Singer Barry McGuire's "The Eve Of Destruction" God story

Barry McGuire rocked the world of Top 40 music with a brash, scathing depiction of a world in turmoil. His number one hit song "Eve of Destruction" focused on the chaos surrounding the Vietnam war , the draft, Nuclear weapons, civil rights, and communism. It was so controversial, some radio stations and some countries banned the song from the airwaves. It jumped to the the top of billboard magazine in 1965, bumping the Beatles "Help" out of the number one spot.

Although that song helped Barry McGuire capture a place in rock history, his life story is a slice out of the American music narrative. McGuire was a key player in the very early days of folk and rock music. He started with the New Christie Minstrels, hung out with the best of the best musicians in LA, was a singer song writer and produced 26 albums, acted in movies, was part of the cast of the Broadway smash, 'HAIR' and was a devoted follower of Jesus from 1971 to today.

It's all here on this episode of Amazing Greats. If your are looking for even more proof of God's presence take a listen.

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BARRY McGUIRE AT A GLANCE

Legendary Singer-Songwriter • “Eve of Destruction” • Christian Music Pioneer

Topics

“Eve of Destruction” • Laurel Canyon • Mamas & Papas • Counterculture • Jesus • Conversion • Surrender • Present moment • Trusting God

His Faith Journey

Folk-rock success → Laurel Canyon counterculture → Addiction and despair → Encounter with Jesus → Surrender → Christian music and ministry → Deeper life in Christ

This Episode Explores

• The story behind “Eve of Destruction”

• Beating the Beatles at No. 1

• Barry McGuire's years in Laurel Canyon

• His connection to the Mamas & Papas

• Sex, drugs and rock and roll

• Losing friends to the counterculture lifestyle

• His dramatic encounter with Jesus

• His journey from despair to faith

• Why surrender and the present moment matter

• His view of trusting God one step at a time

• His understanding of living “in Christ”

Questions Answered

• Who is Barry McGuire?

• What is “Eve of Destruction” about?

• How did Barry McGuire meet the Mamas & Papas?

• What was Laurel Canyon like in the 1960s?

• How did Barry McGuire come to faith in Jesus?

• What happened when Barry McGuire was suicidal?

• What does surrendering to God mean to Barry McGuire?

• Why does Barry emphasize living in the present moment?

• How does Barry McGuire deal with fear?

• What does “trust in the Lord with all your heart” mean to him?

• What does it mean to live in Christ?

Podcast Transcript: Barry McGuire on Eve of Destruction, Jesus & Living in the Present Moment

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen

The Song That Shocked the World

Ric Hansen:Okay, so when I was a punk kid about 19 years old and playing the hits on radio, one song came along that was so powerful that it was a shock to the Top 40 world. It landed at number one, bumping the Beatles and their song “Help!” out of the number-one spot in the country.

It was a blunt, shocking view of the world in the mid-1960s. It was “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire. And that is our amazing guest today on Amazing Greats.

We are live and direct from California today, and we are talking with a legendary songwriter, performer and singer. You were there, Barry McGuire, back in the day when rock and roll and folk music were just in their infancy, and you were a part of all of that. And that's what makes this such a great and interesting story to start with.

You sang with the New Christy Minstrels. I think I counted up to 26 albums that you've done since then. You played with the New Mamas and Papas in later years in the '90s, and you toured with John Michael Talbot in the year 2000. You're a lifetime singer, and you hit the top of the charts one time. You beat the Beatles out of their number-one spot with “Help!” Your song was “Eve of Destruction.”

Barry McGuire:Let me interrupt you on that. I beat the Beatles with “Help!” And then, two weeks after being the number-one song, I was taken out by the McCoys with “Hang on Sloopy.”

I thought we were going to change the world. I thought “Eve of Destruction” was the axle on which the whole world was going to wake up. It was a wake-up call.

“Hey, don't you know? Look at all the stuff we're doing. We're killing each other and murdering each other and have no respect for each other. It's time to wake up and realize that we're all just people.”

Yeah. That lasted for two weeks, and then, “Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy, hang on.”

Ric Hansen:You know, but it did shake up the world for a while. And you had a controversial song, right?

Barry McGuire:For sure.

Well, yeah. It still is. I mean, people either like it or they hate it.

The New Christy Minstrels and Laurel Canyon

Ric Hansen:Yeah. So you played with the New Christy Minstrels. You were the lead vocalist. If anybody wants to look it up on YouTube or whatever, on “Green, Green,” which is a great song. “Shim Shim Cher-ee,” as I understand it, you were the lead guy on that.

Barry McGuire:I think they took my voice off when I left the group. I haven't heard it.

Ric Hansen:Well, I YouTubed that. It certainly sounded like you to me.

Barry McGuire:The gravy voice, maybe. That was, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ric Hansen:It's a legendary Barry McGuire voice, for sure.

Barry McGuire:By the other day, I sound like the Cookie Monster.

Ric Hansen:But you were around in those days. You hung out in Laurel Canyon with folks like the Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys and all of that. What was that like? That's got to be just a moment in musical history, right? And you were there.

Barry McGuire:Well, you know, it wasn't like we knew it was a moment in musical history. We're just a bunch of young people.

I was 29 at the time. I was 28 when I got into the Christies. I think I was 27 or 28.

We were just trying to learn a new chord, a new song, write a song, sing a song, get a job, pay the bills. We had no idea.

When Cass called me and told me, “Listen, I've got some friends out here from New York, and you've got to hear us singing. This is some great stuff.”

She told me her address, so I got a bag full of marijuana, put it under my arm, jumped on my motorcycle and went up to her house.

I walked in, and they were all sitting on the floor. They didn't have any furniture. In fact, none of us had furniture. We always sat on the floor. Even if there was furniture, we'd still sit on the floor.

They were just sitting around waiting for me. They even had a newspaper spread out on the floor. So I dumped the grass on the floor, we all rolled a joint, and I said, “Okay, so what's this song? What's this music you're doing?”

Cass was ironing. She did have an ironing board and an iron, and she was in the kitchen ironing a dress.

They all four started singing, and it blew me away.

I called my producer, the guy that produced “Eve of Destruction.” I said, “Lou, you've got to hear these people.”

So I held the phone up, and he said, “Well, bring them down to the studio tomorrow.”

They didn't know what was coming. They went down to the studio, and Lou heard them. He couldn't believe it. He signed them the next day.

They did the background vocals on the album I was working on to make some money.

And they got a song.

“California Dreamin'.”

I recorded that song before they did. But John, when he heard the way it came together with them doing the background vocals — “All the leaves are brown, all the leaves are brown” — he said, “Oh, this is great.”

Well, they didn't do that originally. That came about when they were singing behind me. When they heard that, they thought, “Man, that's it. We want this.”

So John said, “Would you mind if we released ‘California Dreamin'' as our first single?”

And I said, “Yeah. Then you can buy the grass.”

I had the hit record. I had money. They didn't.

They took my voice off — I didn't know they did this — and put John's and Denny's voices on. Then they released it.

It was years later when my son was listening to a stereo and one of the channels didn't work. He was playing The Best of the Mamas and the Papas on a CD.

He said, “Dad, one channel doesn't work.”

He said, “That sounds like you.”

When I listened to that one left track — or the right track, I forget which one — I could hear all the music, and then it was gone.

There you were.

I realized this was my track. I didn't realize they had used my track.

So I used to call John and Denny and give them a hard time about it.

“You used my track and didn't pay me for it.”

Ric Hansen:Yeah. Where's my royalties, right?

Barry McGuire:Yeah. All these people singing karaoke to my track.

Ric Hansen:And then later, the Mamas and Papas kind of made you even more of a household name.

Barry McGuire:Yeah, McGuinn and McGuire. We got hired, yeah.

Ric Hansen:And that was “Creeque Alley,” the name of that song.

And you and Roger McGuinn were also friends. Roger McGuinn from the Byrds, right?

Barry McGuire:Yeah, yeah. He was playing with the Chad Mitchell Trio, and then he came to L.A.

Ric Hansen:You hung out with the best of the best, let's face it.

Barry McGuire:Yeah.

Ric Hansen:And like you say, what's interesting is you were just living life. You didn't know what was really coming.

Barry McGuire:Nobody knew who was what. We were just hanging out.

We wanted to get loaded, get laid and laugh a lot. That was our whole thing. Chase the ladies, smoke a lot of dope and play a lot of music.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. That was our mantra.

That's all we knew.

And then when “Eve” came along, I thought, “Well, hey, we've got a chance to change the world.”

We can turn everybody on to sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Thank God we didn't. We turned enough of them on. Thousands died because of that and still are dying.

I lost so many friends over those years. I lost about 18 friends over a 10-year period who died from that lifestyle.

I was right to that point myself. It all devolved into an absolute snake pit of horrors.

I was living in a horror show.

Of course, we were all trying to make the best of it, but in my heart, it wasn't working for me.

I saw myself doing the most abominable things. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I couldn't believe what I was thinking.

The Man on the Cross

One night I was working at the Whisky a Go Go.

I came out on the sidewalk one night, and there was a guy there who was chained and padlocked to a cross.

The cross was about 10 feet long and seven feet wide, and he was padlocked with a big motorcycle chain around his waist.

I came out of the Whisky. I'd just finished doing about an hour of a set, so I was all covered with sweat. I had my guitar, and I'm walking out the door.

He was sitting right there looking at me.

I couldn't pretend like I didn't see him because he saw me seeing him.

And the thing of it is, Ric, that when he looked at me, I saw no condemnation. I saw no repulsion.

All I saw coming from his eyes was concern for me.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

Barry McGuire:I saw love coming out of his eyes. I saw Christ in the man's eyes.

And that disarmed me.

I went, “Oh.”

I didn't know what to do.

I said, “Hey, what's happening?”

And he said, “Jesus.”

That's all he said.

“Jesus.”

Whoa.

Up came my armament, and I ran around the corner.

“Oh, them Jesus freaks, man. They're everywhere!”

You know?

But about a couple of weeks later, I was over at a friend's house. He always had a big bowl of grass on his coffee table, and I was rolling a joint.

There was a little paperback book on the table. It said Good News for Modern Man.

I thought, “Well, man, I could use some good news. I could sure use some. I'm a modern man.”

So I picked it up, and my friend said, “Oh, don't read that. That'll get you crazy.”

I thought, “Well, that's what I was looking to get. What do you think I'm smoking this for?”

So I took the book home with me.

I opened it up, and it said right there on the front page, “The New Testament in Modern English.”

I said, “Oh, man. Them Jesus freaks are disguised in the Bible.”

I did not want to read it.

I threw it on the floor. It lay there for days.

Finally, one afternoon, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I thought, “What's this Jesus thing all about?”

I picked it up and started to read the life and times of Jesus the Christ.

And it blew everything away.

He was the answer to the “Eve of Destruction.”

But I thought that I had so violated life itself and myself that there was no way I could ever...

I looked at Christianity, and I looked at Jesus, and I thought, “I could love to be like Him. I wish I could be like Him.”

But I didn't want to be like them.

To me, they were just a bunch of hypocrites. They said one thing and did another.

They didn't live up to what Jesus said.

“Cast all your cares upon me. Take no thought of what you're going to eat or drink or where you're going to sleep.”

I didn't see anybody doing that.

He says, “Greater things than these that I do, you're going to do.”

I didn't see anybody doing greater things than Jesus did.

So I thought, “I want to be like Him, but I don't want to be like them.”

I wrestled with it for a long time.

At that particular period of my life, I was really devolving into an absolute...

I became suicidal.

Everything was sick. Everything was just abominable.

One night I wound up getting involved in a situation that I said I would never get involved in — with another man's wife.

I thought I would never, ever do that, but I did.

I came back, and I was out in the backyard in a tent they had back there.

I went into the house, and everybody was smoking dope and drinking champagne and orange juice and watching TV.

I went over and laid on the floor with my face buried in the crack between the wall and the floor.

And I'm thinking, “Why did I read that book, man? I just can't. I just can't.”

I looked around the house and thought, “It was in the days of Noah.”

Because we were all insane.

We were living insanity, but we didn't know we were insane.

That was my moment when I got down and said my first prayer.

I didn't know the official, “Oh, Holy Father, we beseech thee...”

I didn't know any of that.

My opening line to God was, “Hey, man.”

That was it.

“Hey, man, are You really here?”

And I told God, “Now, don't put me on, man. If You're not here, don't tell me that You are, because I don't want to go on another trip. I've been on too many trips. But I've got to know once and for all — are You really here?”

At that moment, something inside of me broke.

And coming out of my heart came this almost like a sigh, like I'd been waiting so long for you to ask me that question.

“Yes, I'm here.”

And just this flood of love — it was like a flush, a love flush — cleansed me.

It washed through me and cleansed all the filth.

I was very suicidal. I had been contemplating suicide for several weeks.

I didn't want to lay a bummer on my friends. That was one of the only reasons I didn't take myself out.

I was trying to figure out how to do it.

I thought, “Well, I'll tell everybody I'm going to go to India and find a yogi or a guru or somebody in India and become an enlightened being.”

That's what I would tell them.

But what I was going to do was go out to Arizona and jump into the Grand Canyon and take myself out.

That way, if anyone said, “Hey, where's McGuire these days?”

They'd say, “Oh, he killed himself.”

I didn't want to lay that on them.

So they would say, “Oh, he's in India, man. He's looking for the great mandala. He's after enlightenment.”

Dying to the Old Life

Ric Hansen:Wow. You had gone through all of that mental stuff knowing what was happening. That's totally incredible.

Barry McGuire:That was all before I asked God if He was really there.

And then that night God told me...

Well, I don't hear voices. I hear whispers and nudges that come up out of my heart.

I've got to really be quiet to hear those because it's not very loud.

God told me that night that He wanted me to commit suicide.

“I want you to commit suicide,” the voice said, “but not biologically.

I want you to die, but not physically.

I want you to die to everything you think, everything you think you know.

Just like you take a gun, put it to your head and blow your brains out.

All of your dreams, your fantasies, your hopes, your fears, your personality — everything that your life is built on, all the way back to when you were born, before you were born, in vitro — forget it all.

Let Me raise up the person that I want you to be.”

So I laid on the floor that night and said, “Okay. If I wake up alive tomorrow, I will follow You wherever You lead me. I don't care. I'm out of here.”

Ric Hansen:Wow. That's an incredible, incredible story.

Barry McGuire:That was my first step into Christ.

Ric Hansen:Yeah. And everybody, it seems like everybody makes that step in a different way. And yours was very solid and instant.

Barry McGuire:Well, it wasn't instant.

I did stop smoking dope for about three days.

Then a lady showed up from New York that I'd wanted to sleep with for years, and she'd never called me.

She called my number — number 37.

“Oh, I'm number 37.”

She had gotten to Topanga Canyon, and she wanted me to come out and spend the night with her.

I said, “Absolutely.”

So all of my promise to God and everything went out the window, and off I went to Topanga Canyon.

About two o'clock in the morning, I was looking in her eyes and she was looking in mine.

And all I saw were two black holes looking at each other.

There was nobody home.

I just went, “Oh.”

It was like two cadavers, two zombies, pounding on each other, trying to generate some kind of energy.

“Am I still alive? Am I still alive?”

Get lost in the euphoric explosion of an orgasm.

That was about the only thing that actually worked in those days to get me out of the pity of what I was feeling.

So I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

I was all soaking with sweat.

I looked in the mirror, and I had the same emptiness in my eyes that she had in hers.

And I thought, “Oh my goodness. I'm a dead man. I'm a dead man standing here.”

So I went back in and sat on the bed.

She thought she'd done something wrong.

I said, “No, no, no. It's not you.”

I said, “There's something happening with Jesus.”

I said, “I don't know what it is. I don't know who He is or what. There's something. I've got to find out what's going on with Jesus.”

I just couldn't do it anymore.

May 1971: A New Direction

Ric Hansen:And this is all about 1971, is that right?

Barry McGuire:1971, yeah. It was May of '71.

She gave me a ride back to my friend's house in Laurel Canyon.

Ric Hansen:Barry McGuire tells his 50-year story of following Jesus on Amazing Greats.

Barry McGuire:And a funny thing happened.

When we were leaving the canyon, she drove down to Topanga Boulevard, made a right turn, and we heard music coming up out of the river bottom.

There was a bunch of hippies down there. They had plugged their amps into the power, and they had a band. They were doing rock and roll, and everybody was dancing.

So we got out and listened.

Somebody recognized me.

“Oh, you're Barry McGuire!”

I said, “Yeah, yeah.”

“Oh, man. We're looking for a leader. Come and be our leader. We want you to be our leader.”

All these wonderful hippie girls were hanging on me, and the guys were saying, “Yeah, man. Come be one of us. Tell us what to do and where to go.”

And if it hadn't been for Christ, I would have said, “Oh, okay,” and I would have gone.

But I said, “There's something happening with Jesus, and I've got to go find out what it is.”

I said, “Thanks.”

So we left.

She took me back to Laurel Canyon, and Owen was gone.

That's a guy I was living with — my best friend.

I love him. My best friend. Still my best friend. He's been dead for 20 years.

This is actually his shirt.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

Barry McGuire:Yeah. I've got all of his clothes.

Somebody says, “Where do you get your clothes?”

I say, “I buy my clothes at dead guys.”

The last man standing has a great wardrobe.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, that's right.

Barry McGuire:So she took me back over to Owen's place, and I waited there for him all day long.

He came home about 10 o'clock, and he had a lady with him.

We lived in a garage — a one-car garage. We had two pallets on the floor, a little wood stove, a television and a bathroom. That was where we lived.

He brought this girl home with him.

They were over there all night long, and I was trying to sleep.

The next morning, they came out of the shower, and the girl said, “Oh, Barry, I didn't know that was you over there.”

I said, “Yeah, yeah.”

I'd known her for a long time, too. Just never got the invitation.

So I started packing my stuff.

Owen said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “Well, I'm going up to Fresno.”

Because that night, when the girl brought me back that afternoon, all day long I was thinking, “What can I do? What can I do?”

And this voice said, “Go see your uncle.”

I had an Armenian uncle who lived in Fresno, and he knew God.

“Go see your Uncle Eddie. He knows Me.”

I didn't know who to talk to about Jesus. Nobody knew anything about Jesus.

So I said, “Okay.”

I had a suitcase with a sleeping bag and a pillow, and I had a guitar.

That was my stuff.

I traveled light.

No socks. I had my Levi's, my shoes and a T-shirt.

That's all I had.

Owen said, “Where are you going?”

I said, “Well, I'm going up to Fresno.”

“Fresno? What are you going to do in Fresno?”

“My uncle lives there, and I want to talk to him about Jesus.”

“Oh, okay.”

“How are you going to get there?”

“Well, I'm going to go down to the Greyhound bus station and get a bus.”

“Could you spot me some money for my bus?”

I didn't have any money. I was broke.

He was a Warner Brothers actor. He'd done films all the time. He was acting, and he was broke.

So he asked the girl, whose name was Mickey, “Can you spot Barry the bus fare?”

She said, “Well, how much is it?”

I said, “I don't know. Ten bucks, eight bucks, I don't know.”

She said, “Here.”

She gave me $20.

That covered it.

They gave me a ride in their car down to the bus station.

I got on the bus and waved goodbye to them out the back window.

I was off to see my uncle.

We stopped at the North Hollywood bus station, and the most beautiful hippie girl I had ever known got on the bus.

She had on a tank top with no bra, holes in her knees and her pants...

Ric Hansen:Uh-oh. Temptation aboard the bus, huh?

Barry McGuire:Oh, yeah, man.

She got on the bus and looked around.

She saw me sitting in the very back next to the back window.

She walked right back and sat down next to me.

She said, in her most lovely, inviting way, “Where are you going?”

Everything in me wanted to say, “With you.”

And yet there was this weight in my heart.

I said, “Well, there's something about Jesus. I'm going up to Fresno to talk to my uncle because he knows Him.”

So we spent the whole drive from North Hollywood to Bakersfield to Fresno talking about a Jesus that neither one of us knew.

When I got to Fresno, my uncle was there waiting for me.

I got up to get off the bus, and as I was walking, she grabbed me by the hand and turned me around.

She said, “I hope you find what you're looking for.”

I said, “I hope you do too.”

And I fully expect to see that girl on the other side of the river when we get there.

Ric Hansen:What a great memory that is. Wow.

You know, those are the kind of things that crystallize in your brain. You remember them forever.

You know, that word “crystallize.”

Barry McGuire:That's a neat word, isn't it? I just tell it.

Ric Hansen:I don't have spell check here. I'm not sure. Crystallized.

Hey, I'm asking the questions here.

Barry McGuire:You can't — is that spelled with “Christ”? C-H-R-I-S-T?

Ric Hansen:Oh my gosh, you're right.

Barry McGuire:Oh, crystallized.

The other day I had this revelation in my morning time with God.

My body is nothing but a cocoon.

You know, I did this song “Bullfrogs and Butterflies,” and it really did well.

But I was realizing that my body is a cocoon and that I am the chrysalis within the cocoon.

Then I realized the chrysalis is a “Christ-alus.”

That we are being formed within Christ. Christ is being formed within us.

I did a song that says:

“You are a chosen generation,A royal priesthood,A holy nation.I've chosen and appointed you,I've given you My name,My Spirit has anointed you,You're never going to be the same.”

Day by day I'm changing you.

As He is right now, you and I, as we speak, He's changing us.

And when you're purified, when the chrysalis is formed within you, then the cocoon will crack.

And I'm coming back to take you as My bride.

That's where we are right now.

We are all chrysalises in a cocoon, walking and talking with these five senses.

Ric Hansen:Yeah. I like it.

The Jesus Revolution — From Backstage

Ric Hansen:So now, jumping into the Christian story again, have you seen the movie Jesus Revolution?

Barry McGuire:No.

Ric Hansen:Okay. Well, it's a great movie, I thought. I don't know if it's all true, but it certainly made a good story.

Barry McGuire:That is a good story, and I don't want to take anybody's impression of it away.

But it's one thing to see something from the audience, and it's another thing to see something from backstage.

And I wished I'd never been backstage.

I wish I'd never known. I wish I'd never met those people.

I wish I'd never gotten into the Christian businessmen — the full-business gospel men.

That just turned me off.

In fact, that's what caused me to actually stop going to church.

I had to get deeper into Christ, and it wasn't happening in churches.

They were all about the money, about how many people were coming, about recruiting new people to come and fill the seats and fill the coffers.

Even now, many of the musicians that came out of that time period are living in poverty.

The musicians that built Calvary Chapel — the guys, the musicians that built it — they don't have much.

But the pastors and staff are all driving cars and living and paying their bills.

So it was a lot of...

Anyway, I forgot where I was going with all that.

Ric Hansen:So your whole journey here, it sounds to me, had been bringing you to that moment where you gave your life to Christ and became one with Him.

Barry McGuire:I gave my life to Jesus.

Jesus is the Christ.

He introduced me to Christ.

See, Christ is not Jesus' last name.

His name was Jesus ben Jonah, or whatever. His father Joseph, you know, whatever.

But Jesus took years to dig through it all because I never heard that in the church — that when Jesus left, Christ stayed here.

Ric Hansen:Legendary singer-songwriter Barry McGuire shares his amazing story on Amazing Greats.

Living in the Present Moment

Barry McGuire:Jesus introduced me to Christ.

And in Christ, there's a depth. There's a place in Christ, in the kingdom within me, that is absolutely serene.

It's absolutely God.

There's no stress. There's no tomorrow. There's no yesterday.

You know the eye of the needle?

They talk about the eye of the needle.

The word “sin” is an archery term, I've heard for years now, and it means that you're out of the bullseye.

The deeper you are in sin, the further you are out of the bullseye.

And I had this thought come up the other day:

The eye of the needle is this present moment.

Right now.

We are talking right now. We're communicating right now.

We are in the eye of the needle because we are in this moment.

But when we start thinking about tomorrow, next week, next month, or yesterday, last year, last moment — talking about “Eve of Destruction,” “Bullfrogs and Butterflies,” the Jesus movement — that's all yesterday.

That's not now.

When we're talking about all that stuff, we're not now.

Our mind is in yesterday.

In fact, I did a song that says:

“Worrying about the future,Hanging on to the past,We miss the sacred moments of today.”

Because there's a place in Jesus where the past and the future leave us, and all the chains of time fall away.

So when we're not in the present moment, when we're not in the eye of the needle — that's the present moment — then we are in sin.

We're not now.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

That is startling and so true.

It's something to think about.

And it's so difficult to stay in the moment, isn't it?

Barry McGuire:Oh, that's — yes, yes.

That's why it takes practice.

It takes practice like playing the piano, playing the guitar, doing what you're doing.

You've got to practice to know what button to push.

The same way with living in the present moment.

It takes practice.

You have to disengage from the world, disengage from the fear of the world, disengage from the news.

The world is saying, “What do we do? What do we do?”

Because they don't know Christ, they're terrified.

If we're on the dawn of desolation without Jesus, the ship is sinking.

But there's a lifeboat.

“Come out of her, my people.”

Ric Hansen:Well, that's what makes it tough for me to stay in the moment.

One of the things is all the distractions.

First of all, your phone is dinging and your computer is rocking and rolling.

But one of the things I find myself doing, which I detest when I'm doing it, is I'll see a beautiful morning sunrise.

I'll say, “Oh, I've got to get a picture of that.”

So I whip out my phone and start taking a picture of it to show somebody else instead of just soaking it in and being there.

Barry McGuire:That's like people who read the Bible and have memorized every scripture in the Bible.

They know the address where every scripture lives.

They know the roadmap. They've got it down, man.

But they don't know how to find a way home because they've never gone out of the house.

I used to sing before I stopped singing in churches.

And this is one of the things that caused them to stop inviting me back.

I used to sing “I Surrender All.”

I just love the song.

“I surrender all. All to Thee, my precious Savior, I surrender.”

We'd sing it in the congregation, all together.

And I'd say, “Isn't that a precious song?”

How many of us have sung it before?

Everybody would raise their hand.

“Well, how many of us have done it?”

Not so many people raised their hand.

And I'm thinking, “Wait a minute.”

How many of us here this morning are living a stress-free life?

Nobody raised their hand.

In fact, a little chuckle went through the congregation.

Ric Hansen:Stress-free, yeah.

Barry McGuire:Yeah, right.

Wait a minute.

You have stress in your life?

Jesus said, “Cast all your cares upon Me. Take no thought.”

Look, even the flowers of the field — here today, gone tomorrow.

God cares.

God feeds the birds.

You think He's not going to take care of you?

And we say those words, but do we do it?

Do we do it?

We're all grinding away, trying to pay up, instead of trusting God.

Now, trusting God doesn't mean you just sit there and don't do anything.

It means when you're doing what you're doing, you're doing it trusting God.

You're doing it without attachment, without emotion, without involvement.

You're doing it because it's there to be done.

The present moment is addressing the requirement of the present moment.

When the phone rings, that's the present moment.

“Hello, who is it? What do you want?”

In fact, Denny Doherty of the Mamas and Papas — Papa Denny — used to answer, “Who are you? And what do you want?”

On his voicemail, he'd say, “Leave a message and I'll get back to you.”

And after a long pause he'd say, “Maybe.”

Ric Hansen:Well, those are the two things that you just brought up that are so difficult.

One is staying in the moment.

The other is surrendering.

Daily, I think, “I want to surrender to God this day,” but then I jump right into my to-do list and start...

Barry McGuire:But your to-do list — you can do your to-do list in the present moment.

We've all got a to-do list, but we don't live in it.

We're moving right now. We've got boxes all over the house, and we're preparing for this move that's going to take place next week.

But we're doing it in the present moment.

We're not thinking about after we get there because we don't know what's going to happen when we get there.

We don't even know if we're going to get there.

A thousand things could happen between now and then.

The truck could go off the road. The airplane could land on us. My heart could stop beating.

We don't know what the next minute holds.

We just know that right now we've got a house full of stuff that needs to be packed up so the moving guys can put it on the truck and haul it away.

Everything we do, we can do it in the present moment.

We make our plans, but our footsteps are ordained by God.

Our plan is to move, but we don't know if we're going to move or not.

And I pray, “God, if I'm not supposed to move, close the door.”

Because if You open a door, I'm too dumb — I'll walk through an open door.

So close the doors I'm not supposed to go through and open the ones I'm supposed to go through.

If You close the door, if somebody says no, I'll know I'm not supposed to go there.

I'll just back off of it.

Don't knock twice. Just knock once.

If the door opens, I go through it.

If it doesn't open, I don't knock again.

Ric Hansen:That's perfect.

You know, the way I've heard it said, too, is that God can't steer a parked car.

Barry McGuire:That's right.

And that's what used to break my heart.

I used to go and sing in churches, and people would be sitting there. They'd been coming to churches for years, and none of them knew how to live in Christ.

None of them knew how to trust God.

Why don't we teach them?

Why aren't people taught how to trust God?

Why aren't people taught how to leave?

How do you get rid of fear?

You stop thinking about it.

You can't think about fear and think you're going to get rid of it by thinking about it.

You ignore it.

It's there.

“Okay, that's there. That could happen, but it's not happening right now.”

What's happening now is we're talking.

I could think about all the things that could happen in the future, but that's not happening right now.

Years ago, my wife and I discovered the best way to defeat Satan:

Ignore him.

We were into spiritual warfare and all that.

I used to think, “The battle is over.”

The real battle is to remember there's no battle.

The war is over.

We're in Christ, in the victory.

We're taking a victory lap with Jesus.

That's what we're doing.

The battle's all won.

So you just ignore him.

People say, “Satan is testing me. Satan is after me.”

I've had people come into church and tell me, “Satan has really been testing me this week.”

And I think that God created Satan as a whip to drive us into the kingdom.

Finding Peace in Christ

Ric Hansen:Oh, yeah.

Barry McGuire:When you look at the world right now, is there any place of refuge in what the world is offering?

Is there any place of peace?

No, there's not.

The only place there is peace is in Christ within our heart.

It's not out there.

And so it gets ugly.

The uglier it gets, the more the options become less and less — options of escape — until finally there's only one option left.

That's like there we are with three crosses on the hill.

Jesus is on one, and two crooks are on the others.

And I'm a crook on that cross.

One of the crooks hardened his heart, cursed God and died.

And the other crook said, “Remember me this day.”

And he opened his heart to Christ.

I'm that crook.

I'm on the cross with Christ.

My body is dying.

I mean, it's 88 years old, you know, and it's going to be a few more years and it's out of here.

But I'm in Christ inside my heart.

That's where Christ lives.

Ric Hansen:Oh, you are such an inspiration.

I've really enjoyed this conversation.

I was just looking at the time — speaking of just looking at time.

Barry McGuire:I'm sorry. I've rattled on.

Ric Hansen:No, this has been fabulous. It's been absolutely incredible.

And I thank you so much for taking the time.

Is there a scripture verse that kind of is your fallback, that you love, that reminds you of who you are in Christ?

Trust in the Lord

Barry McGuire:Yeah.

We did a little song:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”

I'm going to cry.

“And lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.”

There it is.

“In all your ways acknowledge Him.”

Making the phone call, making a list, a to-do list, doing the to-do list — in all your ways acknowledge Him.

It's just so simple.

But will anybody do it?

I mean, people listening to this program right now:

Will you do that?

Will you trust in the Lord with all your heart and not try and figure out how to change the world, who to vote for?

I mean, which crook do you want to vote for?

Which hangman do you want to vote for to pull the lever on the trapdoor underneath you?

Come out of her, my people.

Come out of the world and just trust God.

And you know, it's scary to trust God because you say, “Well, what if He doesn't come through?”

Well, then that means you weren't supposed to do that.

My wife told my granddaughter the other day, “Honey, most of life is learning what not to do.”

And that's the truth.

How do you figure out what to do?

You do something, and it turns out.

If you survive the consequences of your action and you learn, “Oh, that was a dumb thing to do. I never want to do that again,” you've learned something.

Don't do that again.

That's the way it is with everything.

That's the way it is with me when I used to sing in churches until I asked the wrong questions and they didn't invite me back anymore.

I would say, “Are we living stress-free lives?”

How do we expect the world to come and join our little stressed-out bunch of people?

What do we have to offer them that they don't already have?

They have stress. They've got plenty of stress.

We live in so...

Anyway, it just goes on and on.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, yeah.

Barry McGuire, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story.

I wish we could go on for hours. There are so many other things that we could talk about.

Barry McGuire:But sometime, maybe. Maybe we'll do it.

Ric Hansen:Maybe we'll do it sometime down the line, when you're moved and settled.

You've just been a marvelous guest.

Thank you so much.

By the way, I have an Amazing Greats ball cap that I'll send you. We'll send it to you just as a reminder of your Amazing Greats episode here.

Barry McGuire:Okay, that's great. Thank you, Ric.

I'm honored. I'm honored.

Ric Hansen:Hey, thanks for listening to Amazing Greats. So great to have you here to share this unique journey.

Please take a minute and share this with one of your friends, or hit the Like button and help us spread the word about our podcast.

Remember: stay in the moment, surrender to God, and have a blessed week.

Thanks for listening.