My First Boot Camp After Hours

This is Robby Dilmore from the Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. 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, and we're glad that you're joining us to talk more about the topic of our first boot camp. Rodney, you want to tell us a little bit about how we came to that topic? The topic of this week's broadcast is the first boot camp. So we were kind of sitting around last week after I had said something as a reference back to my first boot camp and Wayne saying something to me. And then it just kind of was something that, as often happens with us, it just kind of sticks. And we're like, well, what do we want to talk about?

And we said, well, let's just kind of leave it open and just anything that comes to your mind that was important to you for that boot camp. And this is what you're getting. Yeah.

And this group, you would think that, being good Christian men, we'd be a bunch of rule followers and things. We had Robby with the marathon clip while it was the last week. And Andy, we asked to submit one clip, and he gives us at least two every week because he can't decide. And to be honest, the bump in, one second over. It was. I broke the rule.

Yeah, I know it was 31 seconds. Thank you. All right. I feel shamed now.

That'll be another topic for another week. Well, now you got a problem because I think that violates the copyright, right? Two minutes. Eyes of your heart are open anyway. Eyes of my heart are open. They are indeed. I know exactly what I did.

I didn't know if that look was to start talking. You are. So go ahead. Okay. My clip, you got to go back three or four weeks and play it again, but it didn't get there.

And that's my fault because I dumped it on somebody else at like two in the afternoon. But it was the Tyler flying in the plane and never cry wolf, which he didn't. He never would even mention wolves, even though he was asked what he was up there for. But that really resonated because, and as I said earlier, you know, our big adventure together was going to Alaska. But what I probably have never said on the air is the beginning of that adventure was driving across the country. We broke down and for a week in Oklahoma, which put us behind. So we got my wife to Seattle area and then I took off and left her for a week to go to boot camp.

It was a week long one run by Barry Strickland. And I never had problems with the warrior stuff. I've been doing battles since they are my earliest memories. Go ahead, Wayne.

Just just say it like it is. You've been blowing stuff up for a long time. Well, yeah, explosives didn't really hit until late junior high, but I was shooting things before that.

But I identified immediately with the warrior. This was a week long adventure with God. And it really hit me that I was married at 18, had kids at 22.

They were out of the house that my first boot camp was 2003. And it was sort of a, oh, catch my breath. What am I living for? And when I got there and and this was an adventure that God sent us on and I knew it. But when I heard that was part of every man adventure, I said, you know, I have had lots of adventures in my life, but I never really saw that as a core desire until that week. And we went this was in Alaska.

We went fishing every day. In fact, to be honest, I missed a lot of the sessions because we only did those at night. And I was tired and I doze off. But the movies really had an impact.

They'd keep me awake. And then I say, oh, dang, finish the movie. But the adventure began there. And at the end of it, Barry gave, walked up to me and said, I got something for you. And he handed me Wild at Heart. I never heard of it.

I didn't even know that's what we were doing during the week. I mean, I heard the phrase, but he handed me the book. And that was a turning point in my life. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it. Andy, you want to go ahead and set up your, is this your second clip? How many you got with us this week? Well, man, I always bring, I bring a lot to the family reunion. You know, I bring, I don't just bring fried chicken.

I bring some potato salad, too. Right? He is Clippy Longstockings. He is Clippy Longstockings. The Clippinator. All the other names we have for him. You got to stop picking on him.

If it wasn't for his multiple clips, I wouldn't have one half the time. That's true. Thank you.

I do have my fan club, so. Clippard the Big Red Dog. Yeah, that's, yeah, all of them. Big Bald Dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's Reddit. That's right. So, um, this clip is from Open Range and this is one of the ones, I went back and looked at some notes because we were doing this topic, uh, from my first, I think, I think it was a journal from the first boot camp. I was so dense. I didn't, I didn't date any of them, so I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was based on the journal type.

But anyway, um, I went and I started flipping through this to see if there was any movies that spoke to me or anything out of them. And sure enough, I ran onto the clip from Open Range and I can't remember the whole thing, but basically this, uh, they were called free grazers. They were taking advantage of everybody else's land to graze their animals. And they went into town and they, nobody likes them. And these other men in that town, you know, these other, uh, uh, ruffians were, were kind of running the town and they were like, you know, Shannana guys, Shannana guys. Exactly.

They were serious Shannana guys. But they were just running the town and, and, um, uh, Charlie and Charlie is the main guy and he basically says, you know, one guy was complaining about, you know, we don't want all our guy, our, our kids get killed off and he was like, you know, your man ain't you. And that's, there's a little bit more than that. I don't want to tell the whole thing, but it's most of it right there. It is. It is. So I went overboard on that.

So we'll talk about it when we, I feel like I've seen it. Shame with this town has come to could do something about it afraiders Ralph, here's a shopkeeper. Your men ancient. I didn't raise my boys just to see him killed. Well, you may not know this, but there's a things that not a man worse than dying.

Pick up a nice part there. Yeah. That's, that's the key part, but there is something, uh, the nozzle man at a man worse than dying.

And that's kind of, it's similar to the clip I submitted in the first, um, show. But you know, really those things, those comments there, those quotes kind of distill what bootcamp meant to me is that they awaken something in my masculine heart to do more than just get through life, pay the mortgage, try to provide for everybody, but not take on the enemy, not stand up and be what God calls a man, not what the world calls a man, but what God calls a man. And to live that out and let it affect every area of your life and not compartmentalize it. Well, I'm godly in this area, but I'm not in here, but really live out of my heart. You know, Robby, I talk about it a lot. He used to come up to me at bootcamps and say, well, how did God come after your heart? And I'd looked at him like, what in the heck are you talking about? You know, it was like, I just never had anybody put it to me that way, but that's exactly what happens. And God comes after your heart to reawaken it to him and to his purposes.

Yeah, he does. And I think that, you know, a good topic, which we won't do next week, but a good topic would be what are the things that would gnaw at your heart worse than dying? You know, and I mean, I think it's something to really ponder and I think that's why it's such a powerful clip, a little different than William Wallace, you know, because he's getting ready to go die.

If you haven't seen the movie, I hope I didn't ruin it for you, but he dies. That's the whole point of it, right? But, you know, this was just a little different, you know, and the key thing was, was Charlie didn't say a whole lot during the whole movie. No. Yeah, he just listened and, you know, didn't say much, but when he talked, oh my, he wanted to listen to it. Yeah. You know, one more thing there is just, well, you prompted something and now I've forgotten it. Welcome to the Andy Thomas Show. Go ahead, Andy.

The Crawl and Clue guy. I guess the thing is, is that nobody wants to leave this life feeling like they've not impacted it. I think that's the biggest thing. You want to leave your print on it. And I think God puts that in there.

And whenever we get through halfway through the life and we realize that we haven't made the impact that we, you know, we feel like he's called us to do, we don't feel like we've accomplished anything. Yeah. Clifford Huxtable. How's that one?

You like that one any better? All right. I'm going to go home now.

I'm taking away his mic so we can go to Danny, but then I thought about the Danny Thomas Show. There you go. That's true. Hey, that'd be good. Yeah. He's a Christian clip guy.

He's a Christian clip guy. Yeah. Danny, you're up.

You want to talk a little bit about your first bootcamp experience? I'm like Rodney. I knew it was about the book wild at heart. Yeah. And, uh, The, uh, Touche.

Touche. Um, 10, 15 years ago, I was introduced to the wild at heart and the John Eldridge stuff. And the thing was that I was introduced to it, but there wasn't a community of people doing it. So to speak.

And it was just kind of being like on an island, but it did speak to something in my heart and I knew it did. And I knew there was something to this masculine journey and, but it kind of died out because it was, you know, you're running around talking about this stuff and everybody's going, yeah, that's nice. That's good. That's good. Keep going. And then they're like, go away.

You know? And so we had started a ministry and, and it was a men's ministry and I knew my time there in Ashboro was, was up. And I don't know what we were going to do, but we were talking about moving to up to Winston Salem area from Ashboro and the boot camp that I came to a couple of years ago was my first one. Having known the stuff that we had started followed by God, we were kind of doing that as a group and, and it was kind of a last hurrah for us or in my own heart because I knew I was stepping away from guys I dearly love.

Still talk to some of them, most of them, and, but I knew I was stepping away as leader as, as that kind of thing and stepping into a whole new world. What I didn't know was I was stepping into the masculine journey world and that was kind of the, the boot camp was almost like stepping through the, the thing at Narnia really, it really was. The wardrobe.

The wardrobe. Yeah. And because unbeknownst to me, God was given me the community of men that were in this genre of, of masculinity and truly coming after my heart. And that was my first boot camp was because I had no idea when I talked to Robby and met Darren and that I would be invited to a radio show, to a podcast, to a community. And it was literally, I call it a plug and unplug and plug back in. So, I mean, it wasn't like I had to search around for another ministry. It was just like, boom. So that was really neat.

And God has done some amazing things since then. Yeah. Well, when we met you, we knew that you were island of misfit toys kind of person. And so that kind of worked for us. Yeah.

I had a, I had a water gun full of jello. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

That's true. And so we get to another clip. And so this is a clip that I brought to the show and this is from my boot camp, my first one. And unlike, Danny and I are very alike in this, I had read Wild at Heart prior to coming to boot camp and actually read it and had led a small group with it and then also was sharing it with one other person. And for me, I'd gotten stuck on chapter four. Chapter four in the book Wild at Heart is the wound chapter. And I got stuck there and I read the whole rest of the book, but I could not figure out my wound. And the funny thing was that God was kind of telling me what it was, but I didn't want to listen. I wasn't going to allow that to be the wounded part of me. You know, in my own mind, looking back, it already hurt me enough.

I didn't want to admit that it had been hurting me all along. And so I go to my first boot camp and I'm getting some great information as they're going through the larger story and the core desires of a man's heart and the poser and taking lots of notes. And I'm having a little bit of stuff at quiet time, but then they get to the session on the wound and they play this clip and I could not get out of the auditorium fast enough to get out to spend time with God because I was just losing it.

Just breaking down, crying, and knew that I had to talk with God about it. So we'll play this. This is from Good Will Hunting. We'll play it when Sean is the counselor, Robin Williams, you got Will who's coming to him.

They're finishing up their sessions and he's offering to show him the report that he wrote to the judge and they start having a conversation and we'll kind of see how that plays out. So, uh, you know, what is it like? Will has an attachment disorder. Is it all that stuff?

Fear of abandonment. Hey, Will. I don't know about. You see this? Holy. This is not your fault. Yeah, I know that.

Look at me, son. It's not your fault. I know. It's not your fault. I know.

No, no, you don't. It's not your fault. I know it's not your fault.

All right. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Don't go with me. All right. Don't finish. I'm not you. It's not your fault. And so as I watched that clip, you know, my thoughts would go to, um, how many times God had prompted me on the wound.

Right. And it was a molestation issue from an older family member and, and I had sworn that I would never talk about it. It would be, I would die with that secret.

No one would ever know, you know, kind of thing. And I'd buried it so deep and God was trying to unearth it and I just wouldn't let him. And he let me set for a year or more, you know, until I went to the bootcamp and saw a clip that bypassed all the logic and hit my heart in a way. And all those times as you listen to it, he's saying, it's not your fault. He's breaking down Will's wall to the point where he can hear. He's conditioned his heart so much that he can't hear that. He, I mean, audibly he hears it, but he can't believe it to be true.

It's not safe. You know? And so, you know, that, that day God really broke through to me and helped me forgive the person that had molested me. It took another few bootcamps before he helped me see that I really needed to forgive myself.

And that was a harder one. You know, that was because it feels like your fault. If you hear the end of this clip, what Will says, I'm so sorry.

Well, he has nothing to be sorry for. He's been the one that's been a victim, but the enemy is so good at making you feel like your wound is your fault that you own it. And that's what makes it so hard to break. Right. And so that's always been a powerful clip to me for those reasons.

Wayne. Um, yeah, for my first bootcamp, um, you know, it's a lot of the same thing. Your clip kind of spoke a lot to that in my first one, I kind of got suckered in that coming by Jim over here. Um, he was helping me and my wife, he was actually counseling us at the time. And for me, it was more of a, you know, I'll go to this thing and get my wife off my back and keep doing what I'm doing.

It'd be fun. Um, and of course, whenever I got there, it was, uh, well, what am I doing here? Like, this is, this is stupid, like, what is going on? This is nuts. And by the end of the, by the end of the bootcamp, I knew all the reasons why I was an addict. I had, y'all had solved all my problems. I was good to go. I was, I was leaving out of there. I was a new man. I was now, of course, I ran out of there doing the things we tell people not to do.

Don't go out thinking you got it all together now. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it was, it was kind of what started the whole craziness with me was realizing that, Hey, I can hear from God, you know, these places where I was hearing from him. I really was hearing from him there and you know, it's, he can speak to us in a lot of different ways if we'll just listen. Um, so yeah, you guys, you know, you unleash the crazy, so it's y'all's fault. Well, it's God's fault. One of the things that just really just continues to jump out to me to this day is, um, and I know it's not going to shock you, Danny, that it has to do with 119 Psalm. There's this concept of the Hebrew letter shin, which means Sheker, which also means fake, right? And the idea of so much more of the world is fake than what is real.

And my experience actually of Christianity, if I was going to be completely sincere was there was more fake there when I went to Sunday school or these other places than there was what was real that, you know, it looked like everybody had their life together. Things were good. You know, we're all doing well. Everybody's fine. I'm fine.

You're fine. You know, it was the whole deal. Yeah. But when you see Darren in his shorts, man, I'm just saying, but, but this clip brings it out that what was going on there, I mean, that was real raw life right in front of you. Of course, it shocked me.

Like my eyes wanted to roll in the back of my head that they were using the language that you can almost hear in that clip and that like, are you serious? You just played that and right here amongst all these Christian people. But the idea is interestingly, truth stands the test of time where falsehood is what burns.

I mean, it literally, it doesn't have any legs to stand on and so it won't be there. And so how cool it is that we can begin to boil down stuff that I feel like is real. That's authentic. Those words almost always used overused now to the point. But what, what I do know is that from the point that you see the poser clip and you begin to process how much of this is me, which I, you know, again, all the other people posing is one thing, but oh my goodness, like how much of it I'm doing and how much work do I have to do to get rid of the false so I can stand on what's true and begin to walk into what God really had in mind, which you know has got to be that which is true. And so, you know, in that same section, when it gets to, you know, the heart of the matter, you know, David says, I hate and I abhor. And it's interesting that hate is growing into abhorring. In other words, we start out knowing that we don't like posing, but it gets to the point where it's just absolutely disgusts you.

And then it says, I law do I love. But that, that, that grows out of this beginning to just, I don't like posing, but then it's just totally disgusting to the point that like, oh my gosh, I so love what is authentic. I so love what is real, which is what's happening in that clip for me. Yeah, that whole movie, it's a tough movie to watch. It's a really tough movie to watch, and it's full of some language, you know, in it. But there are some real life moments in it. This part, another part we've played on the show before where Shawn and Will are talking about a painting, right, and Shawn just tells him about life, right?

I mean, he tells him, you know, doesn't hold back, you know, and it's, it's so good that you look past all that other stuff because there's so much truth in it, right? And that's why we use these clips. It's not to glorify Hollywood.

They don't need glorification. But to say, what's the story that they're stealing from God that he's trying to tell you? And why is that moving in your heart so much, right? That's where the work needs to be done is where that movement is. You know, it's like, okay, that's, that's a signal. This is where I got to go fix the problem.

I want to take your job here briefly, Sam. I think anybody that comes to a boot camp for the first time, since that's what we're talking about, will see the poser in themselves if they're not, they're not paying attention. But you mentioned that, you know, chapter four is where you put it down is with the father wound. And it doesn't have to be father, it frequently is.

But that one also stumbled me for the complete opposite direction. I had such a great father, grandfathers, men that were wonderful examples and taught me well that I struggled finding a father wound. And God did lead me to them later, but that was not something I saw. And I'm kind of wondering how many of us didn't get past the father wound, or didn't even hear the father wound, our first boot camp? Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I think for me, it was God knew that that wasn't the biggest wound that he needed to work on. I eventually unpacked father wounds and some other wounds as much as I dearly love my mom. And would have told you, you know, 10 years ago that there was no such thing as a mother wound.

You know, but God's come after that. You know, Andy, you and I were having a conversation this week, and I know it's not about the first boot camp, but we're having a conversation about, I can't imagine what life would be like, had we not been to these boot camps, the first one and then all the others. Dr. Andy Breshears Yeah, I think it's Morgan from Wild at Heart that says you live in the day and measure in the decade, and it's been pretty close to a decade since I read Wild at Heart, been to all these boot camps and stuff. And my life is just totally different in all my relationships and the way I look at life. I can remember, I don't know how many times, I don't know if it's about happening with you guys, ever so often, I would really get depressed about different stuff that I didn't see any hope. And this wasn't that long ago, because going through broken relationship and stuff like that, there was a lot of stuff. I can't remember the last time I woke up and said, this day is going to suck. I can't.

I mean, this day is not, I mean, what's the point? I mean, it's just a different mindset, but that is the way, whenever you look at what Jesus is offering in the New Testament, I feel like I am starting to really get a sense of that. My life is just totally different, but it's been a process, and it's taken time. And the way the book's broken down, all that stuff comes at different times. You don't get all of them at once, so you have to stay in this and allow God to do all it.

But I feel like I've experienced each chapter in the book, and it's brought life to me in so many different ways. Darrell Bock Yeah, and if you go to another boot camp, it's funny, like I walked away from the first one going, oh, wounds healed. Check that off the list. Thanks, God, that's done. And then five more boot camps, he's dealing with the same wound in different ways, and all the little fingers that it has and tentacles that run out, and you go, wow, this is deeper than I thought, and unpacking all those different areas, and God deciding at this boot camp, he's going to share this with me.

That's the coolest thing. Darrell Bock One of the things John said at the first boot camp that I heard, and I was marginally offended by, is you cannot trust somebody that has not dealt with their wound. And I have a dear brother that put the book down there and never picked it back up, and he's still living in his wounded past.

Darrell Bock Yeah, and it's a shame. You see guys that are waiting to die instead of learning to live. You know, and that was me, and I'm just so grateful that God brought this into my life through, a boss at work gave me the book, you know, and that was such a cool thing. And man, it just made all the difference for me and made difference for my family. And you know, I hope that that's what it'll do for you, and we encourage you to go register for the boot camp coming up March 31 through April 3, go to masculinejourney.org. We'd love to see you there.

We'll talk to you next week. Darrell Bock 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 I needed, I knew what I wanted, and those two were rarely the same thing. This is the Truth Network.