Kevin Whitsell: Let me talk to you. Jesus tells us in Luke 15, four, as he's telling a parable to a large crowd of people, he said, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he's lost one of them, does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that's lost until he finds it? And then in John 10, 11, he says something that connects the stories together. He says, I am the good shepherd. and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Guys, let's stop lying to ourselves. We look at brokenness in this world. We see trauma on the streets and we have quiet wars raging inside of our homes and our own minds. And we try to fix it with raw human strength. We build up walls, we put on masks, and we pretend to have it all under control while silently drowning in the dark. Today marks a line in the sand for this show. Once a month, we're stepping out of our usual mental health conversations to launch a brand new series called Initiative 99. It's named after a radical truth that the Good Shepherd will intentionally leave the 99 who are safe on the hillside to hunt down the single one who is lost, bleeding out, and completely running out of hope. This series is about the raw unfiltered reality of faith in Jesus and how he pursues us when we are at our absolute lowest. To launch this series, we are bringing in a powerhouse. He's a frontline veteran who survived the high acuity, hyper violent trenches of Oakland, California. As a highly decorated former firefighter and paramedic, he spent years performing under extreme pressure, Earning national recognition for life-saving heroism on the front lines. He's now a bestselling author that you may recognize from writing The Rescuer and has just released a vital new book entitled All We Need Is Jesus. His name, Jason Sautell. And for decades, he was the guy everyone called to save the day. Pulling hundreds back from the edge while quietly calculating the logistics of his own suicide. Until the Good Shepherd stepped into his darkness and pulled him out. If you came here looking for safe Sunday school answers or maybe religious platitudes, you came to the wrong place. You may want to pick something else to listen to. But if you're tired of faking the fine, if you're wrestling with your mental health, and if you're ready to see what happens when human armor gets replaced by radical grace, you need to hear this. Welcome to A Silent War Within. This is Initiative 99. Jason, thanks for. coming and talking to us today. Thanks for jumping in.
Jason Sautel: Hey, Kevin and Angel. It's such a blessing to be here with you guys today. And wow, that intro, man. I learned more about me than I knew about myself and stuff. I'm I'm kind of a big deal there,
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: you know?
Kevin Whitsell: have I feel like that we have very much not missed the mark, but maybe hidden the mark a little bit about where our our drive and motivation for this mental health thing truly lies. I think
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: that it it comes from from deep within and an upbringing that I had and also a life that I live now that's completely devoted to Jesus and and we do fail every day. and I think that really this parable of the lost sheep that we see in scripture is very important. It shows us the heart of Jesus, that he will leave the ninety nine and go find the one. And thank God that at one time I was that one and you were the one and angel you were the one. that he walked away from the ninety-nine others to come and find us. so I want to get into it with you, Jason, because I I love your book. I'm really excited to begin to dig into this new book. Tell us about some of your history and how you got into the Oakland Fire Department and how all that went down.
Jason Sautel: Yeah, well, you know, and I'm in agreement with you there too about faith-based when it comes to dealing with trauma and recovery and all that. And I think from our side, the way that we approach it is there's a toolbox out there for everyone. There's the secular side. I mean, there's people that are non-Christians that are struggling. If I told them you have to go to Christian counseling, bro, I'm s putting them in the wrong spot. But if my heart,
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: which is driven by following the Lord, says, I just care for you. I want you to get the help that you deserve. And then by all means, while they're in there getting the help they deserve, I hope their head gets cleared up enough that you know they'll hear the voice of the Lord. But if not, at least they're getting more time here on earth to possibly turn to him. So so looking at it from that point, I love your perspective of falling back into your faith because we need to be part of the solution too. Everyone needs to be there. And obviously, ours is grounded. In an unwavering truth that you can't take away from us. But we also recognize not everyone believes our truth. So I throw that out there.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: how did I get into the Oakland fire department? The 30,000-foot view was I was a young punk surf and skater down in Southern California, which was a high school dropout. And when there's no love in your home, you go chase it on the street. And I was chasing it on the streets and my Mom moved away from us when I was like, you know, six or seven years old. And I stayed with my dad, who he struggled, man. I mean, and and at the end of the day, yeah, he's a very, very abusive man. And so I didn't stay home. I'd rather go out on the streets and hang out there. And when I did, I started hanging out with a bunch of thugs. And I never took on their ideology. But there's this thing I like to call lycism. Like if I was in South Central LA, I probably would have been in Cripper of Blood, but I wasn't, okay. I was a young dude in the Inland Empire. So, you guys, I did run around with skinheads. Again, just to be clear, never took on their ideology then, never took it. I disgust me. But let's be honest, when there's no love at home, you're gonna go chasing on the streets. And the love the streets are gonna provide is not gonna, it's not gonna end well. So I was skating with a pack of these guys, and a dumpster happened to catch on fire right next to us. I don't know how that happened, and a fire engine came out. And while they're putting the dumpster fire out while we're skating in this alley. The skin has started just talking trash. I mean, dude, some of those vile words, you guys know what they are, but I'm not gonna say them here. We're just being thrown at these firefighters. And I look at them like, you guys knock it off. Those are the firemen. Knock it off. And all of a sudden they just look at me like, dude, we knew you weren't like us, da-da-da. Because first off, I'm not shaving my head and I'm not wearing combat boots because those are hard to skate in. Okay. And I was a pretty good skater. But they took off and the firemen, they heard this. And so they said, after they took off, I just hung out there and they're like, bro, are you gonna have issues with that? You're gonna take a beating. I was I I can take those guys. I'm not tripping about that. And then one of them said, Hey, have you ever thought about being a firefighter? And I was Well, you know, what does it take? And they said a high school diploma. And at that point, it was a high school dropout. So I like, okay. Well, to speed the story up, they invited me to the firehouse. I spent some time with them. And I really enjoyed that gang, if you will. I kind of liked what they were doing. And so I went back and I got my high school proficiency exam, which is like your GED, but they actually give you a diploma if you pass the test. And I applied for that fire department because even though it was a larger Riverside County fire department with 70 stations, they had seasonal firefighters there. And the captains of the firehouse would hire those seasons. And that captain hired me on the spot, man, two days after my 18th birthday. So I started off with Riverside County Fire, which was in Southern California in 1993, which was the historic firestorms, which you guys see all over the news nowadays every
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: year's. But in 93, they were just everywhere. Malibu, Lagoon, our Inland Empire was burning up. So I stepped right into the heart of the major wildlife fires. Then I realized my heart was more to an urban department, a big department. So I applied to San Diego, LA City, LA County, San Francisco. And I guess I told all the right lies to Oakland because they hired me. So I moved north
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: and became an Oakland fireman. And that's the story.
Kevin Whitsell: Very, very cool.
Angel Deaton: That's all.
Kevin Whitsell: So how how did this? So I want to touch on Christy, because this is one of my favorite parts of the book. Your wife's name is Christy. For those
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: of you who don't know this, who may have not read the book. You know, she played a really pivotal part in sharing the gospel with you. But I think even further back than that, you had kind of a rough childhood life. I mean your upbringing was was pretty rough. Jump into that just a little bit and tell us about some of the trauma because one of the interesting things I found about doing a podcast, so many first responders come into this field either because of or with the additional baggage of childhood trauma in some way, shape, form or fashion. So jump into your story a little bit about how the the upbringing part of it went.
Jason Sautel: Well, for first off, I'm gonna back you up on that because I'm in agreement of coming in what I like to say already pretty messed up, not knowing what we're getting into. We're thinking, first off, I fully understand most people get into firing EMS with the hopes it's gonna make them better. No, we wanna serve because we've gone through the
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: crap and we we wanna be able to help people because we know what it's like to be alone, to to have no one there and stuff. And I truly feel that's a draw, but not to spend too much time there. That's a problem though, because we get into it and we're also very broken ourselves. We haven't been given a foundation yet. And now we're getting more trauma poured into us. So I'm a true believer that you have to really dig deep into PTSD and trauma itself. And was it one individual thing? Was it cumulative? Where was your past? How were you able to process it? There's a lot to it. So I agree with you there, Kevin. Big time. But my childhood, you know, and I'm not here to beat my dad up. And and I love him and he's still alive, but even to this day. I haven't talked to him in probably about 14, 15 years. And he's just, he's a broken man. And it's my job now as a dad, a husband, and father is I can't change my dad, but I can change what comes after me. And that's what God's called me to do. So my childhood was rough. It was like I couldn't play sports because even in PE, if I was to ask my dad for a PE uniform, it would go bad. And so I
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: would have to sit out all year because I refuse to dress out, is what the coaches would say. And they would just Beat me up. They'd just talk crap and I'd stand up against the wall while all the other kids got to play. And then one day they even got all the students to kind of give me the beatdown, meaning that they weren't gonna go be able to play their sports unless I dressed out. So everyone's talking crap to me. And I'm just sitting there thinking, dude, all I want is one of the peak uniforms you got sitting over there in your office, but you're gonna sit here and just beat me down. So I'm gonna stay quiet. So School lunch. I never got a school lunch. I just sat hungry, dude. Because if I asked my dad for the 99 cents that it cost to do school lunch back then, I'd take a beating. So it was just I grew up as an outcast at home, which made me an even bigger outcast at school, no friends. And it was it was a rough life, man, growing up. And what I absorbed was living in my own brain, living in myself, becoming basically my own God, you know, because I I listened stuff. It's not like I didn't hear people talk and the teachers and The the nonsense of you can be whatever you want to be as long as you work hard enough. What a croc a crud that is, dude. You know, because I was basically telling someone that they they can be their own brother God. And if that were the case, you guys, I would not be sitting here with you guys right now because I'd be playing in an NBA game right now, making, you know, 80 million a year if I could do whatever I wanted to do and stuff. But
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha ha.
Jason Sautel: the childhood was rough, man. And and so when I had the opportunity to get a job that I could help other people, I honestly I didn't think it would like. Totally fix me, but I'm not gonna lie, I figured everything was gonna get a lot better. And boy was I wrong. And you know, until a a beautiful
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: young nursing student walked into my life, which is, you know, my wife of 20-something years now. Please don't, I don't know dates and stuff, but twenty twenty-something years we've been married now. And yeah, she came in my life then and she is able to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if have specific questions, I'm happy to kind of go that down that road with you too.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, I I I think I so there was this moment in the book and I and I don't want to spend too much time focusing on the book, obviously. I want to talk about you, but there's a moment in the book that you really believe that she's gonna break up with you and you really think that you're you're I mean, the way you kind of describe it really paints yourself as as kind of worthless to what she's giving you. Well, I think what happens is is what you see in yourself finally meets the good of Jesus and and what radiates from this girl. And you don't feel like this is gonna work out because, dude, from the moment you talked about in that book how you first saw her and the feelings that you had, I was like, that's his wife. I I
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: know that feeling all all too well. That's his wife. before even getting to the part where the relationship is actually successful and listening to it, you know, that Coffee shop. I think it was a coffee shop. It's a Barnes and Noble, wasn't it? Yeah, right.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, right next to where she worked, a coffee shop and a barns in Nobles, yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. So when that meeting is happening, I am in my car driving, listening to this book, going, gosh, please don't let them break up. Please don't let this be that kind of heartbreak story. but she really gave you sort of this grace, but also this
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: ultimatum at the same time to say, hey, if you want to date me, you got to go to church with.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: So was it her doing that that kind of led you to Christ?
Jason Sautel: Yeah, you know, obviously I can go to to my whole, you know, deep Reform Baptist theology and tell you, you know, Holy Spirit, God and all that. But he uses us. He did he
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: use a fireman who's an atheist still to this day to save my life. Okay. So he uses all of his creation, whether they've
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: accepted him or not, he uses all of us. So so with that being said, I'll get into the story of that. Was yeah, man, I every person I ever dated, and when I Portray this image of being alone and dark and the evils. I was not evil. I was a cool guy. People loved me. They wanted to hang out with me. But when I went home, I shut the doors and I was alone. And when I was around people in a room and they were all partying, I was alone, dude. I was not feeling it. I didn't have the joy they did. But because as firefighters, we're trained to become the world's greatest liars because lying is part of our job, right? you are gonna be okay. We're gonna get you through this, we're bringing comments. No, sir, I'm not having a bad day. I'm here to help you, even though I'm having a horrible thing happen at home. It trains us to be the most amazing liars on the face of the earth, which we can twist all bad things to use people, but boy, can we use it to destroy ourselves and our families too. And so when I met Christy, I just saw goodness and a light out of her. And it's not like I'm stupid to Jesus and who he was. You know, I wasn't living in a cave
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: somewhere, but I hated, hated all things good. Because I knew as soon as good came in my life, this emptiness, this evilness, this black hole inside me
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: was gonna chair it up, chew it up. And so I got that thing where it was like in that meeting, it's kind of like this mindset, and you guys just go with me on this, okay? It's like, I asked you to dance and you say no. I didn't I wanted to dance with you. I said you look fat in those pants and I'll walk away. That was my personality. Like, I'm I'm gonna be that rude guy with the heart exterior. Like, no, no one rejects me. I reject myself, is kind of how goes.
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: But I was showing up expecting to be like a see how it went. And I was crushed, dude, because I never felt like this. I did not want to lose her. Bro, I even went out and I bought that Bible, right? And I'm not gonna make fun of King James Bibles or whatever you want, even though we're America, we should have thrown that thing off with the T way back when it wrote our own immersion. I'm
Angel Deaton: you
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: sorry, English version. I'm just joking you guys. It's the King James version. I'm just joking, take it down on me a notch. but I get the biggest King James version.
Kevin Whitsell: He's not wrong though.
Jason Sautel: Yeah, he this big King James version, I'm flipping through it. Bro, and being someone who's never opened up a Bible, what I tell people at the time, I bought the Bible without Jesus
Kevin Whitsell: huh.
Jason Sautel: in it. And there is no Jesus in this Bible because I'm doing what I've been taught in the kindergarten starting page one and keep going through. Bro, I'm like at page 850 and stuff, and there is no Jesus in my Bible. So I bought a bus said Bible, dude. And and plus, you know, I'm starting to go, dude, these Christians are freaks, man. Have you seen what some of these old guys and gals have done? So I'm trying that. So I'm like, I'm done. I was I was hoping I was gonna be able to go to that meeting with Jesus. I Jesus was coming with I'm gonna know who he was because I studied him all day. That's what paramedics firemen do. We study up. I show up there and Jesus ain't there. I know nothing about the faith, and Christy walks in. And I was just heartbroken, dude. But what I love about her was she did not break up with me, but she laid down the ultimatum. He said, She did not say you need to be a Christian, but she prior to coming in, and this is the backstory behind it. She knew I was a six-alarm fire and she was just her and she couldn't handle it. So she wanted to get me to the body of Christ, which was invite me to church. And so she says, I'm not going to date you anymore unless you come to church with me. And that's where it all started, right there. No ultimatums anywhere else. And I totally respect that because she saw that my brokenness would probably eventually take her down, take our relationship down. We're not ones that are a four against that whole missional dating nonsense people talk about. We believe that God puts people in. lives and if it's gonna work out, you're gonna figure it out. If not, it's not. But she knew that I needed to have more people around me. So she showed me the gospel. Other people explained it to me.
Kevin Whitsell: That's awesome.
Angel Deaton: Which makes me think, like, from your point of view at that time, did it feel like you were the only one wearing the mask? Like, what was that aha moment that you were like, hey, I'm not the only one sitting around here faking it. Like, these guys are just putting on the mask with me every morning.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Well, what's crazy is the crew I worked with, they were such a salty and old crew. I should not have made the firehouse that I made in Oakland. We're an old school,
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha.
Jason Sautel: just
Angel Deaton: Bye.
Jason Sautel: senior man type of fire department. Yes, we have women, but we just,
Kevin Whitsell: yeah.
Jason Sautel: you know, we say firemen, but we love everyone. Just an old gritty
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Jason Sautel: s old school fire department. The if you can do the job, come on. If you can't, we don't want you type of stuff. Get out of here. I don't care what you look like or what what genitalia you have, that's it. So I worked with some of the most hardcore Christians you could ever see my firehouse. Who loved me and they they prayed for me, but they also saw what a train wreck I was. They saw how messed I was. And so they wouldn't let me put my mask on, but they didn't know how good of a mask I could put on. Because even until
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: the day I wrote my story and I did go through the suicide part and it hit the the fire department, guys called me so upset. They're like, Why didn't you tell us? Why did you tell us after the fact why I said Weird. I just wasn't ready till 20 years later because it happened 20 years ago. And they're like, Why didn't you do this and stuff? And then also I started getting other calls from guys in the fire department going, What you felt is exactly what I felt. And that's when the light went on of like, I'm a voice for others now. And God's like, That's I didn't write the book for me and my Helling. I let you experience that, go through this crappiness so I could refine you. So you now, this is one of your bigger ministries, right? I mean, my ministry is wide encompassing, but To be able to walk into a firehouse, let's be honest, anyone can. Anyone can sit at the table, but until you earn a right to be there, the guys aren't gonna open up to you or the girls aren't gonna open up to you, you know? And and I think that is one of the things that wearing that mask for so long is I can explain it because now I I don't I care about you. I I don't really it's hard to say. I don't care about your happiness here on earth from a Christian standpoint. I'm so fearing your eternity. And and and to be able to walk in now and just take that mask off and be like, hey, I've been in the trenches and if you want to go toe-to-toe on fires, I I'll go there with you, but I don't need to and stuff. But for some of the younger guys who are like, you don't know anything. All right, you want to compare medals of valors, even though that's stupid in my opinion, to get off that way. But it's like, I've been there with you. And so, Angel to to talk with you about the mask, yeah, wearing it, everyone wears it. We still wear it today, you know. I just hit a filter so my face wouldn't be so red, you know, from working out in the yard. How about that? You know? I mean, I
Angel Deaton: Right, right.
Jason Sautel: mean, and and we all we all have these these filters and stuff. But the last thing I want to throw out there about that is what helped me take mine off was Christy. She was vulnerable from the moment we met. Let's be honest, me being a single West Coast fireman, even way back then, you know, twenty-eight, twenty-nine years ago, or twenty whatever it was, I was making good money and my bank account was loaded, right? Because I know where to spend it. She had no money and we were out for dinner. I jokingly said when the they put the bill down, I grabbed like, no, if hey, if you pay for this, you don't get to go out with me again, you know. And she flat out said, Well, that's good because I couldn't pay for this anyways. And I said, What? And she was the first girl that ever been honest with me. She's like, No, seriously, I'm a true starving student. I work two jobs inside a restaurant and I work there just so I can eat for free. I'm excuse my language, but that's the biggest turn on I've ever had in my entire life. And I'm not saying in a sexual
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: weird way, but it was like
Angel Deaton: Right. Right.
Jason Sautel: Pow! You know, I don't get wrong, she's smoking hot, still is and stuff,
Kevin Whitsell: Truth. Truth.
Jason Sautel: which was a huge benefit. But but that vulnerability she brought nowadays, I'm not saying nowadays, I want to do generational against generational stuff. But even during my time, girls would not let you in and like not, it's like you can't ask me
Angel Deaton: Uh-uh.
Jason Sautel: that. You're not allowed to ask that. Dude, she threw down that I'm broke and I'm hungry. I'm the first person
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: in my family to ever go to college. I'm busting my ass. Life sucks out there, but I'm gonna try to push through and make it better. That was sexy. I'm not gonna lie.
Angel Deaton: Yes, because
Kevin Whitsell: absolutely.
Angel Deaton: if you can't enjoy the good times or the bad times then you don't get to enjoy the good times either She
Jason Sautel: Right. You dealed it.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, see
Angel Deaton: knew that she was safe with you
Kevin Whitsell: see yours is something deep rooted and that vulnerability and that honesty and Angel over here, her turn on is her husband taking the trash to the road. So I mean sh sh
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Jason Sautel: Mm. And hey, Angel, remember this though. When you take out the garbage, you never say a thing ever. When we take it out, we're gonna let you know about forty eight times that we took the garbage out. Okay. I just wanna let you know that. Honey,
Kevin Whitsell: absolutely. Absolutely.
Angel Deaton: Always, always.
Jason Sautel: I took the gar I did the lawn. Yeah, we we gotta let you know we did. Yeah, meanwhile, Christy
Angel Deaton: I did it, I did the thing.
Jason Sautel: cleans the house from top to bottom and she just goes right back to doing whatever she's doing without telling me, you know. So yeah. We're not very
Kevin Whitsell: But the the funny thing is is that joke comes from Angel being involved in my wife and I's marriage group that we teach or we we don't really teach, we facilitate more so than anything else, at our church. And one of the things that got brought up in that group, your garbage story is funny, but we also had somebody bring up that they find their husband so attractive when he's mowing the lawn. Well, I looked right at my wife and I said, Bay when I'm riding my llama, or do I look attracted to you? And she said, Zero. Absolutely not. There's there's nothing. I was like, dang, I thought I had something there. I thought somebody had discovered something. But I think that
Jason Sautel: No, not at all. Yeah. Well yeah.
Angel Deaton: I tried, I tried.
Jason Sautel: And the interject in that conversation interject in that conversation, I'll just throw it down to the young guys 'cause we do teach at our church too, is you wanna look sexy to her wife, do something that's gonna free up her time. So I'm gonna say
Kevin Whitsell: That's that's exactly right. You're exactly
Angel Deaton: Absolutely, absolutely.
Kevin Whitsell: right. Take something off of her plate. That's the surefire way. But I think that to go back to kind of what we've been talking about, I think
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: that we come into this job and we kind of had this, or at least I did, I had this very false pretense that I was gonna be the hero in every scene. You know, everything was gonna be the most critical patient you could think of, because I'm paramedic trade. and every patient was gonna be critical, and that's just not. you know, you go after the stub toe and all the silliness that people call for. And really I think that there is a larger theme here that we almost have this savior complex to where we are attached to our last last rescue or our last save or our last patient and how well we did.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: but I think one of the things that you do really well is you broke that down. you had a jumper and and I know you're probably tired of telling this story because you've told it all over the country.
Jason Sautel: Not at all. I'm not at all. Not at all.
Kevin Whitsell: you had a jumper on the San Francisco Bridge, right? And
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and you looked in his eyes and you saw something you recognized.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: So when you recognize that darkness, what did that feel like and how can other responders recognize that darkness without maybe having that that big event like you have?
Jason Sautel: Yeah, not a problem. And it's the Bay Bridge
Angel Deaton: and
Jason Sautel: between Oakland and San Francisco. And we've gotten plenty of jumpers over the years. And I I'm gonna say 99% of the time, they come back over, it's a good ending, we're fine. Because most people that were getting in their life, they just pulled over, jumped off. And by the time we got there, we found a vacant vehicle. You know, I'll be honest with you. but on that particular one, when I walked up to that guy, I wanna be so clear. I didn't see evilness in his eyes like he was evil per se. I saw an emptiness. And it would be like take the kindest
Angel Deaton: I'm going to.
Jason Sautel: looking person you've ever seen in your life. But let's take the Charles Manson's eyes and put them in there. Charles Manson has empty eyes that evil's invaded, right? And just has taken over. And so I'm not comparing this kind gentleman who hopped off. What I'm comparing
Kevin Whitsell: Sure.
Jason Sautel: is how evilness may make us react when we have no goodness. We feel all
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: goodness is left. And when I looked into his eyes, it was empty. It was like when I look in the mirror to my eyes, it was just empty, dude. I saw nothing in there. And so when the evil came in, it didn't make me want to do evil stuff and do evil things. It just wanted to overpower me, you know? And like I
Kevin Whitsell: Right. Yep.
Jason Sautel: say, some people, it makes them do very, very evil things, especially if they have mental health and some other stuff going on there. It can be very, very bad stuff. So when he jumped off, I went back when I climbed on the fire engine, the same evilness that I first met when I was five years old and in kindergarten, and I was thrown in a closet in my kindergarten class because I was crying and wanted to see my mom and the teachers I was disrupted in the class and they threw me in a dark closet and they wouldn't let me out until I stopped crying in a janitor's closet. That same evilness that day, I also recognized as a 28-year-old man, you know, 23 years later there was, but this time was different. I finally had an understanding where we stood. Dude, it climbed back onto the fire engine with me, rode back to the firehouse, waited out my truck while I took a shower, and it took my commute home with me, dude. And sat shotgun in my truck. And so I had a recognition of that evil. And that scared the crap out of me, guys. It really did, because I saw myself as the jumper on the Bay Bridge. And, you know, just a few short weeks later I actually became that jumper per se, you know, even though my way was gonna be different, I was saved by the grace of God.
Kevin Whitsell: And and and that's a great point. And what I mean by that is like you talk about you being saved by God and one of the things that I think we do, we try to shepherd ourselves. And
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and you know, we try to take care of our own lives and many times we don't turn to who we know as the good shepherd and the father and and the
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: protector and the pursuer. We don't turn there immediately until we have this life-shaking event as you had.
Jason Sautel: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: how can we avoid as as you know, go back to the time where you didn't have God in your life?
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: What is something different that you could have done to to avoid some of these life-shaking moments that make you turn to God?
Jason Sautel: You know, recognize goodness. It's it's so hard because, you know, as a Christian, we know goodness comes from but there's no good here. We're not good, nothing's good. Our actions truly aren't good. We glorify God through our actions, if you really think about it, because it all comes from Him. So as a non-Christian, people are gonna say, so I'm just a bad person. No, no, no, I'm not saying that stuff. But recognize the goodness. And for me, you guys, I'll be honest with you, I have to give the truth out there. I saw no goodness anywhere. People would tell me, go buy that big truck. Bro, I went out and bought that big truck because that's gonna make me happy and make life good. Okay, well, a couple days of cold have truck. Then I'd put a boat behind it. And then I go out to the river partying. Then you guys, I I not an alcoholic, don't do the whole drug scene stuff. But you know what? I'd go to the bars and hang out with the guys. There was no goodness there. I was miserable there. Everything that was good would make me feel good for about five to ten minutes, and then I was empty again, dude. And so I had to find something where like Being at work and being on mission with everyone else. When you're part of a mission and you're part of something bigger
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: than yourself and you're doing it because you want to do things for other people, that's where you find the goodness. So as a Christian or non-Christian alone, but I'm speaking to Christians here too, I always tell people: don't look for happiness in the outcomes. Otherwise, this life is gonna suck because this life ends at death for non-Christians. That sucks. You're having ups and downs, the downs usually hit more than the ups do. I'll be honest in that. And so if you're looking for, I want to get happiness out of the outcomes, it's gonna suck. Find happiness in the obedience. Find happiness that you've been blessed with the most killer job on the face of earth to provide for other people. Do what you can do that you've been called and you're gonna give compassion, care. And even though our kind of compassion can hurt sometimes by jabbing needles in people and holding them down and doing stuff, find joy in that. But Do not find joy in the outcomes because God's gonna handle the outcomes
Angel Deaton: Mm.
Jason Sautel: and we don't always understand his big perfect picture, but I guarantee it's better than ours. So when someone dies, and I you guys, I work in a city where we're number one per capita in the United States for fire-related fatalities. So you come to Oakland, you are pulling people out of burning buildings and doing mouth to mouth on them. It's just how it well, not nowadays, I mean, but but you know, doing bag maths and all that other stuff. But but
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. Yeah.
Angel Deaton: Okay.
Jason Sautel: you are gonna do it. And you guys, there's no joy in making those grabs, even when someone survives. Yeah, I maybe pulled them out, they're burnt to crap and they're they're soot covered and they're having all these medical emergencies and I their house got destroyed and all these medical bills. So what I get, Joanna, is thank you, God, for giving me these gifts and abilities to be there. I give it all to you. Thank you so much. Now I'm gonna be honest, you guys, when you do get that call, and I personally I never wanted to know. When I drop off, I walk away. There's even to this day is staying a life spare magic, but I haven't worked for one for many years. I am of the mindset I don't want to know because my job was the obedience side and it's a safety mechanism I built in and stuff. But let's be honest, even guys like me, the word gets back around and they even walk into the firehouse, which we've had before, and they thank us. That's the fruit that we talked about, right? When you're in the dark, there's no fruit. It sucks. It's horrible. When you're in the light, God's not rewarding you for doing good. I want to be very clear. It's not like, if you do this, I'll give you this. But he says there's fruits of your labor in the light. And so when you're in the light, and every once in a while you get a taste of that fruit, you guys is so bad. I'm not gonna lie. You know, you're like, you're not trying to put it about you, but do we
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: we pulled them out, they're alive, and I got to meet that person. That's
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: awesome, you know.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, very cool.
Angel Deaton: So tell me about the moment that you realized that God wasn't waiting for you to clean yourself up Like he's coming down into the set into the dirt into the grit to get you after you So have you to take care of you to shield you in a way? Was there one
Jason Sautel: Yeah.
Angel Deaton: special event that was like your aha moment, you know, like he's not he's not waiting on me to per se do anything
Jason Sautel: Yeah, it was, you know, the gospel is such an amazing thing. The depths of it are so deep that we're never even gonna have a grasp around it. You will get the basics, died on the cross, rose three days later, all that we're gonna get the basics. The depths of the gospel where all life truly begins is so hard for us to wrap our head around. So mine aha moment happened over a series of a few days. It happened right after that meeting with Christy at the coffee shop. It happened when a cool pastor, because I was the day before I almost killed myself, I went to a church and they threw me out because the way I was dressed. And so think about that church. You guys
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm. I remember that.
Jason Sautel: toss me out, I almost die. And then an atheist San Francisco firefighter saves my life. Let's have let's we'll talk about that later on and stuff, you know? But right, yeah, go think about that.
Angel Deaton: Little ironic.
Jason Sautel: But what what had happened was I met a pastor who's actually cool and he took me out. And we we went, I'll lie to you guys and say it was coffee that we went in and we had a cup of coffee, okay? And over this cup of coffee, called Budweiser, him and I are chatting it up and and sorry.
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: No, you're good.
Jason Sautel: And we're chatting it up. And he he asked me, he goes, Tell me about your job. And he was truly interested because he really won, you know, want to be a firefighter and stuff. So I'm telling him, as I'm telling him, he stops, hey bro, can I tell you something? He's like, Yeah, and he knew who his audience was. You're a little on the conceited side. And I started laughing, you know, and I'm Why? He's like, You're saying, Well, I get to do this, I fought a fire, I get to help save lives. I I he's all dude, the only difference between you and me as a Christian is I tweak it and I just say, Thank God for giving me the abilities to be able to go out. Help people and it's all to him, you're different. And he's also, it's a little on the conceit. It's like and I started laughing, but bro, that hit my heart. Then shortly after that, I started noticing every situation I was on that I felt some goodness that didn't get taken away. Like Christy, had God involved. When I was on scene and like a 90-year-old man died, and I told his wife that he died, and I felt really sad, she came and gave me a hug. God was involved because she put her Bible down and she said, Don't worry, son, my child's with Jesus. She lost a husband of 70 frickin' years. And her first move was to come to meet a six foot one tall fireman, 225 with quivering lip and all upset. And she made me first. That can't be taken away. That story can't even be taken away from me by the devil, right?
Angel Deaton: That's right.
Jason Sautel: And so then, right after that, we go to a structure fire and it's downtown. And I made some really stupid moves at the structure fire and I went in way too deep. I got trapped. I was alone. And I really thought I was gonna die in that fire. I had to call a Mayday. And the guys had to come in and rescue me. And while I was laying in that fire, and legs were getting hot, I starting to my turnout pants were catching on fire. I I just you guys, it was the scariest feeling I ever had in my entire life. And I for days afterwards, I was scared. Yeah, yeah, at the Photoshop fire. Yeah. So I was
Kevin Whitsell: Was that the Photoshop? Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: inside that fire. And that's the first moment where I felt Christ because I looked up and said, God, I I don't want to die like this. And my whole mind was, I just met Chris. There's all this goodness in my life. There's all this stuff. But It was all things he'd given me, right? And I said, God, I don't want to die like this. And people are like, so what happened? Did Jesus Christ himself come in, doves open? You hear James Earl voice, Jones' voice being, Jason, I'm here to save you. I'm like, no, a pack of ghetto firemen ran in with a hose line, pulled my Okay, that's what happened. He used them
Angel Deaton: Right?
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha yeah.
Jason Sautel: to pull me out. But I was so shook into my core, you guys, because I got a taste of eternity of that fire of being separated, the pain, the darkness, the heat. And at that moment. Heaven and hell became real, Jesus and the devil became real, God, the Holy Spirit all became real, and conversion happened. And I make sure it's very clear to people that once you're in the hand of Christ, nothing can rip you out. That is salvation by Christ alone, by his work alone. Our job is acceptance. He does all the work. There's no work on our side. So keep that over here. But then over here, there's a thing called sanctification where you want to start growing in him, being more like him. I want to be later like. I'm not wanting to be more like Christy, but she's my example I could see of how you should live as a Christian, right? And that's the long version of the aha moment there, Angel, is it it took a little while,
Angel Deaton: awesome.
Jason Sautel: but that's how it came out.
Kevin Whitsell: No, I I I love that. And you say a word that we joke about a lot in our in our church. We talk about anytime somebody does something, you know, slits up and says a word, or, you know, I still have somewhat of a nicotine not somewhat, it is a nicotine addiction. every time I put one of those pouches in my mouth, somebody will walk by and go, Sanctification is a process, isn't it, brother? and it it's true. Sanctification is absolutely a process and it is
Jason Sautel: Life long, dude. Perfection yeah, perfection's gonna happen.
Kevin Whitsell: It is God working on us day after day after day. And many times I fail, and I say it often, that I really dislike the word Christian. I know what it means, I know where it comes from. I know what its roots are. But in today's world, I think the word Christian puts this negative stigma on us to somehow be this image of perfection. And when we fail, it it reflects it gives Christ a black eye, if you will. and I feel like that I describe myself more as a broken Jesus follower. I want to be more like him every day. I want to model him every day. and and one of the things that you have done really well in this new book, and and just looking at some of the reviews on it, like I said, it's on my read list. I'm getting to it, I promise.
Jason Sautel: dude, yeah.
Angel Deaton: Hehehe.
Kevin Whitsell: is you have integrated some of what you talked about in The Rescuer into this book and really given a game plan. of how you continue to sanctif how you continue to be sanctified. and that
Jason Sautel: Yeah, it's it's dragon.
Kevin Whitsell: well it really looks like just reading some of the the actual like reviews of it and and overviews of it is that you've put it in almost like a devotional format. Is that right?
Jason Sautel: It is. Yeah, it's a total. It's a 90-day devotional. And to be honest, sir, what what it is, here's my take on the whole thing, man. The moment I became a Christian, people are like, dude, so everything got to bet got better, right? You guys are always not you guys, but people always think the world, like, no, life
Kevin Whitsell: Not quite.
Jason Sautel: still sucked. I still went on a rape the next day. Babies
Kevin Whitsell: Yep.
Jason Sautel: were dying, murders are happening. I still have depression.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: I still have anxiety. I it sucks on so many levels. But check this out. I now have this little thing I've never had called hope. I now realize. This is not what I'm created for. I'm traveling through. You have this little pinpoint right here. My pink is where I'm at right now. But then there's this whole thing, eternity, that I've actually been created to it. And that's what I'm going to enter into. And I've hoped for that. But I've also been given the tools I need to make it through. So when people say, I'm gonna pray for a better life, I'm like, read your Bible, it ain't gonna happen. Pray for the tools of perseverance that help the brothers and sisters
Angel Deaton: No.
Jason Sautel: that come alongside of you, the scripture that you need to lean into, what you can. Yeah, we can fight stuff. But I guarantee you, you think you can pray a mountain? I live near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I can't knock that mountain down. And God's not gonna knock it down for me. Understand that. But He's given me what I can do. And he says that mountain was the separation between you and our father. And I've knocked it down. You're good. I've had, I've won the war, but the battles are still gonna be there. Why? Because I'm using those to refine you. And you are not gonna become perfect until day one. And I see everyone in EMS just beating up. Don't drink a power drink. Don't have a thing of nicotine. Don't have a smoke. Don't do this. Don't do that. Well, my take on it is this: if anyone ever comes at me, and I don't drink personally, I just don't drink, not because I'm against it. I'm a diabetic. So I just can't. And it is not my thing. I'd rather save my calories for something I want, something else for Christy to knock out of my hand, like a Sunday or something. But with that being said, everyone's beating everyone up about stuff. And I'm like, shut up. If I say I need this nicotine, and you go, Kevin, you in. I need this hit nick hit of nicotine. I'm gonna say, well, okay, hold on just one sec. Why do you need it? Let's talk about who you truly need. And I'm cool you partaking in that. Who cares, dude? It's like a drink. If someone's a non-alcoholic, they don't have issues with it, and they say, I need a beer, I say, no, you don't need one. I'll let you get to it in a few minutes, but let's have a talk over here first. You need Jesus, okay? But I'm a believer that we've also been given things we can use to help us through, as long as it's not true total addiction that we go to first. It's an addiction that's going to take us downhill. It's an addiction that's going to hurt first us
Kevin Whitsell: Right. Right.
Jason Sautel: and those around us. I'm 100% against that, you know, if you're that type of person. And so and I'll and I'll walk alongside you through that. So that's why I tell Christians, chill out. Okay, just chill out a little or group. What I like to say, followers of Christ, whatever you want and stuff. That what do
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: we are? We're now living the way. That's truly what it's called. Our faith is called the way if you really look at it in the book of Acts. We're now Following the way, the way to the Father, which is through Christ. We don't work our way to him. Christ got us there. Now he's showing us how to sanctify in him. And if you could get perfect, first off, then you're tell the Bible would be a lion. We wouldn't need Jesus. Okay. There, there you go.
Kevin Whitsell: That's awesome.
Angel Deaton: Which makes me think about hope and faith kind of sound cynical in the beginning before you started that process. You know, like, that's a joke. Yeah, right. Like, how could I ever believe that? You know, what's that going to get me?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Sautel: yeah, I've I've thrown pastors out of my firehouse before, you know. And I used to call the the Bible
Angel Deaton: No.
Jason Sautel: book of lies and stuff. And you that my nickname was the demon seed in the firehouse. So that's kinda and they the guys still
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: tag that name on me to this day. So yeah, it's
Angel Deaton: Ha ha ha ha!
Jason Sautel: and I was cynical. I was cynical because I hated all things good, including Christians, you know.
Angel Deaton: Right, right. Which makes me think like to write these books, you had to drag yourself back through the hard times. Like was that, was that almost healing to you or did it make it harder for a time?
Jason Sautel: Well, well, here's my answer to that, Angel. First off, what I tell folks is if you're doing anything that's going to help others looking to be healed, you're not ready to do it yet. Don't do it. Just give look
Angel Deaton: I know.
Jason Sautel: for the health and the healing of what you're going to do there. God will tell you and your conscience and the Holy Spirit will speak to you when it's time to start helping other people because that's a dangerous place to be and it's helping other people when you're not ready. What had happened is it been confirmed to me through a bunch of people by telling the stories and all this stuff. And and stuff and getting a literary age and all this stuff that I knew my story could impact people and I didn't want it to be about me. I wanted it to be when people read it, they saw themselves. Let's be honest. We've all pushed the same hallway. We've been on the same card. A dead kid across the United States is the same as a dead kid here. Okay. A fire over there,
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: wherever it's at, is all there. I wanted people to see where I was and that they're not alone. And that's why. Every book that I write, including I they're not even named yet, but there's two more that'll be coming out through national publishers. They're always dedicated to the lost, hurt, and lonely. That's it. They're never dead. People they aren't
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: you dedicating to Christy because me and Christy are fine. We dedicated to the lost, hurt, and lonely and stuff. And so, was I in a dark place? Other thing I'll throw out there, Angel. I purposely put myself back as an atheist, a lost person when I write, because I need those feelings that come out. I'm safe, I'm there.
Angel Deaton: Mmm.
Jason Sautel: I don't, it's not like okay, God, I'm not with you anymore, but no, I have to put myself in those shoes of Feel the hate again. How much you hated him? It's okay. I'm doing this to glorify you. And I'll write that. Feel the pain.
Angel Deaton: That's right.
Jason Sautel: Be that broken child. So when you go there, if you're not healed, it can be a very dangerous place. And I'll be honest with
Angel Deaton: Bye.
Jason Sautel: you, there was a time I had to take a pause. And I was Christy knows I'm the least violent person you'll ever meet, unless you're an electronic. If you're in electronic, I will murder you and I will seek you down and I'll kill you. I want to be clear with that
Kevin Whitsell: Hey hey.
Jason Sautel: because I hate electronics, man. And there's a time I was getting ready to throw another pool or a laptop in the pool, and Christy stopped me and she said, take a couple of days. Off and what I hate about my wife is when she goes to prayer for me because I can feel it. it gets me so mad, you guys, because I'm such a prideful, hateful man. I want to do things my way. And she goes into prayer and I'll literally yell in the next room like, stop praying. I don't want to write this damn book. And sure enough, she prayed and it came through. And God also told me through a bunch of people, because I do get a couple hundred emails and messages a day. And a lot of them are firefighters and stuff. And when they come through, a few came through at that time, and they were from firefighters who were gonna take their own life. And I was able to Help and that's why I just knew I had to do this, get the story out there. So there's again a long version your answer answered your stor
Angel Deaton: Yeah, that's awesome.
Jason Sautel: question.
Kevin Whitsell: No, I I
Angel Deaton: That's awesome.
Kevin Whitsell: I love that that you're a communicator as well. I I love that your your answers are lengthy and you can talk probably just as long as I can. That's absolutely fantastic. I I think in in kind of reading the overviews and and seeing how much you truly love Jesus, I think the question that comes to mind is why does a firefighter author, all the hats you've worn, what motivated you to say, I want to do a 90-day devotional?
Jason Sautel: You know, I wanted to do it because the title was The Rescue and Love of God. Because I think all too often we become Christians, we think it's all gonna get better, or when it doesn't get better, we start doubting. And I just want to remind people every minute, every hour of the day, you gotta turn to him when he can, you know, and and pray without ceasing. People like, so you stay praying, you know, 24 hours. Like no, it means he's on your heart, your mind, your thoughts all hours of the day that you're running everything through him. But so often I say this, then all of a sudden I get a phone call, a bill's due that I don't think is due from the taxes out here in California. Governor Newsom does something that gets me so flipping mad and stuff that immediately listen to
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha.
Jason Sautel: my voice right now. There is no Christ in my voice right now. It's all worldly and screen to blow up over this and so stupid because boy, I hate living in California, but it's my mission field, you know, stuff. And that's where my head is. So I have to now go back to the rescue and love of God. And I have to remind myself,
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: you know what? God has these people where they are for a reason. I don't fully understand it, but He wants me to react in a certain way that is going to let His light shine through me out there. And so I want people to always remember when you it's so easy to say, hey, when you come back from a tough run, just pray. Bro, when you come back from a tough run, sometimes I'll be honest with you, leave me the F alone for a couple hours. It's healthy. It's healthy. It's what I need.
Angel Deaton: Yes. Yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Now that's not where I stay and where I live and where I be, you know, I need to be. But as a guy who doesn't get Fed from people. I get fed by giving to people. I need to be alone to get my senses back about me. Some called introvert, extrovert, some I don't call that because I love being around people, but it drains the heck out of me and stuff. I'm not like my wife
Angel Deaton: Thanks.
Jason Sautel: where she freaking like Easter. She throws a party here for 600 flipping people. I hate that because I have to talk to them all. But I love them all being here. You know what I mean? Is a and so so
Angel Deaton: Yes, yes, yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: so you know it that's why I wrote it because it's just like Get people into I always want people to read their Bibles and stuff. And I'm very clear that so this was a general for all, but the next one I'm working on is gonna be for first responders only. And it's it's coming heavy, man. It's in a good way, in a really good way and stuff. But it's really gonna be only be written for firefighters for the most part, which any paramedic or cop can read it and stuff. so it's niche. So a lot of the big publishers were real leery about it, but I didn't care because I'm doing it anyways and stuff. So I'm I'm excited about that.
Kevin Whitsell: So do we have a timeline for that one?
Jason Sautel: I can't. It's if I gave you a lesson on the world of publishing, especially, you know, I'm with, you know, HarperCollins Christian, which is one of the big fives, and Thomas
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Nelson, it would blow your mind. All I what you always say is, be coming out next year. Next year, next year rolls around. I might be saying it's next year because they have a master calendar. And what they do, honestly,
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: is they they give us paychecks regardless as the authors and stuff. So it won't keep us bugging them too, but they know how to make their billions of dollars
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: through us. And so they always tell us, it'll be coming out, you know, in twenty twenty seven, it'll definitely be on the shelves. Well that's what I say right now.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: No.
Kevin Whitsell: Well, I am excited.
Jason Sautel: Until the elish until the inish or the official, I'm sorry, the official comes down the pipes. Then then I can give you the date and I'll you guys will be the first to hear. How about that?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, I love that. I
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: love that. So I guess one of the things that that I keep reading that you talk about is this these false refuges, almost these idols that we can put in place. This is what one reviewer from Michigan Southern University wrote about your book. they said the driving premises of the book is that humans naturally seek safety in the wrong places and Jason calls out specific idols, first responders, and high achievers run to when they're bleeding out internally. so the big three that they mentioned here, and you can tell me if this is correct or not, absolutely correct me if I'm wrong. Like I said, this is a book review.
Jason Sautel: No, no, it's fine.
Kevin Whitsell: work, relationships, and financial security.
Jason Sautel: 100%. Those are the throws are the three big ones. You I could I could throw an a a hundred and fifty big ones on there too, on top of that. But
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: let's let's throw it out there. And I want to give you guys a little bit, even if we're going over time. So deep into
Kevin Whitsell: No, it's okay.
Jason Sautel: my faith and into my walk with the Lord of 20 years, all of a sudden I get my hip and my back broken on an on a fire. And it's not a big so just so we're clear, it's not a biggest story. It was a stupid story, you know, a fall and whatever. I wasn't trapped. There was nothing came down on my head. There was no writ team involved or anything. I just got hurt on a fire. Okay. But as I got back to work, then I was thrown a ladder and it happened again because my body was finally wearing down after 26 years in a pretty, you know, busy environment. So my body was just worn down. And the day that the doctor came into the room and looked at me and said, You're never gonna be a fireman again. You guys, as the most faithful man who at this point, yeah, I was speaking nationally on my faith, standing, you know, I'm not. pastor at my church, but yeah, I'm one of the elders that's in line that I speak on the weekends and I give the sermons when needed and stuff. I told him to get the F out of my room with that exact I used I use the full F word there. And I was done and all that in my mind is, how am I going to survive now? All I've ever been since the age of 18 is a fireman. I dropped out of high school. I don't I have no other career. What what job's gonna say, hey, can you go down a hallway that's under smoke and heat and pull people out? I have nothing for you guys. How am I gonna feed Christy and the boys? Dude, not only do we have our two kids, we adopted my niece and nephew. it's just I'm Jason the fireman, but check this out. Holy idol, you guys. Here I am preaching about not
Angel Deaton: Mmm.
Jason Sautel: idolizing. I idolize it so much. Dude, I hang it behind me. No, this is like a tribute to my job and stuff, but it can quickly become an idol, right? I'm Jason the fireman. All my recognition comes from being a fireman. I have some great rescue stories that went nationally and stuff. And so quickly do we idolize the job without. Re thinking about it, right? It's all about the job. Then what do we do? when something bad happens, I'm gonna fall back into only the guys and the girls that I worked with because they know what I've been through, right? Holy idolization and stuff. But then if I get that extra overtime shift and and we go to Maui, life's gonna be better. Then I'm in Maui and I'm still having nightmares and all this other stuff. You're idolizing all this other stuff. The only one who's gonna walk you through it is the
Kevin Whitsell: Yep.
Jason Sautel: Lord Jesus Christ. He is it, he's the only one that's gonna take you from. Through it, from it, into it, past it, all this stuff where idolization is gonna hold you into it. It's gonna chain you to it, and you're not gonna come out of it. And I wanna be clear, I'm guilty of it all the time too. So is everyone else and stuff. So don't think I'm talking down to anyone. But being your job, here's my thing. Firefighter, big deal. It's your job. Teacher, big deal, it's your job.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Now get there and do the job the best you can, but don't let it become who you are. It's a job you're blessed to do. That's how you gotta look at it. And when the crap comes, make sure that you have things in place to help pull you through it.
Kevin Whitsell: I think that that is all the time.
Angel Deaton: is such a thing that we see like just the people that come in with a child abuse, know, trauma before this job and that they don't have a plan when things go south that, you know, there's no light at the end of the tunnel is what would feel like. What about like for the listener that hears that, you know, Jesus is all that you need and they're like, no, my problem is too complicated. My life's too complicated. What would be your advice?
Jason Sautel: You know, I'm not a person, I hate that term of I know what you're saying, I know what you're feeling. But again, when I'm talking to someone who's not a follower of Christ, I fall back in the days when I wasn't a follower of Christ and what just drove me nuts, right? Like, okay, so you're the saved crowd, we're the crab crowd, you find the happiness, we get to sit here in the darkness, everything
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: absolutely sucks. What I tell them is I just come alongside them honestly and I say, has what everything you've gone through worked yet for the long term and long haul? And even if you've gone through that, when it falls away and you use it again, does it help you move forward? Because I used to use all those same tools and they never worked. Now, the only thing I can do is give you truth. And myself, Jason Sottel, I don't follow commitments for more than five or six days. That's why I need people around me. How has it been that my wife has taken this drastic turn from just hating all things Christianity to now I have Hope and and it carries me through. And all this stuff that you use I thought would work never worked. I now use it in a way that my Bible says use it this way and it will work because God created psychology, God created medicine, God created all this stuff, but He also gave us a way saying, You need to steward it this way. You need to use
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: it in this way here. This is this is the hierarchy of how you use each thing. This is how I want you to use it. And it has worked for me. So people. I try not to put out my therapeutic plan out there because it might hurt someone, right? I truly believe that. Just like people all the time come in, like, Jason, stop saying PTSD because it's post rec stress disorder. And I'm like, shut up. You're the problem, okay? Guess what? You're the problem. Right there. Tell me what I can and can't think. Let's break it down like this trauma
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm.
Jason Sautel: causes pain, and pain sucks. Name it what you want, but you're the problem. Give it a give it a name or a mantra that's gonna make it better and make people want to grow out of it. it's Post-traumatic stress growing order. shut up. I don't want to hear that nonsense.
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Just say pain sucks and and pain hurts us all. But check it out. This is the way you can work your way through it that's helped me. Latch on it if you want. I can't force you to do it, but come back to me if you want more about it and stuff. And so my true plan was: you guys, I never went through 100% therapy. I never went through a program. I never and I am for just so we're clear, I am for those. Live in centers, all that. I can't. It would actually do worse for me to be in. It was through the book of my Bible, through family, through friends, through my local church, through reading stuff, making friends who have walked through this before me, making friends who are doctors and counselors. That has been my thing. And I'm telling you right now, there's psychologists that are watching this or psychiatrists tell I'm full of crap. I'm not. But I'm not telling someone else to not go to them and use them because they are needed. It is last thing I will say about this. Think about this, Kevin, as a paramedic. If someone is having a heart attack, a true and MI, I mean, they're having a STEMI, and we treat them as if they're having pleuritic chest pain, we could possibly kill them.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Vice versa, if we treat someone that's having pleuritic chest pain as if they're having a STEMI, we could kill them. We have to now look at the root of each person. What do we do when we get on scene? We assess, we assess the person. If they're having a stroke or if they're a heart attack, they're treated totally different. But at the end of the day, what do we want to do? Get them to the help that they need, which is healed. That
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: is the same thing I look at with the trauma on the job. Is the my childhood trauma when a doctor looked at me once, she's like, Your PTSD has PTSD. Wow, that's quite the story. You have layers, bro. You're you're like they
Angel Deaton: Thank you so much.
Jason Sautel: say that ogre with the onion and stuff. You keep going back, and you found more trauma in me. But then you look at someone else, and maybe it's their first time they came from a Christian background, like my kids. My oldest is a fireman, my youngest is middle-aged becoming a fireman now, but I'm grounding them on what they can do, which is if you ground in on your faith and you you work on your health and you work on your mental health, those are the things you can control working on them. So when the things
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: hit, you have a foundation. I didn't have that and stuff. And so therefore, someone else, like my son, may go to his first, you know, pediatric arrest or horrible, nasty scene where you're seeing the internal parts of bodies and it's going to crush him. And he truly is going to have a level of PTSD after that and stuff. But that's way different than mine because when I saw it, I also had years of getting beat down with me and and those were still open. So my sons, they're coming in actually ready with a better foundation than I had and stuff. And so, like I said, there's so many layers to it. But for me personally, I I just want to assess people and I do it every day and I say, Hey, I think this might be a good spot for you to go talk to. And if they're not, come back to me so I can pass you over to someone else till we find it. Because
Angel Deaton: yet.
Jason Sautel: I'm not gonna fix you. None of you are gonna fix the doctors, truly are. That is why I don't give my personal
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: wait 'cause I don't want someone to just grab a Bible and think it's gonna make them better either, you know?
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, that's so good. before we start to close, I'll tell you this quick story. This picture right here behind me. that was one of the first gifts that my wife gave me when we started dating. that's a that's a painting by her. and I wish I could have heard the the the entire spill that you just gave then, because then was was almost thirteen years ago now and I was broken. I was not dealing with it. I didn't know how to deal with it. I was what I like to call inherently a Christian because I'd grown up in the church my entire life, had been surrounded
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: with this this purpose, but had because of some earlier life church trauma, I said, No more church.
Jason Sautel: totally.
Kevin Whitsell: I you know, I'll still be a Christian, but I'm not gonna you know, I'm not gonna be in that body of believers because it was all governmental policy to me. Like that
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: was a lot of what the Baptist church is.
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and I'm not saying anything negative about the Baptist church. The Baptist churches that I was in was was full of that.
Jason Sautel: I will and I go to one of I go to a Baptist church. I'll tell you they're bad. No, I'm just joking. Just tease them.
Angel Deaton: Hahaha!
Kevin Whitsell: But 13 years ago, I was I was wrapped up in that sign right there.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and not just the painting, but what it stood for. I was Kevin the paramedic. I didn't know how to separate that identity.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: I didn't even remember the verses that talked about my identity in Christ.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: And in 2021, Angel knows my timeline better than I do. Twenty twenty-one,
Angel Deaton: I think so.
Kevin Whitsell: I had this. huge blow up on my family, so much so that it scared my family because I was so angry and just rage filled. And I didn't hurt anybody, but well, I hurt my shed. I was outside beating up my shed. Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. I understand. Mm-hmm. dude, I've there's there's been a hole. Yeah, I've put holes in walls. I got that, dude. Did I get you?
Kevin Whitsell: but so much so that they left. And once I started going to therapy and starting to peel back the layers,
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: there was so much cumulative trauma there of
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: all the things I'd seen, experienced, even as far back as childhood, things that in my
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: mind I'd let go years ago. But once you
Jason Sautel: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: start start to talk about it, all this stuff starts flowing out. And what I had to realize is that is not my identity. My identity is that I am the image bearer of God and that I
Jason Sautel: Uh-huh.
Kevin Whitsell: was chosen by him to do a profession that I was good at.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and that I'm blessed to be able to see people and you know, be there for their worst days and provide some type of comfort
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and some type of care to them. so I really wish that people would just grasp that idea. one of the things and I've said this before, one of the things that my therapist made me do or early on in therapy, she's like, buy a shower mirror. She made me go on Amazon, buy a little shower mirror that I could stick up. She said, every morning, you have to go tell yourself three, because I had a lot of negative self image,
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.
Kevin Whitsell: three things that that you're good at that you think you're really good at. And the first couple days it started off, you're a good paramedic. Okay. That was the main identity for for myself. And then it got into okay, you're a good dad, you're a good husband, you know, you can draw, you talk well, you know, and then it kept building. And then finally I had this the this really I'm not gonna say Paul style, but very very dramatic kind of awakening to what I've known my whole life that that Jesus should be the God should be the center of it all.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: And that Jesus is the one we follow and He pursues us even in some of our worst places, in our darkest places. And it was only then that I started looking at that little mirror and and realizing and starting to tell myself, hey, you're made in the image of God. He loves you, he tracks you down, he'll follow you everywhere until you finally just turn around. He is the prodigal son's father waiting on the porch.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: See you come over the hill. And he's gonna
Angel Deaton: Okay.
Kevin Whitsell: run to you and embrace you and celebrate your return. So I think that everything you said has just been so powerful. You can tell that you speak all the time because some of the stuff that you pour out of you is just so good. but as we wrap up, like what's the message? If there's nothing else that they hear, if there's one clip that we cut and put out to everybody that can see it, what's the one thing you tell people?
Jason Sautel: Well, first off, I'll say I'm I'm I'm here at your discretional time, you guys. I I've this is my this is my Friday afternoon. I love talking with you guys, so don't worry about times. Second of all, we started off this conversation. I'll be honest, I love showing behind the scenes of you know a couple emails back and forth of what we might talk about and everything. And I'm gonna be honest with you, Kevin. I only read the first couple things and then I stop right there because I love an organic conversation as the interviewee. Okay, as the interviewer. I totally get keeping a line and everything and
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: and stuff. And but I don't want to know because I just want you to fire for me. And that's also how I hit my speaking engagements. You'll laugh. I have a good idea of what I'm gonna bring to a speaking engagement. I had a head injury about two and a half years ago. It jacked me up bad. So it's taking me a little longer. I have to the process takes a bit longer now, and my speaking pattern is a bit off, which I'm still healing from. But with that being said, when you started off with the grittiness of going out and getting the one and leaving the 99 behind. What does that look like? Well, I'm gonna tell all the listeners right now, right now, rewind this back and start over again. That's what it looks like. That's what going out getting the one is, you guys. It's about putting yourself out there. It's about the, you know, like I said, I don't want to say, look at Oakland, but I worked in a district in West Oakland, three doors down for the Black Panther Party started up. Loved our community, everything it happened. Man, there was a lot of crime in there. And come 3 a.m., we'd usually be on our 20th run already. And I'm not trying to fake the numbers. Second fire where we're actually first due through the front door and had overhaul for three hours. So we're whoop, man. I didn't want to get out of bed, dude. I'm like, forget this, dude. But I had to get out of bed because that one guy with that BS bellyache that I did not want to go to, that why he's a grown man with a working car, but he can't get himself to the hospital. He's calling me and I could show up so pissed off and tell me, Do you know there's people out there that really need me and you're wasting my time? There's people that could burn to death because you're calling me for your stupid look. I don't care if your appendix even bursts you got two days, so you're gonna die, you idiot. Get in your car and
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: go. I show up with that attitude. I did not show up for the one. I showed up with pride and attitude. You guys, the one is the one that's in front of you. That's who it is. And you may not even know who it is. So when I show up to that guy, I need to put it all aside. He might be the only encounter, and I'm not saying I'm God or Jesus or anything, that he felt God or Jesus through for that day. This is why when you go online, you'll see old Jason talking politics and going all out. But check this out. If I a lib tar, I'm gonna say that word. I'm sorry, if I have a very liberal person in front of me and and I start going at them with
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha.
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: my views, and all of a sudden my views and we start going at it, and I'm saying this and we're saying that. And that God actually put that person in me because I was gonna the only person that week that was gonna give them the gospel of Jesus Christ through either my words or just my actions. I screwed up. I screwed up miserably. Now, let's you and I in a closer, I will go politics day and day. And we'll even go into deep Baptist theology because I go to a Baptist church and I can't stand Baptist, but I go because I love reading line by line. But their traditions, I'm conforming the Baptist church, reforming the Baptist church. I'm getting in there and saying all these traditions are stupid. Don't let your traditions get in the way of other people's faith. But we'll have those conversations. But what I want to hit with you guys to answer that question, man, is what I would really like to leave people with too is if you were lost, hurt. Lonely. I'm not telling you go right buy my book. I'm the worst book salesman on the face of the earth and drives my publisher nuts. But I I will say is I walked in the darkness for the first 28 years of my life. And man, that separation from God, that's hell. That's hell. We can got go into and say about what's burning, the gnarling of the teeth. I know scripture through and through because I'm in my Bible four to five hours a day doing seminary, all that stuff. I'm not gonna go there. I let that drive the way that I try to evangelize people. But with that being said, the true hell is the separation from God because I was truly separated from him for 28 years. And you guys, I was a surfer. I was a punk. I I could I could score the hot chick. I could do all that stuff. I was that little young punk fireman that would flash his badge at a bar while buying drinks hoping some chick was. I did I embarrassed
Kevin Whitsell: Mm.
Jason Sautel: myself even talking about that. When I did it with Christy,
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha
Jason Sautel: she looked at it and said, What are you a cop or something? I'm not impressed. And I was like, that's hot. Okay. But it's it's embarrassed.
Angel Deaton: We.
Jason Sautel: I was that guy, but even then. I was freaking miserable, you guys. I didn't want to be here anymore. I really didn't. But then all of a sudden, when I got a spark of hope, and all of a sudden that hope became reality. And all these lies in my head that I thought were truths became lies. All these truths actually became lies. It was like this flip happened to me. And then I was able to look and I could truly see what was my fault and what was not my fault. That's what I want people to think about. Yeah, things are our fault. Totally our fault. But the best thing about it is our faults were nailed to the cross, paid in full. And when we're standing in court, Jesus is gonna say,
Kevin Whitsell: Uh-huh.
Jason Sautel: I handle it. Guess what? Not our righteousness is is setting us free. It is his righteousness, our faith in him that's setting us free. God's gonna look at us and say, Not guilty, go on in and stuff. And then there's this beauty, and to have hope in that is amazing. And to now go out on that shooting, that stabbing, watching someone's house burn while you're trying to put it out and stuff. I now can sit there and say, you know what? This isn't my fault. And it's sad, but there's gonna be something good that we can pull out of that. And I just want people to hear that, man, because that's what pulls me through. Because I still struggle with depression. I don't struggle with anxiety. I struggle with depression related to anxiety because I'm freaked out when the depression's gonna hit up type of stuff. But
Kevin Whitsell: huh.
Jason Sautel: you know what? I can actually go to my Bible and I have ways to work through it now. So where before nothing was working. So I want to let people know that if you're not a Christian, I want you guys to get help. There is help for you guys, and I want you to go with where you feel you're gonna get the best help. But don't forget anything that we're talking about here either. And you know, hit me up. There's multiple ways to hit me up if you ever have further questions. I'd love to just have that talk with you because I'm not scared about talk about talking about Jesus. I'm not going to bring him in an arrogant way. I have no agenda behind me whatsoever. I'm a Christian in an unchristian world. You're not not an unsaved person in a Christian world. It's actually opposite, you know. So I'm the minority here, and I'm I don't mind being the minority, and I love to talk into the majority, and I'm not scared, and I'll have those conversations with people.
Kevin Whitsell: that well guys I know you always sign off I see the I see the numbers I see the chart of when you guys drop off don't drop
Angel Deaton: you
Kevin Whitsell: off okay so to close our show we always kind of do the same thing but Jas Jason something that we I thought about Jason our co-host for some reason right then and and just the face wouldn't there Jason do you have any questions for us
Jason Sautel: You know what? I have a million questions for you guys, but I'm a why guy. Why do you guys do what you do? And we with the let's see leave it with this show because I we go into your work and all that, but let's stick with the show. Wha why why? What drives you to do the show?
Kevin Whitsell: So I talked about it a little bit. I had a really bad call in twenty seventeen that really opened up the can of worms in in twenty twenty one. and one of the things that I felt during that moment was I felt isolated. I felt alone. I felt like nobody else was coming for me. I felt like there was no help. I felt like I was broken. I felt like I was gonna lose my marriage and my children and all the things because of this all this stuff that I'd carried around for so long and didn't know where to drop it at. and I started this show, a silent war within portion. I started this show because I didn't want anybody else to feel like that. I wanted people to know that they did have hope, that they did have somebody that that could relate, that they had a safe place to land. this new series, Initiative ninety nine, which hopefully will go on for a very long time. it's just really been laid on my heart. Like we haven't hit our faith. You know, we've written multiple times about our faith and and somehow almost every episode turns to faith being the backing of a lot of what we do when we interview guests. but really
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: laid on my heart, you know, because I you know, I've read the Bible front to back three or four times. That's not a brag. That is that is saying that I've been steeped in this in this Religion's not the right word, but this relationship with Jesus my whole life. I've been steeped in this. and I have a very strong relationship with Jesus myself. I spend I spend time studying the word. I'm in school just similar to what you are, to to learn more about him and to become closer to him. So I think the initiative ninety-nine r really was because this has been very heavy on my heart and feels like a conviction as to Are you inadvertently denying me? And I'm and I want to draw the line in the sand and say, no, we are not denying Jesus. We are saying that Jesus is our reason for continuing this. The reason we have the hard conversations and the reason we talk about stuff that that there's a lot of people that are unwilling to talk about. so I wanted the entire platform to be really just a soft spot that you can come. And you can hear conversations and you can know that some of the biggest people that you watch online all the time, because that's a huge part of what we do too. We, you know, we recruit people that people are going to recognize when their face pops up on the screen or at least
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: know the name. and we wanted them to know that they had a story too. Nobody is nobody is without their scars.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: Most people are not without skeletons in the closet. It's just how willing you are to bring those out and talk about them. And what
Jason Sautel: Are you never?
Kevin Whitsell: we found and what we found in doing that is that, you know, we received some very similar emails that that that say that we've made a difference in someone's life. Or I didn't know that guy had that story. He seems
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: perfect online. Guys, online is a charade. That's all it is. You can make online look like whatever you want. I went to
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Well
Kevin Whitsell: a a a local town festival with the girlfriend who is now my wife. and somebody pulled me aside and said, Hey man, that's not your wife. I was like, Yeah, because me and my first wife are divorced and they had no idea. But we didn't paint that on social media. You
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: can make social media look like whatever you want it to look like.
Jason Sautel: One hundred percent but
Kevin Whitsell: And when people come on that have painted their life in a certain way, whether it be EMS education or whether it be just fun videos about the ambulances or the helicopters, the fire trucks, the police cars
Jason Sautel: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: or dispatch, and they tell their story, people go, wow, that person hurts like me too. And I think that's the whole basis of it, is to let people know that we're all in this. In some way, shape, form, or fashion, we're all in this together.
Jason Sautel: Kevin, you nailed it right there before I ask Angel the next same question. I'll just throw it out there. Tell your story is something I'm passionate about and bring me back through on this again sometime in the future. And I want to hit a couple things with you there and help you guys along with that too. And also topics on like church hurt and guys who have been in the faith their whole life,
Kevin Whitsell: yeah.
Jason Sautel: because that's pretty much about 90% of the guys that I evangelize to. So think
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: about this, Angel. You get it? Imagine firemen. And Christians that have been hurt by the church. is there much more judgmental crowd? That's my crowd. That's Jason Sottel's crowd. That is why God put me at such a young age at West Oakland to be in the busiest firehouse. Because it was the deal with knuckleheads like you, guys that are hurt Christians back when you're through it. I'm like, that's what I have to deal with all day. But I love it, bro. I absolutely love it because of where my heart is. Because I have so much to offer you as an atheist for the first 28 years of my life. You have so much to offer me as a Christian for the first amount of your lives with your stroves. Then when those struggles combine and we talk about them, boom, tell your story. Now, Angel, for you, what's your heart behind? Why are you doing this?
Angel Deaton: I had always had a passion for mental health and Kevin had started the podcast and I was I was quietly
Kevin Whitsell: Sorry.
Angel Deaton: behind the scenes pushing in you know, anybody that asked in anybody that would listen I'm like, hold on you got to listen to this you got to listen to this and randomly one Saturday morning It was like 730 and I'm never awake
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: when I'm off at 730 on a Saturday morning
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. yeah.
Angel Deaton: And Kevin texted and said, will you help me run the podcast? And I was like, absolutely. And when we met for like, well, let's make the lunch and let's work out some things. And I was like, okay. When the first thing he asked me, he said, what's your why? And I was like, because when I struggled and people were ugly to me for struggling. I just want no part of that. want them to know that instead of, may not can be in a per se leadership spot, but I'm a leader in my group so that they know when they need something, whether it's I take care of supplies at work. So whether it's supplies, whether it's just a question like, Hey, what do do with this patient? Or, Hey, I'm really struggling. Like they know. They know that I'm going to listen. I hope that they feel like that they are safe with me. And then I
Jason Sautel: Mm. That's solid and mm.
Angel Deaton: heard a podcast lately, Terese, I listened to her interview
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: with a guy that wrote the Christian book. I wrote his name down, but now I can't remember. But
Jason Sautel: I can't remember something, but I got you.
Angel Deaton: it was a whole lot like your things. He was He started like a small group for the first responders in his church. He was like, I felt like I was going to the small group. And I feel this all the time. I show up and like the things they're struggling with is different than me because I, all I can think about is this 16 year old who blew his brains out last week. Like I can't think about anything else. Like
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: whether your socks match or not is real, not real important to me. You know?
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm I agree.
Angel Deaton: So just to, just to have
Jason Sautel: Love that.
Angel Deaton: somebody that gets it.
Jason Sautel: There you go. you guys, I love your answers that question. That's why I always ask people whys because even if they don't line up with mine, I so respect them. It gives me insight on stuff. You know, the people's whys of what you're doing behind what you're doing. It blesses so many people. And I I absolutely love what you guys are doing and stuff. So in the famous words of my sign off, keep on keeping on. You guys do what you're doing.
Kevin Whitsell: That's that's it. So guys, as we wrap up, you all you all know this is my most hated part of the show because I hate to get off of a good conversation. But we do have some very exciting things happening in our world that we want to tell you about just really quickly. merch is out. You may say, Okay, what's this merch going for? this is so we can get out and go to conferences and continue to spread this message of of healing and hope and everything that we're doing. so if you guys will go and purchase one of the shirts, we got blankets, we got hats, we got all kinds of things with with our new logos on them. So you guys will see that. And you guys know where we stream, you guys know where we are on social media, but really the hub of all the information for anything Asilent War Within is the website. Asilentwarwithin.com. So if you go there, you can get in touch with any of us. you can get resources. We have a ton of resources there. We also have direct links to all of us. I mean, you can get in touch with every single member of our little four person team here to Silent War Within. we are really working hard to get you guys some really good guests and we're seeing growth and we're super excited. And we just have some good things coming down the road. We are so excited. And we'll be at a couple of conferences this year. We'll be at the Mississippi EMS conference. I think Angel and I are going to that. And then we'll also be at Help me. The Su Tennessee Suicide Task Force is doing an awareness conference that we will be at as well. so we have got just a lot of things cooking and we're super excited. We're gonna continue to drop episodes every Friday. Were you gonna say something, Angel? I saw your mouth move.
Angel Deaton: Yes, yes, we also have our one year episode coming up and us.
Kevin Whitsell: We do, but by the time this episode airs, that one will be before this one. See, you you
Angel Deaton: You're right, I'm sorry.
Kevin Whitsell: and the timeline.
Angel Deaton: I'm really excited about it, okay?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, me too. So we're actually recording that that next week. So we're really excited. It's been a year. I think this is episode sixty four or five. so we've we've really, really dedicated ourselves to giving you a new episode every Friday. So as we close out, we always say the same thing. Be safe, take care of your mind, and we'll talk soon. Hope to see you next week, everybody. If you're listening to this right now, chances are you're exhausted. Not just physical tired from a long shift or a bad night's sleep. I'm talking about that bone deep soul level exhaustion that comes from carrying a war inside your head for years. Trying to be your own savior, trying to keep the house of cards from falling apart. You spent so long guarding your heart. Putting up walls and fighting every battle on your own terms. But today, the shepherd is inviting you to lay down the weapons. Here's the raw, unfiltered truth of the gospel. You don't have to carry this anymore. Jesus didn't come to condemn you, He came to rescue you. The Bible tells us that we've all fallen short, we've all sinned. We've all tried to run our own lives, and we've all ended up bleeding out in the dark because of it. But Jesus stepped into our wreckage. He went to the cross, took the full penalty for every single sin and failure you have ever committed. and paid it in full with his own blood. Then he broke the power of death and walked out of the grave so that you could have freedom. Salvation isn't a reward for good behavior, it's a gift for the broken. If you're ready to surrender, And let Jesus take the wheel. You don't need a church altar or a speech. You just need a willing heart. Right where you are, no matter where that is, call out to him. Say, Jesus, I'm done running. I confess that I'm a sinner and I can't save myself. I believe you died on the cross for me and rose again. Forgive my past, heal my brokenness, and be The Lord of my life from this day forward. If you made that decision today or if you prayed that prayer for the very first time, we want to hear about it. You do not have to walk this road alone. Go to asilentwarwithin.com right now. Click the contact link and just type three words. I chose Jesus. Or send us a private message on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. We won't put your name in lights. We won't judge your past. We won't blast your story. We will simply reach back out. Get a Bible in your hands and stand shoulder to shoulder with you as a brother or sister in Christ. Be safe, take care of your mind, and remember the war in your head is over the moment you yield to the shepherd.
Jason Sautel: Hey, Kevin and Angel. It's such a blessing to be here with you guys today. And wow, that intro, man. I learned more about me than I knew about myself and stuff. I'm I'm kind of a big deal there,
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: you know?
Kevin Whitsell: have I feel like that we have very much not missed the mark, but maybe hidden the mark a little bit about where our our drive and motivation for this mental health thing truly lies. I think
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: that it it comes from from deep within and an upbringing that I had and also a life that I live now that's completely devoted to Jesus and and we do fail every day. and I think that really this parable of the lost sheep that we see in scripture is very important. It shows us the heart of Jesus, that he will leave the ninety nine and go find the one. And thank God that at one time I was that one and you were the one and angel you were the one. that he walked away from the ninety-nine others to come and find us. so I want to get into it with you, Jason, because I I love your book. I'm really excited to begin to dig into this new book. Tell us about some of your history and how you got into the Oakland Fire Department and how all that went down.
Jason Sautel: Yeah, well, you know, and I'm in agreement with you there too about faith-based when it comes to dealing with trauma and recovery and all that. And I think from our side, the way that we approach it is there's a toolbox out there for everyone. There's the secular side. I mean, there's people that are non-Christians that are struggling. If I told them you have to go to Christian counseling, bro, I'm s putting them in the wrong spot. But if my heart,
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: which is driven by following the Lord, says, I just care for you. I want you to get the help that you deserve. And then by all means, while they're in there getting the help they deserve, I hope their head gets cleared up enough that you know they'll hear the voice of the Lord. But if not, at least they're getting more time here on earth to possibly turn to him. So so looking at it from that point, I love your perspective of falling back into your faith because we need to be part of the solution too. Everyone needs to be there. And obviously, ours is grounded. In an unwavering truth that you can't take away from us. But we also recognize not everyone believes our truth. So I throw that out there.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: how did I get into the Oakland fire department? The 30,000-foot view was I was a young punk surf and skater down in Southern California, which was a high school dropout. And when there's no love in your home, you go chase it on the street. And I was chasing it on the streets and my Mom moved away from us when I was like, you know, six or seven years old. And I stayed with my dad, who he struggled, man. I mean, and and at the end of the day, yeah, he's a very, very abusive man. And so I didn't stay home. I'd rather go out on the streets and hang out there. And when I did, I started hanging out with a bunch of thugs. And I never took on their ideology. But there's this thing I like to call lycism. Like if I was in South Central LA, I probably would have been in Cripper of Blood, but I wasn't, okay. I was a young dude in the Inland Empire. So, you guys, I did run around with skinheads. Again, just to be clear, never took on their ideology then, never took it. I disgust me. But let's be honest, when there's no love at home, you're gonna go chasing on the streets. And the love the streets are gonna provide is not gonna, it's not gonna end well. So I was skating with a pack of these guys, and a dumpster happened to catch on fire right next to us. I don't know how that happened, and a fire engine came out. And while they're putting the dumpster fire out while we're skating in this alley. The skin has started just talking trash. I mean, dude, some of those vile words, you guys know what they are, but I'm not gonna say them here. We're just being thrown at these firefighters. And I look at them like, you guys knock it off. Those are the firemen. Knock it off. And all of a sudden they just look at me like, dude, we knew you weren't like us, da-da-da. Because first off, I'm not shaving my head and I'm not wearing combat boots because those are hard to skate in. Okay. And I was a pretty good skater. But they took off and the firemen, they heard this. And so they said, after they took off, I just hung out there and they're like, bro, are you gonna have issues with that? You're gonna take a beating. I was I I can take those guys. I'm not tripping about that. And then one of them said, Hey, have you ever thought about being a firefighter? And I was Well, you know, what does it take? And they said a high school diploma. And at that point, it was a high school dropout. So I like, okay. Well, to speed the story up, they invited me to the firehouse. I spent some time with them. And I really enjoyed that gang, if you will. I kind of liked what they were doing. And so I went back and I got my high school proficiency exam, which is like your GED, but they actually give you a diploma if you pass the test. And I applied for that fire department because even though it was a larger Riverside County fire department with 70 stations, they had seasonal firefighters there. And the captains of the firehouse would hire those seasons. And that captain hired me on the spot, man, two days after my 18th birthday. So I started off with Riverside County Fire, which was in Southern California in 1993, which was the historic firestorms, which you guys see all over the news nowadays every
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: year's. But in 93, they were just everywhere. Malibu, Lagoon, our Inland Empire was burning up. So I stepped right into the heart of the major wildlife fires. Then I realized my heart was more to an urban department, a big department. So I applied to San Diego, LA City, LA County, San Francisco. And I guess I told all the right lies to Oakland because they hired me. So I moved north
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: and became an Oakland fireman. And that's the story.
Kevin Whitsell: Very, very cool.
Angel Deaton: That's all.
Kevin Whitsell: So how how did this? So I want to touch on Christy, because this is one of my favorite parts of the book. Your wife's name is Christy. For those
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: of you who don't know this, who may have not read the book. You know, she played a really pivotal part in sharing the gospel with you. But I think even further back than that, you had kind of a rough childhood life. I mean your upbringing was was pretty rough. Jump into that just a little bit and tell us about some of the trauma because one of the interesting things I found about doing a podcast, so many first responders come into this field either because of or with the additional baggage of childhood trauma in some way, shape, form or fashion. So jump into your story a little bit about how the the upbringing part of it went.
Jason Sautel: Well, for first off, I'm gonna back you up on that because I'm in agreement of coming in what I like to say already pretty messed up, not knowing what we're getting into. We're thinking, first off, I fully understand most people get into firing EMS with the hopes it's gonna make them better. No, we wanna serve because we've gone through the
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: crap and we we wanna be able to help people because we know what it's like to be alone, to to have no one there and stuff. And I truly feel that's a draw, but not to spend too much time there. That's a problem though, because we get into it and we're also very broken ourselves. We haven't been given a foundation yet. And now we're getting more trauma poured into us. So I'm a true believer that you have to really dig deep into PTSD and trauma itself. And was it one individual thing? Was it cumulative? Where was your past? How were you able to process it? There's a lot to it. So I agree with you there, Kevin. Big time. But my childhood, you know, and I'm not here to beat my dad up. And and I love him and he's still alive, but even to this day. I haven't talked to him in probably about 14, 15 years. And he's just, he's a broken man. And it's my job now as a dad, a husband, and father is I can't change my dad, but I can change what comes after me. And that's what God's called me to do. So my childhood was rough. It was like I couldn't play sports because even in PE, if I was to ask my dad for a PE uniform, it would go bad. And so I
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: would have to sit out all year because I refuse to dress out, is what the coaches would say. And they would just Beat me up. They'd just talk crap and I'd stand up against the wall while all the other kids got to play. And then one day they even got all the students to kind of give me the beatdown, meaning that they weren't gonna go be able to play their sports unless I dressed out. So everyone's talking crap to me. And I'm just sitting there thinking, dude, all I want is one of the peak uniforms you got sitting over there in your office, but you're gonna sit here and just beat me down. So I'm gonna stay quiet. So School lunch. I never got a school lunch. I just sat hungry, dude. Because if I asked my dad for the 99 cents that it cost to do school lunch back then, I'd take a beating. So it was just I grew up as an outcast at home, which made me an even bigger outcast at school, no friends. And it was it was a rough life, man, growing up. And what I absorbed was living in my own brain, living in myself, becoming basically my own God, you know, because I I listened stuff. It's not like I didn't hear people talk and the teachers and The the nonsense of you can be whatever you want to be as long as you work hard enough. What a croc a crud that is, dude. You know, because I was basically telling someone that they they can be their own brother God. And if that were the case, you guys, I would not be sitting here with you guys right now because I'd be playing in an NBA game right now, making, you know, 80 million a year if I could do whatever I wanted to do and stuff. But
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha ha.
Jason Sautel: the childhood was rough, man. And and so when I had the opportunity to get a job that I could help other people, I honestly I didn't think it would like. Totally fix me, but I'm not gonna lie, I figured everything was gonna get a lot better. And boy was I wrong. And you know, until a a beautiful
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: young nursing student walked into my life, which is, you know, my wife of 20-something years now. Please don't, I don't know dates and stuff, but twenty twenty-something years we've been married now. And yeah, she came in my life then and she is able to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if have specific questions, I'm happy to kind of go that down that road with you too.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, I I I think I so there was this moment in the book and I and I don't want to spend too much time focusing on the book, obviously. I want to talk about you, but there's a moment in the book that you really believe that she's gonna break up with you and you really think that you're you're I mean, the way you kind of describe it really paints yourself as as kind of worthless to what she's giving you. Well, I think what happens is is what you see in yourself finally meets the good of Jesus and and what radiates from this girl. And you don't feel like this is gonna work out because, dude, from the moment you talked about in that book how you first saw her and the feelings that you had, I was like, that's his wife. I I
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: know that feeling all all too well. That's his wife. before even getting to the part where the relationship is actually successful and listening to it, you know, that Coffee shop. I think it was a coffee shop. It's a Barnes and Noble, wasn't it? Yeah, right.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, right next to where she worked, a coffee shop and a barns in Nobles, yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. So when that meeting is happening, I am in my car driving, listening to this book, going, gosh, please don't let them break up. Please don't let this be that kind of heartbreak story. but she really gave you sort of this grace, but also this
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: ultimatum at the same time to say, hey, if you want to date me, you got to go to church with.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: So was it her doing that that kind of led you to Christ?
Jason Sautel: Yeah, you know, obviously I can go to to my whole, you know, deep Reform Baptist theology and tell you, you know, Holy Spirit, God and all that. But he uses us. He did he
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: use a fireman who's an atheist still to this day to save my life. Okay. So he uses all of his creation, whether they've
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: accepted him or not, he uses all of us. So so with that being said, I'll get into the story of that. Was yeah, man, I every person I ever dated, and when I Portray this image of being alone and dark and the evils. I was not evil. I was a cool guy. People loved me. They wanted to hang out with me. But when I went home, I shut the doors and I was alone. And when I was around people in a room and they were all partying, I was alone, dude. I was not feeling it. I didn't have the joy they did. But because as firefighters, we're trained to become the world's greatest liars because lying is part of our job, right? you are gonna be okay. We're gonna get you through this, we're bringing comments. No, sir, I'm not having a bad day. I'm here to help you, even though I'm having a horrible thing happen at home. It trains us to be the most amazing liars on the face of the earth, which we can twist all bad things to use people, but boy, can we use it to destroy ourselves and our families too. And so when I met Christy, I just saw goodness and a light out of her. And it's not like I'm stupid to Jesus and who he was. You know, I wasn't living in a cave
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: somewhere, but I hated, hated all things good. Because I knew as soon as good came in my life, this emptiness, this evilness, this black hole inside me
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: was gonna chair it up, chew it up. And so I got that thing where it was like in that meeting, it's kind of like this mindset, and you guys just go with me on this, okay? It's like, I asked you to dance and you say no. I didn't I wanted to dance with you. I said you look fat in those pants and I'll walk away. That was my personality. Like, I'm I'm gonna be that rude guy with the heart exterior. Like, no, no one rejects me. I reject myself, is kind of how goes.
Kevin Whitsell: Right.
Jason Sautel: But I was showing up expecting to be like a see how it went. And I was crushed, dude, because I never felt like this. I did not want to lose her. Bro, I even went out and I bought that Bible, right? And I'm not gonna make fun of King James Bibles or whatever you want, even though we're America, we should have thrown that thing off with the T way back when it wrote our own immersion. I'm
Angel Deaton: you
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: sorry, English version. I'm just joking you guys. It's the King James version. I'm just joking, take it down on me a notch. but I get the biggest King James version.
Kevin Whitsell: He's not wrong though.
Jason Sautel: Yeah, he this big King James version, I'm flipping through it. Bro, and being someone who's never opened up a Bible, what I tell people at the time, I bought the Bible without Jesus
Kevin Whitsell: huh.
Jason Sautel: in it. And there is no Jesus in this Bible because I'm doing what I've been taught in the kindergarten starting page one and keep going through. Bro, I'm like at page 850 and stuff, and there is no Jesus in my Bible. So I bought a bus said Bible, dude. And and plus, you know, I'm starting to go, dude, these Christians are freaks, man. Have you seen what some of these old guys and gals have done? So I'm trying that. So I'm like, I'm done. I was I was hoping I was gonna be able to go to that meeting with Jesus. I Jesus was coming with I'm gonna know who he was because I studied him all day. That's what paramedics firemen do. We study up. I show up there and Jesus ain't there. I know nothing about the faith, and Christy walks in. And I was just heartbroken, dude. But what I love about her was she did not break up with me, but she laid down the ultimatum. He said, She did not say you need to be a Christian, but she prior to coming in, and this is the backstory behind it. She knew I was a six-alarm fire and she was just her and she couldn't handle it. So she wanted to get me to the body of Christ, which was invite me to church. And so she says, I'm not going to date you anymore unless you come to church with me. And that's where it all started, right there. No ultimatums anywhere else. And I totally respect that because she saw that my brokenness would probably eventually take her down, take our relationship down. We're not ones that are a four against that whole missional dating nonsense people talk about. We believe that God puts people in. lives and if it's gonna work out, you're gonna figure it out. If not, it's not. But she knew that I needed to have more people around me. So she showed me the gospel. Other people explained it to me.
Kevin Whitsell: That's awesome.
Angel Deaton: Which makes me think, like, from your point of view at that time, did it feel like you were the only one wearing the mask? Like, what was that aha moment that you were like, hey, I'm not the only one sitting around here faking it. Like, these guys are just putting on the mask with me every morning.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Well, what's crazy is the crew I worked with, they were such a salty and old crew. I should not have made the firehouse that I made in Oakland. We're an old school,
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha.
Jason Sautel: just
Angel Deaton: Bye.
Jason Sautel: senior man type of fire department. Yes, we have women, but we just,
Kevin Whitsell: yeah.
Jason Sautel: you know, we say firemen, but we love everyone. Just an old gritty
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Jason Sautel: s old school fire department. The if you can do the job, come on. If you can't, we don't want you type of stuff. Get out of here. I don't care what you look like or what what genitalia you have, that's it. So I worked with some of the most hardcore Christians you could ever see my firehouse. Who loved me and they they prayed for me, but they also saw what a train wreck I was. They saw how messed I was. And so they wouldn't let me put my mask on, but they didn't know how good of a mask I could put on. Because even until
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: the day I wrote my story and I did go through the suicide part and it hit the the fire department, guys called me so upset. They're like, Why didn't you tell us? Why did you tell us after the fact why I said Weird. I just wasn't ready till 20 years later because it happened 20 years ago. And they're like, Why didn't you do this and stuff? And then also I started getting other calls from guys in the fire department going, What you felt is exactly what I felt. And that's when the light went on of like, I'm a voice for others now. And God's like, That's I didn't write the book for me and my Helling. I let you experience that, go through this crappiness so I could refine you. So you now, this is one of your bigger ministries, right? I mean, my ministry is wide encompassing, but To be able to walk into a firehouse, let's be honest, anyone can. Anyone can sit at the table, but until you earn a right to be there, the guys aren't gonna open up to you or the girls aren't gonna open up to you, you know? And and I think that is one of the things that wearing that mask for so long is I can explain it because now I I don't I care about you. I I don't really it's hard to say. I don't care about your happiness here on earth from a Christian standpoint. I'm so fearing your eternity. And and and to be able to walk in now and just take that mask off and be like, hey, I've been in the trenches and if you want to go toe-to-toe on fires, I I'll go there with you, but I don't need to and stuff. But for some of the younger guys who are like, you don't know anything. All right, you want to compare medals of valors, even though that's stupid in my opinion, to get off that way. But it's like, I've been there with you. And so, Angel to to talk with you about the mask, yeah, wearing it, everyone wears it. We still wear it today, you know. I just hit a filter so my face wouldn't be so red, you know, from working out in the yard. How about that? You know? I mean, I
Angel Deaton: Right, right.
Jason Sautel: mean, and and we all we all have these these filters and stuff. But the last thing I want to throw out there about that is what helped me take mine off was Christy. She was vulnerable from the moment we met. Let's be honest, me being a single West Coast fireman, even way back then, you know, twenty-eight, twenty-nine years ago, or twenty whatever it was, I was making good money and my bank account was loaded, right? Because I know where to spend it. She had no money and we were out for dinner. I jokingly said when the they put the bill down, I grabbed like, no, if hey, if you pay for this, you don't get to go out with me again, you know. And she flat out said, Well, that's good because I couldn't pay for this anyways. And I said, What? And she was the first girl that ever been honest with me. She's like, No, seriously, I'm a true starving student. I work two jobs inside a restaurant and I work there just so I can eat for free. I'm excuse my language, but that's the biggest turn on I've ever had in my entire life. And I'm not saying in a sexual
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: weird way, but it was like
Angel Deaton: Right. Right.
Jason Sautel: Pow! You know, I don't get wrong, she's smoking hot, still is and stuff,
Kevin Whitsell: Truth. Truth.
Jason Sautel: which was a huge benefit. But but that vulnerability she brought nowadays, I'm not saying nowadays, I want to do generational against generational stuff. But even during my time, girls would not let you in and like not, it's like you can't ask me
Angel Deaton: Uh-uh.
Jason Sautel: that. You're not allowed to ask that. Dude, she threw down that I'm broke and I'm hungry. I'm the first person
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: in my family to ever go to college. I'm busting my ass. Life sucks out there, but I'm gonna try to push through and make it better. That was sexy. I'm not gonna lie.
Angel Deaton: Yes, because
Kevin Whitsell: absolutely.
Angel Deaton: if you can't enjoy the good times or the bad times then you don't get to enjoy the good times either She
Jason Sautel: Right. You dealed it.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, see
Angel Deaton: knew that she was safe with you
Kevin Whitsell: see yours is something deep rooted and that vulnerability and that honesty and Angel over here, her turn on is her husband taking the trash to the road. So I mean sh sh
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Jason Sautel: Mm. And hey, Angel, remember this though. When you take out the garbage, you never say a thing ever. When we take it out, we're gonna let you know about forty eight times that we took the garbage out. Okay. I just wanna let you know that. Honey,
Kevin Whitsell: absolutely. Absolutely.
Angel Deaton: Always, always.
Jason Sautel: I took the gar I did the lawn. Yeah, we we gotta let you know we did. Yeah, meanwhile, Christy
Angel Deaton: I did it, I did the thing.
Jason Sautel: cleans the house from top to bottom and she just goes right back to doing whatever she's doing without telling me, you know. So yeah. We're not very
Kevin Whitsell: But the the funny thing is is that joke comes from Angel being involved in my wife and I's marriage group that we teach or we we don't really teach, we facilitate more so than anything else, at our church. And one of the things that got brought up in that group, your garbage story is funny, but we also had somebody bring up that they find their husband so attractive when he's mowing the lawn. Well, I looked right at my wife and I said, Bay when I'm riding my llama, or do I look attracted to you? And she said, Zero. Absolutely not. There's there's nothing. I was like, dang, I thought I had something there. I thought somebody had discovered something. But I think that
Jason Sautel: No, not at all. Yeah. Well yeah.
Angel Deaton: I tried, I tried.
Jason Sautel: And the interject in that conversation interject in that conversation, I'll just throw it down to the young guys 'cause we do teach at our church too, is you wanna look sexy to her wife, do something that's gonna free up her time. So I'm gonna say
Kevin Whitsell: That's that's exactly right. You're exactly
Angel Deaton: Absolutely, absolutely.
Kevin Whitsell: right. Take something off of her plate. That's the surefire way. But I think that to go back to kind of what we've been talking about, I think
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: that we come into this job and we kind of had this, or at least I did, I had this very false pretense that I was gonna be the hero in every scene. You know, everything was gonna be the most critical patient you could think of, because I'm paramedic trade. and every patient was gonna be critical, and that's just not. you know, you go after the stub toe and all the silliness that people call for. And really I think that there is a larger theme here that we almost have this savior complex to where we are attached to our last last rescue or our last save or our last patient and how well we did.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: but I think one of the things that you do really well is you broke that down. you had a jumper and and I know you're probably tired of telling this story because you've told it all over the country.
Jason Sautel: Not at all. I'm not at all. Not at all.
Kevin Whitsell: you had a jumper on the San Francisco Bridge, right? And
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and you looked in his eyes and you saw something you recognized.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: So when you recognize that darkness, what did that feel like and how can other responders recognize that darkness without maybe having that that big event like you have?
Jason Sautel: Yeah, not a problem. And it's the Bay Bridge
Angel Deaton: and
Jason Sautel: between Oakland and San Francisco. And we've gotten plenty of jumpers over the years. And I I'm gonna say 99% of the time, they come back over, it's a good ending, we're fine. Because most people that were getting in their life, they just pulled over, jumped off. And by the time we got there, we found a vacant vehicle. You know, I'll be honest with you. but on that particular one, when I walked up to that guy, I wanna be so clear. I didn't see evilness in his eyes like he was evil per se. I saw an emptiness. And it would be like take the kindest
Angel Deaton: I'm going to.
Jason Sautel: looking person you've ever seen in your life. But let's take the Charles Manson's eyes and put them in there. Charles Manson has empty eyes that evil's invaded, right? And just has taken over. And so I'm not comparing this kind gentleman who hopped off. What I'm comparing
Kevin Whitsell: Sure.
Jason Sautel: is how evilness may make us react when we have no goodness. We feel all
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: goodness is left. And when I looked into his eyes, it was empty. It was like when I look in the mirror to my eyes, it was just empty, dude. I saw nothing in there. And so when the evil came in, it didn't make me want to do evil stuff and do evil things. It just wanted to overpower me, you know? And like I
Kevin Whitsell: Right. Yep.
Jason Sautel: say, some people, it makes them do very, very evil things, especially if they have mental health and some other stuff going on there. It can be very, very bad stuff. So when he jumped off, I went back when I climbed on the fire engine, the same evilness that I first met when I was five years old and in kindergarten, and I was thrown in a closet in my kindergarten class because I was crying and wanted to see my mom and the teachers I was disrupted in the class and they threw me in a dark closet and they wouldn't let me out until I stopped crying in a janitor's closet. That same evilness that day, I also recognized as a 28-year-old man, you know, 23 years later there was, but this time was different. I finally had an understanding where we stood. Dude, it climbed back onto the fire engine with me, rode back to the firehouse, waited out my truck while I took a shower, and it took my commute home with me, dude. And sat shotgun in my truck. And so I had a recognition of that evil. And that scared the crap out of me, guys. It really did, because I saw myself as the jumper on the Bay Bridge. And, you know, just a few short weeks later I actually became that jumper per se, you know, even though my way was gonna be different, I was saved by the grace of God.
Kevin Whitsell: And and and that's a great point. And what I mean by that is like you talk about you being saved by God and one of the things that I think we do, we try to shepherd ourselves. And
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and you know, we try to take care of our own lives and many times we don't turn to who we know as the good shepherd and the father and and the
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: protector and the pursuer. We don't turn there immediately until we have this life-shaking event as you had.
Jason Sautel: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: how can we avoid as as you know, go back to the time where you didn't have God in your life?
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: What is something different that you could have done to to avoid some of these life-shaking moments that make you turn to God?
Jason Sautel: You know, recognize goodness. It's it's so hard because, you know, as a Christian, we know goodness comes from but there's no good here. We're not good, nothing's good. Our actions truly aren't good. We glorify God through our actions, if you really think about it, because it all comes from Him. So as a non-Christian, people are gonna say, so I'm just a bad person. No, no, no, I'm not saying that stuff. But recognize the goodness. And for me, you guys, I'll be honest with you, I have to give the truth out there. I saw no goodness anywhere. People would tell me, go buy that big truck. Bro, I went out and bought that big truck because that's gonna make me happy and make life good. Okay, well, a couple days of cold have truck. Then I'd put a boat behind it. And then I go out to the river partying. Then you guys, I I not an alcoholic, don't do the whole drug scene stuff. But you know what? I'd go to the bars and hang out with the guys. There was no goodness there. I was miserable there. Everything that was good would make me feel good for about five to ten minutes, and then I was empty again, dude. And so I had to find something where like Being at work and being on mission with everyone else. When you're part of a mission and you're part of something bigger
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: than yourself and you're doing it because you want to do things for other people, that's where you find the goodness. So as a Christian or non-Christian alone, but I'm speaking to Christians here too, I always tell people: don't look for happiness in the outcomes. Otherwise, this life is gonna suck because this life ends at death for non-Christians. That sucks. You're having ups and downs, the downs usually hit more than the ups do. I'll be honest in that. And so if you're looking for, I want to get happiness out of the outcomes, it's gonna suck. Find happiness in the obedience. Find happiness that you've been blessed with the most killer job on the face of earth to provide for other people. Do what you can do that you've been called and you're gonna give compassion, care. And even though our kind of compassion can hurt sometimes by jabbing needles in people and holding them down and doing stuff, find joy in that. But Do not find joy in the outcomes because God's gonna handle the outcomes
Angel Deaton: Mm.
Jason Sautel: and we don't always understand his big perfect picture, but I guarantee it's better than ours. So when someone dies, and I you guys, I work in a city where we're number one per capita in the United States for fire-related fatalities. So you come to Oakland, you are pulling people out of burning buildings and doing mouth to mouth on them. It's just how it well, not nowadays, I mean, but but you know, doing bag maths and all that other stuff. But but
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. Yeah.
Angel Deaton: Okay.
Jason Sautel: you are gonna do it. And you guys, there's no joy in making those grabs, even when someone survives. Yeah, I maybe pulled them out, they're burnt to crap and they're they're soot covered and they're having all these medical emergencies and I their house got destroyed and all these medical bills. So what I get, Joanna, is thank you, God, for giving me these gifts and abilities to be there. I give it all to you. Thank you so much. Now I'm gonna be honest, you guys, when you do get that call, and I personally I never wanted to know. When I drop off, I walk away. There's even to this day is staying a life spare magic, but I haven't worked for one for many years. I am of the mindset I don't want to know because my job was the obedience side and it's a safety mechanism I built in and stuff. But let's be honest, even guys like me, the word gets back around and they even walk into the firehouse, which we've had before, and they thank us. That's the fruit that we talked about, right? When you're in the dark, there's no fruit. It sucks. It's horrible. When you're in the light, God's not rewarding you for doing good. I want to be very clear. It's not like, if you do this, I'll give you this. But he says there's fruits of your labor in the light. And so when you're in the light, and every once in a while you get a taste of that fruit, you guys is so bad. I'm not gonna lie. You know, you're like, you're not trying to put it about you, but do we
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: we pulled them out, they're alive, and I got to meet that person. That's
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: awesome, you know.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, very cool.
Angel Deaton: So tell me about the moment that you realized that God wasn't waiting for you to clean yourself up Like he's coming down into the set into the dirt into the grit to get you after you So have you to take care of you to shield you in a way? Was there one
Jason Sautel: Yeah.
Angel Deaton: special event that was like your aha moment, you know, like he's not he's not waiting on me to per se do anything
Jason Sautel: Yeah, it was, you know, the gospel is such an amazing thing. The depths of it are so deep that we're never even gonna have a grasp around it. You will get the basics, died on the cross, rose three days later, all that we're gonna get the basics. The depths of the gospel where all life truly begins is so hard for us to wrap our head around. So mine aha moment happened over a series of a few days. It happened right after that meeting with Christy at the coffee shop. It happened when a cool pastor, because I was the day before I almost killed myself, I went to a church and they threw me out because the way I was dressed. And so think about that church. You guys
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm. I remember that.
Jason Sautel: toss me out, I almost die. And then an atheist San Francisco firefighter saves my life. Let's have let's we'll talk about that later on and stuff, you know? But right, yeah, go think about that.
Angel Deaton: Little ironic.
Jason Sautel: But what what had happened was I met a pastor who's actually cool and he took me out. And we we went, I'll lie to you guys and say it was coffee that we went in and we had a cup of coffee, okay? And over this cup of coffee, called Budweiser, him and I are chatting it up and and sorry.
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: No, you're good.
Jason Sautel: And we're chatting it up. And he he asked me, he goes, Tell me about your job. And he was truly interested because he really won, you know, want to be a firefighter and stuff. So I'm telling him, as I'm telling him, he stops, hey bro, can I tell you something? He's like, Yeah, and he knew who his audience was. You're a little on the conceited side. And I started laughing, you know, and I'm Why? He's like, You're saying, Well, I get to do this, I fought a fire, I get to help save lives. I I he's all dude, the only difference between you and me as a Christian is I tweak it and I just say, Thank God for giving me the abilities to be able to go out. Help people and it's all to him, you're different. And he's also, it's a little on the conceit. It's like and I started laughing, but bro, that hit my heart. Then shortly after that, I started noticing every situation I was on that I felt some goodness that didn't get taken away. Like Christy, had God involved. When I was on scene and like a 90-year-old man died, and I told his wife that he died, and I felt really sad, she came and gave me a hug. God was involved because she put her Bible down and she said, Don't worry, son, my child's with Jesus. She lost a husband of 70 frickin' years. And her first move was to come to meet a six foot one tall fireman, 225 with quivering lip and all upset. And she made me first. That can't be taken away. That story can't even be taken away from me by the devil, right?
Angel Deaton: That's right.
Jason Sautel: And so then, right after that, we go to a structure fire and it's downtown. And I made some really stupid moves at the structure fire and I went in way too deep. I got trapped. I was alone. And I really thought I was gonna die in that fire. I had to call a Mayday. And the guys had to come in and rescue me. And while I was laying in that fire, and legs were getting hot, I starting to my turnout pants were catching on fire. I I just you guys, it was the scariest feeling I ever had in my entire life. And I for days afterwards, I was scared. Yeah, yeah, at the Photoshop fire. Yeah. So I was
Kevin Whitsell: Was that the Photoshop? Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: inside that fire. And that's the first moment where I felt Christ because I looked up and said, God, I I don't want to die like this. And my whole mind was, I just met Chris. There's all this goodness in my life. There's all this stuff. But It was all things he'd given me, right? And I said, God, I don't want to die like this. And people are like, so what happened? Did Jesus Christ himself come in, doves open? You hear James Earl voice, Jones' voice being, Jason, I'm here to save you. I'm like, no, a pack of ghetto firemen ran in with a hose line, pulled my Okay, that's what happened. He used them
Angel Deaton: Right?
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha yeah.
Jason Sautel: to pull me out. But I was so shook into my core, you guys, because I got a taste of eternity of that fire of being separated, the pain, the darkness, the heat. And at that moment. Heaven and hell became real, Jesus and the devil became real, God, the Holy Spirit all became real, and conversion happened. And I make sure it's very clear to people that once you're in the hand of Christ, nothing can rip you out. That is salvation by Christ alone, by his work alone. Our job is acceptance. He does all the work. There's no work on our side. So keep that over here. But then over here, there's a thing called sanctification where you want to start growing in him, being more like him. I want to be later like. I'm not wanting to be more like Christy, but she's my example I could see of how you should live as a Christian, right? And that's the long version of the aha moment there, Angel, is it it took a little while,
Angel Deaton: awesome.
Jason Sautel: but that's how it came out.
Kevin Whitsell: No, I I I love that. And you say a word that we joke about a lot in our in our church. We talk about anytime somebody does something, you know, slits up and says a word, or, you know, I still have somewhat of a nicotine not somewhat, it is a nicotine addiction. every time I put one of those pouches in my mouth, somebody will walk by and go, Sanctification is a process, isn't it, brother? and it it's true. Sanctification is absolutely a process and it is
Jason Sautel: Life long, dude. Perfection yeah, perfection's gonna happen.
Kevin Whitsell: It is God working on us day after day after day. And many times I fail, and I say it often, that I really dislike the word Christian. I know what it means, I know where it comes from. I know what its roots are. But in today's world, I think the word Christian puts this negative stigma on us to somehow be this image of perfection. And when we fail, it it reflects it gives Christ a black eye, if you will. and I feel like that I describe myself more as a broken Jesus follower. I want to be more like him every day. I want to model him every day. and and one of the things that you have done really well in this new book, and and just looking at some of the reviews on it, like I said, it's on my read list. I'm getting to it, I promise.
Jason Sautel: dude, yeah.
Angel Deaton: Hehehe.
Kevin Whitsell: is you have integrated some of what you talked about in The Rescuer into this book and really given a game plan. of how you continue to sanctif how you continue to be sanctified. and that
Jason Sautel: Yeah, it's it's dragon.
Kevin Whitsell: well it really looks like just reading some of the the actual like reviews of it and and overviews of it is that you've put it in almost like a devotional format. Is that right?
Jason Sautel: It is. Yeah, it's a total. It's a 90-day devotional. And to be honest, sir, what what it is, here's my take on the whole thing, man. The moment I became a Christian, people are like, dude, so everything got to bet got better, right? You guys are always not you guys, but people always think the world, like, no, life
Kevin Whitsell: Not quite.
Jason Sautel: still sucked. I still went on a rape the next day. Babies
Kevin Whitsell: Yep.
Jason Sautel: were dying, murders are happening. I still have depression.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: I still have anxiety. I it sucks on so many levels. But check this out. I now have this little thing I've never had called hope. I now realize. This is not what I'm created for. I'm traveling through. You have this little pinpoint right here. My pink is where I'm at right now. But then there's this whole thing, eternity, that I've actually been created to it. And that's what I'm going to enter into. And I've hoped for that. But I've also been given the tools I need to make it through. So when people say, I'm gonna pray for a better life, I'm like, read your Bible, it ain't gonna happen. Pray for the tools of perseverance that help the brothers and sisters
Angel Deaton: No.
Jason Sautel: that come alongside of you, the scripture that you need to lean into, what you can. Yeah, we can fight stuff. But I guarantee you, you think you can pray a mountain? I live near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I can't knock that mountain down. And God's not gonna knock it down for me. Understand that. But He's given me what I can do. And he says that mountain was the separation between you and our father. And I've knocked it down. You're good. I've had, I've won the war, but the battles are still gonna be there. Why? Because I'm using those to refine you. And you are not gonna become perfect until day one. And I see everyone in EMS just beating up. Don't drink a power drink. Don't have a thing of nicotine. Don't have a smoke. Don't do this. Don't do that. Well, my take on it is this: if anyone ever comes at me, and I don't drink personally, I just don't drink, not because I'm against it. I'm a diabetic. So I just can't. And it is not my thing. I'd rather save my calories for something I want, something else for Christy to knock out of my hand, like a Sunday or something. But with that being said, everyone's beating everyone up about stuff. And I'm like, shut up. If I say I need this nicotine, and you go, Kevin, you in. I need this hit nick hit of nicotine. I'm gonna say, well, okay, hold on just one sec. Why do you need it? Let's talk about who you truly need. And I'm cool you partaking in that. Who cares, dude? It's like a drink. If someone's a non-alcoholic, they don't have issues with it, and they say, I need a beer, I say, no, you don't need one. I'll let you get to it in a few minutes, but let's have a talk over here first. You need Jesus, okay? But I'm a believer that we've also been given things we can use to help us through, as long as it's not true total addiction that we go to first. It's an addiction that's going to take us downhill. It's an addiction that's going to hurt first us
Kevin Whitsell: Right. Right.
Jason Sautel: and those around us. I'm 100% against that, you know, if you're that type of person. And so and I'll and I'll walk alongside you through that. So that's why I tell Christians, chill out. Okay, just chill out a little or group. What I like to say, followers of Christ, whatever you want and stuff. That what do
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: we are? We're now living the way. That's truly what it's called. Our faith is called the way if you really look at it in the book of Acts. We're now Following the way, the way to the Father, which is through Christ. We don't work our way to him. Christ got us there. Now he's showing us how to sanctify in him. And if you could get perfect, first off, then you're tell the Bible would be a lion. We wouldn't need Jesus. Okay. There, there you go.
Kevin Whitsell: That's awesome.
Angel Deaton: Which makes me think about hope and faith kind of sound cynical in the beginning before you started that process. You know, like, that's a joke. Yeah, right. Like, how could I ever believe that? You know, what's that going to get me?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Sautel: yeah, I've I've thrown pastors out of my firehouse before, you know. And I used to call the the Bible
Angel Deaton: No.
Jason Sautel: book of lies and stuff. And you that my nickname was the demon seed in the firehouse. So that's kinda and they the guys still
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: tag that name on me to this day. So yeah, it's
Angel Deaton: Ha ha ha ha!
Jason Sautel: and I was cynical. I was cynical because I hated all things good, including Christians, you know.
Angel Deaton: Right, right. Which makes me think like to write these books, you had to drag yourself back through the hard times. Like was that, was that almost healing to you or did it make it harder for a time?
Jason Sautel: Well, well, here's my answer to that, Angel. First off, what I tell folks is if you're doing anything that's going to help others looking to be healed, you're not ready to do it yet. Don't do it. Just give look
Angel Deaton: I know.
Jason Sautel: for the health and the healing of what you're going to do there. God will tell you and your conscience and the Holy Spirit will speak to you when it's time to start helping other people because that's a dangerous place to be and it's helping other people when you're not ready. What had happened is it been confirmed to me through a bunch of people by telling the stories and all this stuff. And and stuff and getting a literary age and all this stuff that I knew my story could impact people and I didn't want it to be about me. I wanted it to be when people read it, they saw themselves. Let's be honest. We've all pushed the same hallway. We've been on the same card. A dead kid across the United States is the same as a dead kid here. Okay. A fire over there,
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: wherever it's at, is all there. I wanted people to see where I was and that they're not alone. And that's why. Every book that I write, including I they're not even named yet, but there's two more that'll be coming out through national publishers. They're always dedicated to the lost, hurt, and lonely. That's it. They're never dead. People they aren't
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: you dedicating to Christy because me and Christy are fine. We dedicated to the lost, hurt, and lonely and stuff. And so, was I in a dark place? Other thing I'll throw out there, Angel. I purposely put myself back as an atheist, a lost person when I write, because I need those feelings that come out. I'm safe, I'm there.
Angel Deaton: Mmm.
Jason Sautel: I don't, it's not like okay, God, I'm not with you anymore, but no, I have to put myself in those shoes of Feel the hate again. How much you hated him? It's okay. I'm doing this to glorify you. And I'll write that. Feel the pain.
Angel Deaton: That's right.
Jason Sautel: Be that broken child. So when you go there, if you're not healed, it can be a very dangerous place. And I'll be honest with
Angel Deaton: Bye.
Jason Sautel: you, there was a time I had to take a pause. And I was Christy knows I'm the least violent person you'll ever meet, unless you're an electronic. If you're in electronic, I will murder you and I will seek you down and I'll kill you. I want to be clear with that
Kevin Whitsell: Hey hey.
Jason Sautel: because I hate electronics, man. And there's a time I was getting ready to throw another pool or a laptop in the pool, and Christy stopped me and she said, take a couple of days. Off and what I hate about my wife is when she goes to prayer for me because I can feel it. it gets me so mad, you guys, because I'm such a prideful, hateful man. I want to do things my way. And she goes into prayer and I'll literally yell in the next room like, stop praying. I don't want to write this damn book. And sure enough, she prayed and it came through. And God also told me through a bunch of people, because I do get a couple hundred emails and messages a day. And a lot of them are firefighters and stuff. And when they come through, a few came through at that time, and they were from firefighters who were gonna take their own life. And I was able to Help and that's why I just knew I had to do this, get the story out there. So there's again a long version your answer answered your stor
Angel Deaton: Yeah, that's awesome.
Jason Sautel: question.
Kevin Whitsell: No, I I
Angel Deaton: That's awesome.
Kevin Whitsell: I love that that you're a communicator as well. I I love that your your answers are lengthy and you can talk probably just as long as I can. That's absolutely fantastic. I I think in in kind of reading the overviews and and seeing how much you truly love Jesus, I think the question that comes to mind is why does a firefighter author, all the hats you've worn, what motivated you to say, I want to do a 90-day devotional?
Jason Sautel: You know, I wanted to do it because the title was The Rescue and Love of God. Because I think all too often we become Christians, we think it's all gonna get better, or when it doesn't get better, we start doubting. And I just want to remind people every minute, every hour of the day, you gotta turn to him when he can, you know, and and pray without ceasing. People like, so you stay praying, you know, 24 hours. Like no, it means he's on your heart, your mind, your thoughts all hours of the day that you're running everything through him. But so often I say this, then all of a sudden I get a phone call, a bill's due that I don't think is due from the taxes out here in California. Governor Newsom does something that gets me so flipping mad and stuff that immediately listen to
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha.
Jason Sautel: my voice right now. There is no Christ in my voice right now. It's all worldly and screen to blow up over this and so stupid because boy, I hate living in California, but it's my mission field, you know, stuff. And that's where my head is. So I have to now go back to the rescue and love of God. And I have to remind myself,
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: you know what? God has these people where they are for a reason. I don't fully understand it, but He wants me to react in a certain way that is going to let His light shine through me out there. And so I want people to always remember when you it's so easy to say, hey, when you come back from a tough run, just pray. Bro, when you come back from a tough run, sometimes I'll be honest with you, leave me the F alone for a couple hours. It's healthy. It's healthy. It's what I need.
Angel Deaton: Yes. Yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Now that's not where I stay and where I live and where I be, you know, I need to be. But as a guy who doesn't get Fed from people. I get fed by giving to people. I need to be alone to get my senses back about me. Some called introvert, extrovert, some I don't call that because I love being around people, but it drains the heck out of me and stuff. I'm not like my wife
Angel Deaton: Thanks.
Jason Sautel: where she freaking like Easter. She throws a party here for 600 flipping people. I hate that because I have to talk to them all. But I love them all being here. You know what I mean? Is a and so so
Angel Deaton: Yes, yes, yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: so you know it that's why I wrote it because it's just like Get people into I always want people to read their Bibles and stuff. And I'm very clear that so this was a general for all, but the next one I'm working on is gonna be for first responders only. And it's it's coming heavy, man. It's in a good way, in a really good way and stuff. But it's really gonna be only be written for firefighters for the most part, which any paramedic or cop can read it and stuff. so it's niche. So a lot of the big publishers were real leery about it, but I didn't care because I'm doing it anyways and stuff. So I'm I'm excited about that.
Kevin Whitsell: So do we have a timeline for that one?
Jason Sautel: I can't. It's if I gave you a lesson on the world of publishing, especially, you know, I'm with, you know, HarperCollins Christian, which is one of the big fives, and Thomas
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Nelson, it would blow your mind. All I what you always say is, be coming out next year. Next year, next year rolls around. I might be saying it's next year because they have a master calendar. And what they do, honestly,
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: is they they give us paychecks regardless as the authors and stuff. So it won't keep us bugging them too, but they know how to make their billions of dollars
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: through us. And so they always tell us, it'll be coming out, you know, in twenty twenty seven, it'll definitely be on the shelves. Well that's what I say right now.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: No.
Kevin Whitsell: Well, I am excited.
Jason Sautel: Until the elish until the inish or the official, I'm sorry, the official comes down the pipes. Then then I can give you the date and I'll you guys will be the first to hear. How about that?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, I love that. I
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: love that. So I guess one of the things that that I keep reading that you talk about is this these false refuges, almost these idols that we can put in place. This is what one reviewer from Michigan Southern University wrote about your book. they said the driving premises of the book is that humans naturally seek safety in the wrong places and Jason calls out specific idols, first responders, and high achievers run to when they're bleeding out internally. so the big three that they mentioned here, and you can tell me if this is correct or not, absolutely correct me if I'm wrong. Like I said, this is a book review.
Jason Sautel: No, no, it's fine.
Kevin Whitsell: work, relationships, and financial security.
Jason Sautel: 100%. Those are the throws are the three big ones. You I could I could throw an a a hundred and fifty big ones on there too, on top of that. But
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: let's let's throw it out there. And I want to give you guys a little bit, even if we're going over time. So deep into
Kevin Whitsell: No, it's okay.
Jason Sautel: my faith and into my walk with the Lord of 20 years, all of a sudden I get my hip and my back broken on an on a fire. And it's not a big so just so we're clear, it's not a biggest story. It was a stupid story, you know, a fall and whatever. I wasn't trapped. There was nothing came down on my head. There was no writ team involved or anything. I just got hurt on a fire. Okay. But as I got back to work, then I was thrown a ladder and it happened again because my body was finally wearing down after 26 years in a pretty, you know, busy environment. So my body was just worn down. And the day that the doctor came into the room and looked at me and said, You're never gonna be a fireman again. You guys, as the most faithful man who at this point, yeah, I was speaking nationally on my faith, standing, you know, I'm not. pastor at my church, but yeah, I'm one of the elders that's in line that I speak on the weekends and I give the sermons when needed and stuff. I told him to get the F out of my room with that exact I used I use the full F word there. And I was done and all that in my mind is, how am I going to survive now? All I've ever been since the age of 18 is a fireman. I dropped out of high school. I don't I have no other career. What what job's gonna say, hey, can you go down a hallway that's under smoke and heat and pull people out? I have nothing for you guys. How am I gonna feed Christy and the boys? Dude, not only do we have our two kids, we adopted my niece and nephew. it's just I'm Jason the fireman, but check this out. Holy idol, you guys. Here I am preaching about not
Angel Deaton: Mmm.
Jason Sautel: idolizing. I idolize it so much. Dude, I hang it behind me. No, this is like a tribute to my job and stuff, but it can quickly become an idol, right? I'm Jason the fireman. All my recognition comes from being a fireman. I have some great rescue stories that went nationally and stuff. And so quickly do we idolize the job without. Re thinking about it, right? It's all about the job. Then what do we do? when something bad happens, I'm gonna fall back into only the guys and the girls that I worked with because they know what I've been through, right? Holy idolization and stuff. But then if I get that extra overtime shift and and we go to Maui, life's gonna be better. Then I'm in Maui and I'm still having nightmares and all this other stuff. You're idolizing all this other stuff. The only one who's gonna walk you through it is the
Kevin Whitsell: Yep.
Jason Sautel: Lord Jesus Christ. He is it, he's the only one that's gonna take you from. Through it, from it, into it, past it, all this stuff where idolization is gonna hold you into it. It's gonna chain you to it, and you're not gonna come out of it. And I wanna be clear, I'm guilty of it all the time too. So is everyone else and stuff. So don't think I'm talking down to anyone. But being your job, here's my thing. Firefighter, big deal. It's your job. Teacher, big deal, it's your job.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Now get there and do the job the best you can, but don't let it become who you are. It's a job you're blessed to do. That's how you gotta look at it. And when the crap comes, make sure that you have things in place to help pull you through it.
Kevin Whitsell: I think that that is all the time.
Angel Deaton: is such a thing that we see like just the people that come in with a child abuse, know, trauma before this job and that they don't have a plan when things go south that, you know, there's no light at the end of the tunnel is what would feel like. What about like for the listener that hears that, you know, Jesus is all that you need and they're like, no, my problem is too complicated. My life's too complicated. What would be your advice?
Jason Sautel: You know, I'm not a person, I hate that term of I know what you're saying, I know what you're feeling. But again, when I'm talking to someone who's not a follower of Christ, I fall back in the days when I wasn't a follower of Christ and what just drove me nuts, right? Like, okay, so you're the saved crowd, we're the crab crowd, you find the happiness, we get to sit here in the darkness, everything
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: absolutely sucks. What I tell them is I just come alongside them honestly and I say, has what everything you've gone through worked yet for the long term and long haul? And even if you've gone through that, when it falls away and you use it again, does it help you move forward? Because I used to use all those same tools and they never worked. Now, the only thing I can do is give you truth. And myself, Jason Sottel, I don't follow commitments for more than five or six days. That's why I need people around me. How has it been that my wife has taken this drastic turn from just hating all things Christianity to now I have Hope and and it carries me through. And all this stuff that you use I thought would work never worked. I now use it in a way that my Bible says use it this way and it will work because God created psychology, God created medicine, God created all this stuff, but He also gave us a way saying, You need to steward it this way. You need to use
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: it in this way here. This is this is the hierarchy of how you use each thing. This is how I want you to use it. And it has worked for me. So people. I try not to put out my therapeutic plan out there because it might hurt someone, right? I truly believe that. Just like people all the time come in, like, Jason, stop saying PTSD because it's post rec stress disorder. And I'm like, shut up. You're the problem, okay? Guess what? You're the problem. Right there. Tell me what I can and can't think. Let's break it down like this trauma
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm.
Jason Sautel: causes pain, and pain sucks. Name it what you want, but you're the problem. Give it a give it a name or a mantra that's gonna make it better and make people want to grow out of it. it's Post-traumatic stress growing order. shut up. I don't want to hear that nonsense.
Angel Deaton: Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Just say pain sucks and and pain hurts us all. But check it out. This is the way you can work your way through it that's helped me. Latch on it if you want. I can't force you to do it, but come back to me if you want more about it and stuff. And so my true plan was: you guys, I never went through 100% therapy. I never went through a program. I never and I am for just so we're clear, I am for those. Live in centers, all that. I can't. It would actually do worse for me to be in. It was through the book of my Bible, through family, through friends, through my local church, through reading stuff, making friends who have walked through this before me, making friends who are doctors and counselors. That has been my thing. And I'm telling you right now, there's psychologists that are watching this or psychiatrists tell I'm full of crap. I'm not. But I'm not telling someone else to not go to them and use them because they are needed. It is last thing I will say about this. Think about this, Kevin, as a paramedic. If someone is having a heart attack, a true and MI, I mean, they're having a STEMI, and we treat them as if they're having pleuritic chest pain, we could possibly kill them.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: Vice versa, if we treat someone that's having pleuritic chest pain as if they're having a STEMI, we could kill them. We have to now look at the root of each person. What do we do when we get on scene? We assess, we assess the person. If they're having a stroke or if they're a heart attack, they're treated totally different. But at the end of the day, what do we want to do? Get them to the help that they need, which is healed. That
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: is the same thing I look at with the trauma on the job. Is the my childhood trauma when a doctor looked at me once, she's like, Your PTSD has PTSD. Wow, that's quite the story. You have layers, bro. You're you're like they
Angel Deaton: Thank you so much.
Jason Sautel: say that ogre with the onion and stuff. You keep going back, and you found more trauma in me. But then you look at someone else, and maybe it's their first time they came from a Christian background, like my kids. My oldest is a fireman, my youngest is middle-aged becoming a fireman now, but I'm grounding them on what they can do, which is if you ground in on your faith and you you work on your health and you work on your mental health, those are the things you can control working on them. So when the things
Angel Deaton: Yes.
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: hit, you have a foundation. I didn't have that and stuff. And so therefore, someone else, like my son, may go to his first, you know, pediatric arrest or horrible, nasty scene where you're seeing the internal parts of bodies and it's going to crush him. And he truly is going to have a level of PTSD after that and stuff. But that's way different than mine because when I saw it, I also had years of getting beat down with me and and those were still open. So my sons, they're coming in actually ready with a better foundation than I had and stuff. And so, like I said, there's so many layers to it. But for me personally, I I just want to assess people and I do it every day and I say, Hey, I think this might be a good spot for you to go talk to. And if they're not, come back to me so I can pass you over to someone else till we find it. Because
Angel Deaton: yet.
Jason Sautel: I'm not gonna fix you. None of you are gonna fix the doctors, truly are. That is why I don't give my personal
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: wait 'cause I don't want someone to just grab a Bible and think it's gonna make them better either, you know?
Angel Deaton: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, that's so good. before we start to close, I'll tell you this quick story. This picture right here behind me. that was one of the first gifts that my wife gave me when we started dating. that's a that's a painting by her. and I wish I could have heard the the the entire spill that you just gave then, because then was was almost thirteen years ago now and I was broken. I was not dealing with it. I didn't know how to deal with it. I was what I like to call inherently a Christian because I'd grown up in the church my entire life, had been surrounded
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: with this this purpose, but had because of some earlier life church trauma, I said, No more church.
Jason Sautel: totally.
Kevin Whitsell: I you know, I'll still be a Christian, but I'm not gonna you know, I'm not gonna be in that body of believers because it was all governmental policy to me. Like that
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: was a lot of what the Baptist church is.
Angel Deaton: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and I'm not saying anything negative about the Baptist church. The Baptist churches that I was in was was full of that.
Jason Sautel: I will and I go to one of I go to a Baptist church. I'll tell you they're bad. No, I'm just joking. Just tease them.
Angel Deaton: Hahaha!
Kevin Whitsell: But 13 years ago, I was I was wrapped up in that sign right there.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and not just the painting, but what it stood for. I was Kevin the paramedic. I didn't know how to separate that identity.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: I didn't even remember the verses that talked about my identity in Christ.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: And in 2021, Angel knows my timeline better than I do. Twenty twenty-one,
Angel Deaton: I think so.
Kevin Whitsell: I had this. huge blow up on my family, so much so that it scared my family because I was so angry and just rage filled. And I didn't hurt anybody, but well, I hurt my shed. I was outside beating up my shed. Yeah.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. I understand. Mm-hmm. dude, I've there's there's been a hole. Yeah, I've put holes in walls. I got that, dude. Did I get you?
Kevin Whitsell: but so much so that they left. And once I started going to therapy and starting to peel back the layers,
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: there was so much cumulative trauma there of
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: all the things I'd seen, experienced, even as far back as childhood, things that in my
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: mind I'd let go years ago. But once you
Jason Sautel: Right.
Kevin Whitsell: start start to talk about it, all this stuff starts flowing out. And what I had to realize is that is not my identity. My identity is that I am the image bearer of God and that I
Jason Sautel: Uh-huh.
Kevin Whitsell: was chosen by him to do a profession that I was good at.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and that I'm blessed to be able to see people and you know, be there for their worst days and provide some type of comfort
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: and some type of care to them. so I really wish that people would just grasp that idea. one of the things and I've said this before, one of the things that my therapist made me do or early on in therapy, she's like, buy a shower mirror. She made me go on Amazon, buy a little shower mirror that I could stick up. She said, every morning, you have to go tell yourself three, because I had a lot of negative self image,
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.
Kevin Whitsell: three things that that you're good at that you think you're really good at. And the first couple days it started off, you're a good paramedic. Okay. That was the main identity for for myself. And then it got into okay, you're a good dad, you're a good husband, you know, you can draw, you talk well, you know, and then it kept building. And then finally I had this the this really I'm not gonna say Paul style, but very very dramatic kind of awakening to what I've known my whole life that that Jesus should be the God should be the center of it all.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: And that Jesus is the one we follow and He pursues us even in some of our worst places, in our darkest places. And it was only then that I started looking at that little mirror and and realizing and starting to tell myself, hey, you're made in the image of God. He loves you, he tracks you down, he'll follow you everywhere until you finally just turn around. He is the prodigal son's father waiting on the porch.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: See you come over the hill. And he's gonna
Angel Deaton: Okay.
Kevin Whitsell: run to you and embrace you and celebrate your return. So I think that everything you said has just been so powerful. You can tell that you speak all the time because some of the stuff that you pour out of you is just so good. but as we wrap up, like what's the message? If there's nothing else that they hear, if there's one clip that we cut and put out to everybody that can see it, what's the one thing you tell people?
Jason Sautel: Well, first off, I'll say I'm I'm I'm here at your discretional time, you guys. I I've this is my this is my Friday afternoon. I love talking with you guys, so don't worry about times. Second of all, we started off this conversation. I'll be honest, I love showing behind the scenes of you know a couple emails back and forth of what we might talk about and everything. And I'm gonna be honest with you, Kevin. I only read the first couple things and then I stop right there because I love an organic conversation as the interviewee. Okay, as the interviewer. I totally get keeping a line and everything and
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Sautel: and stuff. And but I don't want to know because I just want you to fire for me. And that's also how I hit my speaking engagements. You'll laugh. I have a good idea of what I'm gonna bring to a speaking engagement. I had a head injury about two and a half years ago. It jacked me up bad. So it's taking me a little longer. I have to the process takes a bit longer now, and my speaking pattern is a bit off, which I'm still healing from. But with that being said, when you started off with the grittiness of going out and getting the one and leaving the 99 behind. What does that look like? Well, I'm gonna tell all the listeners right now, right now, rewind this back and start over again. That's what it looks like. That's what going out getting the one is, you guys. It's about putting yourself out there. It's about the, you know, like I said, I don't want to say, look at Oakland, but I worked in a district in West Oakland, three doors down for the Black Panther Party started up. Loved our community, everything it happened. Man, there was a lot of crime in there. And come 3 a.m., we'd usually be on our 20th run already. And I'm not trying to fake the numbers. Second fire where we're actually first due through the front door and had overhaul for three hours. So we're whoop, man. I didn't want to get out of bed, dude. I'm like, forget this, dude. But I had to get out of bed because that one guy with that BS bellyache that I did not want to go to, that why he's a grown man with a working car, but he can't get himself to the hospital. He's calling me and I could show up so pissed off and tell me, Do you know there's people out there that really need me and you're wasting my time? There's people that could burn to death because you're calling me for your stupid look. I don't care if your appendix even bursts you got two days, so you're gonna die, you idiot. Get in your car and
Angel Deaton: you
Jason Sautel: go. I show up with that attitude. I did not show up for the one. I showed up with pride and attitude. You guys, the one is the one that's in front of you. That's who it is. And you may not even know who it is. So when I show up to that guy, I need to put it all aside. He might be the only encounter, and I'm not saying I'm God or Jesus or anything, that he felt God or Jesus through for that day. This is why when you go online, you'll see old Jason talking politics and going all out. But check this out. If I a lib tar, I'm gonna say that word. I'm sorry, if I have a very liberal person in front of me and and I start going at them with
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha ha.
Angel Deaton: Hmm.
Jason Sautel: my views, and all of a sudden my views and we start going at it, and I'm saying this and we're saying that. And that God actually put that person in me because I was gonna the only person that week that was gonna give them the gospel of Jesus Christ through either my words or just my actions. I screwed up. I screwed up miserably. Now, let's you and I in a closer, I will go politics day and day. And we'll even go into deep Baptist theology because I go to a Baptist church and I can't stand Baptist, but I go because I love reading line by line. But their traditions, I'm conforming the Baptist church, reforming the Baptist church. I'm getting in there and saying all these traditions are stupid. Don't let your traditions get in the way of other people's faith. But we'll have those conversations. But what I want to hit with you guys to answer that question, man, is what I would really like to leave people with too is if you were lost, hurt. Lonely. I'm not telling you go right buy my book. I'm the worst book salesman on the face of the earth and drives my publisher nuts. But I I will say is I walked in the darkness for the first 28 years of my life. And man, that separation from God, that's hell. That's hell. We can got go into and say about what's burning, the gnarling of the teeth. I know scripture through and through because I'm in my Bible four to five hours a day doing seminary, all that stuff. I'm not gonna go there. I let that drive the way that I try to evangelize people. But with that being said, the true hell is the separation from God because I was truly separated from him for 28 years. And you guys, I was a surfer. I was a punk. I I could I could score the hot chick. I could do all that stuff. I was that little young punk fireman that would flash his badge at a bar while buying drinks hoping some chick was. I did I embarrassed
Kevin Whitsell: Mm.
Jason Sautel: myself even talking about that. When I did it with Christy,
Kevin Whitsell: Ha ha
Jason Sautel: she looked at it and said, What are you a cop or something? I'm not impressed. And I was like, that's hot. Okay. But it's it's embarrassed.
Angel Deaton: We.
Jason Sautel: I was that guy, but even then. I was freaking miserable, you guys. I didn't want to be here anymore. I really didn't. But then all of a sudden, when I got a spark of hope, and all of a sudden that hope became reality. And all these lies in my head that I thought were truths became lies. All these truths actually became lies. It was like this flip happened to me. And then I was able to look and I could truly see what was my fault and what was not my fault. That's what I want people to think about. Yeah, things are our fault. Totally our fault. But the best thing about it is our faults were nailed to the cross, paid in full. And when we're standing in court, Jesus is gonna say,
Kevin Whitsell: Uh-huh.
Jason Sautel: I handle it. Guess what? Not our righteousness is is setting us free. It is his righteousness, our faith in him that's setting us free. God's gonna look at us and say, Not guilty, go on in and stuff. And then there's this beauty, and to have hope in that is amazing. And to now go out on that shooting, that stabbing, watching someone's house burn while you're trying to put it out and stuff. I now can sit there and say, you know what? This isn't my fault. And it's sad, but there's gonna be something good that we can pull out of that. And I just want people to hear that, man, because that's what pulls me through. Because I still struggle with depression. I don't struggle with anxiety. I struggle with depression related to anxiety because I'm freaked out when the depression's gonna hit up type of stuff. But
Kevin Whitsell: huh.
Jason Sautel: you know what? I can actually go to my Bible and I have ways to work through it now. So where before nothing was working. So I want to let people know that if you're not a Christian, I want you guys to get help. There is help for you guys, and I want you to go with where you feel you're gonna get the best help. But don't forget anything that we're talking about here either. And you know, hit me up. There's multiple ways to hit me up if you ever have further questions. I'd love to just have that talk with you because I'm not scared about talk about talking about Jesus. I'm not going to bring him in an arrogant way. I have no agenda behind me whatsoever. I'm a Christian in an unchristian world. You're not not an unsaved person in a Christian world. It's actually opposite, you know. So I'm the minority here, and I'm I don't mind being the minority, and I love to talk into the majority, and I'm not scared, and I'll have those conversations with people.
Kevin Whitsell: that well guys I know you always sign off I see the I see the numbers I see the chart of when you guys drop off don't drop
Angel Deaton: you
Kevin Whitsell: off okay so to close our show we always kind of do the same thing but Jas Jason something that we I thought about Jason our co-host for some reason right then and and just the face wouldn't there Jason do you have any questions for us
Jason Sautel: You know what? I have a million questions for you guys, but I'm a why guy. Why do you guys do what you do? And we with the let's see leave it with this show because I we go into your work and all that, but let's stick with the show. Wha why why? What drives you to do the show?
Kevin Whitsell: So I talked about it a little bit. I had a really bad call in twenty seventeen that really opened up the can of worms in in twenty twenty one. and one of the things that I felt during that moment was I felt isolated. I felt alone. I felt like nobody else was coming for me. I felt like there was no help. I felt like I was broken. I felt like I was gonna lose my marriage and my children and all the things because of this all this stuff that I'd carried around for so long and didn't know where to drop it at. and I started this show, a silent war within portion. I started this show because I didn't want anybody else to feel like that. I wanted people to know that they did have hope, that they did have somebody that that could relate, that they had a safe place to land. this new series, Initiative ninety nine, which hopefully will go on for a very long time. it's just really been laid on my heart. Like we haven't hit our faith. You know, we've written multiple times about our faith and and somehow almost every episode turns to faith being the backing of a lot of what we do when we interview guests. but really
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: laid on my heart, you know, because I you know, I've read the Bible front to back three or four times. That's not a brag. That is that is saying that I've been steeped in this in this Religion's not the right word, but this relationship with Jesus my whole life. I've been steeped in this. and I have a very strong relationship with Jesus myself. I spend I spend time studying the word. I'm in school just similar to what you are, to to learn more about him and to become closer to him. So I think the initiative ninety-nine r really was because this has been very heavy on my heart and feels like a conviction as to Are you inadvertently denying me? And I'm and I want to draw the line in the sand and say, no, we are not denying Jesus. We are saying that Jesus is our reason for continuing this. The reason we have the hard conversations and the reason we talk about stuff that that there's a lot of people that are unwilling to talk about. so I wanted the entire platform to be really just a soft spot that you can come. And you can hear conversations and you can know that some of the biggest people that you watch online all the time, because that's a huge part of what we do too. We, you know, we recruit people that people are going to recognize when their face pops up on the screen or at least
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: know the name. and we wanted them to know that they had a story too. Nobody is nobody is without their scars.
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: Most people are not without skeletons in the closet. It's just how willing you are to bring those out and talk about them. And what
Jason Sautel: Are you never?
Kevin Whitsell: we found and what we found in doing that is that, you know, we received some very similar emails that that that say that we've made a difference in someone's life. Or I didn't know that guy had that story. He seems
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: perfect online. Guys, online is a charade. That's all it is. You can make online look like whatever you want. I went to
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Well
Kevin Whitsell: a a a local town festival with the girlfriend who is now my wife. and somebody pulled me aside and said, Hey man, that's not your wife. I was like, Yeah, because me and my first wife are divorced and they had no idea. But we didn't paint that on social media. You
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Whitsell: can make social media look like whatever you want it to look like.
Jason Sautel: One hundred percent but
Kevin Whitsell: And when people come on that have painted their life in a certain way, whether it be EMS education or whether it be just fun videos about the ambulances or the helicopters, the fire trucks, the police cars
Jason Sautel: Yeah.
Kevin Whitsell: or dispatch, and they tell their story, people go, wow, that person hurts like me too. And I think that's the whole basis of it, is to let people know that we're all in this. In some way, shape, form, or fashion, we're all in this together.
Jason Sautel: Kevin, you nailed it right there before I ask Angel the next same question. I'll just throw it out there. Tell your story is something I'm passionate about and bring me back through on this again sometime in the future. And I want to hit a couple things with you there and help you guys along with that too. And also topics on like church hurt and guys who have been in the faith their whole life,
Kevin Whitsell: yeah.
Jason Sautel: because that's pretty much about 90% of the guys that I evangelize to. So think
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Jason Sautel: about this, Angel. You get it? Imagine firemen. And Christians that have been hurt by the church. is there much more judgmental crowd? That's my crowd. That's Jason Sottel's crowd. That is why God put me at such a young age at West Oakland to be in the busiest firehouse. Because it was the deal with knuckleheads like you, guys that are hurt Christians back when you're through it. I'm like, that's what I have to deal with all day. But I love it, bro. I absolutely love it because of where my heart is. Because I have so much to offer you as an atheist for the first 28 years of my life. You have so much to offer me as a Christian for the first amount of your lives with your stroves. Then when those struggles combine and we talk about them, boom, tell your story. Now, Angel, for you, what's your heart behind? Why are you doing this?
Angel Deaton: I had always had a passion for mental health and Kevin had started the podcast and I was I was quietly
Kevin Whitsell: Sorry.
Angel Deaton: behind the scenes pushing in you know, anybody that asked in anybody that would listen I'm like, hold on you got to listen to this you got to listen to this and randomly one Saturday morning It was like 730 and I'm never awake
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: when I'm off at 730 on a Saturday morning
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. yeah.
Angel Deaton: And Kevin texted and said, will you help me run the podcast? And I was like, absolutely. And when we met for like, well, let's make the lunch and let's work out some things. And I was like, okay. When the first thing he asked me, he said, what's your why? And I was like, because when I struggled and people were ugly to me for struggling. I just want no part of that. want them to know that instead of, may not can be in a per se leadership spot, but I'm a leader in my group so that they know when they need something, whether it's I take care of supplies at work. So whether it's supplies, whether it's just a question like, Hey, what do do with this patient? Or, Hey, I'm really struggling. Like they know. They know that I'm going to listen. I hope that they feel like that they are safe with me. And then I
Jason Sautel: Mm. That's solid and mm.
Angel Deaton: heard a podcast lately, Terese, I listened to her interview
Kevin Whitsell: Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: with a guy that wrote the Christian book. I wrote his name down, but now I can't remember. But
Jason Sautel: I can't remember something, but I got you.
Angel Deaton: it was a whole lot like your things. He was He started like a small group for the first responders in his church. He was like, I felt like I was going to the small group. And I feel this all the time. I show up and like the things they're struggling with is different than me because I, all I can think about is this 16 year old who blew his brains out last week. Like I can't think about anything else. Like
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Angel Deaton: whether your socks match or not is real, not real important to me. You know?
Jason Sautel: Mm-hmm I agree.
Angel Deaton: So just to, just to have
Jason Sautel: Love that.
Angel Deaton: somebody that gets it.
Jason Sautel: There you go. you guys, I love your answers that question. That's why I always ask people whys because even if they don't line up with mine, I so respect them. It gives me insight on stuff. You know, the people's whys of what you're doing behind what you're doing. It blesses so many people. And I I absolutely love what you guys are doing and stuff. So in the famous words of my sign off, keep on keeping on. You guys do what you're doing.
Kevin Whitsell: That's that's it. So guys, as we wrap up, you all you all know this is my most hated part of the show because I hate to get off of a good conversation. But we do have some very exciting things happening in our world that we want to tell you about just really quickly. merch is out. You may say, Okay, what's this merch going for? this is so we can get out and go to conferences and continue to spread this message of of healing and hope and everything that we're doing. so if you guys will go and purchase one of the shirts, we got blankets, we got hats, we got all kinds of things with with our new logos on them. So you guys will see that. And you guys know where we stream, you guys know where we are on social media, but really the hub of all the information for anything Asilent War Within is the website. Asilentwarwithin.com. So if you go there, you can get in touch with any of us. you can get resources. We have a ton of resources there. We also have direct links to all of us. I mean, you can get in touch with every single member of our little four person team here to Silent War Within. we are really working hard to get you guys some really good guests and we're seeing growth and we're super excited. And we just have some good things coming down the road. We are so excited. And we'll be at a couple of conferences this year. We'll be at the Mississippi EMS conference. I think Angel and I are going to that. And then we'll also be at Help me. The Su Tennessee Suicide Task Force is doing an awareness conference that we will be at as well. so we have got just a lot of things cooking and we're super excited. We're gonna continue to drop episodes every Friday. Were you gonna say something, Angel? I saw your mouth move.
Angel Deaton: Yes, yes, we also have our one year episode coming up and us.
Kevin Whitsell: We do, but by the time this episode airs, that one will be before this one. See, you you
Angel Deaton: You're right, I'm sorry.
Kevin Whitsell: and the timeline.
Angel Deaton: I'm really excited about it, okay?
Kevin Whitsell: Yeah, me too. So we're actually recording that that next week. So we're really excited. It's been a year. I think this is episode sixty four or five. so we've we've really, really dedicated ourselves to giving you a new episode every Friday. So as we close out, we always say the same thing. Be safe, take care of your mind, and we'll talk soon. Hope to see you next week, everybody. If you're listening to this right now, chances are you're exhausted. Not just physical tired from a long shift or a bad night's sleep. I'm talking about that bone deep soul level exhaustion that comes from carrying a war inside your head for years. Trying to be your own savior, trying to keep the house of cards from falling apart. You spent so long guarding your heart. Putting up walls and fighting every battle on your own terms. But today, the shepherd is inviting you to lay down the weapons. Here's the raw, unfiltered truth of the gospel. You don't have to carry this anymore. Jesus didn't come to condemn you, He came to rescue you. The Bible tells us that we've all fallen short, we've all sinned. We've all tried to run our own lives, and we've all ended up bleeding out in the dark because of it. But Jesus stepped into our wreckage. He went to the cross, took the full penalty for every single sin and failure you have ever committed. and paid it in full with his own blood. Then he broke the power of death and walked out of the grave so that you could have freedom. Salvation isn't a reward for good behavior, it's a gift for the broken. If you're ready to surrender, And let Jesus take the wheel. You don't need a church altar or a speech. You just need a willing heart. Right where you are, no matter where that is, call out to him. Say, Jesus, I'm done running. I confess that I'm a sinner and I can't save myself. I believe you died on the cross for me and rose again. Forgive my past, heal my brokenness, and be The Lord of my life from this day forward. If you made that decision today or if you prayed that prayer for the very first time, we want to hear about it. You do not have to walk this road alone. Go to asilentwarwithin.com right now. Click the contact link and just type three words. I chose Jesus. Or send us a private message on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. We won't put your name in lights. We won't judge your past. We won't blast your story. We will simply reach back out. Get a Bible in your hands and stand shoulder to shoulder with you as a brother or sister in Christ. Be safe, take care of your mind, and remember the war in your head is over the moment you yield to the shepherd.
