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. Um This is Andy.
I've been it's been a while since I've sat in this seat. Sam's out tonight. But uh we got a good show for you. Um we're gonna keep with the theme. of God opening our eyes to things that we haven't seen before.
Um, it was pretty general in the first Bit. It comes from Ephesians 1, 17 through 18. And last week, we looked more into spiritual warfare and how he opens our eyes to that. And this show, Robby, is. What are we talking about th this uh this week?
Yeah, we're gonna open He's going to open our eyes to the idea of sonship, or, you know, that God is your father, so to speak. You know, I just read those verses because they're so spectacular, and I don't think we can plumb the depths of them deep enough, really.
So it says verse 17, Ephesians 1. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you... I like to get some. the spirit of wisdom. and Revelation in the knowledge of him.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, That ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance. in the saints. And so it's cool that when you look at the beginning of that, he's telling about a spirit. And it's the opposite spirit of the one that Andy likes to refer to as the Orphan spirit, but here we have. A spirit.
of wisdom And revelation and that idea of revelation being that he would open the eyes of our heart we we thought through the song that we all learned earlier uh in our Walk, open the eyes of my heart. Great song. And here it gives you an idea that. There's wisdom involved, and that's the spirit of wisdom. But here we're going to talk about something very near and dear to your heart, Andy.
We are. We are. And. I hesitated 'cause this is my go-to. Most of the team knows the impression that God made on me after I started coming to boot camps And I began to get some healing from the wounds and understanding what was going on.
There was a period in my life where I just really began to seek the Father. And it was kind of hearing a lot of stuff from the Wild at heart team. um Morgan specifically. But I began like the where it really I went to uh on a trip um to to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And I just immersed myself in this whole wild art message.
I listened to a lot of their podcasts, and the theme and a lot of that was finding God as Father. And it just became so real to me. And you guys have heard me about road trips and stuff like that, but you. You know, it became. This idea of wisdom and revelation of really who God is, I think we call God Heavenly Father and we keep him in heaven.
And we don't believe that he resides in us and he's... He's there and he's approachable and he's accessible. And he truly is. You know, we think about the best father here on earth where he spends time with his sons and he teaches them how to do stuff. And he fellowships and he plays with them when he's a little boy.
That's the perfect father, which none of us had, right? But you see, guys that do things well, that father well.
Well, God's ten times better than that. And the things that we experience on earth, what's the point of having a God in heaven? Who Isn't accessible, who doesn't, who is the perfect father, but we don't allow him to do any of the fatherly things that are invited in our lives because. We don't think that's available. He's way up there in the clouds, and you know, or in heaven.
managing heaven and he doesn't have time for me.
So Yeah, you know, Todd Clark Uh Gave this talk the very first time I ever heard it, Fathered by God. And he made a statement that just kind of took my breath, and I've never forgotten it. He said, you know, everybody. you know, can quote that Yeah. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me. But they can quote the first, God is the way, you know, Jesus is saying, I'm the way, I'm the truth, and the life. But they've laid the part out that He's the way to what? To what? And the idea is that.
Jesus is the way to the father And that's very important, even in this verse, because you listen to the way the verse starts, 17. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you ever considered it a lot, but it says That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, it's saying.
Okay. The the Jesus had a God. Yeah. And it was him, the father of glory, right? Which is who it describes.
And when you think about the relationship that Jesus had with him. And if you read the Gospel of John, you'll see how many times. That he goes to the father and talks about the father sent me, and the father did that. And I don't do anything unless. Where's Jesus?
He's on the mountain praying with his father. Right, but I don't do anything unless the father tells me. In other words, the relationship there was that of the ultimate dream team of a father and son. And if you've ever had any experience that on either end of the equation, either as a son or as a father, you know, it's. It's it's it's a spectacular experience.
It is. It is, and it was life-changing for me. And where God started with me was. in the idea my dad left Left my life. He had to go to another state and work.
I've told this story many times. But whenever he left, there was a big vacancy. But my dad, before he did that, took me on a road trip. And I could tell he really was trying to do something and I didn't realize until later on. What he he knew he was going to be gone for a while.
And You know, that road trip meant all the world to me. Whenever I was just talking about going to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And then I ended up going on another trip to Yosemite. God reached out and showed me how he took me on these road trips. And it what what it uh I haven't really Hadn't fully formulated, I kind of have in some of the boot camp talks, but really what God showed me there was: I'm taking you back to the place where you were orphaned.
Essentially, where your dad left your life. and I took you back to the place of something good that He did for you, and I'm one up in that, but I'm reestablishing your connection to the Father, me, from that point on. And then it opens you up. I mean, what's a what's a father do for a young son? He takes him on adventures, but that builds him into becoming a man.
You know, we've talked about the stages of a Sonship of, you know, you start out as a young boy and then you go to Um the cowboy, ranger, stage, warrior, lover. King and sage, and you go through all these steps. And he took me back really to that cowboy ranger, or maybe the Yeah, probably right in between there. But he took me back to there, to that place of adventure. And then it builds on that.
Then he begins to develop your character. He begins to speak into your life. He gives you. It tells you what you have what it takes, and you step into those things that you didn't want to as a man. A lot of times we become passive men because we're not initiated as a son.
And we've talked about this many times, but there truly is a revelation that comes from that. I wouldn't have said that there was revelation. I was just going on this journey kind of reading a book and kind of getting other people's inputs into it. But when you really look back into it, it's God revealing himself to us as a father, just like it talks about. I mean, Ephesians, Sam brought this, you know, this whole idea of illuminating us and sowing Showing us where we can see God.
There's a bunch in that. in that um passage But one of the things is sonship. And I didn't, I kind of skipped over that. And I reread it this week, and I was like. That's it.
That's what he's done for me. He's revealed himself to me as a father.
Okay. Yeah, it's... It's a beautiful experience, and we were talking at dinner about the idea of validation. Yeah. And in a word that neither one of us really grasped much until we started studying this.
idea of When you feel like Okay, I do have what it takes, or and the best way I know how to explain it is just simply. If I can fix my own lawnmower, it doesn't start. And all of a sudden, I find out that, oh, well, it's got a bad spark plug, or whatever it is that I discover through fathering by YouTube or wherever I get it, some buddy of mine tells me, check this, check that. And at the point in time, that whoever fathered you into the idea of what it took to fix that thing. When you did it, and you know you did it, and you put that spark plug in, and you pulled on that string on that rope, and that thing started, that's validation.
It's like, all right, I feel like a man. Like, I can do something that would actually work, right? And it may be. You know, paint the fence or wax the car, whatever it may be. But the point of it is.
Is that God wants to father you through those kind of experiences. in your relationships with other people. In In You know, your job in all these different places to where you can have that type of validation, that type of like, oh. Oh, I can feel God's pleasure. In the midst of actually seeing something go how it's supposed to go, yeah, right.
Yep.
Well, I have to say, I know a man on those lawnmower motors. They get me every time. Yeah, they're they're challenging, right? But if you know a guy that can tell you, oh, well, just go back and check that, you know, well, it sounds like your ground strap's not tight, you know, or something. And boy, when all of a sudden it works.
Right, and I bet it's that way in programming too, Harold, when all of a sudden You found the magic button. And you knew what validation was at that point, Tom, right? Oh, yeah. But for me the one that probably sticks out the most is Um not a mechanically minded person. My father was a great mechanic back in the days before the computers came on cars and stuff.
He could fix anything. outboard motor, uh, you name it.
Well, I had I didn't have a car until about a month before I graduated from Auburn. and I had a nineteen sixty four Chevelle Malibu Super Sport two eighty three cubic engine with a four barrel carburetor. That was so sweet a vehicle.
Well, a few years down the pike. And I'm driving down the the street there in Columbus, Mississippi, where we had moved. and it dies on me. And I Got a set of points. Tour into the distributor, Put 'em in.
Set them using the feeler gauge. It fired off the first time I turned the key. I didn't touch it after that. I left it. I walked away higher than a cat could fly.
Right. was looking down and saying, oh right. Proud of you, son. Absolutely. There's nothing like that feeling.
I'm telling you, there's nothing like it. Nothing like it.
Well, you can feel that feeling. You can get the Father's validation. 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, you know, how open everybody was to share their struggle is a great group, and a lot of compacting was to be done. 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 break with the men, 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. How did I get here? What have I done? When will all my hopes of you?
How will I know him when I look at him? Look in my mouth. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. We went out pretty quick there, quicker. I'm not good on the timings, but just one thing I wanted to mention.
We have a boot camp coming up. That you can um Come and experience the validation of the Father and the love, and really see what's available to you there at the next boot camp. It's in Royston, Georgia at Camp Little Light, March 12th through the 15th. We're getting ready. I mean, it's only a couple weeks away, so.
We'd love to have you. Please come. And Sam, are you on? Yeah, I'm on.
Okay. I'll let you speak to the bump in there if you want. It was Eric Clapton, and it's Father's Eyes. And when you listen to that song, it really just talks about. You know, as you realize how you're seeing through the father's eyes, and to me that was just very You know, to be to know that How the Father really looks at me compared to how the world looks at me and compared to how I look at myself.
And, you know, I just really, that song was on my mind when we were talking about this topic. And so I talked to Andy, and then we cut the clip. Yeah, spot on. Thank you. We we've done that a while back, but when you said you were submitting this, I was like, that's done, that's perfect for this topic.
So and the neat thing about that clip, that we Studied a little bit. Yeah, we did. That actually you may be aware that Eric Clapton lost his son. You may not be aware that his father died. Um you know, not too terribly long before that.
Apparently, when he wrote that song, He was connecting the look of his son's eyes to the look of his father's eyes. Uh um you know having That heavenly perspective because essentially that's we're all on our way there.
So it's really kind of just adds a whole dimension to that song, Sam. I really love it. Yeah, the idea of looking into our Father's eyes, I think we don't. I think we look away a lot of times. We're not expecting an inviting presence.
That's just the that's our condition, that's that orphaned spirit. And when we get a true vision of the Father, we see We see what we can identify with a lot more. The love of Jesus. A lot of times, this is what they say a lot of times on Wild Heart. We know Jesus is good.
We're not so sure about the Father. And that's what we're talking about here: if Jesus truly came, if He's the way, the truth, and the life. Like where Abby was saying, it's to something, and that way is to the Father, so. The Father's the destination. That's right.
That's right. And Jesus is the bus driver. That's right. That's right. All right, Robby, we're going to play your clip.
You want to speak to it a little bit? Yeah, well, I knew that, you know, this. idea of vision Oh, rang really you know, hard in my heart because That was the word I had in 2024, was the word vision. And You know, I went into that year expecting, you know, great visions of, you know, this is what my ministry is going to look like, or this is what my marriage is going to look like. You know, I was expecting these visions, right?
The idea of, you know, without a vision, the people perish. And that was kind of. You know, my expectation, but as always, it is my experience: when God gives you a word, He has a real surprise for you in that. And so as I worked all hard, all year, trying to get that vision, I went to actually Nikita's man camp that fall. and saw a whole series of sermons that were done by Dave Busby, a wonderful pastor who went to be the Lord.
And the sermon series was called Taste. And C. And in it, he describes that idea. of tasting and seeing that I began to realize Had so much more to do with vision than I ever had realized that. The way he described it was hilarious because his mother used to make something called salmon croquettes that he hated, and I can imagine I would hate salmon.
Salmon cr some You know, you put canned salmon in anything, and I'm not a very happy person. I can smell it from here. Anyway, every time she would make it. You know, of course, he wouldn't eat all of it and he would leave some on the plate. And he said, and you could just count on the fact that my mother would say, Children in Africa and you could just hear are starving to death.
And he said, so I heard, I had heard about starving children in Africa all my life. Every single single time my mom ever served salmon croquettes, I heard about starving children in Africa. He said so I I had heard all about starving children in Africa. But then, you know, a number of years later, I went on a mission trip to Africa and actually held one of those children in my arms. And he said, and it affected me.
I experienced a child that was dying of starvation In other words, when you experience something is when you actually taste it. And so that idea of tasting God in his goodness. You may taste him in his goodness on a Steelhead fishing trip to the area around Erie, Pennsylvania, like I have, and it's absolutely amazing. There's other times I've tasted the father. When I was crushed by a jeep, and I was in absolute horror and pain.
And I tasted him and saw how good he was in that experience too. When I was thinking about what movie might illustrate this idea of tasting and seeing, I couldn't help but. Consider the matrix, where here the man's given the choice of two different pills. One would allow him to taste and see, the other one would allow him to go back into his. Unconscious state of not wanting to see the Father, so to speak.
Once you've actually seen the truth or you begin to taste The truth. You can't unsee it. There's no going back. And you don't want to go back because when you put your hands to the plow, anybody that does that, they've got to look forward or they're not fit for the kingdom of God, according to. Luke chapter 10.
So, Nick, excuse me, Luke chapter 9. Go ahead and play it. Do you want to know? what it is.
Okay. Yeah. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room, You can see it when you look out your window.
Or when you turn on your television. Mm-hmm. You can feel it. when you go to work. When you go to church.
When you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Okay. What truth? That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch.
A prison. for your mind. Yeah. Unfortunately, no one can be. told what the matrix is.
Okay. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill.
The story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill. You stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. And honestly, from the bottom of my heart. I can tell you Then when I came to my first boot camp, I actually saw that clip. And realized. The truth of it it that's unbelievable, especially You know, all I'm offering is the truth.
And once you see the truth, you can't unsee. And at that same boot camp Todd, You know, I heard about like Jesus is the way to the Father. I heard about sonship. I heard about so many things that later would be better revealed to me. But the point is from my experience.
Boot camp. You know, Andy said that here you go, here's an opportunity to sign up for something. That The things we're talking about: validation, relationship with the Father, the spirit of wisdom, of revelation. that Ephesians talks about. The wisdom that's involved in that, but you see it all the time.
There's people that don't see God in anything, and then there's people that see God in everything. And What's the truth? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um That's true.
I I think how much my life has changed with seeing the father.
Now You know, I I was I've been thinking on this. You you mentioned the Crushing by the Jeep. And you've had Story after story. We've all here had stories of things Not going the way we should.
Now, there was a time in my Christian life thinking every time that there was a mess up and things didn't go right. I screwed up. It was me. It was all me. It was all my disobedience.
Not realizing that suffering comes to us all, and whenever you really dig into the Bible, you look at David, the God. The man after God's own heart? He had nothing but challenges in a variety of different ways. And I also thought You know, uh I don't see David He he talked about God as being God. I didn't see him.
Mentioning so much of him being a father, But there was no doubt when you looked at that relationship that, God, should we go up? That's what a son does. is ask his father for wisdom on how to handle situations, for example. And the praise that he gave him, and all. He wasn't just some subject.
to be you okay, go be king over Israel. He was a son. And you see that. You know, we obviously see it with Jesus. I was thinking about Joseph and all the trials that he went through.
He was a son. He was Um, he was he was a son of, um Jacob. Jacob. But he was a son of God, too. And you saw that see this in these men's lives.
And, you know, it's just attractive to me to realize that God probably offers up, or I know he offers up a whole lot more than we. Um actually Receive.
Now, I know, even as much as I have received, there's still a ton. That I can receive as a son, that I reject a lot of times because even though the spirit of. The orphan is broken off with me. There is still a certain amount of self-determination. Or, well, God expects me to handle this.
And certain things he does, that's part of maturity and stuff. But anyway, I'm just kind of rambling here. But there's so much to this idea of sonship and what it looks like biblically, but also what it looks like experientially with us. Wow, I didn't intend. I was going to try to reach out to Sam, but here it is.
We're done with the show, but we're going to get Sam on. And uh R and um Harold. In the next part of the show, but uh So it's been a great, great show talking about sonship, my favorite subject. And, you know, we really invite you to come and be a. Step into that sonship that God offers at the next boot camp.
It's in Royston, Georgia, March 12th to the 15th. Go to masculinejourney.org to register. Have a good week.
