Brian and Cathy Gray Tennessee

Growing Down in East Tennessee

In case you haven’t heard The Garden has been planted. The Garden is a Holston Home for Children transitional home for graduates of the Recovering Hearts program for women. Cathy and I are the appointed stewards. Ideally, the women at The Garden will be partners in that stewardship.

The Backstory

History is important if for no other reason than it reveals our roots and God’s hand in forming them.

Cathy and I were married in February 2005. The timing was largely driven by a mutual call to serve what some describe as “The least of these”. That is inmates, addicts, and their children.

Our marriage began in a faith-based, coed transitional home that we named Live Again the Walk Inc. The idea was that we are born again. We then have to learn to live again. We crawl before we walk. The essential paradigm remains the same for The Garden. I covered a lot of our transitional housing resume in How For Go and For The Love of Pua.

Suffice it to say that after twelve years of living with five to ten inmates and sometimes their children, we had a pretty clear revelation of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 3.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

1 Corinthians 3:6-9

The Garden

We left Hawaii for the Harvest School of Missions in Pemba, Mozambique, in 2016, then became full-time missionaries in Honduras. Nearly six years later, we landed in Greeneville, Tennessee. I began working with dependent, neglected, sometimes delinquent youth at Holston Home, where I currently serve as a Shift Supervisor. One day out of the blue, Cathy said, “I don’t know why. But I see us living on a farm that someone is going to ask us to care take.” I have learned through the years to pay attention when my wife says things like that. Still, we never breathed a word about it to anyone. A month later we met Mary Bernal.

Mary

Mary is a criminal defense lawyer in California. She is full of love and joy and hope and perseverance and…did I say hope? She’s also a bit prophetic. She had purchased the farm, site unseen because God told her to. Anyone who knows me knows I am, shall we say, Biblically skeptical  1 Thess 5:20-21 when it comes to prophecy. “I see you and Brian living here,” Mary said.

“Yeeahh… I don’t see that.”, I told Cathy.

Mary did her best to bring about her vision to help broken women. Still, God’s timing is key. So is Proverbs 3:5-8. Patience is a fruit and God uses our circumstances to develop it.

Fast forward… 

Two years later, Holston President Bradley Williams asked to speak with me in his office. He and Able Carrico, the Pastor of the Rock Church also located on the Holston property, had been ceded control of the farm by Mary to be used as they saw fit. Neither of these men would ever do anything as THEY see fit and so they prayed. Both heard from the Lord that Cathy and I should be the ones to run whatever the farm would become.

“I’ve heard this before.” I said.

Bradley didn’t know what the farm should be used for at that point and asked me to pray.

I did.

Long story short, the Lord gave me a burden for another transition home for the Recovering Hearts women. Cathy had been patiently waiting for me to catch the vision. She jumped for joy when I finally did. I made this video to help Mary raise funds for some needed construction on what at that time was called The Glory Farm. Anyone confused about the definition of transitional housing should take the time to watch it.

For whatever reason, God did not provide the donors she’d hoped for. So, Mary being Mary, didn’t give up. She spent the bulk of her personal savings so the vision could come to fruition. That said, I had told the featured Recovering Hearts women, that the video was for “an Easter surprise.”  Turns out I wasn’t far off. The construction was completed. The official opening date was April 10th, 2025.

So why was it named The Garden? Ironically we were visiting family on our old home turf, The Garden Island, otherwise known as Kauai Hawaii, when Bradley texted us and told us he thought the Lord was telling him we should name the upcoming Greeneville Tennessee transition home The Garden.

“Sounds prophetic,” I said.

Turns out it was.

The new garden beds at the Garden are ready now that the ladies have been planted.
Flowers going in at Garden. Cathy loves to plant and water.

As I said in the video, a transition home is “real life with training wheels”. I explain the paradigm in the context of parenting.  The first stage is discipline, followed by coaching and friendship. Recovering Hearts is the discipline phase. The Garden is a place for coaching and friendship. The expectation is that residents are willing and able to receive and heed wise counsel and then discipline themselves. It sounds simple enough. The truth is that many, if not most, could have been dependent – neglected children living at the Holston Home for Children. Trauma lenses don’t change overnight. There are gaps in education and experience with life skills. Institutionalization and unconscious entitlement must be identified and patiently addressed as women learn to apply what God showed them in Recovering Hearts.

The First Supper at The Garden

The first shall be last…

Another lesson the Lord has taught us through the years of which I often speak is that

God does not need me to do anything. He puts me in a position to serve because it is the best place for me to learn what He has to teach and conform me. Don’t ask why is this happening Lord? Ask what are you doing in me Lord?

That said, anyone who has received counsel from us has heard my speech about knowing one’s limits and setting healthy boundaries. I’ve talked about the importance of stillness and rest ad infinitum. It dawns on me as I write that I am a complete hypocrite. Then again, sometimes we teach what we need to learn. The truth is I only rest when rest is imposed upon me. I’ve been working nonstop, full throttle for at least two months without a break. Ironically we had just discussed our experience with waiting periods imposed by God in the small group that Cathy and I attend. Several people expressed their frustration with waiting.

“Man, I would love to have another waiting period!!” I said.

The very next day I was cutting logs for the base layer of the planters featured in the featured photo. I’d just completed a 60-hour work week at Holston. It was hot and I was tired from mowing and cutting and hauling logs when I decided to cut a dead tree on a slope in the field. I’ve been using chainsaws since I was ten and I always make an escape plan should something go wrong. This time I didn’t. The tree rolled, I jumped, and caught the still-turning blade on my knee. A favorite quote echoed through my mind as wondered if I would bleed out limping up the hill.

Stupid is as stupid does!

-Forest Gump-

The surgeon told me I’d cut through the joint capsule, a tendon that stabilizes the patella tendon and trimmed the meniscus.

The last shall be first.

Now, here I sit, waiting and being served by the very women I came to serve. Cindy shoveled the chicken coup yesterday after church. It was the next job on my punch list.

Currently, we have thirty-two hens and three roosters.

32 Hens
Big Red
Foghorn Leghorn

Apparently, chainsaw injuries are also effective catalysts for food and fellowship.

Spontaneous outbreaks of worship may also result.

So often I hear those in prison and addiction recovery ministries refer to those they serve as “The least of these” in reference to the words of Jesus in Mathew 25. In our experience, what others call “the least” frequently turns out to be the greatest among us. The one thing everyone featured in the photos above has in common is that, at one point, every one of us was broken. We can not think of anyone with whom we would rather partner as we learn to steward God’s gift which is The Garden.

One thing is certain. Life on earth is full of transitions. Life in the flesh is a circle. We are born dependent. We move through stages of fleshly independence and interdependence accompanied by illusions of personal significance. We end in a state of utter dependence on others. All residual pride is slain. I believe that one of God’s purposes in all of this is that we learn to be

Independently dependent on Him.

That seems to be His primary goal and purpose for The Garden.

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Once again God has placed me in a position where I must receive from those I came to serve. It’s been a recurring motif in my life. Today, I am reticent to admit that my flesh is nearly sixty. But my mind says I’m 35 or 40. The truth is I might not have slowed down enough to cultivate joint stewardship had the Lord not put me down. In addition, I can’t get Hebrews 4 out of my mind.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 

Hebrews 4:1

Like a lot of ministries at Holston, The Garden is a proverbial plane being built in flight. God will use it according to His will and in ways we could never expect or predict. All I know for sure is that Cathy and I love these ladies. I love them with the Father’s heart.  I have learned more about the Father’s heart in working at Holston than at any other time or place in my life. For now, I will wait with eager expectation that the Lord has something special for all of us who reside at The Garden. If there is anything I have learned in my walk with the Lord thus far, it is that the true life that is hidden in Christ, the actively transforming life, is not about growing upward in fulfillment of our most recent “five-year plan”.  It is found in a life that aims to go lower and slower. True life in Christ means growing down. We are so very grateful for the opportunity to grow down in East Tennessee.

Maranatha

The Garden
Brian and Cathy Gray Bible study

To Judge or Not to Judge

A Paradox?

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Romans 14:10-12

Paul begins this chapter with examples of disputes within the body of Christ. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables…One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike… The operative question here is not whether the food or the day is legally right. Rather, the issue is one of the heart. It is whether or not the person does it as unto the Lord. Col 3:18-25

The word for”judge” that Paul is using in Romans 14 is the same word Jesus used in Mathew 7.

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Mat 7:1

That word is krínō – to try, condemn, punish:–avenge, to damn… In contrast, we have the seemingly contradictory “judge” in 1 Corinthians 2.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

1 Cor 2:15

The word for judge here is anakrínō investigate, interrogate, determine:–ask, question, discern, examine, search…

As Paul has repeatedly pointed out in Romans 12 and 13, vengeance belongs to the Lord. We are to bless, not curse… We are to overcome evil with good. We don’t Krino people. We anakrino.

Right?

Many people ignore blatant sin and call it grace. This is incorrect. “Bless not curse”, doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye to blatant error or sin. We are to confront error and sin head-on. We do so out of love for the one who is in error knowing that each of us will give an account of himself to God.

So often I hear believers misquote and or misappropriate scripture. Some are confused. Others do it to justify or minimize sin. It can be tempting to view these people through the lens of Habakkuk amidst his cry to the Lord especially when their heresy harms others.

Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

Habakkuk 1:3-4

If I am honest, I have been tempted to call fire down from heaven only to receive the same rebuke that Jesus gave the disciples in Luke 9.

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.

Luke 9:51-56

In Habakkuk’s case, he got the justice for which he pleaded. The Lord sent justice in the form of the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. He sent the Chaldeans to seize the dwellings of the hypocrites and abusers. But then Habakkuk was also in their midst. Keep in mind,

If we demand justice, we must be prepared to receive justice.

For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Mat 7:2

If that weren’t confusing enough, In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul declares we are to Krino those within the church.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

1 Cor 5:9-13

Wait a minute! I thought we were to anakrino (discern), not krino (condem) another.

“Well…Yes and No”.

Rolland Baker

In Romans 14 Paul asks Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? Krino (condemnation) judgment that results in my despising a brother is a judgment of my brother’s heart. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is calling believers to judge the ACTIONS of other believers. A man or woman actively engaged in sexual sin needs to be confronted and possibly ostracized from the body IF they refuse to repent. Still, the fact remains that the underlying cause of their promiscuity may be related to childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse. Hence we condemn the actions, not the soul of a person. Like the father of the prodigal son, we are to remain open to receive them back the moment they are ready to repent. That openness is not dependent on their perfection but rather their willingness to try even if they fail seven times.

for the righteous falls seven times and rises again…

Prov 24:16

Incidentally, “Seven” was a Hebrew idiom equivalent to our contemporary English use of “one hundred percent!”

💯

As in mathematics, there is an order of operations in judging. Scripture commands me to (anankrino) examine myself first to see if am still in the faith. 2 Cor 13:5-7 I begin with the prayer of David.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

Is there a Mathew 7:1-5 log in my eye? Many, if not most times, we judge the heart and motives of our brethren because we see our own reflection in them. For example, Paul illuminates that path of sin in Romans 1:18-32. “Amen!” We say. Then comes the proverbial rug pull in Romans 2.

For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things…

Romans 2:1

On the flip side…

The opposite extreme is to avoid passing judgment on the actions of another because we are or have been guilty of the same sins. We confuse the intent of scripture if, after we remove the log from our eye, we ignore or, worse, condone the speck in the eye of another.

We saw this when Lew Engle confessed his struggle with lust at the One Thing conference in 2018. Mike Bickle attempted to shut Lew down by minimizing the sin Lew was boldly confessing. Today Mike Bickle has been exposed for decades of blatant sexual sin. Mike’s argument toward Lew in 2018 was in effect,

“STOP! All this talk about your speck is convicting me of the log I have been rationalizing and justifying.”

No! The path to holiness and the perfection to which Jesus calls is a trajectory, not a single event. A scary albeit paradoxical fact is that our refusal to judge the actions of our brother could be the event that sets our trajectory in a direction that is contrary to what Jesus taught. Scripture tells us that in minimizing or enabling the sin of others we become partakers with them.

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

2 John 1:9-11

Recently a woman who wreaked absolute havoc in our community through substance abuse and serial adultery posted on Facebook that she had been sober and walking with Jesus for a year. In truth, she had just been kicked out of the last in a long line of homes where people tried to help her. There were dozens of comments from those who knew the truth yet praised her and her phony achievement. I commented,

“The only people who can not recover are those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”

AA Big Book

She responded by blocking me.

So often, people dilute or avoid speaking the truth in the name of being loving. “Loving” is defined as anything that makes people feel good and preserves a relationship. Yet love does not and can not exist apart from truth.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

1 Corinthians 6:14-16

Still, even the most sincere followers of Christ can make errors. That is why we study scripture together. About a year ago I had a theological discussion with some men whom I deeply respect regarding the subject of adultery. The question at hand was, “is viewing pornography adultery?” I said yes and quoted Mathew 5.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Mat 5:27-28

Apart from me, the consensus was that adultery required the physical act of intercourse between two people. Otherwise, everyone present would be guilty of adultery. I say amen! Sometimes, the truth hurts. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone but myself. The point here is that the standard for truth, the judgment of our actions and those of other believers, is solely determined by the teaching of Christ according to scripture. Jesus said, looking lustfully at a woman is adultery. Period! Every man I know has been guilty of it at some point. The question is not how close can we get to sin and remain innocent. But rather what does scripture say, and have we repented for what is in our hearts? Is there a difference between daydreaming of sex with a woman, not your wife, and having sex with a woman, not your wife? Of course. One is a thought. The other is an action. One is not better than the other. One sin precedes the other. The second sin brings us closer to death.

How close do you want to get?

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

James 1:14-15

But Brian, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. This is true. But bear, believe, hope, and endure all things are not synonyms for “IGNORE ALL THINGS”. They are statements of faith in possibilities and potentials. As Cathy likes to say, “There is hope as long as there is breath.” All of God’s judgments are redemptive while we are alive on earth. Love always speaks truth because truth is what sets people free. Our willingness to call a proverbial spade a spade is proof in action that we believe and hope for all things. Love speaks truth Eph 4:15 Bearing and enduring all things often pertains to the wrath and rejection we face when speaking the truth that hurts. One thing seems certain, if we don’t judge our own hearts, others will be left to judge our actions. If we refuse to judge the actions of others, we might be consigning them to God’s Krisis judgment. Suffice it to say that Krisis is the Greek word from which the English word Crisis is fittingly derived. Again, there is a linear progression of judgment for believers, Anakrino, Krino, and Krisis. It is better to face the first two head-on than face the third. It’s better to face the third in this life than the next because,

Each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Chew on that.

Maranatha