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 are excited.
We're in our last studio show. For a couple weeks, right?
So we won't be in the studio next week doing a show because we'll be where, guys. Bootcamp. Yeah, we'll be doing live from boot camp next week. Don't be excited. Yeah, yeah, no.
That's the point. We'll be there. I'm hoping we'll be there. Hold on. Just not just.
At boot camp, but this time we have such a treat for right. We are going to be at Actually, what is it called? Curhee. Yeah, the mountains Curie, right? But I mean, what's the company that like?
Chacoa is the camp. What's the name of the Easy Company? The Band of Brothers, where they trained at the top of that mountain where they had to go run. We will be live. on that Saturday from the top of that mountain.
So very, very cool. But not if we do the run. Oh, will they stop? Is that nin is it November nineteenth? Is that the date that that will be?
No. The date that we'll be doing that, we go to camp on the 20th. That'd be the 22nd. We'll be doing that show.
So you've got to go register now. Yeah, absolutely. Because we would love to have you on top of that mountain. Of course, we won't make you run it for spaghetti. We won't make you eat spaghetti and then go run it like they did at the show.
I couldn't even run down the mountain without hurting myself at some point. It was such a steep. I'm with you. Yeah, running down that mountain. Especially what did they give you?
It wasn't long. It was like 16 minutes or some crazy number to run up there and run back. And On the series, you're like, okay, that looks like a pretty big mountain. When you go to it, you're like, oh my gosh, this is a really big, steep incline. Yeah, quite a run.
It is. And it'd be fun to do that. We had cars that couldn't make it. Yeah. Mine was front-wheel drive and was doing everything it could to get up there.
And so, and to be technical, Robby did run the mountain. It was like 50 feet of it, but he did run the mountain. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun.
Yeah. It was fun. So he could say he ran Kirahi. I did. It was more than 50 feet.
It might have been 100 yards. Yeah. It'll prepare you for jumping out of planes, too. It will. Exactly.
So that leads into our topic for today's show. Andy, what's our topic for today's show? Do you remember?
Something about boot camp. Yeah, that's a good question. Why should you come to a boot camp? Why come to a boot camp? Yep.
Yeah, you appreciate you reading the text. I wanted to get the exact phrasing. No, you got it.
So we were going to be talking about why we think not just that you should go to a boot camp, but why we are going to boot camp. All right, and so we'll be doing that through the show. And you do have time to register, it's coming up less than a week from today. You know, we'll be starting the camp this coming Thursday. Yep.
And so, you know, you have time to get registered and get there. It's in beautiful Royston, Georgia. And if you don't know about Royston, it is a really cool historic town in its own right. They have the Ty Cobb Museum there. which is more fun than it sounds.
And we went to that and walked around it. It was it was a pretty cool learning experience. And it's really at the beginning of you start to get into the Georgia Mountains, I believe, down in that area. And so it's starting to get pretty in that area. And of course we do have the Camp Tocoa that's not that far away, about a 45-minute drive we'll be going to as part of our adventure.
We'll also be doing some skeet shooting, which will be another adventure.
So it's not just having great talks. In great quiet times with God, we're doing some fun activities that guys enjoy. Yep, for sure. Yep. And so, Robby, you have the first clip of this show.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about it? Absolutely.
So the question being why Uh and it it come to boot camp and I'm fortunate that I get to staff these things and watch what happens. with men when they Chase after the heart of God. Right, because it's not what we're going to do at the camp, it's not going to be the skate shooting, it's not going to be the amazing adventures, it's going to be what God does for. But because people have this time. where they're disconnected.
From their jobs, and they're, in other words, and they're out and they're with nature, and they're chasing after the heart of God. God shows up. And and the more you get around God, honestly, the more you begin to see who you are. Because you are made in his image. But he won't compete for time with your boss and time with your fa In other words, if you're going to take this time.
And I always say that, man, you A lot of folks think, how could I take this time away from my family? How could I take this time away from work? How could I take this time away from my kids? As the case may be. I've seen it time and time again.
The wives so thrilled because they would just want to see their husband. Alive again with a smile on his face and excited about where he's going, where he's going with God. Same thing with your kids, same thing with your boss. They would much, much have you fully engaged and fully yourself. And so, as we join our friend Curly here, he kind of explains it to a guy at a different kind of camp.
It's kind of a dude ranch camp. But listen to. How he talks about the choices that we all make choices. And honestly, as you're listening to this, you have a choice. You know, you can spend these next f four days coming up Thursday through Saturday, chasing after the heart of God and really allowing him to do something with your life.
And it would be a choice that you make that could change so much of what's going on in your life. And this is from the movie City Slickers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but you know, she could have been the love of your life.
She is. Yeah. That's gray. That's Not great. No, that's wrong, Curly.
You passed up something that might have been terrific. My choice. I never could have done that. It's your choice. Cowboy leads a different kind of life.
When there were cowboys. They're a dying breed. Still means something to me though. Couple of days. They'll move this herd across the river.
Driving through the valley. Ugh. Ha ha ha ha ha. There's nothing like bringing in a herd. See now that's great.
Your life makes sense to you. What's so funny? You city folk. You worry about a lot. My wife basically told me she doesn't want me around.
She read it. I'm just saying. Thirty-eight. 39. Yeah.
You all come off here about the same age, same problems. I spend about 50 weeks a year getting knots in your rope and then Then you think two weeks up here will end time for you. None of you get it. Do you know what the secret of life is? No, what?
Uh This Your finger? One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that. That's great, but.
What's the one thing? That's what you gotta figure out. Yeah, we do. I mean, we just do. And The the The story is that it takes time and effort and intentionality like.
Am I going to invest what it takes to chase after the heart of God for him to show me. Right. the way to get my heart back The way to be um the identity of the man that that God wants me to be. Mm-hmm. You know, there's we talk about this all the time on Masculine Journey, but I can assure you, I've had enough wives tell me that only men can relate to men in a certain way.
Only men can call out masculinity. Only men can love men in a certain way that they needed from their fathers, etc., etc., in order to get their heart back. Yeah, it it's it's a different type of acceptance. You know, when you really think about it, I'm not talking about validation, I'm talking about acceptance. It's important when your spouse accepts you for who you are.
That's really cool. Right, but when the other men you know that are strong, you know that they walk with God and they Accept you as a brother. You know, that they give you their time, they give you their energy to invest in you, that is a special feeling. to know that people care about you enough that isn't betrothed to you, that isn't part of your family, that wants to spend time with you, it's a pretty amazing thing to be a part of, to be able to walk with people in that. There, for me, in thinking about why I come to boot camp.
They're really only Two choices or two reasons, and well, three, but one goes without saying. And they're all relational. Mm-hmm. You guys make it worth my while even when you're Kicking me around, picking on me, which is hard to do because I've got a pretty high volume. I know, and that is part of masculinity.
But. Equally to that is, I mean, I've been to dozens, literally, of boot camps. My wife, who never wants me to leave to do anything. much. I mean she knows I need some time alone.
But she loves me to go to boot camp 'cause I always come back better. A better husband. When Fatherhood was part of it, a better father. It's amazing how God does. get a hold of me every time and different way every time.
And that's the number one reason you will improve your relationship with God.
So I'm done. That's good. Harold, what about you? Harold? Yeah, Old is a part of my name.
Well, for me, a couple of things. One is so that you can see you're not as unique. as you think you are. And part of that is 1 Corinthians 10.13. No trial has overtaken you that is not faced by others.
and God is faithful. He will not let you be tried beyond what you are able to bear. but with the trial will also provide a way out.
so that you may be able to endure it. If you don't go to a boot camp, you can sit back at home and you can think nobody. Knows the trouble I've seen, as the old song goes, And you think that you're pretty unique. We're not. And that's one of the things that you can learn.
by being in boot camp is hearing the stories of other men And it's like, oh. They had the same problem that I did or do. Then the second thing is you're not as alone. as you may think. Hebrews thirteen verse five your conduct must be free from the love of money, and you must be content with what you have.
for he has said I will never leave you, and I will never abandon you. Uh some of the other translations would use the word forsake there. And Proverbs 18, verse 24 is one that I think is extremely meaningful. A person who has friends may be harmed by them. But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
And For our group. we refer to ourselves as a band of brothers. And that's because we really truly care for one another. and we'll try to do whatever we can to help. one another in time of need.
Boot Camp can introduce you to those kinds of people. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the boot camp. We'll talk to you after the break. What we have at 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.
The first one, I had no clue what I was walking into, and then realizing that other people are in the same boat and how open everybody was to share their struggle is a great group, and a lot of talking was that Covid. It is a tight bond of men. Everybody's the same. And each and every time that I've come to boot camp, I've learned something different. And not one man that's ever been there neglects not to take time out to talk or to share.
It's serious business, and you need to come one time to break bread with the men and fellowship. Feel the atmosphere. Hear the people pray and get down to earth about what's going on in life and get real. Register today at masculinejourney.org. See?
I am love when I can't feel a thing. You say I am strong when I think I'm weak. And you say I am held when I am falling short. When I don't belong. Oh, you say I am yours and I believe.
Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That is Lauren Daigle. You say, Andy, I think, brought this song to us years ago, a few years back, and it's been one of my favorite songs ever since. And it reminds me of boot camp, just for the whole song does. But it really talks about the importance of what God says.
Right, the world's quick to tell us lots of things. You know, you're a loser, you're a quitter, you're whatever. You're a center. You're old. You're old.
Her old. Yeah, you're a big dummy. You're a big dummy. Yeah, all the things that you hear, you're an idiot. Is that Robby?
Yeah. Okay. All those things that you hear, right, the world labels you. And we label ourselves. We agree with those things, or we give ourselves names that aren't appropriate.
Or maybe it's partially true, but it's not totally true to our identity. Because our identity is not in those names, it's in what God says about us. And so it's such a powerful song for me and reminds me of boot camp. Because of all the times that God has spoken life into me on all sorts of topics. on every aspect of my life.
You know, Jim, you you said really well that you know I I come away better. You know, and I come away more of the me that God meant me to be. And that's going to make me better by default. Absolutely.
You know, because I walk more in those shoes. I've got a long way to go, but I've come a long way from where I started. And I look forward to every boot camp, even though we've been to countless boot camps, because God's going to show up in an amazing way. and do something that I have no idea of what to expect. But I know that I'm going to walk out of there.
Sometimes going through a very hard conversation with God getting through some healing, getting to restoration. But in my comeaway, a better man. and a better son in him and I and I look forward to that every time I go. And so I would pray that for you because I see it over and over and over with guys. I can't tell you what God's going to work on with you.
I just know he's going to work in your heart and he's going to make. life happened to you. this week. you know, as we go into that boot camp next weekend. No doubt.
Harold used one of my buzzwords a few minutes ago. And uh he said we aren't unique, which His point was valid. You know, we all have shared experiences. But God created each of us with uniquity. Mm-hmm.
He will that means that you're unique, Robert. That's even more vary than very. We all are iniquity, which is true too, right? Yeah, well, and it is. God didn't make any duplicates.
He didn't stick anybody on a copying machine. And he will speak to everybody coming, and you can't tell him what he's going to say, because that will be specifically for that person. We'll be inspired by the same things we hear, but in different ways. Absolutely.
And it's amazing to see what God chooses to do. One of the cool things we get to do when people are leaving boot camp is we give them. Uh two questions to answer. And it's anonymous or they can put their name on it. But uh how did God come after you this weekend?
And how can we pray for you? Yeah. You know, and it's always amazing to read those things and see what God does on that weekend. And you know that He's already got the plans in place for what He wants to do for each one of us. It's just will we get out of the way and move into Him?
Or will we stay at home watching the football games? Or will we let our work override us and we can't come? And I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty. at all. I'm just saying those are the excuses I can use.
Or I can say, you know, I really want life and I'm going to choose that. Yeah, which it One of the things that we talk about at every single boot camp Heavily is listening for God, hearing His voice. And of course, You know, as it says in Hebrews, You know If you hear God, don't harden your heart. And so if you're hearing, come, And maybe it's a financial s situation, maybe it's whatever situation, it's pretty easy to get up with any of us. If you go to masculinejourney.org, we want to help you financially.
We want to help you with whatever the if if you hear God speaking to you and saying This don't harden your heart, man. Corp Diem. Yeah, it's easy to Absolutely. I think that was Seize the Fish. It's CarPay deal.
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. I think Harpidium was on the menu at the restaurant tonight. Those fish of the day.
We got a brave heart clip. We got to get a potato. We do have a brave heart clip. I want to add, though, to just that idea of God coming after you. When I went to my first boot camp, I was just trying to get my marriage back and I you know, I I g my heart gravitated to what I was hearing, some things I'd never heard before about the heart.
To me Relationship with God, you received Him, and then you were to walk this life out by following Him rules and stuff. And again, there was relationship in that. But I didn't understand the centrality of the art, how important it was. But Robby, I remember him after the first boot camp. He's like, so Andy, how'd God come after your heart?
And I looked at him like he had three eyes. I didn't. I didn't get it. I mean, I just. And I begin to get it, but just just just Help people understand what they're getting into is that God truly does come after you.
He cares about your situation, but he's not just wanting to try to fix. Your marriage, which he may do that, or your financial situation, or you're feeling lost in your career, or you're not being a good father. He wants to cover all that, but really, he wants to come after you and your heart. Heart is central to all this message, is I mean, all this message in the fact that if you get your heart back, God position it positions you to be able to receive breakthroughs in all those other areas. Good.
So, Robby has a new name, Three I Robby. Three I Robby. Three I Robby. Something like that. It was, you know, it just, I really just, it was foreign to me of what he had said.
And I hadn't heard it presented that way. Absolutely.
Well, you have the next clip if you want to continue to keep talking. Yeah, so this is a clip that grabbed me, you know, very. Very important to the core desires, I believe, when it was kind of introduced. And I felt like my life, I felt like I was kind of dying. I wasn't living a life where I was living from the heart.
And this is William Wallace. He's about to be. Beheaded and drawn and quartered. Really a bad deal. Yeah.
And he's in prison, and this princess, who he's connected with, and she comes and she's trying to intercede to make him to. To get him to be saved or ask for mercy from the king, and he was like, that's not the way. Uh you know, I'd I'd gone about this, I'm committed. To this way of life. And he makes a statement.
I'm not going to say it ahead of time because it's powerful in the statement. But we'll talk about it when we get back. If I swear to him... And all that I am. I stayed already.
Yeah. Yeah. Will die, it will be awful. Every man dies. Not every man really lives.
Not every man really lives, and I was not living, you know, and I wasn't living from my heart. And a You know, I've since then, I mean, I haven't got everything that I've wanted that I thought I. would get From the things that we value in life. But I've gotten so much more. And it has.
It's bled over into better relationships and some healing of the heart that positions you to where you can forgive and be forgiven and love. out of a place of strength instead of weakness and dependency and looking for validation in others, as you guys mentioned, it just changed things. And but that's a a powerful statement. Every man dies. That's true.
But not every man really lives, and that's also true. But there's a choice that you can really live. That's right. Jesus came and promised the abundant life. That's right.
It's not for after we die only, it's while we're here. Absolutely.
Right? We can start to get pieces of that back as we walk with him. And that is. John 10 is where you hear that. You know, three times in that passage, he says, My sheep hear my voice.
And he speaks to that. part of life. is that relationship with him And learning, you know, how to because he hangs out in our hearts.
Okay, that's that's his that's his operational point. And so learning how to commune with him in that position, especially through you know, things that have made our hearts hardened. Yes, it's It's such an opportunity. It's such an opportunity. You know, I love the boot camps and I enjoy the activities we do, and I enjoy the camaraderie we have because we laugh a lot, we have a lot of fun, we have a lot of good team time.
You know, with with our team and the greater team of the guys that are there, uh it's still never been my favorite part of camp. My favorite part of camp and the reason I keep going is the relationship with God. Yes, I know he's available to me all year round, 24 hours a day. But I am not good at setting aside enough time dedicated to him like I do at a boot camp. No, all these people are praying right now for this camp, our prayer team.
We're going to be praying. you know, very intentionally. For this time, the camp itself. Camp Little Light Is a sanctuary, and it was developed completely for the purpose that it's, and there are more men's groups that go to this than almost any camp in the country because it's so situated and put together by real men. I mean, every single board that's in Camp Little Light, they hewn out of the trees that were there.
It's just an amazing camp. Yeah, it is. It is to see how God repurposed things there to how he could turn a chicken coop. into an amazing place where you stay. Right.
Right. You know, and the things that uh they've done with that camp. And it's just good for your heart when you're there. You just feel like, okay, I'm in a place of peace. I'm in a place where God's uh with me all the time.
Not that He's not all the other time, but it's hard sometimes to hear Him outside the rest of the noise. Interesting you say that about the repurpose, because we're repurposed through the process of boot camp. You know, you may have been giving your life to something else, but through this process, he repurposes you for. His kingdom brings us back to our original purpose. Yeah, exactly, really.
Yeah, we kind of got off one other thing that just jumped out at me was that. The property there has been a prayer Palace for I don't know how many men go out there to do this very thing. And there's a place there that's called the Boneyard if you if you if you happen up in there. As they say it in Georgia. Yeah, there are plenty of skeletons.
And there's even some skeletons of horses and whatever that are up there in the boneyard. And it's it is one of those experiences like Well It's with God that just literally changes everything. Just that time in prayer with him. Absolutely.
So go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp. It's coming up next week.
So, you got time to do it. If financially you're having trouble getting there, don't let that keep you from going. We will help you get there somehow, right? We'll help you financially get there. Just reach out to us.
Our first name, whatever it is, Andy, Robby, Sam, Jim, Harold, any of us at masconejourney.org and we'll get back to you. Transportation, too. Transportation. If you have a hard time with transportation, we'll figure out a way to help you get there. Don't let those things limit you.
We will help you. We have loved talking with you. We'd love to see you at boot camp. We'll talk with you next week. I guess what you want to do.
