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 to the Andy Show. Andy, you got this show.
You're going to run it for us today. Andy's a little tired. We're all a little tired. This is our post-boot camp show, and we're excited about the show, but we're still feeling the effects of the weekend. It was an amazing weekend at boot camp.
But for those of you who don't know, we do record the show on Tuesday nights, and we just got back on Sunday evening and still feeling the effects of a very powerful weekend. It is, 'cause you get a chance to you know Engage usually somewhere around 7 o'clock in the morning that you're going to be actually. you know Beginning to prepare meals or prepare talks or prepare what you're going to pray. And hopefully, you did some preparation before that. In other words, you had to get up at three or four to begin to pray and figure out what you're going to do there.
And then, you know, you get done somewhere around eight, nine. 10 o'clock. Then you've got to watch a movie with the guys. I mean, that's just part of what you've got to do. And then we meet to pray, and that would be a rare instance.
That you don't get out of that prayer session until 12:31 o'clock. And so, you know, you're up two hours later. And yeah. It's part of the joy of the whole deal. It is.
It's just you feel the effects of it positively and drained, you know, for a while. I don't want to say negatively because there wasn't anything negative about the weekend. It was a very good weekend. It's just. Again, that's part of the reason we do it the weekend before Thanksgiving.
It's because for most people, they have three days' worth of work to get through. When they get back and then they get another four-day break, you know, some people aren't that lucky, but a lot of people are, and so it's a perfect time to go to boot camp. Spring's also a perfect time, by the way, for that is it isn't that experience for the campers, it is if you're staffed, but yeah, campers.
Well, we have a couple of them that were camping this time with us that were there. And we'll let them talk here in a little while. We've got Corey and David with us today. David, welcome. Glad to have you here with us.
Good to be here. Yeah, Corey, it's good to have you here. It's fantastic to be here. You got to talk in the little microphone thingy. It's fantastic to be here.
Thank you. I thought it would pick me up. No, it's not very, it's like you got to be right on the stage. It's a directional, yeah. Yeah, be very friendly with it.
They're directional, unlike the host. Exactly. You know, we've been around each other long enough. I'm not going to cut you any slack.
So, yeah, but welcome, guys.
So, we want to get to go ahead and play a clip out of the gate. This is a brand new clip. We've never played it on the Masculine Journey, Robby. And it's one that you used at boot camp. Yeah, it's a fabulous Clip.
It's actually from a talk given by a pastor by the name of Dave Busby, who went to be with the Lord about 30 years ago. Actually, he had cystic fibrosis, but he was a phenomenal communicator. And he often did work with youth. In this particular teaching, he's giving, he's describing what had happened as he had worked with these youth on their own, you know, kind of picture, the Polaroid picture that they kept of Jesus, you know, in their hearts. And we used this clip from the warfare talk.
And one of the things that we teach in warfare is that one of the gifts Uh and the skills that you're praying to receive is to be able to tell truth from lies. And so, this was a great example of some of the ways that Satan tries to get you to fall for some lies with the ability to. You know, if you make an agreement with these lies, they can totally affect your family, certainly affect your relationship with Christ. And so is listening to this, see if you can spot the lie. I was with 37,000 high school kids, kids who'd grown up in Baptist churches.
And I say to these kids, if Jesus Christ, I say this reverently, and He did a knee-to-knee, toe-to-toe with you. What would he say to you? What would he feel about you? What would he think about you? And I got four categories of responses.
The first category I got was this. Again, I'm grouping them, but These kids said, Oh, I know if I did a knee to knee toe-to-toe with Jesus as his child, I know what he would say to me, and the word that would summarize it would be the word disgusted. These kids were pretty honest. And it would basically go something like this: I'm so disgusted with you. You're hot and cold.
You're up and down. You make a commitment. It doesn't last. Boy, I'm so disgusted. A second group, and I could really identify with this group.
They said, No, I don't think Jesus would be disgusted with me. I think it would go something like this: it'd be anger. I died on the cross for you, and you can't even stop doing that particular sin! Their Polaroid picture of God that they carried in their heart was an angry God. The third group, this is the biggest group.
Let this one grab you. You be honest. I know. You know what I know about you? You know the right answers.
But I'm not asking you tonight, this is not a Jesus pop quiz. What I'm asking you for tonight is this: what's the core truth you carry around in your gut? The third group, this was the biggest. I think this one really hit me. They said, hey, if I did a knee to knee toe to toe with Jesus.
Basically the conversation would go like this. And I'm so disappointed with you. I had such high expectations. The last group, I mean, they basically said, I'm such a spiritual failure. I'm up and down over and yonder, and he'd just be kind of distant.
I mean, he wouldn't even have eye contact. It'd be just kind of like, okay, come on, come on, I gotta get to Czechoslovakia. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Let me ask you a question. Answer this from your gut.
If you did a knee-to-need toe-to-toe with Jesus, what would go on in his mind as he thought about you?
So Robby, what prompted you to to play that clip or to use that clip?
Well, we've used it at Nikita Kolos Man Camp for years, and I was familiar with it, and God put it on my heart strongly. To use it in the warfare talk to try to get at some agreements that people might have. About how they feel like Jesus feels about them. And of course, if you've made an agreement with any of those four, which are very, very common, by the way. You know, you're going to have a struggle.
With your relationship with God, you're not accepting His grace. You think that. You know, those things that he refers to, like you're hot and cold, you know, you're sinning, all these things are affecting your relationship. when nothing could be further from the truth. That that the truth is that he absolutely adores you, loves you, all this stuff.
You can't earn grace. as these lies would lead you to believe. I felt like God was putting it on my heart too. use it to try to get at those agreements. But oh my goodness, the warfare that went into trying to get that clip, to use that clip.
It was pretty obvious very quickly that this clip was not to be used from Satan's perspective. But fortunately for us, God Got it. And as a result of The fruit of that clip was the reason why It was my best memory of boot camp. It actually came from. from Corey's experience with it.
Yeah, Corey, do you feel like talking about that at all? Sure.
So when the clip initially played The only picture that I got in my head was Jesus just sitting there and staring at me. He didn't have anything to say. He wasn't moving. He was just eyes locked, staring at me. And I wrote that down and I even wrote down, what does he say?
And nothing came to mind. He was just sitting and staring. And it wasn't until afterward I was talking to Robby. And You know, he kind of brought something to mind. He said, you know, when you're in a relationship with somebody and you.
Love someone, you know, in a relationship, your kids, whatever it may be, and you just sit and look at them. What are you thinking in that moment? I said, I'm thinking just how much I absolutely love 'em. And it hit me that that's exactly what he's doing. He's sitting there just admiring the one that he loves.
It's just A A loving gaze and almost a Mona Lisa smile and just admiring. what he loves. That's awesome. For me, again, as we are out there talking, And he's trying to determine, you know, we're asking God, what do you mean by this? You know, and I'm praying, like, God, help him to understand whatever this is.
And all of a sudden I got this sense of that idea of pointing into a relationship like that. And when it hit him Like it it came like a wave and it could see he almost he turned from me and he almost dropped to his knees. Like it was like, oh my gosh, I know what it is. And when he knew what it was, it was a it was heaven touched earth. Right.
That's always my favorite thing about boot camp. is when God touches somebody. Which he orchestrated the whole thing. And when I saw God touch How, I mean, Corey, Corey. Yeah, when I see God touch anybody, but anyway, that, and you just see it right there in front of your eyes, that those are moments we keep for the rest of our lives.
Yeah. That's that's what boot camp isn't something that you come and get charged up or whatever. When God touches somebody, like he touched my brother or, you know, in many, many boot camp experiences like he touched Corey. It's game changer. Yeah.
Yeah, Corey, what other thoughts would you have from camp this time? That's your second time going, correct? Yes, this is my second. Um While The setting was the same. Uh I came into it expecting kind of the same material, kind of the same thoughts, the same talks.
Um But it was completely different. I mean, yes, we touched on the same subjects, but the. The context of those subjects was completely different than it was last time. And I was grateful for that because it spoke to me in different ways. And.
Last time I think God was. was trying to Reveal to me what sonship actually means because I grew up without a dad. From a very, very early age, probably one, two years old.
So I've never known the experience of having a father. in my life.
So I think that's what he was trying to get to me. Last time. And this time I think it was more about Son, you don't have to earn my love. I give it to you. It's here.
You don't have to walk a tightrope thinking that if you place one foot wrong, I'm not going to love you anymore. I love you regardless. Yeah, it's not conditional. It's not conditional in what we do or what we don't do. And he's going to love us through it.
That's pretty amazing. For me, part of the favorite part of camp was exactly what you just said. I've heard these talks countless times, but they're never the same.
Some of the elements are the same. I mean, you got to touch on the same key points, but how you get to those points, what you do with those points, all change with each camp. You know, it changes with the presenter, it changes with where they're at in their walk with God. You know, it's the same topics, but it's totally different talks, it feels like, just about every camp. And so that was really cool for me just to.
Always get something fresh. From God in the middle of things that I think I already know all about them. I I to me, you know, there's a spirit of a camp. Yeah. And that spirit runs through.
In fact, I always love to get the later talks because by that time you've totally caught the spirit. And you could begin to you know, run with that spirit that is at that particular camp. But it was fascinating to me as a Is the spirit of this camp had to do with that very battle that he was describing? Um that to see that You know, you don't have to memorize lamentations before breakfast in order for God to love you. Yeah.
It wouldn't hurt. It's just not required, right? Exactly. Go to masconjourney.org to check out anything we have coming up. We will have a boot camp in the spring.
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, I listened to 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. 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. It's been absolutely bad. This process: the covenant of silence, silent prayer, those are some of my favorite parts. This is real connection with the Lord.
You 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, but 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 through it, and He's going to carry you to the next level. Register today at Maskelyn Journal. Jesus, your name is. It's power, it's breath and living.
Water and your spirit guides me to the heart of the father. Letting your praise ring louder every day and every hour. Cause your spirit guides me to the heart of the father. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That's Ryan Ellis, and that's one that we use pretty frequently at boot camp.
Maybe not every boot camp, but at the end of the day, boot camp is about the heart of the Father. In bringing us to the heart of the Father. Jesus says very clearly, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? But He's the way to what? The way to the Father.
You know, and it's all about reconciliation with the Heavenly Father. And so that's one of my personal favorites. And Andy's always gracious and plays it at boot camp for me. Yeah, I know, yeah, I know. But it's one of them that.
You can't help listening to it, and you just feel good. You know, it's like this is a very uplifting. It's a skateboard. It is. It's a skateboard.
You got it. Yeah. But, Andy, how was your camp? We haven't had a chance to talk to you yet, except for the no. No.
Nope. Nope. Uh it was great. Um Everything that everybody said, just the talks are always unique because you have. you're rotating people in and out.
There's a time, I think, You mentioned you you've been to a boot camp, but you're at a different place. You have ears to hear something you weren't. able to hear before.
So there's that. But I I will say this, it's It's kind of not any of the talks or anything. What I really enjoyed was we had kind of scoped out going to Curahi for some time, and we were able to do that with the group. And, you know, there was no talk. We play when we're at boot camp as well.
We do stuff.
So we took a road trip to Kekurahi. That's. Band of Brothers, the the mountain that they ran for training. Three up, three down. And I think everybody really enjoyed that.
We had lunch at the top of the mountain and then had our radio show on top of it. And there was just a good spirit that day. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, and then we went down and we toured the base, what's left of it. They have, you know.
made again some of the barracks or not the original barracks. And there is one original building there, but they had like some uniforms, had some really cool stuff. Highly recommend it. You like the C forty seven, you that's cool. You could go into it.
Yeah. You could even go to the cockpit and kind of sit in there. Gaither had been to, you know, because he was in the army and back in those days, and so. He recognized a lot of the stuff from when he was at Fort Jackson or wherever he was, you know, right after the World War. And um So we found this.
There's a a foot locker in one of those and we opened up the foot locker and lo and behold, all the stuff, the guy's buttons, his patches, he was a lieutenant, all that stuff was in that foot locker, man. And Gaither was like, it was old home wink for you know, he was out. It was it was really, really, really cool. To experience and get a sense of what that would have been like for those guys. It literally changed the world.
Absolutely. It saved our. country and trained in that very place in that very time. It's special. It it it really is.
And if you really think that we are appointed, we are as a band of brothers appointed for this time and this place with our role in the larger story And you know, our courage and our bravery to push into what we got to push into. is as much needed as as what they had in their day. We um One of my favorite talks over the weekend was the Wound Talk, which Darren did. And this time he took one movie. A lot of times we'll use different clips in the talk to illustrate different points from different movies, but you took the one movie, Antoine Fischer.
And use clips all from it as you did it, and I really enjoyed the way that played out. But the clip we're going to play is from that. Yeah, this is a clip where Antoine is a young boy that was born in Cleveland, Ohio, orphaned. Um just really, really some horrible, horrible childhood trauma and it's a true story. And but he was getting some Healing.
Critical. gave him a father in essence. uh in the form of a naval psychiatrist. And um he was Um applying himself to What God had for him is the way that I see his story. Is that a lot of us, when God comes after us and says, Okay, here, here, I've got something for you.
We're like, I don't know, you know, I mean, and there was a little bit of that with Antoine, but when he finally did buy in, you know, he was kind of an all-in type of guy, and so. This little clip is a clip where he's just having Thanksgiving dinner. um at the doctor's house um with his family, and he wants to give the doctor a poem. And I think that sets it up. Here we go.
Got this for you for having me over today. Is it money?
Well That's a poem. Right. Yeah, I see it without my glasses. Why don't you read it for me? No, I'm hardly hearing.
Please. Who will cry for the little boy? Lost and all alone. Who will cry for the little boy? abandoned without his own.
Who will cry for the little boy? He cried himself to sleep. Who will cry for the little boy? We never have her kids. Oh, cry for the little boy.
Walk the burning sand. Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man. Who will cry for the little boy? who knew well hurt in pain who will cry for the little boy.
who died and died again. who will cry for the little boy. A good boy he tried to be. Who will cry for little boy Who cries inside of me? Who will cry for the little boy, Antoine?
I will. Ooh. Oh, he's doing.
Okay. It's beautiful, Aunt One. Yeah, no, I told you I was good. Yes, you are, you are good because you're honest. You're more honest than most people.
even in your anger. The only thing you're not honest with yourself about is you need to find your own family. Your natural family. I feel like I need to look for her. Could answer a lot of questions for you.
Do you have any questions?
Okay. That is an amazing movie. Very, very difficult to watch. It is. It's not a family movie.
No. It's not. Unless your family's older, you know, it's all all adults. It's very adult. I would be in my teens watching.
Yeah, yeah. Depending on where they're at in maturity level. Right, 'cause it's a very serious movie, but it's a very good movie and What I liked about this particular part of it, this clip, is often When you're going through the healing cycle with God, when you're going through the wound being exposed, right, and you're having to deal with it, the hardest person to forgive in the whole thing is yourself because somehow the enemy convinces you that you're responsible for what happened to you. Right? And so when he gets that point for who will cry for the little boy, that's inside of me, often we're really hard on that little boy.
We're very angry with that little boy for letting things happen to us, even though we couldn't have done anything about it. And that's the final hurdle we often have to get through. Right. Right? You know, we may forgive whatever the perpetrator was or the person, the people that did whatever they did, long before we can deal with the little boy inside.
Yeah, it's uh it's kind of a principle that I've used In counseling men and women over the years that. It's a principle that I call this feels like that. And so at first, the wounds are cast upon you, right? At first, the wounds come against you, you have no control, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then at some point in your life you find yourself sort of repeating that.
And it's you. It's you doing it. It's you buying in. It's whatever. And that's when the gate slams behind you.
as if Satan is to say, see? I told you it was you all along. It wasn't me. It was you doing that, and now... I've proved it.
Now you have no one to And so to be able to go there. and say You know what? Yeah, I'm gonna mourn that, I'm gonna grieve that, and I'm and I'm gonna. continue to push in.
However long it takes. And that's, you know, the thought process was: I will cry for the little boy. I'm not going to abuse the little boy anymore. Right. may have made some mistakes, may have bought into some stupidity.
But I'm not gonna beat that guy up anymore. I'm gonna go ahead and mourn and grieve that too. And that's kind of why I, I mean, that's one of the reasons I wanted to use that movie. I don't always do that. I've done that talk a few times.
I I don't think I've ever used one movie all the way through for that talk before, but Um it was Really impactful for me just preparing, right? I mean, I I spent a lot of time in prayer and a lot of tears, actually. you know, just thinking about all the little boys that I know. quite frankly, that are grown men now. And you know, that kind of takes me to my favorite part of boot camp was and I I know we didn't plan this, but my favorite talk of the boot camp was your beauty talk.
I thought that was as authentic and raw as anybody I've ever heard. And I was Um inspired by your Braveness. Um And because I know you so well, I know how hard, not it was for you to be authentic, but how hard it was for you to share.
some of the things that you shared. You're always authentic. But The other part of it is seeing that light come on for other guys. And sometimes it's like Corey and Robby talked about before, where a guy comes and talks to somebody afterwards. But you can also see it in other people that may not come to you and may not talk to you at all, but you can tell.
They're engaged. It's making an impact. You can see some of the guys wrestling, literally, just wrestling just to stay engaged, right? And I usually sit in the back of the room and I kind of watch and the secret's out now for David and Corey, but but I kind of watch what's going on. I kind of watch those people and I begin to just, you know, Put a hand out and begin to pray for that person as I see that happening.
And see that battle occurring, not knowing really what's going on, just knowing. God's doing some work there and it's potentially Hurtful because God usually does go back to the place where we're hurt in order to get that healing. Absolutely. Yeah, I'd like to say something about that because that talk was specifically impactful for me. And it was one of the three things that I had that I was praying for.
And I felt a lot of liberation after that. I was able to talk to Sam about it as well and ride home. Um, but Also, to other men right after that chat, which was. Liberating. Oh, good.
Yeah. Well, thank you, David. It was really great to have both you guys at camp. Hopefully, we will see you back at camp again, you know, pretty regular and helping out or whatever you want to do. Go to masculinejourney.org.
We do not have the spring camp posted yet. You can't go register for it, but it is March 12th through 15th back down in Royston, Georgia.
So put that on your calendar now. Block it out before you get too busy, March 12th through 15th. Go to masculinejourney.org. We'll talk with you next week.
