Jesse Hutch: There’s always some hard times coming. And you know what? God’s preparing you for those things, and you’re going to be ready even if you don’t feel like it at the moment. Because trust me, on the other side is a breakthrough. On the other side is a smile on your face.

Navigating Life’s Dark Valleys: Jesse Hutch & Randy Frazee – Episode #411

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. The most valuable life lessons often emerge from our most difficult circumstances. While these experiences give us insight into our own lives, they also provide meaningful stories to share with others and point them towards God, who can ultimately give them comfort through their darkest moments. 

This week, we’ll hear from Jesse Hutch, a Canadian-born American film and television actor, who recalls how a near-death experience taught him the peace that comes from fully trusting in God’s control and the importance of using scripture and prayer to ground your beliefs. Later in the episode, we’ll hear from Randy Frazee, author of The Story, which arranges the Bible chronologically so that readers can experience it as one, whole narrative. He shares how his journey through depression deepened his empathy and reliance on God, and how he now uses this experience to support others facing similar struggles.

Let’s begin with Jesse’s story.

Jesse Hutch: My name is Jesse Hutch. I am a husband of fifteen years. I’m a father for almost thirteen years. And I’ve also been an actor for twenty-four years. I’ve been doing stunts that entire time and starting to move into directing and producing a lot more. And of course, all of this is wrapped into faith because that is my base.

I was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It’s the birthplace of Wolverine, the comic book character, as well. My parents divorced when I was eleven, so that moved me around quite quickly. And I ended up on the east coast of Canada, where I was mostly raised in Ontario. 

When I was young, hitting high school and into college, I got into extreme sports, right? I was whitewater rafting, whitewater kayaking, ice climbing, rock climbing, free climbing. 

Letting Go So God Can Carry You

I was actually a professional whitewater raft guide. That was the last job that I was really leaning into right before I had this opportunity to pursue acting. I was approximately five years in, so I wasn’t a spring chicken in that line of work. I was fairly comfortable on the river. 

We got all the guests on, having a great time. They’re paddling hard. They’re giving it all they got. And then we drop into this rapid. And boom, we hit that first wave and we almost crashed over. But everybody’s having such a good time they all throw their arms in the air and they’re like, “Yeah!” And it kind of just slowed us down enough that we started to go backwards and we started to surf. Now that’s not uncommon, so we don’t panic. 

We’re kind of surfing this thing a little bit. And two of the guys in the front, they fall out. One guy flies past me. He hits the water. He’ll be fine. We’ll pick him up at the bottom. The other guy, he manages to grab part of my life jacket. He’s not intending harm to anybody. He’s just like, Oh, I’m going to grab something, and it happened to be me. We have a strap in the raft, it’s just there for your convenience so you don’t fall out all the time. And so I kept my foot under it because I was like, All right, we’ll just see if I can shake him off and then we’ll pick him up at the bottom, because there’s two currents, there’s the surface current, and then there’s another one the veterans called the “green room”, because if you ever end up down there, let’s say twelve plus feet below the top current, then everything kind of looks green just because of the way the sunlight reflects and kind of moves down there. 

And eventually I’m like, I can’t shake this dude off. I’m just going to have to bail and swim it out. So finally, that’s what I do. I take my foot out, boom, I hit the water, I’m upside down, left, right and all the directions. And all of a sudden my ears just kind of pop and I’m like, Whoa, that hurt. That was new. I must have gone down further than I anticipated.

And then I open my eyes, I look around, and for sure I’m like, Yeah, this must be the green room. Okay, I’ve heard of this place. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Just remember your training, right? 

I sort of attempt to swim again and the currents just… it’s too strong, it’s moving me along. So I know at this point I need to just ride it out because you can’t beat the river. So I simply go limp, and by that I mean you stop using any energy for anything. You let your arms go, you let your legs go, and you don’t use any of your energy to try and be in control or anything. You just sort of float along. And that way, hopefully whatever oxygen is in your bloodstream… I knew that I needed to hang on everything I had. 

And then you reach a point when your body starts to do what it was made to do, which is breathe. Logically, you’re still in control of your muscles at that point. And you’re going, No, you can’t breathe underwater. And you could feel your body arguing with you going, Okay, we need oxygen now. You’re like, Yeah, yeah, but I don’t have any. We’re underwater. And your body said, Yeah, that’s cool, but we’re going to breathe now. You’re like, No, we’re not. And I don’t know how long that battle lasted in my mind, to be honest. But it felt like quite a while. 

And then eventually, I lost the battle. And when people drink water, that is not the same feeling as breathing water. If you’ve ever seen concrete when it’s wet, it feels like that has been poured into your nose and mouth at lightning speed and it fills your entire body. And so you immediately feel full, you feel heavy, and you feel like you weigh like 2,000 pounds. That was kind of the freakiest point along this journey so far, where I was like, Wow, I am done. I don’t have anything left. 

At that point I just went, Okay, God, you know what? This is the point where I just need to lean into you and have the most peace I can have. I’m in your hands. I’m completely under your control. 

Eventually, I floated to the surface. They guesstimate that I was underwater anywhere from eleven to twenty-two minutes. And somehow, I remember people hitting my chest. And then I remember seeing some kind of vehicle. And then I remember waking up in a pressure chamber which is inside a hospital. They slowly bring you back to the proper pressure within your head, because basically, I went down too fast, and came up too fast. I still had some issues going on, so just the fact that I’m alive is a miracle. The fact that I can talk and walk and think, I mean, I’m an actor. My job relies entirely on me being able to speak and think and listen and operate. And so it really is a miracle that I’m alive, and I owe all that to God.

“It really is a miracle that I’m alive, and I owe all that to God.” – Jesse Hutch

I think that’s the way life can be sometimes. Right? And there’s times when maybe you feel like you’re drowning in something. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s bills. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one. Fill in the blank with whatever the hard thing is for you right now or has been, and you feel like you’re drowning. Well, what this experience taught me was you still have an option. If you’re still breathing, if you’re still above ground, you have an option, and that option is to completely give it all over to God, because that honestly is the most peaceful place you can be. 

“You still have an option. If you’re still breathing, if you’re still above ground, you have an option, and that option is to completely give it all over to God, because that honestly is the most peaceful place you can be.” – Jesse Hutch 

We’ve heard of that story in the Bible where the big storm’s coming in and everybody’s freaking out. They look over Jesus, asleep in the boat. Well, if your eyes are on Jesus, you know He’s asleep in the boat and you know He’s asleep because He’s at peace. If you look at the storm, of course you start freaking out, because your peace is gone. That’s how I view my marriage, through that lens. How do we raise our children? How do you handle finances? How do you handle your community, friends, strangers, your work? I mean, the list goes on, basically everything in life. 

Honing the Craft of Acting by Understanding the Human Heart

I always loved watching movies, but I never quite thought to myself, I’m going to be an actor. I’m going to be in movies. Never thought that for a second. And so that’s why it was a bit of a surprise, even to me. 

At the age of twenty-one, I somehow got this bug for acting, and I wanted to pursue it. And of course, it doesn’t happen overnight. What really kicked it off was I would work part time as security or working as a cook in the kitchen at the whitewater rafting company that I was working at at the time. And this ad came on the radio that said, “Blah blah blah, modeling, blah blah blah, 20th Century Fox.” Well, when I heard “20th Century Fox,” I was like, Well, I like their movies. And the ad kept going and it was like, “Come to Ottawa, Ontario to this event. It’s happening tonight.” And I was like, “Whoa, that starts in like two hours.” I just went and got in my car, went to this event, and that event led to a bigger event, which then led me to start connecting with some people in the film industry. And I think that they saw something in me even early on, and they encouraged it just enough that that encouraged me to keep going and to keep pursuing it. I’m constantly learning and growing. And I absolutely enjoy it to the nth degree.  

I’m very interested in the human heart. I think God made it very unique and it’s awesome and it’s amazing and special. And so I can go play a character that I’ve never done in real life, and yet I can understand hurt and pain and sadness, joy, jealousy, and all these different emotions that we all go through at times, and you bring that to the table. 

“I’m very interested in the human heart. I think God made it very unique and it’s awesome and it’s amazing and special. And so I can go play a character that I’ve never done in real life, and yet I can understand hurt and pain and sadness, joy, jealousy, and all these different emotions that we all go through at times, and you bring that to the table.” – Jesse Hutch 

Who Are You Following?

Scripture says the Word is living [Hebrews 4:12]. And that’s because it changes with you. It lives and breathes with you. And yet it doesn’t change to honor your emotional whims or your needs or even your wants. It stays the way God intended it to stay, and that allows you to hopefully have some footing or a base, so even if you get off kilter, you’re something to get back on.

Everybody’s going to try to tell you what they think, right? Now I’m not saying don’t listen to anybody. Yes, you’ve got to have people in your life that you trust, that you feel you can get good wisdom and insight from. You should have people that you look up to and you should have people behind you that look up to you. And I believe that that’s a healthy way to live. And so for me, starting out in the business right out, you have agents that are like, “Well, listen, if you don’t do this scene, you’re not going to go anywhere in your career, you just won’t.” 

I’m at a point in my career now where I definitely know that you can just choose what you want and you can do the same when you first start. But yet sometimes when you’re new, you don’t think the same because you haven’t had that experience yet.

Especially in these days of social media, who are you following? I’m not just talking scrolling for fun or for laughs, but who are you following for an example of how to be a husband or a wife, how to be a parent, how to be a good worker, how to use your talents, what to do with the money you just made, what to do with the creativity you have sort of pent up inside you? And if you don’t know who you’re following, then you might just find yourself on a different road you didn’t expect yourself on. Scripture talks about the road being narrow, right? It’s a small path, and yet there’s a lot of paths that are really wide. 

I mean, hey, there’s days when you’re feeling something else and you’re excited and the next thing you know, you went off on this rabbit trail and you look up and you’re like, Where am I? Why have I been doing this for this long? How do I get back to where I need to go? And God has this beautiful way of never taking you back on the same trail you walked on. He always brings you back to Him in a new, fresh way.  

“God has this beautiful way of never taking you back on the same trail you walked on. He always brings you back to Him in a new, fresh way.” – Jesse Hutch  

Jesus Listens, July 22nd:

Dear Jesus, 

Help me to keep climbing this high mountain with You. Sometimes I look back nostalgically at a long-ago stage of my journey—yearning for that easier, less complicated time. But I’ve come to recognize it for what it was: a base camp. It was a time and place of preparation for the arduous adventure that was ahead of me. 

Although each day is a challenge and I often feel weary, I can still enjoy the magnificent scenery. This journey with You is training me to see from a heavenly perspective that transcends my circumstances. The higher up this mountain I climb, the steeper and more challenging the trail becomes—but the greater my adventure as well. Please keep reminding me that the higher I go with You, the closer I get to my ultimate goal: the heights of heaven—an eternity with You! 

In Your breathtaking Name, 

Amen

Narrator: To keep up with Jesse and his upcoming projects, follow him on social media. 

Stay tuned to Randy Frazee’s story after a brief message.

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God Hears Your Prayers

In the days that are dark, where the news isn’t good, when we’re looking desperately for answers, or just looking to be heard, we just want someone to listen. Someone to hear our fervent prayers. More than ever, people need help. More than ever, people need hope. And more than ever, people need to know that they are heard. 

Jesus Listens is a 365-day prayer devotional with short, heartfelt prayers based on Scripture, written to deepen your relationship with God. Learn more about Jesus Listens and download a free sample at www.jesuscalling.com/jesuslistens.  

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Our next guest is pastor and author Randy Frazee. After years of following God and feeling like he was doing His work, Randy experienced a set of downturns that sent him spinning. A personal betrayal resulted in a deep depression, which he tried to sort through alone, but with the help of a community of caring friends and family and therapy, Randy was able to re-emerge inspired to help others with his own story, and stories from the biblical times where people experienced the same thing. 

Randy Frazee: Hello everyone, my name is Randy Frazee, and I am first and foremost, a child of God. But I’m also married to Roseanne, my wife of forty-two years. We met in church when I was fifteen years old. And we have four children, and we also have five grandchildren now. I’m also a pastor and an author. I’ve pastored four churches over my thirty-five years of being a pastor, and now I’m the lead pastor of a church in Kansas City. 

The Power of People Speaking Into Your Life

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in a blue collar family, and my family were not followers of Jesus. He just didn’t make the short list of priorities in their life. But when I was fourteen, a neighbor that worked with my father two doors down invited me to their summer vacation Bible school. And three days later, after hearing the simplicity of the gospel, I accepted Christ into my life. And that became a radical shift for me. 

I got very involved in church when I was about fifteen years old. There were several things that happened to me, and one of them was a gentleman named Ray Teeter, who sort of grabbed me by the cheeks and said, “Randy, you would make a good pastor.” And I had never had anybody speak into my life ever to give me any sense of vision. 

And so I went off to get my degree in theology, which was very exciting. What happened to me when I was fifteen years old definitely shaped what I have done over these last thirty-five years as a pastor of a church. 

So I really am mindful to stop and to speak into the life of somebody, whether it’s a kid or an adult, a person who is discouraged, because that speaking vision into them, what you see, could really change the outcome of their life. 

“I really am mindful to stop and to speak into the life of somebody, whether it’s a kid or an adult, a person who is discouraged, because that speaking vision into them, what you see, could really change the outcome of their life.” – Randy Frazee 

Life’s Unexpected Downturns

I had the privilege of putting together, a number of years ago, what’s called The Story. And The Story is an abridged chronology of the Bible. So one of the challenges that people have is when they read the Bible, they think it’s a story because it is a story, but the Bible is not organized as a story. The Bible is organized topically, not chronologically. So what we did with The Story is that we simply put the story in chronological order, so that a person could read it like a novel. 

So people who are maybe new to the Bible, people who are even around the Bible for a long time and maybe know a handful of their favorite verses for the first time, are actually experiencing the one story of God. And they discover pretty quickly in it that the story’s not over yet, and therefore that means that they’re a character in that story.

While I have been close to God and following His will, there are things that happen that create sort of downturns in our life. And for me, just a couple years after The Story was released and the work was going really well, I’d actually experienced an unexpected sort of betrayal from a few friends. And in ministry, there are people that challenge you and criticize you, it kind of goes with the territory. But these were super close friends, and I was just unprepared. 

And as a result, my psychologist said I went into the basement of my brain where we deal with fear, and I was trying to fix it in my own strength, and I stayed down there she said just a little bit too long. And if you do that, if you stay in the basement of your brain living in fear, trying to fix it in your own strength, maybe not going to God as dependently as you should, it’s going to really highlight maybe that you didn’t have this sort of intimate relationship with Him before. 

I was in the basement of my brain when I realized that I was depressed and when I tried to come back upstairs, someone had shut the door. And those people who have experienced clinical depression, where you just can’t snap out of it or pull yourself up from your bootstraps, you realize you’re in a very difficult situation. You just can’t say, “Hey, I’m going to get out of this.” You just can’t do it. You have to stay down there for a period of time.

When you’re depressed, there’s a real temptation to isolate yourself. You isolate yourself because you lack motivation. You isolate yourself because you’re embarrassed. You isolate yourself because you don’t want people to see you in this condition. 

Mental Health Struggles in the Bible

There are a number of people in the scriptures that clearly struggled with depression and anxiety. I mean, you certainly have Elijah, but probably the biggest example comes from David himself. Many people who’ve studied the writings of David said, “At the very least, he was clinically depressed, possibly even suffering from bipolar disorder.”

I could really relate to him as David cries out to the Lord but always comes back in his writings, in his songs, to saying he’s going to trust in the Lord. And I’m sure at times in his writing he’s saying it, but not totally embracing it or believing it, but he’s continuing to renew his mind. 

And so I just think there’s just great comfort, to be honest with you, even in Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is anxious, it said, to the point of death. And I think it’s important for people to realize that the feelings of anxiety or depression are not sinful. These are emotions that God has given us to alert us and to allow us to go through seasons of difficulty. And a person should not feel guilty if they’re experiencing a little bit of anxiety. Jesus—I know it’s hard to imagine—felt anxiety in the garden to the point of death. 

“I think it’s important for people to realize that the feelings of anxiety or depression are not sinful. These are emotions that God has given us to alert us and to allow us to go through seasons of difficulty.” – Randy Frazee 

I have experienced that kind of anxiety. And you look at how Jesus, just in His pattern of always going to the Father and what He did in the Garden of Gethsemane, three times He came back and asked for this cup to sort of bypass Him. And we never get the sense that the Father is speaking out loud, because it never says it. But He goes three times, and after the third time there’s a sense of resolve. He’s heard from God, “No, you’ve got to go through this. We’ve talked about it. There’s not another way for us to redeem humanity that we love as sinful as they are.” And if you read the text, Jesus stands up with a sense of resolve and says, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s get this done.” And so there was just a sense that He stayed close to the Father and aligned His life with the will of the Father, so that even in difficult seasons like the cross, you can find an inner sense of contentment and purpose, despite the fact that the situation surrounding you can be very stressful.

These examples of people in the scripture who have struggled with depression and discouragement helps us to understand that God understands us, and that He sees that we have the weakness and the brokenness that comes from being a part of a sinful world, and that He is going to carry us along. He’s going to encourage us. He’s going to walk us through it. And He factors in our weakness in selecting us. 

“He is going to carry us along. He’s going to encourage us. He’s going to walk us through it. And He factors in our weakness in selecting us.” – Randy Frazee 

Letting God’s Word Settle In

I met with my family doctor who was a wonderful man who really pastored me through this. And from that, I also had a counselor, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist, all believers who were working together. And one of the things that my doctor got me to do was some really significant morning routines. One is to try to get a good night’s sleep, which is really difficult when you’re suffering from clinical depression. And then every day, I would read a Psalm, and then I also exercised. Exercising releases endorphins that really kind of help. And to be honest with you, none of that really, really worked initially. But my doctors continued to encourage me to stay with it. 

And then just little by little, God’s Word sunk in, and health began to return to me. But it was eight months of pure darkness and I didn’t think I was ever going to come out of it. But at the same time, God is there. He’s going to see you through it. And as a result of it, I’m very grateful, because I’m now much more empathetic as a person, much more empathetic as a pastor.

Now that I’ve experienced this, when I run into somebody who’s there, I can just look them in the eyes and go, “I know how you feel.” So I’m grateful to God for that experience. I trust Him more. I know that more things are going to come down the pike, that are going to come my way. And I’m hoping that through God’s showing up and proving Himself strong and getting me through this and teaching me through it, as a result, I’m a better minister today. 

God offers us in our relationship with Jesus, a joy that’s despite our circumstances, despite other people, despite our past, and a level of joy that can actually defeat worry in our lives. 

“God offers us in our relationship with Jesus, a joy that’s despite our circumstances, despite other people, despite our past, and a level of joy that can actually defeat worry in our lives.” – Randy Frazee 

The Role of Prayer in Our Mental Health

One of the key elements of overcoming mental struggles, emotional struggles, is prayer. And the scripture talks about it over and over again, particularly in the little book of Philippians. Paul talks about it. For example, in the opening chapters, he says, “I pray with joy when I think of you. [Philippians 1:3-6]” And he’s speaking of the Philippians, who are the only people that really supported Paul throughout his ministry. 

And so intentionally throughout the day, Paul would pray and he says, “I pray with joy, thanking God for you.” And what we learn in modern brain science is he’s engaging in a thing called joy conditioning. He’s recalling happy memories. When he’s praying with joy, thinking of memories he’s had, what he’s doing is that our memories are stored in a place in our brain called the hippocampus. And we now know through brain scans that every time we recall a memory, it strengthens that memory. And when it strengthens that memory, it helps you to overcome the difficulties of your current situation and lifts you up. 

God wired our brain that when we engage in prayer—and particularly, recalling memories of God’s faithfulness or being thankful or even just laying our request before Him because we recognize He’s bigger than our problems, it rewires your brain. We call it mental health because it’s centered around what’s going on in your brain. It’s going to lift you up. It’s going to encourage you, maybe not all at once, but little by little, if this becomes a spiritual discipline, a spiritual practice. God will show up and you’ll begin to experience joy. And so prayer has an enormous role in overcoming anxiety.

One of the reasons that I think that the Jesus Calling has been so successful is I have read it as a devotion, particularly to be an encouragement to me, my wife continues to read it every single day. We don’t read devotions like Jesus Calling because we have to, we do so because we’re desperate people living in a broken world. We’re fallen and we’re wanting to hold ourselves together. The real genius of Jesus Calling is the personal nature by which it’s written, so that you get this sense that the scriptures are speaking directly to you, and it’s like you’re sitting having a meeting, a cup of coffee with Jesus as He’s speaking life into you. The renewing of your mind through prayer is going to connect you with God. 

God is writing a story. And you are a character in that story, He deeply loves you and He wants you to look up. And if you look up, He promises that everything is going to turn out just all right for you, it’s going to turn out great for you, and He wants to give you His joy. It’s not your joy. Jesus says He wants His joy to be complete in you. And so I want to encourage everybody to seek God daily, to listen to Him, to rest in Him. And one day you’re going to experience and continue to experience the joy that is His joy in you. 

“God is writing a story. And you are a character in that story, He deeply loves you and He wants you to look up. And if you look up, He promises that everything is going to turn out just all right for you, it’s going to turn out great for you, and He wants to give you His joy.” – Randy Frazee

Narrator: Please visit www.randyfrazee.com to learn more about Randy Frazee and be sure to check out his new book, The Joy Challenge, at your favorite retailer.

If you’d like to hear more stories about navigating life’s challenges, check out our interview with Jeff Allen. 

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Next week: Taraji P. Henson

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from iconic actress Taraji P. Henson, who shares how her relationship with God has shown her that He is greater than any fear or uncertainty she might face. 

Taraji P. Henson: You know, yes, people are going to be mean but you can control how you react to it. You give people the power when you succumb to them. You rise up in your power when you navigate through love because love always wins. Love can calm the angriest beast.