This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.
So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are glad that you're with us today, and I know I say that every week, and I'm going to continue to say that every week. Have you ever said anything different?
I don't think I know what else to say. I think it's the only way I know how to open the show, Andy. The only way we get a switch up is to put Danny in there. Danny or Robby, and who knows or Robby? But I think they kind of repeat.
It's called love. Yeah, it's called love. It's not like you're going to come on and say, We're so disappointed in drop. Why are you listening to us today? I'm so sorry.
Aren't you anything better to do today? Let's just assault the listeners. That'd be the way to go with it. But no, we are glad that you're listening today. We're glad you're taking time out to just listen to anything that God has on our hearts.
And so we thank you for that. And today we are talking about the topic of intimacy. And the way we got to that topic was I got engaged last week. That's a good start. Yeah, and it requires some intimacy there.
But we're talking beyond that. That's where the topic started from, and it's an amazing thing for me. And talked about that at the last show. But the intimacy that made that possible. for me was intimacy with God.
When I was vulnerable and I was authentic with God, which is always silly anyway, because God knows it already, you know, we just got to let down our guard and let Him. Say, okay, I'm going to let you in on this. And when we do that, then the power is all in his hands to do the things that need to be done so that you can be in a place to have the more abundant life that Jesus promised. But we do have to accept it and live it. Yeah, you know, we have to walk with him through it and accept it.
And, you know, and that's what we have to do. And so, you know, the good things that happened in my life, you know, primarily when I look back is because God's hand was there and I let him in and let him lead. You know, and I didn't try to lead those things. And so we're going to be talking about that type of intimacy with God today some more. We're going to be talking about intimacy with other people.
And one of the things I wanted to ask you: do you guys remember the last thing that Jesus told us before he left the earth? What was his command to us? Love one another. Love one another, right? It's about intimacy.
Intimacy is everything. What was it in the Garden of Eden when it was about intimacy? Right? When Eve is created out of Adam, it's about intimacy. It's relational.
This whole rela thing with God is relational. This whole thing with other people is relational. And the only way you really get to deeper and deeper relational areas is with through intimacy and being vulnerable. And that whole point of what happened Yeah. you know, in the garden.
There was where the breakdown was. Intimacy was broken at that point. Not only for it was broken between God and man, but it was also broken. Broken between man and woman, or man and man. I mean, that's where all the brokenness came in.
And I think we know that. But when you try to link it back to where was the first intimacy established, it was Adam and God.
Well, prior to that, the original intimacy was.
Well, that was the Trinity, right? Yeah, the Trinity, right? In John 1:1, when it talks about before mankind was around. Right. And that's never been discontinued.
Praise God. Right, yeah. Even when Jesus was here on earth, there was still the connection that just looked a little different for us. John 14 is a beautiful picture of that. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And so our whole relationship with God is based and meant to be intimate. And the more we can step into that, the more authentic and vulnerable we can be, the more good things he has for us. And I'm not talking about wealth. I mean, that may happen, it may not happen.
I'm talking about healing and restoration and things that do your heart good. Right, getting parts of your heart back, you know, that's what we're talking about, and so um, and it happens in relationships too when we invite God into those relationships, right? Right, and so, Andy, you have the uh, the first clip of this. Uh, we have all the clips this time, but uh, what's your first clip? Um, it's for um, because of Winn-Dixie, it's about a girl who finds a dog.
We're back to dogs again, yeah, we're back to dogs. Uh, shout out to art there, but uh, to find a new topic on this one day, but uh. This girl is moved to a new town, her and her dad. Dad got a new pastorate, and he sends her to the grocery store. And she finds this dog who's tearing up stuff and all kinds of stuff.
And she adopts him essentially on the fly. And they're like, Okay, if he's yours, what's his name? And she said, Winn-Dixie, and that's the whole name of the movie. Because of Winn Dixie, the dog is like an evangelist in this movie. He's bringing people together all over the place.
But with that said, this girl has a precious heart, and she's hurting. Her dad is. her his uh her mom left her dad. She's been dealing with that, her dad's just trying to get through life and they're just um they're stuck a little bit and then the dog gets lost and they can't the girl's crying out for intimacy With her dad. And When the dog gets lost, then the dad's like, Okay, it's raining, let's get out of here.
I'm telling you the whole clip, but but essentially, you can see the brokenness in the relationship at that time and then how the father goes after the daughter's heart, Even though she's kind of exposing him on some actions that he's had. And, you know, it's just kind of. There's some of this that I can identify with in the relationship with my daughter, and I'll talk about that more when we get back.
Alright, here we go. Hopeful, you're getting tired. We need to head back. But Daddy, he's out there. We can't leave him.
Well, there's only so much looking we can do. You're gonna give up. Oh, Bull. Give up on everything. That's not true.
It is true. All you do is give up. Just pull your head back inside your stupid turtle shell and give up. You won't talk. You won't go to parties.
And don't don't believe losing Wind Dixie. Isn't gonna upset me as much as it does you. I love that dog. Good night, sir. Daddy, But I'm not ready to let one Dixie go.
Well, we'll keep on looking. Opal. Do you remember when I told you that your mama took everything with her when she left? Yes, sir.
Well, there's one very important thing she left behind. What? You. Thank God your mama left me you.
So I had to chop that clip up pretty bad, but You can see how it progresses there. And there's intimacy that comes in on that. And it gets better. They have a party, I believe, after that, or that's during the party where. Winn Dixie and this girl have brought everybody together in intimacy.
I mean, it's a picture of intimacy if you watch the movie at the end. But. You know, the dog and the girl rub off on dad, too. And the dad, you know, you could he hated the dog at one time. He says he loves the dog there.
It's funny how God will use animals to break you down. I currently have two cats that I didn't ask for either one of them. One of them is my daughter's who can't live with her, and the other one is my mom's cat, and she passed away. And I'm not a cat person, but I am now. They've adopted me.
Got married to a cat? Yeah. And I don't want to speak the intimacy word. I'm talking about the cats, but they're my buddies right now. And it's funny how you adjust because I came from a family of men who.
Uh We're fond of cats. But, you know, God, just God brings things through in your life that you don't expect. And And in doing so, It exposes you. to the point we were talking about intimacy and how it all came through the fall. is that when we begin to get real and take the fig leaf off, we talked about it many times about posing, when you do that, you open yourself up to intimacy.
But it takes a certain humility to do that. And it takes us um It takes somebody to reciprocate on the other side. But usually, if you move to somebody with a good heart and honest, and honest about your mistakes of the past. it will disable anything that they had and it will bring intimacy ma a majority of the time. Even if you don't, there are times God tells you to do it, people don't reciprocate.
It doesn't matter. You obeyed. That's he's the the uh The results are really up to him. Yeah, he owes the outcome, but you own the obedience. But.
You know, my daughter, she lived with me for a while, and there was a I'd always been close to her, but I probably had never been able to really converse with her at the deep level. I can remember some good conversations, but from a hole from a whole, when she lived with me when she was in college, there was a lot of breakdowns. Even her mom would tell me about. What she was feeling, and I had to press into God during that time, and it was a struggle for me. And I think she was going through some stuff some tough stuff at the time.
But really, I know that I made a heart change. And I made a heart change in a conscious way, only because of God, that truly brought intimacy to the point where I was proud of this. Throw it out there to the guys. My daughter's 26 with a roommate. They went to the beach.
They asked me to come down for her birthday. I mean, not everybody does that. I mean, it does.
Some parents have that kind of close relationship, but we do. And then to this, you know, I was down there and just. I felt like I she'd been wanting to surf, and I felt like I should give her some money for a surfboard, and she'd been praying for that.
So, you know, those kinds of things, there's intimacy, you hear what they want, and I've always been a good fairly good provider and stuff, but You know, I don't know. We're just at a different place than we were, and I praise God, and it wouldn't be possible without Him, I don't believe. Yeah, I I think that something that happens And I've seen this with my boys, with all my kids, honestly, with with all of them. But when I went through the divorce, And it was a new season. The boys had never been around divorce.
I mean, it was their mother that I was married to. And so I had to pray a lot. And God, how do I love them during this season? And He gave me some really good things that are still traditions with us today. The annual trips that we take each year.
You know, that's become a big part of our life as they're both adults now that we look forward to these trips where we make memories together. That's intimacy. It's intimacy. And, you know, at times when the boys have come to boot camp and they haven't always come because they wanted to or because I wanted them there at the time. I've always wanted them to be at boot camp.
Don't hear that wrong. What I'm saying is it wasn't what I thought was the right time and they were there and I was being led to talk about something that I didn't know that they had the ears to hear. Right? But I knew God was telling me to talk about this thing because he'd been working on my heart. And obviously he wanted one son there, this.
Time, another son there, this time, some a couple times both there together. But each time I own the obedience and he owned the outcome, and the net result of that was deeper intimacy with me and the Heavenly Father, but deeper intimacy with me and my sons. Right, because they heard me talk of truth and talk of vulnerability and talk of things. That God worked on their heart to where they could bring topics to me of times when I wasn't a great dad. And we could talk through those times in a way that they felt safe.
Right? And we have just deep, deep relationships now. And that's all to God. You know, me being vulnerable and leaning into Him and being intimate with Him and Him responding by giving me things that my heart really desperately needed. And it's happened that with my daughters.
And it's been really cool to see that happen. You know, that God's the ultimate gift giver. He is. Right. And you can't out give God.
Amen. But uh any anybody else have something they'd like to add before we get to Andy's next clip? Jamal, anything on your heart?
Well, okay, all right, since you called me out. Yeah, I'm going to.
Okay, no problem.
Well, since we're being real here, I'll follow suit. My father and I didn't have the best relationship when I was younger, and he was kind of like the strong, silent type, or at least he was at home. He was a public figure, a politician.
So out in the public, he was the face. He was Mr.
Social. At home, he was more so of the prison warden, the stoic type.
So I'm more of the social guy, at least I am with people who I'm close with.
So I wanted that intimacy, the openness with him, and I did not receive that. And he was also a disciplinarian and I didn't really really care for that, but it kept me on the straight and narrow.
So when I got older and kind of got out of that disciplinarian type of a situation, I guess God kind of moved in his heart or moved in our hearts and moved more so to a conversational relationship. This was after high school, almost like the day after graduation from high school. And I was pleasantly surprised at this new relationship that we had. And we started talking about regular everyday things, okay? Like, uh, hey, what'd you think about the Panthers game?
I was like. You mean the football game? That, that game? You want to talk about that? Oh, well, okay, well, I thought it was good.
I thought it was great.
Okay, well, um. I got tickets to a baseball game. You wanna come hang out at at the baseball game? Is this a political event? I mean, what's going on here?
Are you doing a speech beforehand? Right, right. What's the gimmick or the gotcha here? He's like, no, I just want to hang out. You can bring a friend if you want to.
So I say all that to say this. Um, I did not get that intimacy earlier on, and it did have an effect on me to where. in a positive turn, I did seek that in others.
So I tried to be more open book and I think people and I hope other people benefited from me being open with others when I didn't get that at home. Or didn't get that with my father or earthly father, but God gave me a bonus to where that relationship did develop afterwards.
So I did get that with my father.
Now, we didn't have the deep, in-depth conversations that I wanted to. But the growth and the development that we went through, and I guess I would say, especially through him. It was amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
So, again, even though I didn't have the in-depth about his history, his background, his family, where he came from, the fact that I could go over there just as his son and be in his presence and just simply converse with him, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
So, hopefully, the listeners are listening to that. That message about being present with not just earthly fathers or father figures, but being present with the heavenly father and communicating with the heavenly father, because that relationship is going to be more precious than any other relationship that we can give or that we can get. And I'll end it with this.
So, some people might say, Well, God's not here in the physical. He can't take me to a baseball game, and he can't high-five me and throw the ball back and forth. That may be true, but he's present in the word. And he gives us other people, other father figures on this earthly vessel, on this earthly plane that we can go to. It might be the earthly father in the coach, it might be the earthly father figure in a cousin or a brother or somebody from Bible study.
God will work through other people to step in to where he's not physically present. But unless you get that word from him to go out and seek others, to um Exercise your faith because faith without works is dead. You're asking for all this, but what are you putting forth to receive that blessing? If you're sitting at home and you're not interacting with people, then You're not going to interact with none of those earthly fathers that God is sending your way.
So get out of your funk if you can. Seek those earthly fathers that the heavenly father is sending to you. And then you can have that intimate relationship with those guys that God is trying to develop in your life. Amen. Absolutely.
Yeah. Sorry about that. You guys put me on the spot. Thank you. Good story.
And, you know, I think a lot of what we do, I was a man on the island for years. Too afraid, didn't want to be exposed by having other men. And I can't say, again, this is a generalization. There were men I allowed to get.
Somewhat close to me, but probably not really what you would call intimate. And you have to, humility is the key to that. You have to humble yourself. And a lot of times, the only way you get humble about that is God reveals Himself to you, draws you to Him, and then I think you begin to see the possibility. These men aren't out to get you, there are men that I will put in your life that are safe, that you can trust them, that they will father you on this earthly realm.
Just going around the people in the room on a given Tuesday, the impact that God's made in each of our lives through one another. You know, someone sharing what God's doing in their life, and that's what happens continually to boot camp as well.
Someone will share something from the stage, and a lot of times it's a team member, and as well as I know your story, Andy, I learned something a little different, and God reminds me of something in my story that He's after. Right, right. And I was thinking about when I was struggling this last year. Around the time the the death of my mom, she died um eight years ago. No, ten years ago.
Something like that. A long time ago. Nine years ago. She died nine years ago. No, but I I was struggling around it and God gave me some Big breakthrough, and the first person I want to talk to about it was you, Andy.
And I called you, and you thought something was wrong. Yeah, you were. I was blubbering like an idiot. You know, I could have used that as blackmail, but I chose not to do that. But, you know, I couldn't wait to share what God was doing and some freedom that I'd gotten and share it with somebody I knew that I trusted and loved me.
You know, and I have that with all you guys here. And it's amazing to have that type of relationship because God works inside of that all the time. Right. You know, something that He may be doing for me may help Robby, or something He's working on Robby may help Harold or vice versa. That regardless of age, regardless of background, God's the active element.
Amen. Yep, for sure.
Well, Andy, we have another clip from you. Back to back. That's something we don't get very often, right?
Well, yeah, we don't have any people here. Exactly. I know that. Yeah, we won't tell why. We'll just let it leaving that out there that Andy's really submitting some good clips.
Let the cat out of the back. It's kind of like Last Man Standing, is actually what it is. Yeah, it kind of is. It is.
Sorry about a cat reference. It may hit you on a nerve there. Anyway, you have your next clip. Yeah, the next clip digs in. Danny would be proud.
Danny, again, you must be present to win. I'm submitting Andy Grifted clips, and you're not here to do it. This is a good one, too. Yeah. So this is Opie.
I'll try not to tell the whole story, but Opie gets some grades that he. Probably shouldn't have, doesn't tell dad dad is interacting with him over this. Probably made some assumptions that's not in this clip, but you get that from the context. But I'll just let it go. You'll see a progression of intimacy even within this conversation.
Yeah, can I add something to it? Sure. You were trying not to share much, and you did a good job there, but I think.
So, you're right. Opie did get some grades that he didn't earn. Right. Right. So you fill it in.
And his dad was very proud of that. Yeah. The one time I tried not to tell the whole story. Very proud of it. But then we get to hear the result of that.
Right, right. All right. Yeah, no, you did a good job. All right. I just wanted to add a little bit more context.
You know, I'm quick to give you a hard time. All right. Here we go. Where are you going? Hi, Paul.
Did you get my note? Yeah. You didn't say where he was going.
Well, I was going away someplace. Not come back till he was proud of me again. What? Well, Paul? There's something you don't know.
But you're gonna find out, so I might as well tell you. I didn't get all A's on my report card. The teacher made a mistake. I wanted to tell you about it. I started to.
Ronnie, you'd be awful disappointed.
So I just never did. Then I got to thinking about it, and I figured the best thing to do would be to run away. Not come back till I was able to do something that can make you proud of me again. Opi, I've got. I got something I uh I want to say to you.
When I thought you got all A's. That was the most important thing in the world to me. And I made it so important. that I made it impossible for you to live up to it. You're my son.
And I'm proud of you just for that. You do the best you can. And if you do that, That's all I'll ever ask of you.
Okay.
Okay, Paul. You never did say where he was going.
Well I thought maybe I'd go away and join the Navy. But hey Well, things is kind of quieting down now. Would you mind waiting a little bit? I don't mind. Good.
I'll send your regrets to the Secretary of the Navy. Yeah, there's just there's a lot there. You know, I can think of I I think I as a kid about five, I was gonna run away. I don't even remember for what. I wouldn't have made it, you know.
100 yards down the road until I got hungry and wanted to come back. I think that's actually what happened. But. You know, the Both of them Both of them had to confess, both of them had to humble themselves. And again, that's how it has to be.
When I was down there at the beach with talking to my daughter, there were some things that came up about the family, and I just, you know, she's heard me say it before, but I reminded her, I was like, man, I. I just did not do some things right. And she didn't really say anything. I know she understands, but I also believe that she sees a different man and somebody that's, you know. broken, but on in repair, uh being restored.
And um But I think, you know, obviously with a father and son, Jamal talked about it. We talk about it a lot, about the brokenness that comes through that. As a son, that's the closest relationship that you expect to have. And whenever there's brokenness in it, it's very difficult. And I think that's truly why God loves to come in.
It says he comes to heal the brokenhearted, and he loves to do that. He knows that we're all broken.
Some dads are better than others, obviously, but it doesn't matter. All fathers will disappoint you. But there's intimacy in that.
Now, God doesn't have to come and confess to us. He's not like Andy that he has to confess. He's proud of us, regardless of. Based on what we do. A lot of times we think that's how we get his attention is what we do.
And obviously, he calls us to do stuff, but he just loves us. And I've experienced the greatest intimacy. You guys have people, listeners, have heard me talk about it over and over again about what I received from the Father probably starting about 2018. I was Walking through this message and then the message of sonship and allowing God to be father. And really It uh you have to allow him.
He's there. He's ready. He's just like Jesus. He's there at the door knocking. But I just don't think we realize how available he is, both from what you receive in the spirit and also putting people around you and orchestrating this fatherhood that's multiple people that fill in a lot of the gaps of things that you never knew.
And it's a special thing, but that is to me intimacy. It is.
And you had some great points there, Andy. I was struggling to keep up with you just from the standpoint. I was trying to figure out if the Navy missed out first on Harold or on Opie. Right, yeah. Because it had to be about the same time.
It did. What a terrible couple years for the Navy. You almost left home for the Navy, too, huh? Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, they missed out on Harold and they missed out on Opie. Man, tough decade. They still had a fleet of canoes when doing it. Go to basconjourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp. It's November 3rd.
When is it? 20 or 20th? 20th through 23rd. You got me all flustered. Before Thanksgiving.
Before Thanksgiving, the weekend before Thanksgiving, November 20th through 23rd. It is about probably an hour from Royston, Georgia. It's about an hour from you guys in Greenville and Sparborough. We'd love to have you there. If you have trouble getting there, let us know.
But this week, be intimate with God, let him love on you, and then love. On others. We'll talk with you next week. Mm-hmm. This is the Truth Network.
Yeah.
