Practical Faith Academy Blog: S6, E10 - Donald Williams, Faith, Purpose, and Generational Change

Donald Williams didn't want to be a "linthead," the derogatory term used in South Carolina for cotton mill workers. But his family's understanding of life was you worked in a cotton mill, you went to church, you got married quickly and started a family, and the cycle continued for generations.

Williams didn't pursue what everyone expected in an environment that didn’t promise much, from his viewpoint. But through faith, discipline, and the grace of God, his life—and his family’s story—took a different path as he became an educator, a musician, and the co-author of "Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations."

In this episode, Williams explores how a foundation of faith and his own personal pursuit of God’s will led him in unexpected directions. He also shares the pain of his son’s crack addiction and the joy that followed when his son turned his life around and became a pastor. Along the way, Williams gives us many nuggets of wisdom on leading a faithful life.

I found this episode to be the most faith-focused, start to finish, of perhaps any episode I've recorded. Williams's upbringing may have been focused on cotton mills rather than college, but it was also full of wonderful faith examples that have informed his life.

Highlights of the podcast:

2:36  Why it’s important to put our faith into practice

4:30  How Williams sees Christian faith changing the way one lives

10:07  Your mindset dictates your approach to life

17:17  How his faith changed from the experience of his son becoming a crack addict and how a miraculous event saved his son’s life

27:40  How prayer helped through this experience

30:36  The difference between faith and absolute trust

35:24  His best tip for developing and maintaining a seven-day practical faith

36:54  How to find his book

The Practical Faith Academy podcast can be played directly on the Cecil Taylor Ministries website at https://www.CecilTaylorMinistries.com/podcast. While on the site, please check out everything Cecil Taylor Ministries offers, including our Instant Content books and video studies for individual learners, small groups, and churches.

The episode is also available on major podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple, YouTube, iHeartRadio, and others) and hosted on Podbean. Search on each platform for "Practical Faith Academy."