Myths About God

The heart of every man craves 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 glad that you're with us today and we're especially glad to be on in Greenville and Spartanburg and in that area. It's our second week down there and we're excited to be on the air down in that area. Two weeks and two hosts.

Yeah, that's true. I was like, how did I say this, but two weeks, two hosts. Not very well, apparently.

It wasn't. So this is Andy and I stutter a lot. Yeah, not a lot, but on occasion. But yeah, this is Sam and I'm actually hosting this week and Robby did a great job last week of hosting. I'll say that because he's not here and so I'll be nice to him.

You know, we get one world traveler back in gym and Robby goes on a world trip. So glad to have you back, Jim. I guess you were back last week. I was.

Yeah. Well, I wasn't here, so it's good. It's glad to see you. And we saw each other before tonight, which was kind of exciting. Right about the time we got soaked. Oh yeah, that's right. That's a folly this weekend.

Anyway, back to Greenville, Spartanburg. If you're just joining us, you're going, what is this new show? We're a new show to you. We're not a new show. We've been around since 2011. We've been doing the show up in the Winston-Salem area on the Truth Network. We've been on the Truth Network the whole time. If you like what you hear, you can go download, listen to any of our podcasts on any podcast outlet, you know, but a better place to listen to it.

Actually, if you prefer like Spotify or you prefer Apple, you can get them in all those locations, but you can also go to masculinejourney.org and listen to the podcast there. They're all located there, but you could also register for a bootcamp that's coming up this November 20th through 23rd in your area. We're down in Royston, Georgia for our bootcamps now.

We did the one this last spring. It was an amazing camp. Can't say enough about Camp Little Light. Andy, what would you add about Camp Little Light? It's such a great place.

Yeah, it's a family camp and they have a lot to do there, but shooting and just getting out into the countryside and beauty there, but they have everything you need. Good kitchen. We have some good food. Robby brings a good menu. They have that too, too, too, too. I'm tired.

I'm going to go with tired. Did you get bit by the horse? No, I didn't.

No, I thought it was you. Team building, they have a variety of stuff. Yeah, it's a different type of camp, but we've enjoyed it. Plus, we went on a road trip to, if you're down from that area, from that area, is the Band of Brothers at, what is it? Camp Curahey.

Curahey, yeah. Gosh, we went and did a little road trip there. So I had heard we were going to do the camp down there. I started looking and I was like, I think the Camp Curahey is nearby.

And sure enough, and we went and checked it out. Oh, the mountain's Curahey. The camp's... Camp Toccoa.

Toccoa, that's what it is, yeah. Sorry. We're all tired. We are tired and frazzled. There's been a lot going on lately, but anyway. Yeah.

So the camp is coming up November 20th through 23rd. The topic for this week's show is God's myths. Not God's myths, not that he has myths. What's the myths about God that we believe to be true?

And honestly, it's things that are spread quite often by Christians. And so I'm one of those people that actually like TikTok. I know there's a lot of people who feel differently about TikTok, but I like it. Once you get the algorithm down to things that you like, I get a lot of stuff about God. I get a lot of different things, sports things that I like.

It's pretty much down to the taste that I have, history, that type of thing. And so I get a lot of feeds about God. And I listened to this one and it really struck a chord to me. I wish I could give the person who recorded this credit, but they just had a username and didn't have their name. So I don't know what the real name was. But I'm going to go ahead and play it and come back and talk about why this is a myth, which he'll lay it out pretty well, but what is the problem with having these myths when we believe them or perpetuate them?

So here we go. I think oftentimes we get confused with the idea of it's all a part of God's plan versus God's got a plan for it all. Those are two different perspectives and lenses because if it's all a part of God's plan, it's really hard in our humanness to then justify the suffering, to make sense of the tragedy, to deal and navigate with the pain, with the uncertainty, with the fear, with the brokenness of the world that we exist in. Because if it was all a part of God's plan and God's all loving, all powerful, all knowing, why didn't he step in and intervene? Why didn't he stop me from having to live through this?

I think those are a lot of questions you or I may have asked ourselves in conversations we might've tried to have with God. The reframe is God has a plan for it all. God has a plan to use your suffering. God has a plan to use your pain. God has a plan to use the scars that fill our canvases of our hearts and our minds and our body and our spirits to then be able to meet other people in their own brokenness and their scars and say, I see you no matter what you're navigating right now in the season of your life, no matter where you presently find yourself or what feelings you're dealing with.

Maybe you're not feeling at all. I've been there too. I need you to hear this truth today. God has a plan for it all. And right now you might not be able to really see or understand that plan and it's okay. You will be okay.

You are safe. You are worthy of the good plans that are coming your way and the good plans that are in action right now that you just can't quite fully understand or see. And I need you to rest easy in your mind and your body and your spirit to know that this is true for you and for me.

So to me that was just very eye-opening. I've thought along these lines for quite a while, you know, that things that happen in life obviously aren't God's will, right? It is child trafficking God's will. You know, I don't think anyone would agree that that's God's will. I don't think that anyone would agree that sexual abuse is God's will, right?

That's not something he said, oh, I want this to happen to Sam when he's this age or I want this to happen to Joe or Al or Susie or whatever the name is at this age. I don't think that's part of God's plan. So how does it occur if it's not God's will? Anyone want to try to answer that a little bit, how that occurs if it's not part of God's will?

Harold, do you want to say something? We live in a fallen world. That's part of it, yeah. It started out perfect, but the devil exists and he wants bad. So he makes good be bad. But that's not God's will. And we don't need to forget the fact that God suffers too. If you think back before the flood, it grieved God that he had made man and he destroyed everybody except Noah and his family. Scripture says that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

God loved the world enough that he sent Jesus here to suffer and die so that we could have hope beyond this life. So we have a perfect life ahead of us if we so choose, but we're not going to have it here. Yeah, I would agree with that heavily, Harold.

I think that's very well said. You just come to a point where you have God who knows everything, sees everything, knows what's happening. He's got your life laid out.

You don't know this. So you're just living and you're seeing things. But he says, no, here's where things are going to happen well for you or they're going to go bad for you. And this is what you're going to do.

This is what you're not going to do. If I would have known what I know now before I became a Christian, I just look back at all the things that I just wouldn't have done. But I didn't know and I just did stupid things as a normal stupid human does, but he has saved me through that. And I'm like, okay, very thankful, but yes, we still live in a sin-cursed world.

It's just a part of reality. Darrell Bock Yeah, and God ultimately chose to give mankind free will. And as we've said many times on this show, and if you're just listening for your second week, you probably haven't heard us say it before, but we want free will for ourselves. We want God to control everybody else and give judgment on them. We don't want them to have free will because it impacts us. But most of what happens to us that's horrific is because somebody living out what's within their free will to do. It's not God's desire for them to do that.

It's not God's will for them to do that. But I love the way that the person who did the TikTok said, God has a plan for it all. Meaning if we give that to him, if we let him work in that, he can make things come good from the horrible.

He says in that segment where he says, it helps us to meet people in their brokenness. When God works on our healing through what happened to us, it puts us in a position to help others work their way through it. God utilizes that past in a positive way. Again, not that he ordained that it would happen, not that he wanted it to happen, but he's not going to let our suffering and our pain go to waste. You know, gentlemen, you have to be excited the way God kind of forms you once you give yourself and you know, start to trust him. And you know, the levels of God's trust takes us very low, you know, very low in an area to actually build us even to be better men to do the work that he has designed us to do. I wish that we could choose our level of lowness with God, but that's not up to us. You know, it's up to him.

And are we going to be built to take this test? You know, are we going to be able to walk through these areas that we wish we never had to? You know, I mean, in the weirdest way, I kind of appreciate the darkness when God leads us and guides us through. I can appreciate it.

Do I like it all the time? No, but I do appreciate it because I know what it makes us. It makes me love men who don't look like me.

You know, it makes me grab to what God really designed me to do. Yeah. And when you look at Robby, who's not here, you look at what's happened in his life and you look through the things you're like, Oh, he was dead.

Oh, he's going to die. He's got all this suffering stuff that's happened to him, but he's come through it very, very strong. You look at those things, you look at what is revealed to him, it's just a beautiful, beautiful picture.

Yeah. And whenever you tie scripture to it, you think – I always go back to the story of Joseph. You know, it wasn't the God that he ended up getting thrown in the pit and ended up in Egypt in slavery.

But it said, at the end of the story, Joseph was very clear to tell his brothers what the devil meant for bad or what the enemy meant for bad. God meant for good. And, you know, we all know Romans 8.28, for all things work to the good.

I'm sorry. It's easy for you to say. For those who are called according to his purpose. It's hard to put it all together, but when we know the enemy means something bad for us, God has a plan. There's a counter plan to everything that the enemy is trying to do. Yeah. And it's dangerous.

And we hear Christians say it, well-meaning Christians. Go to masculinejourney.org to get more information on us or to register for the upcoming boot camp, November 20th through 23rd. What we have in our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and 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.

I listened to a Morgan Snyder's book, Driving to Work last year, and that was a very profound experience. So this kind of culminated into it. I'd have been invited to it several times and just, it never worked out. And God really had it set up that I came last time.

So coming into this one, I knew this one went deeper and I really wanted it. It's a break for me to get outside of things I've got going on. And I just needed a break from it and needed to reconnect. And it's been absolutely that, this process. The covenant of silence, silent prayer, those are some of my favorite parts that this is real connection with the Lord.

You can hear him speak. You can get direction, guidance, anything you're missing is there. You always learn something new. It's fun experiencing it with other men. It's fun standing for them and what they're going through. We're all different and unique. We're all going through the same struggles.

And when you hear somebody else went through it too, it kind of gives you an encouragement that, hey, you can make it through this and God's got you and he's going to hold you up to it and he's going to carry you to the next level. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see. I want to see. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart.

I want to see. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. And I'll probably say his name wrong. I think it's Paul Balochi. It's B-A-L-O-C-H-E. So I don't know if it's how you pronounce the last name.

It didn't come with a pronunciation, so I'm not really sure. But that one takes me back to my first boot camp. That was actually one of the songs they played at the first boot camp that really impacted me. That needs to be my prayer more often. God, just open the eyes of my heart. I need to see you. I need to see you in the middle of whatever situation I'm in right now. Whatever I feel like I'm going through that the enemy's got me twisted and turned on. God, just open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I need to see you. And so I think that's what we're really talking about today is moving past these myths that seem very helpful on the surface.

They seem like a nice thing to say, but actually push us away from God. You know, when we do our After Hours segment, if you're not familiar with what After Hours is, it's another podcast we do, but it's not on the air. And so you can go to any of the podcast locations and listen to Masculine Journey After Hours, and we continue the topic of the week and go a little bit deeper, go into a longer run on it because we have another half hour to talk about it. Danny, what about this topic kind of intrigues you? It didn't intrigue me at all when I read it, to be honest. It stung pretty bad because you used two examples of myths in the first one.

I don't even know that I looked at the second one until the second time I read it because I'm like, ouch. Because it's something I say all the time, or said all the time. And it made me look at things differently because when you're confronted with truth, you have to do something with it. The thing you put out there was, God won't put on you more than you can handle. And I bet I've said that in the last two weeks to more than one person. And it stung. And I thought, hmm.

But I've learned enough to know when the check engine light comes on, raise the hood. It's one of the things we say around here sometimes. Because one of my life verses is, his divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. And I would almost interpret that as, he won't give you any more than you can handle because he's equipped you to handle it. But what it challenged me with was, and one of the reasons I chose the clip I did, was you made the point and I had to trace it down a little bit and go, yeah, if I could handle it though, I don't need him. And that's true. And kind of what I went into a different realm of thinking is, well, he puts more on us than you said it for a pre-show.

He won't put anything more on us that he can handle. And he has put people in place to help us through things. And like the clip you played earlier, that he has put people in place to, because Lord knows him, we were kind of chuckling because there were a room full of people who've been blindsided by diagnoses and things in life.

And me being one of them. Because two months ago, life got real, really fast. When a doctor says, you've got cancer and it's aggressive and here's what we're going to do and that kind of thing. And you're like, wow, what's going on? And I realized right then I wasn't in control because 30 minutes before that, career life, house, all the staples. And then all of a sudden you're like, none of that really matters at the moment.

How do I survive this? And so, and you know, it was in a prayer thing with some friends who got together and wanted to pray over us in agony before surgery. And I saw God's hands cut together and what he told me, and I immediately thought of this when you, when I read your topic that he says, I've got you and I've got this, but don't look through my fingers.

And there was nothing in that that says, Danny, you're in control of this or Danny, you've got this. He said, I've got this and I've got you. And then I had a friend send me things as he trusts you with this, which changed my whole perspective and really gnaws away at this myth.

I think that I need to learn to lean on him. And the further along I go in this journey, not just this cancer journey, but in this, you know, facing another surgery next week is leaning on him. Lord, I don't know what's going to happen. And lady, I was at the pre-op thing the other day.

She says, how was your last surgery? I said, I don't know. I slept through it. But, and it was just, you know, but you don't know what's going to happen. You don't have a clue what's going to happen.

So, you know, and, but we live in the illusion that we're in control. And this clip is from days of thunder. If you hadn't never seen it, I don't know where you're being, but having an accent like this and living where I live, you know, NASCAR fan naturally. And, but you know, this is days of thunder and with Tom cruise, where he plays the young cocky guy, Cole trickle, Cole trickle. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, this is an interchange between him and his doctor who's Nicole Kidman. And they've had some, some exchanges and he's told her, he liked to control something that was out of control. And what you're going to hear is a car chase with a taxi cab driver is what you go, all the racing. And they're not in a race car. They're out on the street with a rental car and he's beating against a taxi. And she's telling him to get out, let me out of the car, let me out of the car. But what she tells him when they finally stop is as much truth as anybody could share. And I cut out some of the parts where she gets a little rougher than you, what you'll hear, but you know, she sets him straight about control. So we can play it and talk about it on the other side.

I just forgot about that. Let me out of the car, Cole. Let me out of the car. Let me out of the car. Let me out of the car. Let me out or I'm getting out. Hey, hey, hey!

Claire? Wait, just wait. Get away or I'll call the police. What?

You'll hurt me. Okay, call the police. But I'm not leaving until you talk to me. I've got nothing to say. Well, I do! Okay, great. Let's hear it.

That's it. Fine. Just come on. You shouldn't be driving a car anywhere, not on a road, not on a racetrack, and not in a parking lot. You are selfish, you're crazy, and you're scared. I'm not scared. You are scared to death. You and Rowdy, you have the same sickness. It's called denial and it is probably going to kill you both. You want to control something that's out of control.

That's what you said to me, wasn't it? Well, I'm going to let you win our little secret that almost everybody else in this world automatically knows. Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's going to happen next. Not on a freeway, not on an airplane, not inside our own bodies, and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs.

Nobody knows and nobody controls anything. Now, you've gotten a glimpse of that and you're scared. You might not have the courage to race anymore. You may never have had it. Yeah, that was not pleasant. No, but needed.

Not needed, yeah. She shared some unadulterated truth with him that you're not in control of anything. That's the reality of life. It's the fact that God says, hey, you need me. That's the whole point of the gospel.

Harold said it so well. Some people never come to Christ because they don't see the need for it. You're broken and you're shattered. As Terry said, you're down in that darkness. You figure out you need something other than what you got. You've been there too many times in my life, but now I wouldn't even say that correctly because I've been down there just as many times as I needed to be to recognize I need him because I'm not in control of anything.

Just buckle up and enjoy the ride is more like it, I think. Thank you. So Andy, why do you think the enemy wants to perpetuate these things? Where is his win in this whole thing of it's all in God's will or God won't give you more than you can handle? What's the enemy trying to get at?

What's he trying to accomplish? I mean to get people to believe something that's not true. He's a liar and he's been a liar from the beginning. And the myth is another word of saying a lie.

A partial truth is still a lie essentially. And I was thinking you think about when the three temptations of Christ when the enemy did that, the devil. I mean all those things were based on scripture but there was his twist on them. Some of these quotes that we have taken in the right vein or maybe the right mindset, maybe not necessarily be a myth, but most of the time they're believed incorrectly of what really the point is. And it's just a matter of these myths keep us in darkness. Yeah, they drive us away from God. They get us to question the heart of God, get us to question our role, that we control something like Danny was saying. So yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Jim? I think the biggest issue is we think at times that we understand God and we can't. He's beyond our understanding. But the issue comes when we have something that, gee, this sounds like God. But as you put it Andy, it's a twist on the truth but it's not the truth. And one of the things I love that I heard first from Henry Blackaby, well a couple of things actually, but one of them was if you think you know what God wants you to do and you know how to accomplish it, you don't. God tells us to do impossible things so that he'll get the glory. And the other one I already forgot because I'm old and senile but it may come back to me. It will at some point.

It'll look better. Get on him Sam for making that agreement there. Well, sometimes there's a shred of truth in them. It's a myth. It's a partial myth, yeah. Well I'm two years shy of the expected age of death actuarially. Okay, well that's good to think of.

Actuarially. Yeah, don't think of that Jim. I'm not. We'll just keep doing it.

My wife is but I'm not. Yeah, the enemy's goal every time is divide us from the Father. In any way he can, any chance he can, he's going to do that. If he needs to do it aggressively, he can do it subtly. He's going to keep doing it.

That's always his goal to take us away from the life saver that we have in God, that life preserver that we need. Anyway, it's been good talking to you this week. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp November 20th through 23rd. If you listen to, go to any place and listen to us on any podcast location. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.