lot of, a lot of us, uh, because of low self-esteem will never be transparent because we think we'll be judged. But in fact, I think when you find the right people and that takes a process of time, it's not easily found, then those are people you can be honest and be held accountable to.
[00:41:10] So individuals like that, my dad, who worked very, very hard, um, taught me again the discipline of hard work to, you know, if you're gonna start a job, to finish a job, um, I think he's been a hero, my mom has been a hero. Um, how I was raised with a mom who prayed, so going off to school, uh, uh, or waking up in the morning was not an alarm clock, it was hearing my mom pray.
[00:41:35] Uh, and that just put roots with within me, even as a Catholic, uh, in those days to hear, uh, my mom, to hear my mom pray. Um, so those are some of my heroes, uh, that have shaped my life.
[00:41:49] I think heroism to me would be, um, to do things that make you feel uncomfortable. The challenge of doing the uncomfortable, not always doing what we like, that that ought to come very easy to us.
[00:42:04] Uh, so I, uh, okay, so I, I ran a marathon. Because I ran a marathon, does that make me a hero? That would not be a hero to me because I, I naturally, innately love to do it. But if I walked across the street to someone that was homeless and talked to them, that's my definition of a hero because that does not come innately to me.
[00:42:27] That challenges everything within me to love someone different than me, and that makes me very uncomfortable and break down cultural barriers or, uh, stereotypes in my mind. Um, that's what a hero does. A hero, again, I think does things that makes them uncomfortable in their lives. So I, I, I, if somebody had a great achievement, I just would look at them and say, did that achievement come naturally to you? Or did it take a lot of work of uncomfortability and inconvenience? And, uh, so, and then my other definition is, am I, am I a hero? Let's just say in athletic terms, am I a hero? Because I had a great game? Let lemme tell you back, am I a hero because I had a great play? Am I a hero because I had a great game? Am I a hero because I had a great season? Or am I a hero because I had a great career?
[00:43:22] We're so quick to label heroism as one event, and I think it's a lifetime of being a 360 degree leader. I could be a hero on the stage, but am I a hero in my home? I could be a hero when I'm on the limelight is on me, but in the secret when no one's watching and I could get away with something, am I a hero?
[00:43:48] So heroism would be, are you a 360 degree leader where someone can walk completely around you and judge your life and say, I think that that's what a hero is, naturally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, in his home with his, you know, on the job, off the job, nine to five off the clock, all those kinds of things.
[00:44:10] I, I think, um, you know, because there's, there's this, um, disciplined athlete within me, um, I sometimes can put my discipline's expectations and lifestyles on other people, and I, I, I can't do that. Not everybody is wired like me. They didn't come from my upbringing, they didn't come from my experiences, they were not exposed maybe to some of the things I was exposed to.
[00:44:39] So I gotta try to meet people where they are and try, let's just say on a scale from one to 10, if I meet you at a one, my job may not be to get you to a 10. Can I get you to a two? And if I meet you at a five, my job is not to get you to a 10. Can I move you to a six?
[00:44:57] Hopefully I'm not moving you backwards, or else that probably wouldn't be good leadership, but that's what I try to tell myself is, um, because I think then you get into, uh, legalism, you get into the law, you get into judgmentalism. Um, you, you separate, you push people away, uh, the people get disappointed and frustrated.
[00:45:21] And so if, if as a runner, let's say you came to me and said, Diego, would you train me for a marathon? I'd say, absolutely.
[00:45:31] I, I don't care what your credentials are. I don't care how you run or what you have not done. I'd feel honored doing that. And whatever I can do to get you to finish, cross the finish line, is what I'm gonna do. You're not gonna be able to run as fast as me, I would not put that expectation on you, but I'm gonna try to run alongside of you and I'm gonna try to give you the water while you're passing the mile marker. I'm gonna try to be your greatest cheerleader and say what is the best that you can do, and try to define what that would be.
[00:46:02] So I think that that's what I would say I love to do within the church is just try to make people better, people not like me, not my expectations of what they should be, but what the, what God's expectations of them.
[00:46:16] You know, uh, there was a woman in the Bible who was, um, broke the alabaster box, and she, which was an expensive perfume, and she was a prostitute.
[00:46:27] And she did that because she loved Jesus. And the religious leaders had had, uh, a problem with that because she had broke something of great value and just sort of speak, wasted it on Jesus. And Jesus tried to say, um, this woman has been forgiven much. That's why she's so generous. And I don't want to forget how much I've been forgiven and I want to be generous to other people.
[00:46:54] But I don't know what they've been forgiven of. So I don't know what the, how much they want to give. So it's not my job to determine that that's between them and God. I just want to coach them along and make them a, a better leader. And the number one way to do that is I think, by being an example to them, and, uh, for me as a preacher is to teach them about Jesus and what Jesus said in the Bible, and, you know, give them all the tools that I possibly can to be a better person.
[00:47:29] I am reminded of the quote by the, by the great, uh, author Alex Haley, uh, who wrote Roots. And he said, "when an older person dies, a library burns down." And that's a great quote because people that get old, they feel like they're worthless and they're not. They have so many stories to tell and it, it just takes young people to say, you know what? I thank God for the internet and social media, but there's some things that I can't get through that, I gotta hang around people and learn from their mistakes, and learn from their failures and borrow their wisdom. And now that puts me 20, 30 years ahead of the game as a young person, because I borrowed Diego's wisdom.
[00:48:19] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Diego Mesa talks about legacy as a way of transferring his knowledge and his resources to people in order to give them better lives. We listen to his struggle to love himself and how he depends on God for his strengths even more than his weaknesses.
[00:48:46] Diego Mesa: I think legacy is, legacy is not what I'm gonna take, but what I leave behind. What's gonna be here a hundred years when Diego is gone. And I hope that it is not a building. Uh, I hope it's not a placard. Uh, I hope it's not anything like that. Uh, the greatest thing that I could leave behind, um, is my memories, uh, is my stories, um, is my exampleship. Uh, is my lifestyle and all that is in people, that, that's my greatest legacy. It is going to be people. How many people have I made better? How many people, if, if, if in in life using these scale again, if I was a five in whatever I achieved in my lifetime, can I produce people that are sixes, seven and eights and tens?
[00:49:40] And I want to tell people that, that's my legacy is telling this next generation do not do whatever I am, and, and I'm a nothing, but whatever I've achieved and whatever I've done, I'm nothing compared to what you can be. You can do it and you can do it far better than I can do it. And so that will be my legacy, is to see people far exceed what I did and that I have taught to the best of my ability and transferred all my knowledge, all my wisdom, all my relationship, all my resources to them to make them better.
[00:50:14] Uh, I'm reminded of the quote by the, by the great, uh, author Alex Haley, uh, who wrote Roots. And he said, "when an older person dies, a library burns down." And that's a great quote because people that get old, they feel like they're worthless and they're not. They have so many stories to tell and it, it just takes young people to say, you know what? I thank God for the internet and social media, but there's some things that I can't get through that, I gotta hang around people and learn from their mistakes, and learn from their failures and borrow their wisdom. And now that puts me 20, 30 years ahead of the game as a young person, because I borrowed Diego's wisdom on how to navigate through temptation and how to navigate through sickness and how to navigate through marriage and how to raise boys and grandchildren, how to build a ministry.
[00:51:11] And so my legacy is, is that all that I am will be passed on, they will have better, will, will make themselves better. I will not retain anything, um, and that there is a true duplication and multiplication taking place.
[00:51:26] Uh, probably one of the, um, hardest lessons I've learned because, um, I'm such a, uh, a person with a driven personality, um, that's, I mean, if, if we got on the, if we went on a run today, I'm gonna wanna beat you. If we went on a bike ride, I'm gonna wanna beat you. But also if, if I was by myself, I want to beat myself, and I want to, I wanna, I'm on this app called Strava, and Strava follows all the, the, uh, runners and bikers that have ever been on that route.
[00:52:00] So you can match yourself with all the people that, hundreds or thousands of people that have run that. And so I look at that all the time, and I'm trying to beat people I don't e I don't even know, kind of thing. So I'm just saying that that competition has formed who I am kind of thing.
[00:52:18] So my, my greatest, um, thing is, is to learn to really depend on God, um, where I am gifted. I could depend on God, where I'm weak and I'm frail. That's easy to, I need, God, You to help me here. I really need him to help me where I'm really gifted, cuz there's a tendency to think the more experience I am and the more educated I am and the more gifted and strong I am, the less I need God in this area where I really need God in these other areas.
[00:52:46] But it's, I think it's the opposite. We need Him also in these other areas because I can make a mistake and, and lean on my own, on my own wisdom in, in, in, in doing that. So learning really, um, to trust God more, and probably, uh, the underlining thing, which you've heard today, and, and, and I'll be very transparent, um, it's taken me, it, it's only been in the last year that I've really learned to like myself, like myself.
[00:53:21] I'm a, I'm a pretty cool guy and, uh, I, I think I've always wanted, I've always felt like I needed to earn that from people. I had to prove that to people. I had to have the medal around me or the paycheck, or build the big church so that you would give me the approval that I so desperately needed.
[00:53:42] I've come to terms, I don't need that. I don't need anything from a man. I don't need anything. Only thing I really need is God's pleasure and God's satisfaction. And that was done on Calvary's Cross already. So I continue to remind myself today, what, what am I trying to prove? What am I still trying to earn?
[00:54:01] And I don't need to do that if I would just accept that I got a crooked smile and my, you know, I got big thighs and, uh, and I can't enunciate some, even when I'm doing a sermon, sometimes I say, what's that big word? And I'm just gonna read it really fast and hope that nobody can catch it. That's okay.
[00:54:20] That's what makes me me. And stop, you know, beating yourself up and dogging yourself and saying words like, I'm stupid. I'm dumb. Why did I do that? I know better. And we so naturally do that all the time, and I, I don't think that that's positive in doing that. So it's really been the last year where I've really learned my lesson, and that is that, uh, I've learned to like myself because God likes me.
[00:54:45] And when I've learned to like myself, uh, then I can, I can really do the best that I can do, and as, as long as I do my best, that's all that really matters. Well, even today, after 33 years of public speaking, um, there is always a little bit of nervousness and, um, specially if it's a, like Easter or a big event or a platform or arena that I'm not familiar with where I'm a guest or something of that nature.
[00:55:18] Then I, I, like anybody else, put pressure on myself and I want to do my very best. And sometimes, uh, who's in the audience can influence me and affect me. Um, so, um, it's probably not at the magnitude that it was 33 years ago. Um, but it's definitely still there a little bit. But I've learned that the more that I pray, and the more that I depend on God and the more comfortable I am with the material of which I'm delivering, then the "stage fright" is just seconds.
[00:55:57] And then you get into your gift, you get into your material and what we would call the presence of God, the gifting of God comes upon you. And the next thing you know, you're flowing and you don't think twice ab about it. Um, I, I think of the audience as, as me. I, I, that's the way I look at them. I think of them as people who, um, have needs.
[00:56:22] They have wants, um, you know, they have concerns, they have problems. And you know what, you need to help them by being transparent. That's one of my styles is I want to be very, very transparent. I wanna, don't want to, um, give the illusion that I have all the answers or I'm, I'm, uh, perfect, so that's why sometimes when I'm doing sermons, I say, here's the scripture and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a shot to interpret it the best way I can do, cuz I want there to be a open grounds for other people's interpretations and that I don't, um, have the absolut, uh, truth or revelation on that.
[00:57:02] So that helps me to say that I'm not really controlling people and talking down to people, nor do I have all the answers to people. So my style, I think, helps me to be comfortable, uh, to say, here's the little knowledge I have and I'm gonna just share it with you.
[00:57:22] I hope it can help you, kind of thing. But there's definitely still a little intimidation there, but a big, you know, if you say, Diego, what, what is your number one go-to that has made you who you are today, that your life would fall apart if you didn't have? It's prayer.
[00:57:39] It's, every day, it's, it's just a constantly all day long, I'm talking to God like He's next to me.
[00:57:46] Through my weaknesses, through my challenges, through my problems. I talk to Him with all my emotions. Um, the conversations can be, quiet, they could be loud. Um, they could be, I don't understand, they could be crying, they could be anger. But I talk to Him like He's my father. And I think that that undergirds everything that I do, especially, especially when it comes to preaching.
[00:58:12] I have kind of prayed through all my emotions and when I sense a level of his presence with me, that makes it easier for me to go. So if I ever, there are times when I feel like I haven't prepared enough and I, and I'm really nervous, so I have to pull aside and I have to pray more. And 99% of the time it's subsides. I still have that little moment when I'm gonna get on the stage, but then it goes away.
[00:58:37] Prob probably the most inspirational person in my life was, um, an elderly lady by the name of Dr. Mary Allen Strong, who, um, died a few years ago at the age of 93. And, um, she personally knew five presidents. Her husband was an ambassador, um, to Uganda, I believe.
[00:59:03] And um, she was one of the first African American business entrepreneurs with, uh, five businesses, uh, all over, um, our country. Um, she was a publisher, a newspaper, um, um, owner. Um, she achieved so many things, um, and yet she was a preacher also, and I think she inspired me. That there are no limitations, um, within our giftings and where God could use us.
[00:59:36] And the thing that impressed me the most outside of her credentials, they, they stood alone, I mean, she, she knew JFK personally. She knew Richard Nixon personally. She knew Dr. Martin Luther King, uh, uh, personally. So she knew, knew these people. But what what impressed me was she was never moved by their status.
[01:00:02] And, um, I said I want to, I want to get that way cuz I, we can get all, uh, you know, nervous or we could get all, uh, uncomfortable and act silly sometimes around people that are, are somebody in our society, but they're just regular people. And I, I wanted to just be able to make people like that feel comfortable if they ever come, uh, in front of me.
[01:00:27] But again, back to her prayer life and she could hear the voice of God so clearly that, um, her, her prayer life and her ability to pray for people and tap into the heart of God for them that would make them weep and cry was something that was very, very desirable to me. Very, as much as I wanted to run a marathon, let's say, or desire a certain position, that became very attractive to me to be able to hear God like that, and that's where I discovered it was the amount of hours that she spent in prayer. Um, Privately that gave her that gifting to be able to do that. Um, and, and how bold she was to just share her faith with a, with a stranger.
[01:01:20] So, um, she probably, um, uh, influenced me the most. I, I think the, the best things that people can do is, um, learn, uh, to forgive themselves, um, from anything and everything.
[01:01:38] Learn to forgive the person that did something to them. It's amazing how we hold on to grudges and bitterness to people that are even dead now in our lives, holding on to things. And you'd be so much more happier, uh, if you just have the mentality that I'm not impressed by anyone and I'm not easily offended by anybody.
[01:02:02] Two great extremes. I don't care who you are, you don't impress me, so you're not gonna change me, and I don't care what you do to me, cuz I'm still gonna walk in love and I'm still gonna create a great attitude and I'm not gonna hold on to bitterness and unforgiveness and I'm still gonna respect you and I'm still gonna be kind to you.
[01:02:20] And, uh, I think that, that those truths are good things to live by.
[01:02:28] Steve Gatena: When we struggle with self-esteem issues, we're really struggling to trust God. God made each of us as He intended. Yes, we have differences and thank God we do. God gave each of us different strengths and weaknesses so that he could work his divine plan through each of us individually, and he always does.
[01:02:59] God only wants us to do our best, He takes care of the rest. We have, but to trust Him and to trust that He created us on purpose, we can walk with courage and strength knowing that nothing anyone can say or anyone can do can change what God created. No one, not one word, not one action is stronger than God.
[01:03:29] We are children of God, He always walks beside us, lending us His strength, His courage, and showering us with His unconditional love, approval, and satisfaction.
[01:03:42] In Part one this week on Relentless Hope, pastor Diego Mesa taught us how he learned to let go of a lifetime of insecurities and low self-esteem. Through Pastor Diego's trust, belief, and faith in God, Pastor Diego not only beat stage four kidney cancer, but he learned how to finally like himself exactly as the person God made him to be.
[01:04:11] In part two of this three part series, pastor Diego taught us that as leaders, we have a responsibility to be an example and a role model to everyone around us, showing them how to handle rejection and how to handle feelings of insecurity, and how to handle feelings of low self-esteem.
[01:04:31] Pastor Diego encouraged us to embrace our unique selves, recognizing that God unconditionally loves us just as we are, and Pastor Diego invites us to help others embrace their unique selves too, and he explains until we embody the person that God made us to be, God will never be able to use us to reach the people that he's called us to reach.
[01:05:01] Let me say that again: until we embody the person that God made us to be, God will never be able to use us to reach the people he's called to reach.
[01:05:16] In part three of this three part series on Relentless Hope, we also learn how Pastor Diego is working to leave a legacy for the next generation, encouraging them to be more and do more than what Pastor Diego has done in his life. He also taught us the importance of prayer and how he uses it every single week to work through his emotions.
[01:05:42] As Pastor Diego explained, when we pray through all our emotions, including our low self-esteem, our doubts, and our insecurities, we can better sense God's presence with us, which makes life easier, and everything in it better.
[01:06:02] We were created for a purpose. And we were created exactly in the image that God intended. Be at peace knowing that you are a child of God. He never makes mistakes. We have to trust in Him and all His good works. And those good works include the miracle that is you exactly as you are.
[01:06:34] If you liked this week's episode, a Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, I'm asking you to share it with someone you love.
[01:06:45] You never know the impact you can make by sharing one inspirational story. My name is Steve Gatena and I'm your host. And until next time, I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
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