This is the Truth Network. 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 nearing Christmas.
It's just around the corner. Yeah. Do you guys agree? Yep. Yep.
It's like Christmas Eve, Eve, Eve time tonight. Yeah, it's a few. Yeah. It's a few. Yeah, it's about four or five.
But we have a treat here in just a few minutes. we're going to have Danny, who hasn't been able to be with us in person, but he'll be on the air with us here in just a little bit. And so we are talking about a topic this week of a Christmas rescue. That's Andy, good name for the topic. Shake your head, they can't hear you.
Shake it harder, baby, they'll hear it rattle. That's why we have video. They should be watching live. But the topic is Christmas rescue. And what we're talking about was when did the Father come for you at Christmastime?
Whether it was your best Christmas ever, it was in the midst of your worst Christmas, somewhere in the middle. You know, hopefully if he came after you, it became one of your best Christmas ever. But that's what we're talking about today. And so we're going to start with a clip. And it's just not a normal TV clip or a movie clip.
But, Andy, it's a clip from a pastor, right? Yeah, it is.
So I'll try to do this quick. There's a lot to this and how it links to my story. But I saw this, a guy that has come to our boot camps, Rod Broom. His pastor, he had told me, Crossroads Church near Cincinnati, he does movies for Christmas and kind of breaks them down and relates them to the gospel story. You know, we're all about that.
and in this you'll hear he relates it you won't hear in depth his story but he just is talking about how God comes after us when we feel like Buddy the Elf he links it to the story of Elf and if you've seen Elf Buddy is like he's adopted by Santa Claus or whatever or actually an elf that's why he gets the name Elf not Buddy the Claus right exactly But anyway, he doesn't know his real father, and his father rejects him because he's an elf and not a person. And you go through all that and seeing this, and the whole story is about that, of him trying to be accepted by his father, and it's continual rejection. And this is this guy's story because this pastor is adopted by his stepfather, and then he reconnects with his father. And he doesn't get into all that, but it's the same kind of story of we are all an orphan. And if you listen to this show, you know I talk about the orphan spirit, and I never would have thought I had one.
I had good parents and all that. I never felt like that too somewhat. My dad got out of my life, was not a part of my life in my adolescence when I really needed a father. And you trend. We all trend to try to do this life alone, self-determination.
It's all up to me. We've talked about that many times. And the person that's as connected as their parents can be will still fall into that at times. And so this is what he's talking about here on this clip. And then I'll tell, when we come back, I'll tell a quick story about how it relates.
Well, you don't have to be quick with it. You can just tell the story. All right. All right. So here we are.
And this pastor's name is Brian Tomey. Is that right? Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm looking at this stuff, and it was really a crisis.
And then as I was processing it, because I always thought if I saw somebody who was my DNA, kind of like what Buddy thinks, if he sees James Caan, everything's going to make sense. I kept thinking everything makes sense. And it wasn't. It was more confusing. I kept asking myself, now, who am I?
So praying about this, the next morning I get up and pray about it. And God says to me, I sense God say, Brian, you're my son. You're my son. You're not his son or his son. And I get you.
And I get you. God understands me and he likes me and he even laughs at my jokes, believe it or not. And he gets you. He understands you and he laughs at your jokes. I don't care what your giftedness is.
I don't care what your talents are. I don't care what your wiring is. I don't care if you're jock, nerd, whatever you are, white, black. I don't care if you're left, right. I don't care if you're artsy, grungy.
God understands you. He gets you. He loves you. He gets a kick out of you. But we often don't feel this because we're dealing with our orphan-hearted tendencies, this thing that keeps me from connecting with God.
And God so desperately wants to connect with you. He so wants to sit with you. He so wants you to sit with him.
so as part of this restoration process shortly before uh my mom passed away in december of 2022 right five days before christmas i'd really went after god and he had really come after me and i really felt adopted you guys heard it may talk about it quite a bit there was a lot of there's a there was a lot going on there in the story but a lot of it was just road trips and things like that that where I just really allowed I mean I didn't know God will meet you wherever you're at and I needed him to meet me in that place of coming along with me my road trips and me and my dad did road trips and it was like God was saying you thought a road he he did good road trips I do great road trips whatever and in in that process you know I just really had connected And when I lost my mom, I was going through kidney stones at the same time. She passed away on Monday, I believe it was. On Tuesday I had a stent taken out I had all this pain from that I can remember just crying out to God because I was really it was tough I knew I had all this stuff to do but I couldn do anything And I laid down and I heard him say, be still and know that I'm God. And when I did, when I woke up after that, I had no more pain, was able to get ready for the funeral, be able to speak at it. my brothers rallied around me.
I felt as part of a family. And, you know, this is my last parent. This is a time that I should be feeling orphaned, but I felt so connected to my father and his sons, and he rescued me there. That's awesome. Thank you.
Go ahead, Grant. If you heard me laugh there, it's laughing in joy. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I do that well.
What's that? And hit us your own jokes as well. Yeah. Were you laughing at your own joke there, Grant? We're just joking.
Hey, Danny, we have you on the air with us. Welcome. Yeah. Been a while. It has.
It has. We're going to play your clip after the break and let you talk a little bit about that clip. But how are you doing? Doing fairly well. Still got some internal issues we're dealing with.
But getting there slowly but surely, much better than I was. It was three months ago today I had the big surgery, sir. Wow.
So we're hanging in. Just got some, it seems like one challenge after another sometimes. But all in all, we're improving, sir. That's good. That's good.
You know, you're making progress. It's just not as quick as you'd like, I'm sure. No, I'd have been done with it after six weeks of surgery. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know that we're optimistic that it would be something like that at the time.
Yeah, but it proved to be, as the nurse practitioner said, we did awful things to you on the inside. It's going to take a while. Yeah, your body's fighting back right now. Yeah, for sure.
Well, we'll talk with you a little bit more after the break, Danny, and get your clip in and a little bit here about your rescue from God. But Grant, we've got a few minutes left. Do you want to share a little bit about God rescuing you? Yes. Right after a bad operation, about three-quarter year, when I wanted to move or act or speak, I wanted to do it, but my body would not.
But still, at a church I had about 30 people. they were dressed up like Christmas in the manger and the everybody from the Christmas but I was there and I was doing things I could see people driving by and enjoying it Amen so God came after you that Christmas yes that's awesome well thank you Grant we appreciate that And here you are walking, talking, doing all sorts of things like you never thought you'd be able to do. Huh? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The hearing's still working on that. But yeah, we're still a little bit off on that. But we're glad to have you with us. And I'd ask that you'd be asking God the same thing this week. We're going to be going into break in here in just a few minutes.
But ask yourself, when did God come and rescue me? What Christmas did he do that? Or how many Christmases has God done that? You know, if you have a very dysfunctional family, maybe he's doing it every Christmas. You know, if you're Clark Griswold kind of thing, maybe that's what it's for you.
But we're going to share some more stories after the break. We will have a boot camp coming up again in March. We do not have it up on the website quite yet, but it's going to be – well, I guess it is up on the website. I've been corrected. Andy, thank you.
I could hear you shaking your head over there. We appreciate that. Double thumbs up that you can't hear either, right? Yeah, I can't hear that either. But it is up on the website, and it's March 12th through 15th, and it's back down in Royston, Georgia, and we would love to have you there.
It's such an amazing place to go down and be with God. I mean, you're with God wherever you are right now, obviously, but it's a time to set aside and go just spend some quiet time with him, and there's nothing quite like getting out there in the middle of nature and just listening for what God has to say, you know, and letting him rescue you some right there in March as well. He can do it any time of year. Yeah, you could have asked for it for a Christmas gift, too, you know? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Googling, Andy. You're just full of them tonight. You're on a roll.
I'm on a roll. And there you were. You were going to jump out of the show. I see. And I'm just not nodding either.
I'm actually saying something. Breakfast. Breakfast. Robby, welcome back from Israel. I'm glad you had a good trip and glad you're back with us.
We've missed you. I am glad to be back. It seems like forever. Yeah. Came right off of boot camp and next thing I know, I'm off.
is rolling. Then things started rolling pretty fast. When we come back, if we get a chance, I'll share a little bit about how he came after me in this season, no doubt. Yeah, we'll have some more stories coming up. We do like to have listeners reach out to us.
If you have an idea for a show, you'd like us to maybe do a show on something, an area we'd like to pray about and consider it, reach out to any one of us. Our first name at masculinejourney.org. You can reach out to us. If you have a movie that you say, hey, you guys would love this movie, send it to us. Maybe we'll play something different than the Outlaw Josie Wales like every other week or some of the ones that we do play.
But reach out to us. Let us know. And again, if there's something on your heart, if we could pray for you, just let us know that. Reach out to us and say, hey, I could use some prayer on this, and we'd love to be honored to do that. We'd be praying for you.
Again, go to masculinejourney.org if you want to learn more about the boot camp, and we will talk with 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. I think sometimes as men we feel like we on our own and we got to do everything ourselves and the weight of the world is on our shoulders and it our job to fix everything and make everything right and have all the answers And I think when you come here you just get really honed back in and reminded that God really is for us that a good father helps you, and a good father makes sure you have all the tools you need, and a good father comes through for you when you need him, and you just feel less alone. Register today at MasculineJourney.org.
I pray on Christmas. Bop, bop, bop. That the Lord will see me through. I pray on Christmas. He'll show me what to do.
I pray on Christmas. He'll help me understand. And I pray on Christmas. He'll take me by the hand. Welcome back.
That is Harry Connick, Jr. I Pray at Christmas. I had another song picked out for the bump, and I'm riding along, and I was going to play Hark the Herald Angels Sing from Stephen Curtis Chapman, the rendition. I thought that's what I saw out there. Yeah, yeah, and I was riding along for going to a wedding anniversary party, 65th wedding anniversary party, for obviously an older couple.
You know, they're at least 65. And so I was headed down, and this song came on, and I'm like, oh, I got to use this song. I'd forgot all about it. I hadn't heard it in years. And so the thing I'd ask you is, what are you praying for this Christmas?
What are you praying for in your rescue right now? Where could God come in and rescue you? Right? Is it physical? Is it mental?
Is it spiritual? Is it vocational? Is it vocational? Is it all of those? You know, are they all wrapped up in one?
Maybe it's something else. Maybe you just need to feel his closeness.
So what are you praying for this Christmas? And please go out and consider that. That's Harry Connick Jr. from his Christmas album from many, many years ago. It's got a nice little beat to it, so I thought that would be good to play as well.
Danny, are you here with us? Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, well, we're going to play your clip next. It seems how you went all effort to get a hold of us and talk to us this week. We miss talking to you, so we'd love to have you share on the show. Yeah, we miss seeing you as much almost as talking to you.
Well, one of these days I'll be back in the studio, so we're working on that. Yes, you will. Yes, you will. Well, you want to tell us a little bit about your clip, or what do you want to do first?
Well, it's from probably everybody's familiar with it, but it's from Charlie Brown Christmas, and it's the scene where Linus explains what Christmas is all about. And he goes, Charlie Brown's having a tough time, as usual. And so he's frustrated and carrying on, and he doesn't anybody know what Christmas is all about, that Linus explained it to him, and that pretty much sums up the clip. All right. We can play it, and then we'll talk about it.
Here we go. We're back. Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown. What kind of a tree is that? You are supposed to get a good tree.
Can't you even tell a good tree from a poor tree? I told you we'd goof it up. He's not the kind you can depend on to do anything right. You're hopeless, Charlie Brown. Completely hopeless.
Rats! You've been dumb before, Charlie Brown, but this time you really did it. What a treat! I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn't have picked this little tree.
Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about. Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please.
And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them. And the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not.
For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.
That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. Danny, good clip. It's never Christmas until you get to hear that clip, as Andy was saying earlier. That's right. We were talking about it.
It's never Christmas until you watch the Charlie Brown Christmas. That's right. And people keep buying it, and you have to do all this kind of stuff. But anyway, you know, usually you just turn on CBS and it would be on or something, you know. Yeah.
But, you know, this made me think about several years ago. My buddy Chuck Powers, who passed away a year or so ago, he had a vision of a thing called manger moment. and it was, what he saw was stations of the story of Jesus' birth that we've known through Christmas plays and stuff like that and read every year Luke and Matthew but we had different stations he had this thing all laid out and we as a ministry at the time we took on the project to make it happen and so we were frantically building stations, setting up a whole church yard, and just running around, plus all the other stuff that happened at Christmas, you know, Christmas parties and family get-togethers, all this stuff happening, and I was head over all this stuff.
So I was being pulled in about 12 different directions at once, and it becomes frustrating and it just become you know just almost become the Grinch that year if it was that bad that just you know just be glad when all this is over with But in that process we got everything done and we had some issues with some guys. One of our guys had surgery, so he would have been a key player in this, but he was taken out.
So we're scrounging around trying to get everything together, and right the night that it was going to open, we were open for two nights, and just have people come to the free event. People just come walk in. And right before we were opening up, I just felt prompted. The Lord said, you need to go through the major moment. Because what it did was it culminated at the major, and it was a live major scene, and Mary and Joseph would ask the people, is there anything we can pray with you about?
And I walked through that thing and read the stations and just kind of took my time I went through there and got to the manger. And, you know, we prayed. And that's when God reminded me what Christmas is really all about. That, you know, it is about him stepping out of heaven and becoming a provision for us. And all this other stuff, the tinsel and the Christmas trees and all that stuff is just added fluff.
That really, the grand scheme thing means nothing. because if you don't know what that baby in the manger really means, then you've missed the whole point. And I had to be reminded of that. That's Christmas, and that's the way God come after my heart. And, you know, every once in a while I need a reminder that there was a baby born in a manger thousands of years ago that still lives today.
And, you know, that's what Christmas is all about.
Well, thank you, Danny. That's pretty awesome. That's a good way to really put it in perspective. But, Robby, we have a few more minutes if you'd like to share about your Christmas rescue. We've got probably three minutes, four minutes, if you can share it.
I can share. I do what I can.
Okay. Before you get into that, Rob, I just want to jump in real quick. I appreciate what Danny said, but I wanted to hit on some things about Charlie Brown Christmas and how bad he was being mocked and about how we can forget about Christmas. And I'll be quick. I'll try to be about 30 seconds.
We have people saying that Christmas is a pagan holiday, even people saying it's a demon holiday and it should not be celebrated.
Well, goodness, guys, we know about this, but we want to celebrate this to not say that this is when Jesus was born. But we want to just celebrate it as a recognition of him being born, period.
So if you want to designate any other day to where he was he was celebrated and have all this pantry about it, I'm fine with that. But let's not get away with Christmas because it has some debatable topics because we already have enough attacks on us, period, with all of our celebrations and all of our holidays. Let's not get rid of Christmas. This is the only holiday that's so unique in all of the whole world. You know, another one we have is Easter, or what should be said, you know, by Stu Epperson, should be called Resurrection Day.
So call it what you want to, but let's not get rid of Christmas. Let's continue celebrating the birth of Jesus on whatever day, but right now it's on Christmas Day, so let's keep it how it is. That's just what I wanted to say.
Sorry, Robby, go ahead.
Well, Robby, we'll actually probably do yours next week. I was going to ask Jamal, you know, how about you? But how did Jesus, you know, the one you're talking about, how did he come after you or your own story?
Well, to be honest, I don't really have one. I know some people have like these, you know, grandiose stories and, you know, tragic, not tragic, but yeah, tragic backgrounds and they have a dramatic turnaround. I don't really have that. One thing that I can say that Sammy brought up was a Christmas prayer. I can mention that because I came up in a single parent household and reminds me about what Andy was saying about being orphaned.
When I would see Christmas movies like Home Alone, you know, huge families getting it to get it, getting together and eating and celebrating one another, even the bad stuff. You know, like, oh, she burnt the chicken again or burnt the turkey again. But they're still all together and they're, you know, making fun of each other. no offense to my family but we did not really have that and I longed for that and it got me to think about other people that have even worse than what I did who didn't have any family at all did they spend their Christmas on the street we have people in Nigeria and China who probably can't even celebrate openly at all don't even have a tree, food, nothing so that's my prayer that people can have that family connection that family celebration to be able to celebrate and also to where there's no more persecution to where they can have a good Christmas. And I think that's one of the basics that we can miss out on.
So that's my Christmas prayer. Thanks for that, Robby. Anything for you personally?
Okay. I'm trying to deflect. I know, I know. Speak on it. You started it.
All right. This might sound Pollyanna or a little bit sappy. I would like for a quiet, peaceful family Christmas, whatever that is, because that's what God said. my people are not really necessarily family. My people are the people that follow after God.
So whatever you call family, I pray that you're able to get with your family, your loved ones, and remember it's about Christ. And Christ gave us all of our blessings, gave us all of our goodness. Only good comes from him. That's personally what I would want to pray for. All right.
We'll be praying that for you as well.
So you'll be able to have that. Go to maskandjourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp coming up March 12th through 15th in 2026 in Royston, Georgia. And Andy had a great point. That's a great thing to ask for Christmas. If you don't really know what you want, say, hey, I could use a boot camp and take time this week and ask God two things.
How did you come after me and what I pray for this Christmas? Amen.
