In this heartfelt episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group, is joined by guest Charles Garcia for a powerful conversation reflecting on the life, faith, and legacy of Charlie Kirk.
Darryl shares the story of PAX’s national strategic relationship with Charlie, how it came to be, and the impact it had on the PAX family. Together, Darryl and Charles discuss the heart of Evangelism, the courage it takes to be obedient to God’s calling, and how figures like Charlie stand on the shoulders of those who came before – missionaries, preachers, and ordinary believers whose faith sparked revival across the world.
This episode explores themes of grief, hope, and revival, offering encouragement to see tragedy as a catalyst for deeper faith and greater intentionality in our own lives. From stories of Jim Elliot and John Paton to the everyday practice of “stacking pancakes” in gratitude, listeners are reminded of the eternal perspective that shapes how we live and lead today.
Whether you knew Charlie Kirk personally or simply want to be encouraged by his story, this episode will leave you inspired to be bold, obedient, and faithful in your own journey.
Transcript:
Darryl: Hey, this is Darryl Lyons CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. Welcome to Retire in Texas, where building wealth comes with clarity and purpose and peace. And we’re really guided by 1 Timothy [6:17] through 19. I want to help you ultimately grow your net worth, but without losing your grounding. And if that’s what you’re after, you’re at the right place.
Remember, this information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information. So, I’m going to talk Charlie Kirk today and I have a guest with me, Charles Garcia. Thank you for being here Charles.
Charles: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Darryl: Excited to have you. I want to set the stage and then Charles has some things that I would love for you guys to hear. For those that don’t know, we had a strategic relationship with Charlie Kirk. I had, there’s a pregnancy care center gala years ago that I was invited to, and I got to sit at the VIP table, and I got to behind the scene VIP stuff, but I actually didn’t know the speaker.
The speaker was Charlie Kirk, so my wife wanted to go to that one. She encouraged me. She’s like, you need to meet Charlie Kirk. So we got in the VIP area. Charlie was doing pictures, and so, we did a picture. Me and my wife and Charlie, and I look over to Charlie, who stands above me, tall guy.
And I said, hey, Charlie, have you ever had, like, a national kind of endorsement relationship with an investment advisory firm? You know, we did one with Dave Ramsey and, you know, might work with you. And he looked at me, goes, that’d be awesome. And we talked more and we got, he said, hey, text me. And I was like, wow, he gave me his text.
That doesn’t happen, or cell. That doesn’t happen all the time. So, we were texting and just make sure it is a good fit. And they did their homework and they’re like, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do something. So, we had this national strategic relationship with Charlie Kirk. It was a paid endorsement. But it’s one that, you know, they did their due diligence on.
And it was a great relationship. He loved PAX. He said incredible things about us. We were absolutely honored to be able to work with him for several years. So, when he passed away it hit home for our PAX family. We all felt it, including me and my personal family. I mean, we just struggled with it and still are.
But a lot of people don’t know about that relationship with Charlie, and it’s one that we were really honored to have in our lives. I would suggest that Charlie was an evangelist, you know, the word evangelical. And you probably see this Charles as well, has kind of I didn’t notice it, but kind of got a bad name. Like for some reason, in some circles, people are like.
Charles: Yeah, it started to happen.
Darryl: I was sitting down with a client and she was telling me, that sounds like you’re an evangelical is like, well, is that bad? Like, and it was a weird conversation. And then I thought about it and, I’ve seen the word evangelical kind of have a bad rap. And, for whatever reason, I can’t control what people say, but evangelical means to evangelize.
And that’s rooted in Jesus’s demand. One of His last words, if not His last, to go make disciples of all nations. And that’s what, you know, evangelical comes from. And Charlie was doing that. I mean, he wasn’t, there was peripheral stuff, of course, that he talked about that were, you know, Trump and Republicans. But he was making disciples of all nations.
That’s what he was doing. And if you aren’t convinced that that was his primary motive, then you haven’t read history because in the Christian faith, there are many, many people, martyrs. There’s Foxes, Books of Martyrs. It’s out there. Have you ever read that book, by the way?
Charles: I haven’t.
Darryl: It’s a good book. But there’s so many people in the Christian history that have had this same fire in their belly to evangelize. And, what happens when they are obedient to this calling. Revival takes place, the same type of revival that we think of, like when a child falls in a pool and can’t breathe anymore, you’ve got to revive them back to life. This is the same thing that evangelicals do in Christ, is they go and make disciples of all nations to revive a community or a country or a group of people.
And that’s the very essence of Christianity. And so, I want to mention a few people that Charlie would admit stood on the shoulders of giants and us going forward. We stand on the shoulders of Charlie. So, Jim Elliott was one. Just like Charlie. He was a gifted preacher. This guy was born in 1927. He was obedient to the calling to evangelize to the Aucas group of people.
They were in the jungle of Ecuador, I may be even messing up on the name. Very dangerous people. They were known to kill outsiders. He said this. Jim said this. He said, surely those who know the great, passionate heart of Jehovah or Jesus must deny their own love to self in the expression of His. I thought that was a beautiful quote.
So, him and his four friends, they wanted to go down and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. This group of indigenous people, they went to the beachhead to meet them, and they were greeted with spears and they died. Have you heard that story before?
Charles: Yeah, yeah, I think that was reflected in The Tip of the Spear.
Darryl: Yep, and his wife went down there out of love and continue the ministry.
Charles: Amazing story.
Darryl: And yeah. And then there is revival, all in this whole tribe. They came to know Jesus. And that gives me goosebumps on my goosebumps. Think about John Paton. Another example. He was a Scottish missionary. He went down to the New Hebrides Islands. I think I’m saying that right. Hebrides Islands, that’s off the South Pacific. So, there’s these islands, New Hebrides islands of the South Pacific.
There’s actually the same Hebrides islands like in this off the Scottish coast, which I’ll come to a just a second. But at 34, he’s just married his wife. They got married two weeks later he told his wife, we’re going to these islands and we’re going to be missionaries. And she’s like, okay, I guess that’s what I signed up for.
So, they go to this island and right away, they had a newborn child and the wife, they die of some tropical virus down there. He ended up being, you know, Chase, he didn’t die. I mean, he eventually died, but he didn’t die there in his ministry. But he, you know, had to bury his family with his own bare hands.
He had to hide in trees because they would attack him. But because of his obedience, just like Charlie’s, there was revival in this island. It inspired what happened. It ultimately, it inspired other missionaries to say, you know what? We can reach indigenous populations and inspired missionaries in Australia and Scotland and the Western world. I have one more because I wanted to share a female version of the shoulders that that Charlie stood upon, and he is now a part of this great group of people who walked in obedience.
But that’s Peggy and Christine Smith again, another Hebrides Islands. But this one’s off the coast of Scotland. They were older, like Peggy was 84. Christine was 62. Peggy was blind. Christine was, she was crippled. She had arthritis where she would, like, walked sideways, you know, like, bent over. And they would cry out at night. They could go out, but they would cry out at night.
They were known for reading the passage to people in Isaiah 44:3 it says, for I will pour out water on this thirsty land and streams on this dry land. I’ll pour out my spirit on the offspring and blessing on your descendants. And they, these two women, they stirred the community. They partnered with this really charismatic guy, kind of a Charlie Kirk of that era.
And his name is Duncan Campbell. He got fired up, another young guy named Donald Smith got fired up. And on these islands, the pubs emptied, and the churches filled, and the revival took place there. And so, I say all that because Charlie stands with these evangelicals, these people who are obedient to a calling for revival.
And I’m just proud to know one of them that stands in this history, and I don’t think it’s the end of a revival, Charles. I think it’s really the beginning of a revival in a lot of ways. And so.
Charles: It’s very interesting, you know, several different modes and methods of doing what God called you to do. And we see in Charlie’s life doing the exact same thing. Right? His happened to have a very big impact on the political scene. But some would say that’s a jungle in itself obviously.
Darryl: Yeah, exactly.
Charles: But definitely just the core of following God by answering what He’s called you to do.
Darryl: Yeah. It takes a lot of bravery. I mean, you look at these guys Jim Elliot stabbed with spears, John Paton burying his family. And these two ladies and blind and crippled and just being obedient. It’s just hard. It’s hard to imagine having that obedience. But Charlie was that way. And you got a chance to chat with him.
I know that you had some interesting conversation. Tell me your thoughts on when you like, when you first saw this whole thing kind of happen. What did you think?
Charles: Yeah, there was definitely the shock and everything that we’ve all felt. But, like most people, I’ve had a lot of different emotions. You know, the other day I woke up with, feeling that anger, frustration, sorrow, sorrow for our country. And, you know, the world that my kids are growing up in, sorrow for his followers, his friends, his family in particular, particularly his wife and his kids.
You know, I picked up a trick a few years back, and I call it, I call it stacking pancakes. Yeah. And so what would happen is years ago, I would wake up in the morning and I would just think about the stresses that I had on me. Right. I’m concerned about this and concerned about that. And I see a lot of other people doing that as well. And it would just get me to the point where my blood pressure would be high.
Even before I got out of bed. And so, I forget where I heard this, but I started taking just an inventory in the morning where I would just lay there and think about the blessings that I had in my life. I would thank God for His goodness, and then for the goodness that He had shown me and my family, and then the many blessings. I kind of go through them and.
Darryl: And you stack them.
Charles: Just stacking them like little pancakes in my mind.
Darryl: Yeah. That’s good.
Charles: And so that was it reminds me of the blessings that I have. But it also puts a smile on my face. And then I’m ready to get out of bed. And, so, you know, I found myself stacking a lot of pancakes in the last few days.
Darryl: Kind of makes me hungry thinking about that actually.
Charles: Yeah, it does have that side effect, I have to admit. Yeah, but if I think about it, you know, what we’ve been going through in the last few days with this tragedy, we’ve all spent a lot of time thinking about Charlie recently, and he’ll be remembered by the secular world as someone who was incredibly affected from a political activist standpoint, from a planning lens, you know, kind of what we look through a lot of times, I think we can all see that he understood stewardship.
Charlie prioritized relationships and responsibilities over resources. Another thing, you know, here at PAX, we talk a lot about thinking long term. Boy, Charlie had vision.
Darryl: He did. You know, that was a gift. Ghis gifting was remarkable. And you’ve probably seen some of the hate that just blows me away. But, you know, and you may want to talk about this, but I also saw some changes take place in Charlie over the years. Now, again, I didn’t, when I had, he was busy. I mean, I didn’t text him all the time or anything like that.
I basically got things that I needed done through his producer, Andrew, which was great. But, just like anyone else, I saw him kind of change even as I knew him.
Charles: Yeah, absolutely. I noticed a little bit of that really around, you know, say 2002, and I want to be careful. I don’t want to overstate the relationship, you know? It wasn’t like Charlie and I were hanging out and playing ball on the weekends. And, not the least of which is because he was six foot five and I’m five foot nine, and I love breakfast tacos.
Darryl: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charles: But just through periodic conversations over time, we did start to see a change there. He was always a high energy and genuinely happy guy. But I think that changed in his tone around 2002 really came from the birth of his first daughter.
Darryl: Yeah.
Charles: He became more grounded. I remember texting him congratulations, when she was born. And, his response was, this is just the happiest day of my life. It’s just wonderful, right?
Darryl: Did you save that text, by the way?
Charles: I don’t think I have it.
Darryl: I mean, I don’t know, it’s just one of the, that’s like, just gold, but, you know, I also notice that he and you correct me if I’m wrong. If you saw this, two things I saw just. And I’m just, you know, I don’t know, poking. He lost some weight, too.
Charles: He did.
Darryl: He started to get serious. Like I was like, Charlie. And then he started losing weight. And then he also started to have, he became a better listener, too. In his debates, he was less adversarial and just more just kind of listening. And he knew already the answer, but he let people finish their thoughts. Now, of course, people would say. He never did that. But from where he was to where we saw him today, he had grown a lot there.
Charles: He really did. And he had a lot more depth. And a lot more weight and emotion in what he was saying. He had a greater urgency about the future. But I think what was going on there is that Charlie was really good at seeing catalysts and then being intentional about how he responded to them. And so, for him, the big catalyst was, was having kids and seeing the future differently.
My prayer through all of this is that we recognize this tragedy as a catalyst, and that we become more intentional with our own responses to it.
Darryl: It could be like a whole revival. If we respond that way.
Charles: One would hope. One would hope, you know, and there’s a lot of emotions still floating around out there. Right? This is very raw. But maybe we all just need to have more peaceful civil discourse. Maybe for some it’s, it is actually getting engaged in the political process. Maybe for others it’s just being a better steward of those pancakes that we already have in our lives.
For me. I think Charlie would tell me you’re a Christian. Go out there, be bold with the saving message of Jesus. Preach the gospel.
Darryl: He really would. He’d say, go make disciples of all nations.
Charles: Yeah, that was his core. And that’s what he wanted to be remembered by.
Darryl: I think I heard a video clip of him saying that that’s how he wanted to be remembered by.
Charles: Yeah. You know, that’s, it will be encouraged. And we get to, you know, look at the legacy that he leaves behind. There’s a pancake right there. And we get to see the hope of that. But it doesn’t deny the actual sting, right? And the fact of the matter is that among the grieving, there is, there’s a young family that has just been devastated by this.
And so, I’m encouraged where Paul makes it clear that Christians face death differently than the world does. Grief is real, but it’s not. It’s not hopelessness. We’re not like those who don’t have hope. R.C. Sproul famously said, death does not have the last word. Man, you talk about a pancake that I want to stack every morning.
The encouragement of just knowing that. And Charlie preached that. Charlie spoke that on a daily basis. You know, it’s a beautiful world, but it’s a broken world. And the encouraging news is that we worship a God who understands that.
Darryl: Yeah that’s so good.
Charles: So much to look forward to, so much to be encouraged about and even beyond. I look forward to the idea of, you know, even talking with Charlie again. Yeah. At the great heavenly banquet of the lamb. You know, I look forward to that. Just don’t be surprised if the first thing I ask him is to pass the pancakes.
Darryl: Yeah. That’s good. Exactly. I thought you could say breakfast tacos, but.
Charles: It’s a competition.
Darryl: It’s a competition. Well, you know, those are so good thoughts. And it really does reflect his heart, you know, and you double clicked on that. Well, you know, when, I, you know, you mentioned some greats. I’m putting Charlie in the kind of list of greats, R.C. Sproul and these other Evangelists, that are making disciples of all nations.
And were standing on the shoulders and then I feel this weight of responsibility to not do something, but just to be obedient and just what am I called to do in this? I mentioned Jim Elliott, who is the guy that got killed. What movie was that you mentioned?
Charles: I think it was Tip of the Spear, if I remember correctly.
Darryl: I never saw it. Did you see that movie?
Charles: I believe I did.
Darryl: Okay, yeah. Jim Elliott, a lot of people referenced Jim Elliott because, I mean, who does that? And I think the same thing with Charlie. Like, who does that?
Charles: When Charlie knew that, I mean, guy received thousands of death threats. He knew there was a risk. Right. And he knew what he was doing going open air. He was aware of the security risk, and he had security. But he was never naive to it. He addressed it. There are a number of conversations out there.
And, you know, there was one recently about him just talking, you know, and somebody had asked him, you know, what would you tell me if I have just been shot? And I only have 10s left to live, and Charlie goes straight to the gospel because he recognized what was most important. So, while he was out there doing what a lot of people see as political activism, he was exercising the gospel in his life, and he knew the risks that come with that.
And whether it’s something like landing in a jungle, you know, and being attacked, he knew there was risk going open air college ministries like that.
Darryl: You know, I will say the head of his security is in our community. I won’t say much about him. Maybe when we turn this off, but we can pray for him. He’s going through a hard time right now, as you would imagine. He’s a good man.
Charles: Yeah. It’s tough.
Darryl: Yeah, the Jim Elliot’s. Charlie Kirk’s, William Wilberforce. These are all, I mean, we hear about Martin Luther King, John Paton who I just, I mentioned John Paton too, he was the one that buried his kids. But I do want to say, as we close this out, I do want to say something about Peggy and Christine Smith.
That was the 82-year-old blind woman in the 84-year-old. Like I say, I don’t want to say hunchback. But again, she had arthritis, so she had to walk kind of bent over.
Charles: So, in spite of those physical difficulties.
Darryl: She, they prayed and prayed and prayed for these island people and it turned it around in the Scottish island. It completely turned around, but it made an impact on, and this is, I want to make a kind of a last point here, because it made an impact on her niece. Yeah, it was her niece. Her niece was Mary Anne Smith MacLeod.
And her niece ended up moving to the States in 1936. Got married. And apparently there was this Bible that was in this community that was an important Bible that was part of this tribe. But everyone loved it so much that the aunts actually sent it to Mary Anne Smith to be, you know, a special Bible.
This is a Bible that had revival, that was part of a revival. And so, Mary Anne Smith, I’m sure she loved that Bible. Mary Anne Smith MacLeod. She had four children. She had, first child, Fred was named, I guess Fred Jr. Second child was Mary Anne, named after her, third child was Elizabeth. The fourth child was Donald.
And she gave, Mary Anne Smith MacLeod gave this special Bible, New Hebrides Bible from the New Hebrides Revival. She gave this Bible to her son Donald, who is the president of the United States of America.
Charles: No kidding.
Darryl: Yeah. And I say all that because this side of heaven, we don’t know the whole story. Right? We’ll never know the whole story. We have to trust in Him. If we learn anything from Charlie, it’s that in spite of the fear, we’re obedient to the calling of making disciples of all nations.
Charles: Amen. Yeah.
Darryl: So, thank you for being here today.
Charles: Thanks for having me.
Darryl: This was fun. We could have gone for another hour.
Charles: I know we could have.
Darryl: Yeah. So, thank you. And thank you for all tuning in. And continue to pray for Charlie, his family and the security that was involved there. I know they’re all hurting today. And pray for the revival in our country. Thank you.
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