Spring Cleaning

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.

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But life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide You're with us today. And this is May already. Can you believe it's already May? Wow. That's crazy.

No, it has been for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I know. I know.

That's true. Welcome to May, Sam. It has been.

We've bypassed Cinco de Mayo was only a long time ago. Only one Saturday. Oh, this is actually the second. This is the second Saturday halfway through.

May the 4th be with you. This would be the first 7th. The first 7th was the Saturday.

It is the 14th if you're trying to, you know. But it's okay. It is May. You're absolutely right. I still stand by my thing. It's already May.

I have a book from the Truth Price Vault if you want one for being right about that. Yeah. All right.

I know how this goes. I'm exactly right. I get that. Yeah.

I'm exactly right. All right. Sorry. A little bit of chaos here.

I lost my headphones. So, Robby, this is your topic this week. So, you got the mic in front of you.

So, why don't you just go ahead on this beautiful May day, like middle-ish part of May on that day. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it happens when we get older. We got to declutter. Yeah.

You know, that's the idea of today's. We heard this podcast on Ransom Heart, which is now Wild at Heart. Wild. Yeah.

It's wild. And Bart was turning 70. And as a result of him turning 70, he was, you know, reorganizing some things. And he noticed in his closet there was this, you know, suit that he'd had for like 30 years because he used to use it when he went on these big interviews and stuff.

And he goes, man, I hate to throw it away because it's a perfectly good suit. And he started to say, you know, I wonder if there's things like that that are emotional, that we have hung on to since we were whatever age. And as they went into that, I just thought it was a delightful thing as we get older.

You know, what are the things that we really are olden on to that we need to let go of so that we can have new things that God would have for us in that position. So the idea is decluttering. Well, thank you. All right. Good topic. All right.

We actually did that last weekend. Yeah. We'll talk a bit more about that, I'm sure throughout the show. I have the first clip. And so my clip is from the movie The Jerk. And so what's happening in his life is he and his girlfriend have broken up.

She's asking him to move out of the house. And when you first hear this, he's clearing the desk saying, I don't need this. I don't need you.

I don't need anything. And I think what happens sometimes when we have tragedy come in our life, we start grasping at things just to have some type of something that anchors us back. I could say that clearly, you know, to something that feels like there's a foundation under us. Steve Martin's just grasping at some of the wrong things. So let's listen to it.

We'll come back and talk about it. And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff. I don't need you. I don't need anything except this. That's the only thing I need is this.

I don't need this or this. This ashtray. This paddle game. The ashtray and the paddle game. That's all I need. And this. Remote control. The ashtray and the paddle game and the remote control.

That's all I need. These matches. The ashtray and these matches and the remote control and the paddle ball. This lamp. The ashtray. This paddle game and the remote control.

And the lamp. And that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing. Not one. I need this.

The paddle game and the chair and the remote control and the matches for sure. Whoa. What are you looking at? What do you think I am?

Some kind of a jerk or something? As this. That's all I need. The ashtray and the remote control.

That's that game. Yeah, I do realize I could have cut that off earlier. I just, uh, sometimes we're in that position.

We're just grasping. And so for me, I'll share two different stories of organization and one now and maybe one later. But this one for me was after my wife and I separated and I stayed in the house. I would say pretty quickly within about the first two or three weeks I started going taking stuff off the walls. You know, I wanted to change the space into my space. You know, and so I was taking things off that I knew I didn't want to have up anymore. And I really don't think that was a real healthy exercise. I think it was a reactive exercise because there wasn't really a whole lot of good that came from it. Other than I sold some stuff on Facebook Marketplace and made a couple bucks. But it wasn't really a healthy decluttering.

It was more of a Steve Martin. I just don't want this anymore. I just don't want this anymore without anything to show for it. I'll go ahead and tell the other story. Last year, my wife and I had been separated over four years between four and five, divorced at that point. And I decided to go through every closet in the house. I'd been living there by myself, you know, with my son and sons every other week, staying with me. But other than that, I was by myself and I literally had closets I had not opened in five or six years in the house. And so I went through over about a two and a half month period cleaning out stuff.

And that was actually really healthy. He was able to send some stuff to my daughter that was in her room that I knew she would want. So I packaged it up, set some stuff out for the boys, sent some stuff over to my ex-wife that I knew she would want, stuff that was her dad's. But it was really a different attitude. It was a different focus. It was about organizing my life to where I knew where the things in my house were, what I had, what I didn't have, what I didn't need that I could donate.

I don't know how many trips I made to Goodwill and other places donating things. And that was a healthy reorganization because it did my heart good. And that was a difference. One was just focused on probably retribution, you know, a little bit. And the other was focused on, okay, I think it's time to get some order into something that feels like chaos for me.

That's what I got. All right. So Andy, you loved this topic too. Well, I did. I'd heard the same podcast Robby heard. And he threw this out there because we were doing, as a ministry team, we were doing kind of a decluttering of our gear that we use for boot camps.

And we got together this past Saturday and had a lot of fun doing it. But I've thought about this same thing. I've been on the move for some time.

Past probably seven years, I've moved like three times. And every time I just keep moving the same junk over and over and over, not taking the time to organize, declutter. And it's always bothered me.

And it's always on the to-do list because I don't have a huge space for a lot of this stuff and I could be a lot more organized. So it is a good topic for my heart. It's actually been on my heart because I have linked it to the spiritual for, you know, have had these thoughts about, you know, that's really very, I mean, correlates to our spiritual life.

So anyway, let's play my clip. It's from the shack. It's Mack who has had a tragedy in his life. He lost his daughter to abuse, a guy that came and killed his daughter basically. And God's came after him and he's introduced himself to the Trinity and now he's ready to leave because he can't really handle the wounding that's being healed. And he gets along with the Holy Spirit and he's about ready to leave.

The Holy Spirit says, hey, come with me. And this, where they're going is to this garden. And you'll hear it and I'll talk about it as we come back. We have to dig up all the roots or they'll return and harm the new growth. But this is gorgeous.

You can start over there. Okay. Careful. It's deadly. What's it doing here if it's poisonous? You're presuming that poison is bad.

On its own, the sap from this would kill you, but minor with the nectar from this flower suddenly contains incredible healing properties. How confident are you in your ability to discern good from evil? Usually pretty obvious. And your basis for something being good is what? Well, if it helps me or the people that I love. And evil?

It's harmful if it hurts someone I care about. So pretty much you are the judge. Yeah, I guess. You ever been wrong or changed your opinion over time? Sure. What do you think? It's still a mess.

Yes, it is, Mac. Wild, wonderful, perfectly in process. This mess is you. So as you hear there, that garden actually ended up being his heart or his life. And what he saw is, I mean, it was wild. It was, as she described it, it had been a mess and that really, really still was a mess, but it was in process. But there's so much that if you saw this, if you see the shack, it's a beautiful garden.

And what he looks on is like, this is beautiful, but she just goes in and starts whacking it. Well, what sometimes we think is beautiful actually isn't necessarily, maybe has bad roots and it's not necessarily something that needs to stay there, but she goes in and cleans it out. But it's just, we're a work in progress and you see the benefit of letting the Holy Spirit come in and work with us together to weed our garden, weed our heart. But I think a lot of times what we can do with those bad things, it talks about forgetting the things of the past and moving on to the high calling in Christ Jesus. There's things that we really do need to forget, but there are things also that we can use to not forget, but use them in a way to help others.

I mean, if I forget all the bad stuff that I've done and just kind of walk away from it and not use it to help somebody else, it's not beneficial, but it can still, I can disable the effect of it by removing it from my life. Thank you, Andy. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp, November 17th through 21st. Join us.

We'll come back and talk about more. One of the things that's been a true joy to me is having my sons go with me to boot camps and watching them get an understanding that I wished I would have had at their age. It took me several years and I'm still probably learning it a little bit as we go, but watching them get a good foothold into manhood and understanding what's important, what their role is and how to stay away from the enemy, to receive healing and restoration in the way that you love on others. Register today at masculinejourney.org. For me, describing boot camp, when I heard the stories from the stage that the other men had, and then during my prayer time, I'm getting a download from God on where my life is and how I have wounds and I have a place in his story. To know how I heard from God is one of those things.

He really does communicate with us. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. Andy, that was your bump. Yeah. Can anybody guess why? Well, we know. Well, I know because you're a big boy.

I'm waiting for a call in. No, that's from Sanford and Son from back in the 70s. And Sanford and Son was shot in a junk yard. And that's kind of what we're talking about, is cleaning up the junk yard.

A little organization. Yeah. And plus it's a feel-good song. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, who doesn't smile when that song starts playing? Maybe Lamont.

Yeah, exactly. What's her name? Yeah, that woman.

I can't remember her name. Esther. Good call to Annie.

We should have known he'd know. Wasn't Esther the wife, though? No, no, that's Elizabeth.

I'm coming to Elizabeth. Yeah, that's right. Now we played that whole show out.

So anyway, my clip is a little darker. But it's from a show, apparently, where this older man is talking to this older lady. And he is talking about his backup plan that he has figured out. Emotionally, he's doing some cleaning. And what he's doing is actually cleaning out his backup plan. I think the clip kind of speaks for itself.

It's from a show called Afterlife, which is a series. But I think you can see in what happens that this man has taken some emotional stuff and making a jump into the larger story. Need some advice. I wanted to kill myself. And when I couldn't, or hadn't, I thought, okay, if I'm going to do this carrying on living thing, it's going to be on my terms. I'm going to do what I want. And I've always got suicide to fall back on. Got to have a backup. Exactly. But it didn't go to plan. At first, I thought it was like a superpower. I can do anything.

Who cares? What's the worst that can happen? Nothing can hurt me because I can always kill myself, you know? But then I realized you can't have you can't not care about things you actually care about.

You can't fool yourself. And there was something you said, that it's not all about me. And even though I'm in pain, it's worth sticking around to maybe make my little corner of the world a square foot away. Little corner of the world, a slightly better place.

That's all there is. Happiness is amazing. It's so amazing, it doesn't matter if it's yours or not. It's that lovely thing.

A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. So, you know, that clip just provoked me on all sorts of levels. I mean, I thought what they said was absolutely profound in so many different ways. You know, the idea of, wow, happiness is amazing.

And it doesn't matter whose it is, right? When you're serving other people and that kind of thing, it's gorgeous. And I love the idea of old men planting trees that they'll never sit in the shade of. And so we all, even in the show, probably, you know, generations later, somebody may turn back like we listened to Vinny and all that, I was Robby, or that was Sam, or whatever the case may be.

So I hope we're planting seeds. But where this sent me, like, and I wonder if it sends you there, what's your backup plan? I mean, the guy had a pretty bizarre backup plan, suicide, but it was logical.

And so what really is your backup plan is the provoking thing of the question to me personally. And I realized that for most of my life, it was my father. I mean, I knew that no matter how I crashed and burned – emotionally, or I crashed and burned financially, or whatever happened, my father was a very strong, he had it together and I knew he'd always catch me. But then he died.

And my mom died. And it was, you know, it's kind of a forced decluttering, like the Holy Spirit pulling those roots out and like, wow, now what's your backup plan, Robby? And as I began to sink those roots into the new soil, I love Andy's clip from that picture of, wow, there are stuff that was in my heart that was planted there, of course, you know, all the things they gave me over the years. Ashtrays, lamps. Yeah, matches.

This chair. But still, you know, it's kind of neat to have those God roots digging in and really feeling what it's like to lean on the everlasting arms a bit more than I had. And so, you know, that's kind of where I went with that. Yeah, one of the things from Andy's clip we didn't get a chance to kind of talk about was the whole concept of clearing out the old roots.

You talked a little bit about it, right? But as Jesus, you know, comes in to dig out the bitter root of agreement, or the bitter root of unforgiveness, you know, those things have to be dug completely out, or there's not going to be good fruit. Yeah, absolutely.

There's going to be spotty fruit at best. Yeah. And so that whole concept, and Robby, yours makes me really think a lot about, do I have a backup plan? And really, what is it? You know, hopefully, it's going to be God is the primary plan and the backup plan, you know, both, but it makes you think, you know, and I love that quote that you talked about of, you know, what are the trees that we're going to individually plant or collectively plant that has some shade, you know, that we never know about? And that's a pretty cool concept to be thinking about, okay, what can I do with my life that is going to impact other people well beyond when I'm here? And so it's a great thing to work on. It's sort of funny that that was in the clip, because today, I was protecting the trees that I planted a few days ago, to make sure they didn't get mowed down. So that was that sort of hit home with that. But on having a backup plan, now, when I'm in the short term, I'll have lots and lots of scenarios that have run through my mind about different ways I'll react. But long term plan, there's only one that I think I've settled on, and that's whatever God has for me.

And there's considerable peace in that. Yep. What clip would you like to play next? Danny's clip. I didn't really like that. So I didn't have it queued up. It kind of went with the bump, didn't it?

I just kind of stuck with the bump. Yeah. Yeah. This clip is from a show called Picard, Star Trek Picard. And this is actually I was surprised I found it already out because it's a show from like last week or so. But it's ending of a season. And Q, who if you're familiar with Star Trek, a friend of mine calls me the nerdiest redneck he's ever met. And Q is this godlike creature that has somewhat tormented Picard most of his life. And they've had a bittersweet relationship.

And he's dying or whatever. And so this end of the show, they have gone back in this season 400 years. And with the space-time continuum and all that stuff, and they're trying to find somebody. And now they've come to the end of this journey. And they're going back to the future, so to speak. Another movie, but. And so Q said, are you ready to go home? And the clip that I cut out is from Chris Rico, who is a captain of the ship that they have been on. And he's just kind of this nomad kind of guy who life has got him in some bad places. And he's just not a great attitude on life and everything.

And now he's gone back and he's met this lady and her son 400 years from when he ever existed. And here's his reaction to it. Well, as you like. Now, are we all ready to go home?

Bags packed? No. I'm staying.

Chris, you know, you can't do that. The timeline. I never fit, you know, nothing stuck. I mean, I was living alone on a cargo ship with five holographic versions of myself.

Not very encouraging. But then I met you. I never had a family in any real way. You changed all that. All of you did. This is where I belong. This is where I belong. Jean-Luc, come home.

Make a good future. Maybe it was always supposed to be this way. Time's a funny thing. Yes, it is.

Interesting. So many times I found myself in, I think, Chris's shoes is that and I was thinking back to when I got sober and the, you know, there was a whole old life that was there that that was cluttered with bad friendships and, you know, lots of different damages. And here was his new life. I had to let go of all that. And I remember a man I love dearly who said you only have to change one thing. That's your whole life. Well, that's pretty simple, isn't it?

But, you know, and that's kind of where I went with this topic was that, you know, there are times when you have to let go of the things you know, good or bad, and let go to grasp something that God wants you to have. Is that it? For now. Okay. Now we'll have more.

And that was very good. So, Danny, going through that, it was probably pretty painful. Yes. Right? That whole releasing of friends, all that kind of stuff. You know, it's only when you look back, you realize how much that was dragging you in the wrong direction, I'm assuming. Well, yeah. And I waited and waited for people to call and check on me and they never did. Yeah.

They never did. Yeah. Mom used to say, as your friends showed, America's most wanted. So Robby, on this topic of decluttering, right? So how many different ways can somebody declutter? Obviously you can clean the garage. You can do that stuff.

What else can they do? Well, there's whole sorts of stuff that, you know, again, it's like so many things. If you ask Jesus, like, what is it that we do need to uproot here?

And what do we need to dig into that we've just sit there and let it grow that we know has caused us harm? We'll get a chance to do that with everybody in the after hours. We will. We'll talk about that. All the people you haven't heard from yet. But in the meantime, while you're waiting for that next podcast to load, you can pause for a second, go to masculine journey.org, register for the upcoming bootcamp, November 17th through 21st. We will be also announcing pretty soon a local thing called Entrenchment in September. So you can't wait, but you have to wait, but be excited. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.