What Are You Talking About?

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This is the Truth Network. It's a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're just having fun with our friend Andy. I was staring down to see if he was going to talk first or if I was going to talk, and so he broke, but I had to step in.

Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad you're with us today, and obviously we're having a little bit of fun. And so we're going to do things a little differently today, aren't we, Andy? We are.

We are. So we have a clip that kind of sets us up. I'm not even going to share what it's about or what we're talking about, but same play, and then I'll talk about it. So what we're talking about today is what you're talking about. We're going to get into the scripture from that I ran into it. I can't remember how I did, but it's from Malachi 3, 13 through 18. And it's right after God has talked to his people about giving and tithing.

And I'm just going to read it real quick from the New American Standard. Your words have been arrogant against me, says the Lord, yet you say, what have we spoken against you? God says you have said it is pointless to serve God, and what benefit is it for us that we have done and what he required, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of armies? So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only are the doers of wickedness built up, but they also put God to the test and escape punishment.

So basically there's no justice. And then God goes on. Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened attentively, which is important, and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and esteem his name.

And they will be mine, says the Lord of the armies, on the day that I prepare my own possession, and I will have compassion for them, just as a man has compassion for his own son who serves him. And it just kind of struck me about that whole point there that God listened in attentively, and you have two camps here. One camp is there's a frustration with God not coming through, and I think we all get there at times. There's a certain expectation of what God should do.

In this case, it's he's not judging the wicked or dealing with them. And then there's a camp that I think kind of understands the larger story better, maybe grown in their faith more, maybe been through some times where they didn't really understand what God was doing, but they stuck with their faith. And we're just kind of talking about the different perspectives of those two camps through the show, and I think, Sam, it's back to you for your clip. No, it's Robby's, right?

Well, yeah, we can go to Robby. Robby, it's actually your clip, as Ade just said, and so if you want to tell us a little bit about it or however you want to set it up. Yeah, a really cool set of films that Jefferson Moore did. They're all based on this idea of the perfect stranger and, of course, perfect being Jesus. And so the perfect stranger is this particular is the first movie of the series. Essentially, this woman who is definitely struggling with even believing there is a Jesus is sort of, I don't know, for lack of a better word, tricked into having dinner with Jesus. And she, of course, he doesn't look like Jesus necessarily, but what she doesn't realize is, oh, yes, she is. And when he introduces himself that way to her, of course, she's having all sorts of struggles with trying to get to that point. But then he does something that I thought was absolutely fascinating. He hits her kind of between the eyes with the question of if you really thought you were having dinner with Jesus Christ, you would have a lot of questions. And the truth of that is that all of us would, really, if you had a chance to have that happen.

And so as we're going to pick this up, you're going to hear her question and then how it kind of relates to conversations I've had recently. And the cool thing is that God's listening in on all this. In this case, you know, he's front and center. The other day, I passed a church, and the sign out front said, no one comes to the Father except through me, signed Jesus. Now, did he actually say that?

Because if he did, I think he's full of it. Why do you think I'm mistaken? Because you've got all these people around the world that believe in different ways of worshiping God, and you're saying that only Jesus' way is the right one? Do you think Hinduism is true?

I don't know. I have some friends back home who got into Hinduism, and it seemed to work for them. I didn't ask if you thought it worked. I asked if you thought it was true. It was true for them. Before Copernicus, most people believed that the world was flat. That was false, but it worked for them.

You know why that was? I don't think it mattered much back then. Before Columbus, nobody traveled far enough for it to be a problem. What would have happened if someone had tried to go to the moon?

They'd be in for a big surprise. The point is, what people believe worked for them, even though it was false, but at some critical juncture, it was bound to not work anymore. So? You're the one with the master's degree.

You tell me. In business law, not philosophy. Well, you still had to think a little.

All right. What you're saying is that even if a belief system works for someone, if it's false, it will eventually break down. And you don't want what you're placing your ultimate trust in to be wrong. You remember that class you took at UC, the one on world religions? How did you know- What did that class teach you about Hinduism, how it squares up with what's known about the universe? If I remember correctly, Hinduism teaches that the universe is simply an extension of a universal force called- Brahman. Brahman.

Yes. The ultimate essence. And God is the universe, and the universe is God.

Right. And that there is no one separate creator. And how long has their universe existed?

According to the Hindus, always. The universe is eternal. And how does that match up with what modern astronomers have discovered? Not very well, I guess. I did read an article once that said all the evidence points to the universe having a definite starting point. So if Hinduism is true, then how did the universe get here? I don't know.

I don't know either. There's the point. So you know, as you think about that, it's pretty cool to think that God is clearly, and based on Andy's scripture, listening to your conversations. And so it's beautiful when you're sitting here with folks of similar faith and similar experience and talk about God. God's listening on that.

That's really cool. But what really is an opportunity for all of us, and more than you might think, is you put God into any given conversation. And when people's faith structure does that, I love what he says. When their faith starts to break down, then all of a sudden they get this glassy look in their eyes and they don't know where to turn.

And they've got no hope. You know, this is our moment, right, to bring God into the equation and begin to go after, hey, you know, had you considered this about God? Had you considered this to be part of your opportunity? In fact, you know, fortunately for me, it happened two or three times today, actually, where I was talking to people that I would classify as, you know, church-going Christian folks. However, you could see that, you know, things had happened in their lives that were really breaking down, that place where they were trusting God or feeling like their prayers mattered and those kind of things. And so it's really a beautiful thing to know that, wow, okay, God has taught us along the way these opportunities to come in and go, okay, let's look at it this way and maybe let's look at death from a little different angle than you're looking at it.

Let's look at life from a little different angle than you're looking at it. And all those are opportunities to share how amazing God is. And so actually it gives me great hope, Andy, actually, to understand that, hey, God has got a book of remembrance. And, you know, that conversation you had that time, you know, he was right there with you. Yeah, absolutely. Indeed.

So Harold, what about you? You have something you'd like to share with us on this topic? Well, I did make some notes that I'll share in regard to the wicked prospering. My thought is apparent goodness for the wicked is only temporary and ultimate punishment is eternal.

So it's a poor deal. And if we're thinking God has abandoned us, then we're using worldly logic, not what He has promised. And that falls into the stinking thinking category.

And then Robby's having a great deal of fun with this one. Short-term illusory cannot replace long-term reality if we're smart enough to believe God's Word. I want to know what illusory means.

It means based on illusion, something that is not real. And then finally, Satan uses our comparisons to others to foster envy, pride, or other harmful attitudes that distance us from God. Perception may be drastically different from reality and lead to completely erroneous conclusions. So I think we have to be very careful about looking at what's going on in the world around us and making judgments on the fact that the wicked are prospering and I'm not, because I don't have what they have. But I'm also probably not going to have what they have and I'll be glad for that. The thing that came to my mind was what you're saying, we're not going to have what they have.

Maybe not now. But the consequences, you know, are we going to get blessings or consequences in these choices that we make? And I think as Scripture's pointing to, like you said, there's two camps.

One was looking at the world, the other was looking at God because they said the fear. That means there's a reverence there. Hey, and that's a battle I know in my faith is when the times are really tough. And it looks like all this corruption, this deceitful living is the abundant life, which is maybe temporal. But everything they gain, they're not going to hold on to. I mean, once God calls you home, how much do you leave? All of it. The only thing we have is do we have the grace of God.

Do we have that fellowship and spirit because we're stepping from one dimension to another. So it's, you know, what are you fixing your eyes on? I think that's what he was pointing out because that's so important because Satan's always about distraction. That's what he started in the garden. He's still doing it today, getting our minds mixed up. Yeah, we could say from a masculine journey perspective, it's the smaller story versus the larger story.

Yes. And I think a big part of the issue is, and for one reason or another, and I'll throw it out there, I like to watch TikTok, and I do. And so the algorithms that I have on it, one of them I have is I get a lot of Paul Harvey stuff the rest of the story. And I'm always intrigued by it, and I almost always stop and listen as long as I have time to listen to it. Because, you know, you hear something and you think it's going in one direction, but it's going in another. And that's all of our life.

We don't know the rest of the story. When we come back, we're going to talk more about this topic. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp. It's coming up the weekend before Thanksgiving. That's in November. So if you look every year, it's in November.

It's the weekend before that. Masculinejourney.org. We'll talk with you after the break. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger, and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. What brings you here this weekend? So I met Robby, and he invited me to come to the boot camp, and there was just so many doors that were closed before I was able to come here, but God allowed these things to happen. And I said, you know, God, I'm going to ultimately acknowledge what's going on for all these doors to be open for me to come to this camp.

I just want to see you. So throughout that time since I've been here, you know, just the illumination of God speaking to me through my heart and through my mind and through my soul has just went to a whole other level since I've been here at the boot camp. The covenant of silence after the talks and being able to go out and just submit myself to being able to hear from God and what we've been working on, and it's just been transparent in my life. The level of the sanctification process, the discipleship process, and coming here, I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. So that's Bonnie Raitt, Something to Talk About. So, you know, to me, this whole thing, this whole show is based on these conversations, and what we're talking about, and what we say is very important. It's consistent throughout Scripture, and obviously in this context of these two camps that we need to give them something to talk about when they see the light of God in us. But it's based on a faith, a mature faith, I believe, to where we're not questioning God on how things turn out.

We're trusting in Him. Thank you. The next clip is mine, and it takes a second to set up here.

Well, it takes several seconds, so we'll go ahead and start. It's from a TV show called Evil, and I know, okay, we're on the Christian network, and we're talking about a show called Evil, and I started watching it years ago on CBS, and I watched the first probably half a dozen, and then I quit watching it. I think it got moved to a different night or whatever, and I tried to watch it again later, and I think later it gets a little crazy. You know, a lot of times the shows go kind of off a deep end, and so what this show is is you have a Catholic priest in training, and he's been hired by the Catholic church to go out and either prove that things are true or disprove things, things like demon possession or miracles and things like that.

And along the way, this is the second episode I'm playing this from of the first season. In the first show, he kind of happens into this relationship as far as a business relationship with this female psychologist, and she's not Christian. And so we're in our second show now, and she's seen a little bit of what's going on, and there's some faith questions, and so she's going to ask him a question in this particular show they're dealing with in a miracle that's happened. A girl, college girl, had been killed in an accident. She had a head injury on the morgue table. As they go to do the autopsy, they cut her cheek, and she wakes up, right? And so that's a miracle they're investigating, and so that's precursor to what's happening here. And so what you're going to miss in this segment is you're going to hear the beginning of the segment, and then there's a middle section where the psychologist is talking about her youngest daughter that was born with a heart valve disorder.

And in a few months, they have to go back to the doctor where they're going to find out, is she improving, and she's going to live and maybe have a normal life, or will she die before she ever graduates college? And so that's kind of what you missed in the middle. And one other segment that I cut out, she asks the question, is why do bad people live a long time?

But the word she used, I had to cut off the air. So anyway, we'll go ahead and listen to the clip, and we'll come back and talk about it. Can I ask you something? Sure. So you believe in miracles? I do.

Do you think I'm crazy? No, I don't, but I just want to understand. So you think that if you just pray hard enough, God's going to grant you miracles?

No, it's not like that. God has designs within designs, and to us, they are impenetrable. And if I thought that prayer would have any impact on it at all, I mean, I would be on my knees every single night. I wouldn't go out, I would pray so much, I'd shame the saints.

But that's not how it works, is it? There are millions of religious people praying, and they still die of cancer or car accidents, and there are still two survive tonight. So I don't understand the worth of prayer if it doesn't help. I don't know, but I'll pray for your daughter. I'll pray for Laura. Is she all right? She's great.

She makes me laugh. I just don't understand how God could choose winners and losers. He doesn't. But if there are miracles, then some people get them and some people don't, right? I mean, isn't that the problem with miracles?

Not that they happen, but that they happen to some people and not to others. I chose this clip, I actually literally saw it last night, but I had seen it once before, the night before, and fell asleep during the show, so I had to go back and watch it again. But I like the clip because it was very honest, right? I've been there, I've felt that way, and I like the way that the priest in training, who obviously has a strong faith, doesn't really have an answer. Because that's a lot of times we don't have an answer because there's not an answer to be had, right?

Because what's going to happen is going to happen and we don't have a lot of control over that. And so it really bothered me for a little while on how would I have answered her. And the only way I could have answered her is I don't know how it's going to work out because I don't know how situations in my life I'm praying about are going to work out. But I do know what God's done in my life. And I can share the things that he has done that I can speak with confidence on.

And yes, I have no guarantee of any outcome and how it's going to be, but I do know that God's going to be in the midst of it. And good, bad, indifferent, however it works out, he's going to be there with me. And he's my only source of life, right? And so I got to hold on to him, right? You know, I went through some stuff at the beginning of the year where I lost my one brother, my other brother got pretty sick and was questionable there for a while on how he was going to do.

My grandson was pretty bad there for a while. And I could feel the enemy's pull, wanting to pull me into where she was to the pull of logic. But I'll just ask you a question. How many relationships make sense with logic?

The answer is probably none of them. I love my kids more than anything. But when you look at it from a financial standpoint, it is not a logical decision to have kids, right? You don't do it due to logic and relationship is never about logic, right? But the things that happen in relationship are magical, right? And it's the same thing with the father.

And that's the only thing I think I could even try to share with her. You know, because that has been me questioning those things and could be me if I'm not careful. But I think we want a concise, easy to understand answer to faith. And it kind of goes against the grain of faith, right? There is a testing of our faith that it talks about in James that we do have to go through. And, you know, look at how many times – did Jesus get everything he wanted when he was there on the earth?

It said that he didn't do much works because of the lack of faith of the people in the area and stuff. So there's definitely – a lot of this has to do – I think this main part of what God was saying here was that it gets back to expectations. You can't just expect everything to go – you become God if you get everything you want. You're no longer the servant. You become the God. And, you know, I think Rodney and I have talked about it. We're looking for a Santa Claus instead of a God.

Right, the cosmic vending machine, as we talked about. Yeah, I'm going to get everything that I want. And the good thing is that only with perspective down the road when you look back and go, wow, I'm kind of glad I didn't get what I thought I wanted. Now, if you're dealing with a family member living or dying, obviously, yes, you'd prefer that they be living longer. Unless they suffer a lot longer. Right, and there's been family members that it was good for them to go. And I was grateful that God took them when he did because they were in such misery.

They were prepared and they were miserable on this earth, yeah. Yeah, and so there is no, like, concise answer because every situation is so uniquely different. Or since Jim's not here, very uniquely different.

I'm sure he'll enjoy that when he eventually listens to the show. Yeah, I think we would all answer that question differently. I know all of us sitting in this room would have a different perspective, something a little different to say, but in the end, it comes down to the one you trust. If you don't have a trust in the Lord, I mean, again, it all points back to Christ. It's all about Christ and what he did. It's not about us, and we always want to make it about us. That's kind of our natural tendencies, and that's one of those things we have to break out of. We're constantly maturing and trying to do that, and things happen, and some of us, I guess, need really bad things to happen to us to snap us out of it.

Some of us, you know, will grow up and I don't ever remember not trusting in the Lord and just had that different walk. They're all great testimonies. They're wonderful, but we all come at Christ in our own unique way, the way he reveals himself to us and he draws us in.

It's really hard, but I love your clip because it does. It's raw, and it forces us to have an answer. I would love to see the pastor actually have a better answer, but we don't always have that. I don't always have it. I figure out, okay, well, I just have to do the best I can to explain Jesus and what he's done for us as simply as possible. Yeah. As I was thinking through some of that and thinking back at some of my recent stuff as I was talking about, the enemy knows that, at least the way I'm wired, I'm wired to find who's to blame. Blame shifting is one of my favorite hobbies. Even when you work in a situation where you're root cause analysis.

That's me, yeah. That's a lot of what we do, solving problems. That's root cause analysis. When I'm looking for root cause, you're really looking for what's to blame. A lot of people look for just the very first thing, which is nowhere near the root cause, and just start blaming it because, oh, that's what I can do.

Somebody said it, so I'm just going to do it. So the enemy knows that about us, right, as a society, as a people or whatever. And so if God can fix it and chooses not to fix it, well, then obviously we should blame God. See, that's the enemy's logic. Because when he can get you to blame God, that's the fracture in the relationship that he's looking for, or to never build a relationship. Did God really say? Right, back to the garden.

Call it religious math? Yes. Well, the real answer is that his ways are higher than ours. Right. His thoughts are higher than ours. And we're not going to get the rest of the story where we're here on earth for sure. It may never get it. It'll be okay at that point.

And I was just, while we were starting the first half of the show, I was looking at some scripts because things came to mind. I might as well just share now. Again, like Psalm 14.1 and 53.1 both say basically, the wicked fool says in his heart there is no God.

That is what my theme will be, is arrogance. And then in Isaiah, I am Yahweh, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. You've got one place to trust.

Yes, there is only one way to him, and that's through Jesus. And it's as simple as that. If you don't like it, you're arrogant. If you come inside of that, then you're humble. And that's that pride and humility part. Yeah, as I was struggling a little bit the first year, and it wasn't long, I was struggling with grief.

I was struggling with other things, but the enemy's pull in this arena didn't last very long. But it really came down to just something I said back at him, not necessarily to him, was, okay, what's my better option? Right? If you don't want me to trust in God, what's my better option? Obviously, I can't do anything about it. Right? So you're not my better option, so what is my best option? Well, the best option is always to walk with God. Right? Until you can get clarity down the road, until you can get healing down the road, until you can get whatever God has in store for you down the road.

Yeah, just ask Job. Yeah. Go to Masculine Journey. We do have a boot camp coming up. It's the weekend before Thanksgiving.

I think it's the 21st through the 24th of November, if I got the dates right. But it is the weekend before Thanksgiving, Thursday through Sunday, masculinejourney.org. This week, spend some time asking God about your philosophy on what we're talking about. And above all else, love somebody well this week. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.