This is the Truth Network. 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 to have you with us this week. And we have a rare treat. We have... We do. Yeah, we do. We have Harold's topic and the clip, the first clip.
I mean, I don't think we've ever had both of those, maybe one other time. Wow. Nice. Nice.
Yeah. Harold's stepping it up. He is. He's making us look bad, man. He's doing a great job with it.
It's an old dog learning a new trick. There you go. Well, you learned it well. You have a great topic this week, and we're excited for us to talk about it and delve into it, because knowing you guys and knowing some of your story, I know you've all struggled with it. I know I really still struggle with it from time to time, and I'm sure most of the listeners out there struggle with it.
Struggle with what? I don't know. Harold's going to tell us. I was just trying to build up the anticipation, which wasn't working very well, but...
It was. Okay. So, Harold, what are we waiting for you to tell us about? The illusion of control. Control. Control. And I took the liberty of going out on the Google thing, and I got a thing that was generated by AI that says, the illusion of control is a psychological phenomenon where individuals believe they have more influence over outcomes than they actually do.
Even in situations that are entirely random or uncontrollable, this bias can lead to various behaviors, including superstition, gambling, and overestimation of success and investments. Now, also, there are biblical references to it. Proverbs 16, 9 says, in their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. And Proverbs 19, 21, many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. Jeremiah 10, 23, I know, O God, that man's ways are not of his own choosing, nor is it for a man to determine his course in life. All right.
I was going to add, you know, the gospel of John Lennon, you know, 10, 20. You missed Robby stealing Harold's bike. Oh, it was on the video.
You have to watch the video. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Like, you had other things you were going to say, Harold, but, you know, obviously, he was making plans not long ago about having a beard this morning and this afternoon, but Jan had plans of giving him a haircut, and next thing you know, out of control. He is. Yeah, I'm just a slick-faced old man now. Yeah. Robby, you're fortunate that I didn't bite your hand, but you stuck it over here in my face. Next time.
Yeah. That's a warning shot right there. Well, one of the things that this particular topic really resonated with me is because I grew up in a situation with my father having a drinking problem, and fortunately, he was not abusive to us, but I suffered a lot of shame and experienced a lot of the things you'd read about as an adult child of an alcoholic family, and I thought I was in control. My ambition for years was, my plan was to be a fighter pilot in the Navy, and as it turned out, I did pass the written exam for aviation officer candidate school while I was a student at Auburn, but it turned out that my wife's brother ate at the boarding house where I was working, and he tricked me into a blind date with his sister. Six weeks later, I'm asking that girl to be my wife. June the 6th, we will celebrate 61 years of being married.
Very nice. So I always thought it was you weren't as tall as Uncle Sam's arm, so you couldn't do it in the Navy. They like shorter people flying. Yeah, I thought you were married on D-Day. What's that like?
Storming the beaches, buddy. That's how I say it. Easy to remember. But yeah, I was not nearly as much in control as I thought I was. It got reinforced because my career after school was as a computer programmer and systems analyst, and that computer did exactly what I told it to, so I felt like I was in complete control, and that reinforced my desire to make the highway be under my control.
So there were a lot of areas of my life that I had the illusion of control when, in fact, I had no control whatsoever. Yeah, absolutely. If we sound a little bit more jovial than normal, it's for two reasons, really. We've got our friend Danny, who couldn't be with us tonight, on the phone, and so that's nice to have you. So welcome, Danny. Glad to have you with us. It's good to be with you guys. And then the other reason is Andy isn't here. Yeah! We're all the good friends.
So that was just for you, Andy, when you do listen to this when it comes back. He's with his other friends. That's right. He had a prior commitment with his other friends. You're saying other, I think, is just his friends. Yeah.
We're not his friends. Yeah. Well, welcome, Danny.
We're sad that you can't be with us, but glad that we got you on the phone, so it's glad to have you with us here. Yeah, it's good to be able to do this. Modern technology is amazing. Yeah. The telephone is only, what, like 100 and some years old, so – Exactly. It's like brand new. I'm watching you.
I'm watching you live, too. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.
That's not always such a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. But, well, Harold – I had to put on my 3D glasses, so – Yeah.
2D is bad enough. Trust me. Harold, you have the first clip. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it? Well, it's about Yogi Bear, and he thinks he's in control because he made a promise to Mr. Ranger about the sweets and the treats, but he sees people having a picnic, and he loses control. Yeah, and he talks it to Boo-Boo, and they're handcuffing him to a tree, right?
Yeah. He sees – he's going to go down and get some, and Boo-Boo tries to stop him, and so Yogi says, handcuff me to the tree and don't turn me loose regardless of what I say. Immediately he says, okay, bad decision, turn me loose, and it goes on from there.
He pulls the tree down, and it's a small tree. And he is here. He just told the whole club. Oh, no, I wanted him to. Yeah.
But it did sound like Andy. It helps to understand it. Because you don't know the tree's going to come. Yeah. You don't know the tree's going to come. Yeah. Here we go.
We're just going to play it now. I can't take it, Boo-Boo. Two days without a tasty treat to eat, and I have to sit up here while they're having a happy birthday jellystone party. And they have donuts. Donuts!
Donuts! Yogi, what are you doing? Yogi.
I'm going. Hey. Wait.
Wait. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Yogi. Wait. Don't do it, Yogi. You promised Mr. Ranger.
You're right. I'm losing control, Boo-Boo. I don't know who's steering the ship. Here. I want you to handcuff me to this tree, and not unlock it no matter what I say. Okay, Yogi. Okay. Unlock me. Huh?
It was a bad idea. Unlock me. Hey.
Unlock! So Harold, do you have a point you want to make with that clip? That's a great clip. Yeah, the point is that we think we're in control, I don't have to have sweets, and then I'm sitting there watching the boob tube and the refrigerator freezer calls and says, Harold, ice cream is here. Harold, you want to come get some of me? And I get up and go get the ice cream after having told myself, no, not tonight. It's hard to maintain control. And once you're talking to Jan saying, go get him some more ice cream, because you've got to have it in the freezer there.
I want to make sure I have it so that when it calls, I go running to it. And food's always there. Oh, yeah. When you played that clip, I liked when you said, I'm out of control, I don't know who's driving the ship. And I think what's important about that is when we think we're in control, we think we know who's driving the ship, but we're really not. It's typically the enemy that's pushing us in the direction to grasp for that control. Go get some more.
Yeah, to struggle for it. I can't help but picture that, really, when you think about it, Harold's kind of boo-boo, and Jim is – when it comes to food, hey, boo-boo. I think I do have the same refrigerator he has, because when there's ice cream there, it's hollering at me. Oh, yeah. That's the same food. But I would have to say that Harold is certainly smarter than the average bear.
And I have to admit that Yogi was just as good as the guy in the clip, because that is the worst Yogi I've ever heard – not yours, Robby, his. Yours is at least second. So we have a few minutes before we go to break. Art, would you like to share anything with us on this topic of control? Well, I do.
A little joke that I put on my Facebook one time came to mind. It says – it's a graph, and it says, what gives people feelings of power? Now, power and control are related. They aren't exactly the same thing.
I'll read what I found about that. Let's see, power is the capacity to influence, and control is the application of that power. So, you know, Jim might have to put that in words, I can understand, but they're almost the same thing. Those were easy. One's – yeah, okay.
Okay, but – Easy for Jim. Okay, but anyway, in this bar graph, the first item is money, and it is a little small – Yeah. Rectangle there. It's fairly small, and it says status, and it goes almost twice as much as money, and the third one is calling your cows, and they actually come, and it's about four times as big as money. So that is real power and control to – that's a little farm joke. Yeah. It's a farm joke.
I mean, you know – That's killed them into mind. Yeah, and then – yeah, and then below the chart – I have a picture of my cows. They're all standing at the gate, like maybe I called them up there.
I think they're just hungry or something, but I was pretending like I'd called my cows, and they came, and I have a lot of power there. Yeah, you do. Yeah, hats. Yeah. So that gives you plenty to think about as we go into break, is what's it like when you call your cows?
Yeah. No, thank you, Ari. We appreciate that. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp. If you're in the Greenville Spartan Burg area, it's right down by you guys. It's right down the road. Come see us. Come join us. November 20th through 23rd, if coming there is going to be a financial strain for you, reach out to us. We'll help you get there.
Talk to 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 Rob. 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 is just, it's 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. Yes, that was only 30 seconds, believe it or not. That was the longest short clip we've ever had. Yeah, you know, the thing was I really didn't want to play that, but Jim really forced me. He's bigger than me physically, and he said, we've got to have some Janet Jackson in this thing.
And so, you know, we just went with it, you know, because Jim's the biggest around. Yeah. Actually, though, it was my problem. I did learn that Janet is the younger sister, so there was a positive outcome.
And when did you learn that? In the table, right? Yeah. Exactly.
Literally about 30 minutes ago. Right. Yeah. The reason – I don't really care for the song, but the song really is all about this desire to, regardless of what's going to happen, I'm going to be in control, right? Regardless of what life throws at me, regardless of what other people throw at me, I am going to be in control of my life. And she just sings that throughout the song in different verses, but the chorus is always this – Control said several times, right? And so you think of that and you go, well, that's really kind of a silly song, which it kind of is, but, you know, that was from the 80s, and it was probably pretty popular back then.
I don't really remember it. But what it does remind me of is how much we fight to be in control, right? We can say that that sounds very silly, but what do we do in practice? And I can't speak for anyone else but me. There are still too many times my first response is to try to control whatever that situation is, whether it's finances, whether it's another person, you know, whether it's – whatever that is, it's – I fight this desire to have some type of control, because I think part of that is, is being a man, you feel like you've got to fix things, right? And if I can fix it, then I'm really in control, right, and it gives me affirmation. But in reality, as Harold pointed out really well before the break, we're never really in control anyway. It's just an illusion, and that's what we're talking about today.
I've been finding that I've been going to that – oh, let me fix this – with my wife, who's struggling with having had shoulder surgery and struggling with getting older. And not having any control, I've recognized for decades – I mean, one of the most peaceful things that ever happened was when I surrendered control to God, but I keep trying to wrestle it back when there's something that, oh, I can do this, I don't need you, and there are none of those. Darrell Bock Yeah, and we went through some of the things that are falsely thought of, you know, of God, you know, God helps those who help himself.
That was one of them. Darrell Bock Not in the Bible, folks. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's not in the Bible.
It sounds scriptural, but it's not, right? And so it takes us away from God, it takes the focus away from him and to us, but we battle it. At least I do, and I know a lot of you guys do, because we've talked about it, right? That's something we do. Danny, what do you think about that? Danny Yeah, the last few topics have been right in my living room and opened up a few closets. And you know, when we did that thing you just mentioned, you know, God won't put more on you than you can handle, I've used for years, you know, we talked about that a few weeks ago.
And I thought about that, I thought, you know what, there is some fallacy there. But you know, this topic, when it was thrown out by Harold or Jim by way of Harold or however it came about, you know, this is my life right now. And it's just, you know, an incredible journey, but one that is, you think you're in control of your life. You know, three months ago, I thought I was in full control. And you know, just thought maybe go to the doctor for a little bit of pain, and get 10 days of steroids, and we'd be on our way.
But here we are starting chemo, you know, today, actually. And so that, you know, that made me think a lot about this topic, and that, you know, what, because I am absolutely positively in control of nothing. I am not in control of lots of different things, and so it is truly an illusion. But we serve a God who is in full control. Darrell Bock Yes, and that's what's great, is when you're that attached to the one who gives you all that power, and you're attached to him, and you know where he's coming from, and you know where he's wanting to take you, and you can sit in there with him through something as bad as what you're going through, and go, okay, it's okay.
That's a lot of faith. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. Brought to mind the popular bumper sticker 40-ish years ago, God is my co-pilot. And I've heard more than a few old preachers say, you're in the wrong seat. You may not, if you're not paying attention, you may not even be in the same car, but you're definitely not the pilot.
Darrell Bock Right. And definitely, you know, God knows how to merge, right, Harold? Anyway, Danny, you have the next clip.
Do you want to go ahead and set it up? Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I'll set it up a little bit, from the first clip, and you know, we always run the disclaimer, we know it's a movie clip, but in this interchange, he surrenders, they handcuff him, and this is Superman. And, you know, he, they walk him down the hallway, he's in an interrogation room, talking to Lois Lane in the scene, and they're having a conversation, then leads into a conversation with the men behind the glass. And basically, I won't give it all away, but he basically, Superman shatters, they're losing a control, and it's just beautifully done, and we talk about it afterwards. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's just beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done, and it's beautifully done. Yeah, it's such a, um, there's so much in that clip that is applicable to so many things, you know, in the scene, he stands up, when he says, let's put all our cards on the table, he just stands up and snaps those handcuffs, you know, he's Superman, like nothing, and he shatters their illusion of control. And to me, that's so much like Jesus, because sometimes he has to shatter our illusions of control, and, you know, not to just, you know, talk solely about this journey, but, we went from, I thought I had a hernia around my belly button, to, oh, you've got a mass on your appendix, we can do a surgery, we can take the tumor out, and we thought that would be over with, I can see the end result, and then it's, oh, we're going to have to do another surgery and do a resection, and that didn't go well, they closed me back up, they couldn't do it, because of some more cancer cells that are, I won't go into all those details, and so then they said, we've got to get you to chemotherapy, and now we're looking at, we're going to talk to a third surgeon in the last three months, so where we thought we were in control, and I thought, hey, they'll take my appendix out, they'll get this tumor out, I'll go to boot camp with you guys, boy, that went away quick, and different things have gone away so quick, and, you know, but, in all that, I say all that not for sympathy's sake, but I say all that to say that what has happened is, the little god winks, and the moments where he just wraps you in his arms, is amazing, he uh, sorry guys, he is absolutely amazing, and he is literally, took me into his hands, and I know that, and so yeah, control is an illusion, I don't know what this chemo is going to do, they don't know what it's going to do, and when you realize humanity has very little control over anything, because cancer is a formidable foe, but I got socks on today that says, my god is greater than my cancer.
Darrell Bock Yep, absolutely. Well Danny, I can understand how you'd be emotional with everything that's going on right now, and, you know, the outpouring of love is pretty amazing, just to hear you share what people are feeling called to do, just on your behalf, to pray over you, to pray with you, to check on you, and all the things that they're doing, and it's a direct reflection of how well you've loved them, you know, and you're just seeing it come back at you. I was sharing that with my mother-in-law today, she was up visiting, and I want to read a scripture. Romans 8, 24 starts with, it says, For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray or how we ought to, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for us, and you know, I have seen that manifest over the last three months. I've literally had guys show up at my house, one of them sitting there, I can see him on camera, to anoint me and pray over me. And their prayers were as spot-on as anything, and one of the guys didn't even know the story. And you know, I had shared some of the story, and then, you know, they call me and pray with me over the phone, you guys pray continually or send me a scripture, and it's spot-on.
So it's just an amazing thing to see God work. Darrell Bock Yeah, I feel bad, I only send you stupid jokes, do you? That makes me laugh, man. Darrell Bock Okay, well, that must not be deep enough to be your friend, you know, I just don't really send you the scripture.
I need to look into that. I need to step up my game a little bit, my friend. Darrell Bock You have to agree, but you did this morning, thank you very much. Darrell Bock Oh, that's true, I did send you one this morning. But Danny, thank you, we look forward to talking to you in the next show, if you can hang out with us for the next one. But go to maskoandjourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp, November 20th through 23rd, maskoandjourney.org. Let God work on your heart this weekend, lean into him and love on others well, we'll talk with you next week.
