Ryan Miller: Meek as a Mustang (S15E21)

The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast

Dr. Lee Warren interviews social media evangelist and filmmaker Ryan Miller about his new book, "Meek as a Mustang," which redefines biblical meekness not as weakness but as surrendered strength. Miller shares how a period of professional

Key takeaways

• Ryan Miller's ministry was sparked during a "wilderness season" after Hollywood film projects failed, leading him to TikTok evangelism where he reached millions.
• The Greek word for meekness (praus) translates to taming a wild Mustang, illustrating how surrendered strength creates unbreakable trust and loyalty.

Main topics

• Biblical meekness
• Wilderness seasons & suffering

Notable quotes

"I'd rather tame a Mustang than inspire a mule."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a fresh, countercultural understanding of biblical meek

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, it's your friend, Dr. Lee Warren, hopefully your favorite internet brain surgeon. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited about the conversation you're about to hear. Ryan Miller is well known for his work on social media where he interacts with people in public and just interacts with people about the gospel. He's part of the Jesus People movement. His podcast, The Jesus People, is massively successful. People all over the world have heard the gospel because of Ryan, his bold faith. And he's coming out with his brand new first book. called Meek as a Mustang. This is a combination of insightful biblical truths and sledgehammer honesty. It's great storytelling. It doesn't feel like somebody's first book, and you're going to love it. Before we get started with Ryan, I just want to take a second to congratulate you and tell you I'm proud of you for doing this hard and holy work. Friend, you could be doing anything else with your time, but here you are. You showed up, so I'm going to give you a high five, a fist bump. It is not easy to do this work. But I'm proud of you for doing it. And I'm just so grateful that you're joining me in this work. And today I'm just thrilled to present to you Ryan Miller and his wonderful new work, Meek as a Mustang. This is a tremendous conversation that's going to encourage and inspire you. I'll be back at the end for a few other thoughts before we go. But let's scrub in and get after it with Ryan Miller right now. Speaker 1 (1:22) Ryan Miller, welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks for having me. What an honor. Yeah, it's great. I've been watching you on social media for years, and you're such a great apologist, and you have just such a heart for the Lord. What got you into that, like deciding to be a social media evangelist, so to speak? Speaker 2 (1:41) I did it kind of begrudgingly. I was in a season of life where. Speaker 2 (1:46) I would just call it a wilderness season. I was just failing at a lot of different things and didn't know what I was doing in my ministry or business. And I just had some free time because I, like I said, nothing was working out for me. So I would just go on these hikes and I would just talk to the Lord. And kind of in that desert season, the Lord really met me in a significant way. He like really grabbed my heart for the first time since I was probably in high school. where I was really in love with him. And then I kind of got into some performative stuff. You know, I played some minor league baseball and I went into ministry and I took that performative identity into ministry and wanted to be really successful at ministry and be this famous Christian and, you know, wanted the stage and to be that pastor and all that stuff. And the Lord just through a series of failures and humiliations just chopped, chopped a lot of that performance-based identity. And I would just find myself on these hikes. And I was talking to one of my marketing buddies and I was just sharing with him about all the things the Lord was teaching me. And he was like, you know, there's this, there's this, that new app TikTok that I think, you know, you should start sharing some of this stuff. And I'm like, dude, I'm not going to get on that stupid dancing app. And it took me about a year to be like, oh, I think this thing's for real. And I wish I would have done it earlier when he, when he told me to do it, but I would just go on these hikes and I would just be talking to the Lord. And then I just pull out my phone. And, you know, you see, like, people always ask me, like, why are you always wearing the backwards hat? Are you trying to, like, look, like, younger or something? It's like, no, because I'd be on these hikes and there would be this shade on my face unless I did that. And so, yeah, that's kind of how it started. I just would commune with the Lord and then communicate what he had shared with me. And that's what I've tried to make kind of my cadence is I want to spend time with him before I talk about him. And, yeah, so that's a bit about how it started. Speaker 1 (3:41) Fascinating. What's the most amazing experience you've had talking to people about Jesus? Speaker 2 (3:48) Well, you know, there's two. I think there's the macro, there's the inch deep, mile wide to, you know, look at numbers and to see that it's reaching millions of people and built, you know, billions of views in a year. Like that's just crazy. Speaker 1 (4:06) And Speaker 2 (4:06) so that's really cool. I think at first that was, you know, if the Lord didn't take me through the wilderness, I think that would have been a lot of an ego thing. It would have been like. yes, you know, like I would have been addicted to that dopamine hit. And I sure, I'm sure I still am to a certain degree, you know, like I'm sure I'm motivated by the dopamine of it, but it's also just. And seeing that the Lord's using me, that there's impact is really fun. Like, it's really fun. You know, people will like apologize when they come up to me in public and stuff. And they're like, I'm sorry. I'm sure you like getting annoyed all the time. I'm like, no, this is like, I need this because sometimes I feel like I'm doing it alone. Like, you know, just I've got a camera here. You know, this it's just me and the camera. And I have buddies that are doing it with me. But it's really nice to hear. people sharing that it's impacted them. And so I would say that's the macro. The micro is really experiencing like, wow, Lord, like you do speak still. Like I do, like I hear your voice. There was one story that comes to mind now where this woman, well, I'll put it this way. I was communing before I communicated. I was praying with him. I was asking the Lord, like, what do you want me to talk about today? And he said something he'd never said to me before. He said, I want you to pray for someone who's about to make a decision. I said, okay, that's not really going to go viral, but whatever. You know, so I just pull out my phone. I just said, I feel like I'm supposed to pray for someone who's going to make a decision. So God, I just pray for this person. I say a prayer and, you know, it doesn't go viral, but I get a DM and all the DM says is I was on my way to get an abortion, dot, dot, dot. Speaker 1 (5:46) And Speaker 2 (5:46) so I start. talking to this lady, find out that she had asked the Lord, like, Lord. I don't know that I'm supposed to do this. Pulled out her phone, looked at TikTok, boom, there it was. The video of me praying for someone about to make a decision. The craziest part is that woman is now a Christian social media content creator with her son in the videos. Speaker 1 (6:08) Wow. Speaker 2 (6:08) And so there's little things like that that happen frequently. Like maybe not that intense, but like, we're just like, wow, Lord, who, I would have never thought that, that you would have teed that up. But because I had listened in the wilderness or because I had learned in the wilderness to be attentive to your voice, you took me on this rabbit trail that ended up to be this really cool thing. And so, yeah, that's what I would say. Those stories are what keep me going. Speaker 1 (6:38) Wow. That's beautiful. I love when the Lord calls us to something that we don't. even think we're ready for, or we don't see the vision that he sees for it. I guess it's one of those Gideon moments where he sees something about you that you don't see yet. And you step into it. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Well, along the way, you tell a story in the first chapter of your book about when you were in high school playing baseball and you had to come to grips with your own personality and a coach saw something in you. Tell that story about what your coach said about the Mustangs. Speaker 2 (7:10) Yeah, dude. Well, So I was always a crazy kid. I just, I got in tons of trouble. I got in tons of fights. I always loved the Lord. That's the thing. Like I always felt like a bit of a fish out of water, like in the church youth groups and stuff, because I was just this crazy kid. And so there was this one time I got in the fight on the baseball field and the coach pulled me off behind the dugout. And I thought for sure I'm getting kicked off the team. Speaker 1 (7:37) And Speaker 2 (7:37) so I'm like, oh boy, here we go. Pulls me off to the side. He looks at me and he says, Ryan, I'd rather tame a Mustang than inspire a mule. Never lose your fire. And it was the first time in my life, and this wasn't a Christian coach. It was the first time in my life that I felt like someone saw me. Like all the things that I saw were like, man, that weird church kid, like for whatever reason, they really like that kid. They don't like me, but like that kid's, you know, not going to, I don't know. He's not going to take risks. He's not going to, it's not what I read in the Bible. And this non-Christian coach. gave me a name like he gave me a calling a vision a title and that really launched my ministry Because I just had this holy discontent, this anger, I would even say, towards the church that we are kicking out the Peters and the Pauls and the James and the Johns. And we're going after these soft personality types when, man, Jesus went after the Mustangs. And so I went on staff with a ministry where I was doing evangelism and discipleship on high school campuses. And, dude, I would go after, like, I remember. And we would bring Starbucks to the gay goth group. It was like the gay straight alliance club. And they're like all like gothed out. And we just come bring them Starbucks and hang out with them. And some of those kids got saved. And I'd hang out with like all the bad kids on the football team. And like, and I would watch these kids would go from these druggies and these burnouts and these, you know, wild men to being sold out for Jesus and like be. texting me like, hey, when can we go share our faith? We're going down to, you know, into downtown. We're just going to go share our faith. I'm like, you're 15. Like, that's incredible. And so that really became my ministry. And that's what led me to kind of do what I do today in many ways. Like I started my first film series because I went on staff with a church and Dude, I was getting subpoenaed at staff meetings. There were fights that would break out in the youth group and kids were doing drugs. It was just this crazy thing. And so I finally was like, I don't think this church is for me. So I dipped and I'm like, I want to create a film series. I want to take four boys right out of gangs, prison, foster care, addiction, like the gnarliest of the gnarliest boys that are misguided, but they're incredible leaders. And I want to pair those four boys with four wild Mustangs. And I want to have them tame and train those wild mustangs and basically show the value and the virtue that's in both these wild mustangs that are being discarded by the federal government right now. We can get into that in a minute. And these wild boys that I feel like are being discarded by the church right now. And to show just how much virtue is underneath that wildness. If you can have the patience, if you can walk with them, if you can disciple them. And so that's what we did. And that really is, that has been the through line and the... anthem for my ministry. I'd rather tame a Mustang than inspire a mule. And now, as you alluded to, I've written this book, Meek as a Mustang, because the Holy Spirit started to really show me some cool things in that whole Mustang metaphor. Speaker 1 (10:55) Wow. Yeah, because it is. It's this restrained power. I think we've got the wrong definition of meekness in our culture. What does culture say to us about meekness when people hear blessed are the meek? What do most people think of? Speaker 2 (11:07) Well, they think weak. They think, they think, I mean, you, I'll put it this way. I had two publishers reject my book because verbatim, this is what they both said. Meekness isn't sexy. And I was like, whoa, I had another publisher reject my book because they said Ryan doesn't seem very meek. I'm