Chasing The Wild Goose Holy Spirit Adventures After Hours

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours.

We are really glad that you're with us today, and we have just an amazing topic that we're talking about. We're talking about going on a wild goose chase. Well, no, not really. What you would think is talking about a wild goose chase is probably like a waste of time or something that was just a lot of effort for not a big payoff, that type of thing. What we're talking about is chasing the wild goose, right? And so that is an old term from a long time ago.

That's why it's an old term. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. From the Celtic people, when they would call the Holy Spirit the wild goose, because he was untamed, unpredictable, let him on adventures.

And so that's what they used as a symbol. And so we're talking about Holy Spirit adventures today. And we started that on the first show, and several of us talked about that.

And we're continuing on the After Hours. And so Robby, you're up next with your story of a clip and adventure. So you would think that I would do something from Top Gun, you know, because talk to me, goose. Yeah. And also, it occurs to me that, you know, the nice thing about, you know, a wild goose chase, it has to do with sticking your neck out.

I'm just saying, you know, you're a lot more prepared. Just had to go there. But anyway, and even the girl section over there. Yeah. Carolina girls over here.

We're, you know, sitting there smiling at me. I don't know. But anyway. So my clip is actually from the movie Harriet, which she is a runaway slave. And so this is sort of a montage where you hear your three different times in the movie. At first, she's getting instructions from somebody in the Underground Railroad on how to get gone. And she, you know, is really risking her life. And she gets some phenomenal counsel, most of which is trust God, trust the Holy Spirit. And then listen closely to the next little part, because you'll hear her say there's danger ahead. She's, if you watch the movie, she's coming up to a place and all of a sudden, you could just tell she stops because she knows there's some danger there.

Obviously, the wild goose has given her that piece of information. And then they're going like, well, now where do we go? And she goes left. And so she starts to walk, and she doesn't go terribly far.

And she says, here's where we cross. Well, you'll hear in the clip, you know, several people get upset because they can't swim. But in order to get to freedom, you know, they got to swim. And so she is praying as she's going out in the water, and you'll hear the prayer that she utters right at the point that the water's at her chin.

Right? And if you've ever been on one of these wild goose chases, and you got your neck stuck way out because you're trying to keep your head above water, okay, you get the whole idea. What a remarkable prayer she does. And then once she gets freedom, like so many I've known at boot camp, right, then, you know, once you get that taste in your mouth, you want everybody to have it.

And so you can hear her passion to send other people on this same adventure. Go ahead and play. There's not much time. It's midnight. You got to be miles away from here before dawn. Now I need you to remember what I tell you.

Can you do that? Fear is your enemy. Trust in God. We can't go this way. There's danger. God say which way we can go? Left. What now? We cross. I can't swim.

Me neither. Robert, get a baby. Isaac, help Miss Lucy.

Uh, Junior, help Jane. Father, rivers of living water flow through me. Lord, help me cross. Lead me through. I've heard their groans and their sighs.

I've seen their tears, and I would give every last drop of blood in my veins to free them. So I ain't giving up. I don't do what I gotta do. Go wherever I gotta go.

However I gotta do it. To free as many slaves as possible. So the neat thing from my perspective is in Romans Chapter eight and when it gets into 26 is right before our almost 8 28. It says that the Holy Spirit groans for us because, you know, we're longing for home. Like Sam had mentioned, our souls, everything about him is longing for home. But the Holy Spirit knows the parts in us that need freedom that need, um, to be made into the likeness of his son. So if you follow that in Romans eight, it then says, right, those he foreknew, he predestined to become the destination was to become made into the likeness of his son, meaning that they would actually have a home, right? And those he, this is cool, those that he predestined, right? He called like Moses, Moses, right? And the Holy Spirit, it calls and those he called, he does define, right?

And he's going to make them clean. And so, you know, for me, for actually a number of years, I switched the way I did my quiet time to always being a wild goose chase. In other words, every single day of my life, I'm like, God, where are we going? Where, where do you want to take me in your word? What, what's, where's my next step? I'm just like Harriet there in the water.

And I feel like I'm over my head to some extent, but where do you want to go? And he's taken me on amazing adventures and lately, um, it's been in memorizing scripture. And he had me memorize the 13th Psalm, the 16th Psalm, and then suddenly puts the grand mom on me of 119. And I can remember waiting off into that water saying, Lord, you, you do know I'm 66 years old and the memory is just not what it wants. What we're talking about, but I can honestly tell you right this minute, I think I'm at verse 136. And I, I not only have it, but I wouldn't, when I had COVID last week, I wrote it out.

Okay. The 130 some odd verses. Um, and understand that's completely, it's completely a wild goose chase because if you've ever done that kind of scripture memory, the Holy Spirit gives you the next line. If you're just quiet and you listen, you're sitting there, you've got your pen in your hand and here it comes and, and he's given it to you. And, and, and in that hiding his word in your heart, you now have a place to hide. Like you've never had in your life and you have a home like you've never had in your life because every single letter is literally the face of God.

You see in the 119 Psalm is 22 Hebrew letters that are giving you eight verses on each of those letters to show you like you want to hang out with God, some like man. And so, you know, from my perspective, um, you're in over your head, but there's freedom. It's unbelievable. Um, and there you go. Thanks, Robby. So Harold, over to you for an adventure story.

What do you have for us? Well, some years back, uh, our little congregation over in Mocksville was helping support a missionary effort down in Guyana. And, uh, our son Brad was the deacon of missions. And I don't know exactly where it came up, but he decided that we needed to go down there.

So a dozen of us went down to do some door knocking, conduct a Vacation Bible School for kids, and have preaching sessions at night. And, uh, so we board up the plane and we get down there and we get up on this van and a guy that had some kind of idea that he should be replacing Mario Andretti. They're driving on the wrong side of the road at night, two lane roads, pigs, cows, goats, whatever, wandering all over the road. And he is flying down that road. And I'm sitting there and I used to drive pretty fast myself. I was scared to death. I was like Tyler in that plane. Then we spend the night in a motel and we get on the biggest river next to the Amazon, the Escalpero River.

I can't say it. Escalpero River. It sounds different than it's spelled, but it's the second largest river in South America. And so we're on these speed boats. We're beaming up that river, just flying, bouncing and stuff. Then we're there for a week. And after we'd been there a couple of days, I realized that I was not doing what I needed to do.

You look on the globe, Guyana is pretty close to the equator. It was hot as rip. I'm sweating like crazy for a stay or so.

But I'm not going to the bathroom. I was not drinking anywhere near enough water. But we were able to conduct a successful VBS and it was just amazing. And I fell in love with the second girl to my wife, a little about 10-year-old black girl.

And she was the sweetest, cutest little thing you ever want to see. And we got real close during the course of that VBS. And we ended up having a really eye-opening experience. It taught me the things that I complained about were so inconsequential. When you see little children walking across the road to this drainage ditch with buckets to get water out of scum-covered mess with goats walking around in it, you realize just how blessed you are to be able to turn on the water and get clean drinking water. We saw in a canal that the British had built many years before for irrigation purposes.

People out in there swimming, brushing their teeth, washing their hair, all in the same place. And so anytime we get to feeling sorry for ourself, we need to look at the rest of the world. It'll open your eyes. Thank you, Harold. I appreciate that. Rodney, you had some time to think since the last show on part of an adventure you'd like to share with us? Well, when you don't get the answer right, Sam, makes you come back up to the front of the classroom. You know it is.

It is exactly that. Yeah, the biggest one for me is when I had my breakthrough on my wound. And I can remember that camp just, I was praying going into it that I could get some breakthrough in this area and I was praying heavily.

And at camp, this was about the, I don't know if it was the second or third, you know, quiet time that we had to go off and be silent with God. And then it finally just was that flood that kind of came through and I got my notebook and I'm writing and I'm writing and I'm writing. I'm like, oh, so this is where I've held and kept things to myself and I haven't let them out. And that finally led to me understanding and being able to pull out of myself with, you know, the leading of the Holy Spirit to say, Rodney, you're, you don't open up, you don't do a lot of these things because basically you have the feeling that you are just not accepted by your father, that there's so many other things that were so more important than me. And he just had a whole litany of, you know, I just had paragraphs of kind of just writing because it was, like Robby was talking about earlier, you know, it just kind of flows out of you like he was writing the 119th Psalm. And it's just, it was just flowing out of me.

I wasn't really thinking and analyzing, I was just writing and it was just coming out. And that's what I like about getting away at boot camps because honestly, I don't have those same experiences when I'm not at a camp because I am too busy in my own life. I don't have time to just set aside and go, okay, I've got a whole day, I'm going to listen to some talks and now I'm giving a talk here and so there's certain things I've concentrated on for that day or something, but there's so much time to just walk with God and just, you know, shut the mouth and open the two ears. And that's what I really like about it is the time to listen. And if you can listen and be attentive, that's like Jim was talking about, you can hear God, you know? And that's one of the greatest things because I know then that kind of led to Robby with understanding another one of his wounds that he had and I was finally getting a wound of my own kind of flushed out because other stuff had come before that was just, yeah, that's there. But there was something yet that I knew was deeper and it was just nice to have that come out and be able to actually then, you know, now you can live with dealing with it and know that it's there. And so when it pops up and it starts to give you trouble, all right, I can deal with it.

Satan, you're not going to have that power over me anymore. Thank you. Very good story. But I just want to say it's Andy's birthday week. Happy birthday, Andy. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that, man. Why? There's no rules.

I don't know, but I don't remember calling anybody else's birthday. Well, I'm just chasing. I appreciate it, Sam. Thank you for having Jason.

The wild goose. He's Andy. Well, true. Yeah. True. You owe me for taking the pressure off of you being the girl. Yeah, exactly. Well, Andy, we can go ahead and get your clip now that you're mad at me for saying happy birthday.

So I don't know how that works. Appreciate it, Sam. Sincerely. So this clip is from field of dreams. And if you don't know the story, there's this corn farmer in Iowa who begins to hear voices. And he's got a situation where he's really having a trouble paying for his farm. And, and so these voices are leading him.

They're very weird. And they tell him, lead him to go to different cities. And he has these interactions with these people, which were like angels almost.

And his dad had been a baseball player. And as he started hearing this, there was one message that said, go the distance. And then there was another message that said build it and he will come. And finally, as this story goes through, you have to go back and watch the movie. But as you go into the story, or it gets deeper into it, essentially, the guidance is to build a field to play baseball. And, you know, it's a extensive setup here. But I wanted to really give the background to it. And really, the whole movie, this is just the trailer.

And I did this because there's so much to the movie, but essentially, is you can see in the movie that there's such a leading from the spirit. I have just created something totally illogical. Just what I like about it. If you build it, he will come. If you build it, he will come.

If you build what, who will come? Insane. I hate it when that happens.

Me too. Who's hearing voices? Ray is. I think I know what if you build it, he will come means. Why do I not think this is such a good thing? Daddy, there's a man up there in your wall. Are you a ghost? What do you think? You look real to me.

Hi. You can't see it. This is really interesting. You believed in the magic.

It happened. Isn't that enough? Annie, it's more than that.

I feel it as strongly as I've ever felt anything in my life. There's a reason. Go the distance. Did you hear the voice too? Did you hear it?

Go the distance. Yes. Our grave is dead.

He died in 1972. Are you Moonlight Graham? No one's called me Moonlight Graham in 50 years. Unbelievable.

It's more than that. It's perfect. You build a baseball field in the middle of nowhere and you sit here and you stare at nothing. This field, this game, it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us all that once was good. Hey, is this heaven?

No, it's Iowa. Sometimes when you believe the impossible, the incredible comes true. Field of dreams. So the field that he was building for wasn't like, you know, people of that day. It was from these past baseball players, kind of time travel thing. But the whole thing was at home thing.

I mean, his dad, he actually played catch with his dad and stuff. So it was just what I felt like was the whole thing of going from city to city as he was being led by the spirit in this movie. But, you know, just some of my story around adventure.

I think a lot of guys have heard it in the boot camp. I talk about how I felt like in 2015, a guy was leading me into another career. And I was that guy, you know, sitting home and watching TV. Not that I quit watching TV, but that's about the extent of my life.

That didn't work. And I wanted something different. And that job change led into a lot of opportunities. First of all, of being coming and part of this band of brothers. But then, you know, it really gave me an opportunity to do a lot of travel. And in that travel, sometimes you just felt like you were just out there doing your job. But it led me to, across the path of a lot of different people, but it also gave me opportunity to do some personal travel. I tell, you know, a lot of times in the boot camps, just what God allowed me to do on some of the adventures, some of the places I got to go and visit it. And it was like a one-on-one with the Holy Spirit of the Father and how God led me into some things. But, you know, from a missional standpoint of feeling like I was doing something for the kingdom, you know, being given direction on this wild goose chase was, you know, I've told a story about last fall, or the fall of 2020, when it was, you know, election time. And I just felt like it was a critical time in our nation and went to D.C.

I think four times just for different prayer walks and stuff. And, you know, a lot of us probably think, well, shoot, you know, prayers must have not been done too well because the country is a mess right now. But I really believe God birthed something in me and birthed it in other people. I've seen a lot of positive things.

I know it changed me and it given me more of a burden for our nation. And it was just one of those things that as I look back, I really wouldn't have told you. I mean, I felt like I would be sitting at home and I had like no time.

I mean, it's like Friday and he's like, go. And I think there's the important part of that is he it was like your presence makes a difference when when they were looking from praying for revival in Israel. If you go back in the Bible, they came to Jerusalem to pray. So, you know, it was just that was a really exciting time for me. And and I think, again, I grew and it's just I don't know, it's just what I felt he led me on.

Thanks, Andy. One of the as I was looking back at some of the things, either the clip or your adventures, just if you could sum it down into one word, and these are the one words, you know, freedom, right? The Holy Spirit led to freedom, to calling.

Right, to understanding more about what I'm supposed to do in this next season of my life. You know, in the movie Field of Dreams, if you build it, he will come. Who comes? His dad, the father. Yeah, right.

Right. So the Holy Spirit leads us to the father. Your adventure story is about sonship. You know, when you really get to it, it's about God fathering you. So it was an adventure with the father. It's calling you home. The Holy Spirit brings you to a place that you feel like home.

Perspective slash contentment. You know, understanding that, you know, my situation isn't nearly that bad. That, you know, there are people that have it a lot worse. And so having this place of contentment that we're called to have, you know, and there's a big difference between contentment and satisfaction. Right? That's another topic.

But this is contentment, even if you're not satisfied, right at the time. And then my phone just locked up on me. I can't get to the last one.

Here it is. Healing. Right? The Holy Spirit calls us to a place of healing, understanding our wounds. And that's just some of the many adventures that he takes us on as we chase the wild goose. Right? Any other thoughts that you guys have?

Anything you'd like to share on the topic? Well, something I overlooked saying when I did mine, because you had said it's going home. And Carol and I went to Alaska. We were there seven months, but have visited multiple times since then. We got connections there that are permanent. And every time I land in Juneau, which is where we usually fly in, I feel like I've come home. So that was the first place God called us.

And he called us back. But it is going home. Thank you.

Anyone else got anything you'd like to share? Andy, I just like the idea of what you were talking about as far as the wild goose, because I just got out of the book of Acts. And that's nothing but wild goose all over that thing. You know, there's not a whole lot of peace. So them sitting around saying, singing Kuma, yeah, they're under stressful situations. Paul's constantly trying to get to someplace and the enemy's trying to stop him. You know, the whole thing where, you know, he's appealing to his Roman citizenship.

And I don't even know if Paul really knew what was going on when he did that, but that was to get him to Rome to preach to Caesar and the Roman leadership. So, you know, just all the stuff. And of course, the shipwreck, what he happened, what happens on Malta. That's an exciting book. And, you know, what I've always liked is acts is one of the few books that don't have like a finish. You know, it doesn't come to come to an abrupt end. It's basically we're in Acts 29 now. So that's the way life should be to us if we're engaged in this wild goose chase. I think when you go back and you look just in Scripture, and I won't remember the two people's names, but the times that the Holy Spirit is just kind of up to something, takes people out of the comfort zone.

There was the people that had to go talk to Saul at the time, the two people that were supposed to go talk to this guy that was a Christian killer, right? You know, it calls us repeatedly out of our comfort zone into a place for a better place for us or a better place for a better place for us or a better place for someone else or both. You know, that's what's really cool is that you can't follow the Holy Spirit and not have at least yourself be touched along the way into something really cool. And usually other people along with you that you may or may never know about.

Ananias, thank you. Yeah. I think the thing is, too, is our hearts are made for that. And we want to live a life of safety.

We've talked about it adventure many times. That's not what way we were created. And that's where the discontent comes. That's where midlife crisis comes. You know, we're made for excitement and adventure and God leading that, and we just don't participate. And then we wonder why we want to go do something crazy. And when you look at adventure, there are times when it's, let's say, you by yourself with God. I mean, there's always somebody else there. There's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are there with you. But most often your adventure is with others.

God uses other people to come into your life and to call you out into something that you weren't expected to be into. And you're doing something new and different. And you're like, why am I here at this point in this time doing this? You look back a year or two later and you're like, oh, I was there so I could be here. Well, I don't know why I'm here because I don't know where I got to go next.

But you leave it up to him. And that part of adventure when you can get to the point where you're trusting in it, and that's where I've really enjoyed Andy's stories because it's like, Lord, I trust you. Okay, I'm supposed to go here. I'm going there. And what all you get to find in that adventure. And then we have so many different adventures that we're, you know, we get at boot camps together as a team. There is stuff with families that we get to share with each other and do things and things that go on that that's where I think it's just don't try to make it.

Just feel the Holy Spirit and just go with where your conscience tells you, hey, that's something I really want to go do and try and go do it. Thank you. You said one of my trigger words, Andy. So now but it was a good thing.

That's gonna become one I'm pretty sure but it was not girl. Although a lot of girls this is one of the things they want most and it makes me crazy because it's become such a mantra the last couple of years is safety. And I'm pretty sure that God never really promised anybody safety in the Bible and I stole a concept a couple years ago and this is on my wall. I reworded it so I liked it and put it on my wall and it's still there in my office and it basically says that the most dangerous place you will ever be safe is the middle of God's will. And I you know people say be safe.

I want to say I don't want to be safe. I want to follow or be chasing the wild goose. Almost said wild turkey but I've already had my messed up word for tonight so yeah one's enough.

Danny? Different spirit. Well in the story I told about the campfire thing is if I look now in perspective is foreshadowing to where I am now with you guys and boot camps and I mean it's all there and I think you could summarize what we're talking about. I wasn't going to do this but I got to. That chasing the wild goose is better than winging it Robby.

Yeah thank you for sharing that Danny. Seriously I mean that. Boot camps you know one of the things and we've talked about it I think a couple times on the show but we don't often talk about it. You know boot camps when we do them there's certain parts of the boot camp that's somewhat structured. There are certain talks that we do at every boot camp but there's an element that's completely Holy Spirit led. You know there's a lot of things about the boot camp that's Holy Spirit led. We pray before the boot camp asking for the strong men. You know the ways the enemy's coming at us right and that's different every boot camp. What's the campers facing?

What are we facing? Holy Spirit help us understand this you know and so the Holy Spirit's leading that and we're chasing after him and then you know just what do we do on the open times that we don't have something structured. You know some camps will hear listening prayer. Sometimes we hear you know another video from another ministry. The Holy Spirit's been known to show up at the wildfire experience.

Yeah it really showed up this last time. Yeah but it's really pretty cool so I'd encourage you to go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp that's coming up March 31st through April 3rd. We'd love to see you there and I know God's got some really cool things for you. I know the Holy Spirit's got some cool things for you.

What I ask you to do this week is just pray for two things. God remind me of the times that I chased after the wild goose and let me have perspective on it now right because Danny hit the nail on the head when I look back and see all the times that I stepped out in faith where it kind of paid dividends down the road and you don't see it in the midst of it you see it by looking back and so I'd ask you to do that and then the second thing I'd ask you to do along with everybody in this room is to say okay wild goose where are you taking me now and just head off on with me. Talk to me goose. Talk to me goose.

We'll talk to you next week have a wonderful week. One of my favorite things about boot camp well the favorite thing about boot camp is every time I go I encounter God and as anyone that has encountered God knows generally speaking it's nothing we expect. Real encounter with God out of the blue. He knew what he knew what I needed. I knew what I wanted and those two were rarely the same thing.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. What has boot camp meant to me? That's a really tough thing to articulate. It's so deep inside me it's ingrained in every part of me. Understanding woundedness that's where God really caught me at my first boot camp and also helping me step into healing and restoration from those wounds. It's kind of cool it's like an onion he keeps peeling back layers and it's it's exciting and sometimes frustrating to go there with him but I enjoy the process and the way God leads me to freedom. Register today at masculinejourney.org. This is the Truth Network.