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 the Masculine Journey. We're so glad that you are with us.
And if you're a regular listener, you realize this is not Sam. I started to introduce myself as Sam, but everybody would know that I wasn't Sam, and then I would do something mean, and then they would blame him, and then it would be a whole Russian doll thing. But anyway, we are happy that you're with us today, and we're going to be talking. About The hope Of renewal, the hope of restoration, the hope of renewal. It's springtime.
If you're listening. In today and not next year or the year after from a podcast, but Um That time of the year, there's things that I love about it. There are things that I hate about it, like sinuses and things along those lines. But I love being able to get out in the trees and work on my property and different things like that. And when uh we started talking about this topic last week.
Um Sam and I were chatting and And it just kind of hit me. One of the things that I've been studying in my own. Devotionals and stuff was this idea of restoration, and God's kind of been taking me down a road. Um digging into that. for a while now.
But the other thing was I I just I started thinking about the things that are going on in all of our lives, the by our lives. I mean Danny and Jim and And and Sam and Robby and and you know, others and my own life and then um Herald and art and Just all of the guys that hang out here, there is. Almost anytime you have a group this large, there is going to be something. going on. In Their lives, right?
And it's not always going to be beautiful.
Now, some people would say that's because we're old. That's what our younger friends say. But It just is life. You know, I mean, things are going to happen. And so.
The thought process was that Honestly, this is the thought that hit me. If I did not have hope of renewal. And yeah, I'm talking about heaven, I'm talking about the afterlife, I'm talking about all of that, but I'm even talking about tomorrow. Almost every day my prayers kind of start out with something along the lines of Thank you for your new mercies today, you know, for your grace today. And all of those things.
And if I didn't have that as a belief system, I don't think I would make it to next Tuesday.
So that's kind of where we're headed tonight. And so we've got a lot of really good clips. Robby, you are joining us from the Netherworlds of Foneville. because nothing's going on in your life. I could use a little renewal to my neck bones and my backbone and Yeah, I'm enjoying that process, that's for sure.
I've always thought of you as someone with plenty of backbone, though. Yeah. Yeah. Robby's got backbone. It was the stiff neck that we were worried about, actually.
Um. button on the The braces and stuff, we've always thought of Robby as sometimes being stiff-necked, but now it's real. And that's something God doesn't like, at least with the Israelites. Danny. Yeah, I mean I got nothing.
You looked like he had something going on there. All his is gastrointestinal. Oh, I got you.
Okay. Um. Well, I'm gonna start with uh Robby's clip. And uh The reason is, is I I think it sets it up. Um the hope of renewal is good.
Because We're not always living in the best days. We're not always experiencing. total and complete joy in our Um spiritual life. In our marriage, in our family life, maybe in our work, or several different aspects of life. If we were consistently filled with wonderful, happy things.
Joy is not that. Joy is something else. But if everything was always happy, happy, happy, to quote Phil Robertson, then We wouldn't necessarily need the hope of renewal, but things aren't always happy, happy, happy. And so. This idea of restoration and renewal, I think, is key to what we've done as a group of guys for several years now.
So Robby, you want to set up your clip? Yeah, it's kind of cool from my perspective that um Jesus' parable of the soils was considered You know, the parable that kind of explains all the parables, and you might even think that it's not a parable because we are soil. And so that idea of a seed falls to the ground and dies. Um is How we end up with renewal, right? Unless it dies, you know, it can't grow up to be a new plant.
And so. That happens in the dark. I don't know if you considered that, but once it goes under the soil, it begins to dig roots in and be able to grab the moisture, those that happens. as a result of death. And there you get the new life as you can picture that seed springing up out of the ground into the sun where things can.
where it can see and things are revealed to it, those kind of things. It's amazing when you think about When we're in those periods of darkness, that really prayer itself is kind of in the dark. In fact, Moses had to push in through a great cloud of darkness in order to even speak to God. And it's, I don't know if you've had that experience in prayer, I sure have. And so, this idea, this farmer is describing the way that he prepares the soil and how important the soil is to the whole farming process.
And you'll even hear him talking about. non-tilling the soil because he doesn't want to destroy the root. And the idea of good roots can bear great fruit. But unfortunately, we can also grow weeds in that soil. And so as you listen to this clip, I think it's a neat opportunity to begin to see the spiritual aspects of what he's talking about and how important it is that we abide In the root that we know is Jesus.
So go ahead and play it, Sam. I'm being darren. That's okay. You can call me Sam.
Okay, there's a phrase in the farming community. It basically says that good farmers don't grow plants, they grow soil. What I'm finding, the most important element, is actually the darkness.
Okay, because if you don't have darkness, that microbiology is not going to feel at home. It's not going to be there and it's not going to be as happy as it would be with the darkness. And then I'm discovering that you need is you always need a root in the ground. Cover crop guys say this all the time: they say, always have a living root in the ground. Central to note-till farming is to not do that.
Instead of tilling, plant cover crops whose roots break up the soil. Let the worms aerate the soil and bring down nutrients. Because the soil is the energy bank. In permaculture, we call it you bank your energy in a soil. And when you start kind of getting it working the way that you want it to work, you really feel it.
It's like catching a wave and surfing and you stand back and you look at the soil build and you look at the yield come and you look at the moisture there and everything's working the way it should. Yeah, so for me, that clip just brings unbelievable joy because. Certainly, over the last few weeks, I've had a lot of things die. Those who know, I've In a pretty horrific car accident with my wife, and we'd both been at home recuperating, but a lot of things that I thought were really important became not important. Um And and other things that I had let go, it's all of a sudden began to blossom.
It's fascinating, especially my family life, which was so critical to me. But one of the best things that has blossomed. is my time with God. you know, those people who know me, I love to get up really early when it's dark. And that's when I'm really my happiest.
I really am. I'm spending time with God and He's showing me stuff and I'm I'm banking the energy that He gives me in order to spend it on the day when the sun comes up. And I as I heard this, it just it it it's brought such um I don't know. Validation to What God has shown me in my life as I push more into abiding in Him. Uh The more that I'm I'm banking that energy that that God gives me to do other things.
And that idea of renewal happens. Um, after a lot of time in the dark.
So that's that's I guess what I have to say, Darren.
Well, that I think all of us um can identify with that. I I definitely can. If I get up early enough in the morning and I start my day with God in that kind of same way, I don't get up as early as Robby. Robby gets up at like 1 a.m. and doesn't go to bed till like midnight.
So I don't know how he survives, but. Anyway, Um if I get up at you know early in the morning, 4:30, 5:30, something like that, and I get my two or three hours of just solitude, prayer, worship, um, study, all of that. then I'm usually pretty good. If I don't get that. um I'm usually not all that good.
And you know, and I kind of have to fight a little bit harder throughout the day. And so I love the way you said that, Robby, that we're you know, we're banking Our energy that we're getting from God. And I've never really thought about it like that, but that definitely would be part of the. The ritual of my life that I wish I were better at. I mean, I love to do it.
I love to do it almost every day. There are some days it doesn't happen, and I regret that all the time.
Sort of like Robby, I like the morning hours. I like getting up in the dark. In my case, I don't have much choice most of the time because when I wake up anytime after three, I'm up. That's it. And if I manage to sleep till 5 or 5:30, I have animals that will insist on being fed.
So in the winter, it's always dark when I get up. In the summer, I get a little little more light. But that is a time. First of all, it's a time nobody's going to be calling you on their cell phones and texting you. And one of the earliest things I have is somebody sending me a Bible verse, which usually happens around 6 to a little after 6.
And that is a time to spend with God. And I've until this moment, I've always been sort of. Embarrassed to say I'm a creature of the dark, but now I feel better about it. Yeah, Robby's giving us something to be hopeful about.
So, Jim, go ahead and set up your clip. This is one of my all-time favorite movies. And we'll do a real quick setup. We're going to talk to Garth and Hub. I think I got it right that right.
Not dub, not stub, or dub. Those are my toes. No. We're gonna listen to B Final part of the movie about these two old men. 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. This is my third camp, and as always, it's fantastic because one, it's a getaway from day to day. Two, I get to be around brothers, and three, I get to intentionally spend time with my father. Does the camps feel the same when you come to each one? No, they don't.
And that's what I was worried about with my second one: is it going to be the same exact stuff as the first one? And it wasn't. It still feels different because God is wanting to speak to me in a different way no matter what. And this time, he's really been digging in on me growing up without a dad in my life and him really trying to impress on me what it means to have a father that loves you in your life. And that's been really difficult for me.
And I'm still going through that and unpacking a lot of that and what that actually looks like in my life. If you're a You need to come to this. If you're listening to me or listening to this show, you need to register for the next one. You need to be down here. You need to experience this.
It will legitimately change your life every time you come. Register today at mascularjourney.org. I want to know you, God. I want to be with you. Turn my heart to you.
Believe me in your truth. I want to know you, God. I want to be made new. Oh, I want to be made new.
So, that I'm guessing nobody's heard that before. That one was new to me. I knew that it would be new to our audience.
Well, I'm glad that that worked for you, Danny. I can give you the whole song later. That is a song written by. uh a friend of mine named Andrew Kurtz and my son. And that was Andrew playing it.
He's a worship leader down at Church of the 1122 down in. Georgia, Southern Georgia, at one of their campuses down there. But Andrew was a young man that I got to know a few years ago. who really, really embodies this being made new. He he grew up in a in a very odd Time in a very odd place and a very odd style of religion, and so everything, including Um, you know, television, quite frankly, is kind of new to him because he didn't he didn't see any of that.
And so But even though he was guarded and sheltered through most of his life, he still got wounded fairly bad. And healing from those wounds and being made new over and over again every day is a huge part of his life. Um but that's honestly I didn't pick this topic because of that song, but when I started thinking about bumps, that song immediately came to mind because of the made new part of it. Which, again, I think that's the cry of every one of our hearts. I want to be made new.
I mean, I don't know any human alive that thinks they're just perfect the way they are and they don't want any. newness in their life. Especially not that comes from Christ. And so, Jim, we were trying to set up secondhand lions with this conversation about we're not going to meet Garth and Hub because they're dead, quite frankly, in this clip. What?
But you were starting to set that clip up. Yeah. And then I didn't give you a chance to invite everybody to boot camp, but Andy isn't here to tell us the exact dates. November the 19th through the 22nd. You know him.
And it'll be an advanced boot camp. Yes.
So if. And now you've been invited. This is the. Final part of the movie. And it is after Garth and Hubb have died in a not-so-tragic plane accident, trying to fly through a barn upside down.
And the People you hear talking are: one's the son of the villain of most of their lives, and the other is the See if I get it right. I think he's a great deput. Yeah. who was raised by them and you'll hear that one of the Best things that ever happened to him was getting dumped on their unc at his uncle's. But it is a wonderful clip and it hits me where I live right now.
We'll talk about that after the clip. Uh This is it. This is where they lived. It's okay, come here buddy. Mm-hmm.
Win. Look at this. This. Uh Oh, forgive me. We were in Houston when we heard their names on the news and Oh we just had to come.
When I was a boy, my grandfather told me such stories. Your grandfather. Very wealthy chic. He used to love to tell me stories about his wild youth and he They're amazing. Unbelievable stories all about two brothers, Hubbing Garth McCann, the most...
Valiant and brave men, huh? He called them his most honored adversaries. The only men who ever outsmarted me. Wait, so you You know this two men. They they raised me.
It's an honor. Yeah. It's nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you. Wow.
Well see they spend my grandfather's gold wisely. Mm. That's it. Well, there was this one traveling salesman.
So The two men from great grandfather's stories, they really lived? Yeah. They really lived and they lived longer because they had basically a sun to raise in him. And it it is a wonderful movie if you've never seen it. The comment about spending the gold wisely is there's a huge yacht in a pond that barely fits around the bottom of the yacht.
And they had gobs of money which they almost never spent except with that one salesman. But they were about living. They didn't care about the fortunes they gained and lost or any of the stuff of this world. They We're living together and shooting at most of the salespeople and. It was it was a They miss the action of their youth.
Yeah, if if you've not seen that movie, Second Hand Lions, it is tremendous. If you've got a grandson or granddaughter, it's worthy of being watched with them. It's my grandson's favorite movie. We've watched it together, and he's 21. And we still, every now and then, he'll say, We ought to watch second-hand lines.
So I love it. It's definitely in my top five. And I don't know how many times I've watched it. And it has a lot of truth in that, but As I've gotten older, and I was wrong. I told him not to do the math earlier because I said I think I'm in December of.
If I'm in a calendar year, I'm not. I'm just late in November.
So one of the. That really comes from a bizarre place of me being disobedient to God, which I'll admit on radio here. One of the names God has given me in the past that took a lot of ribbing was waxing gibbous. And wha and it was looking up at the moon and said That looks like it's waxing gibbous. And Once, and I'd said, no, that's not my name, and God sort of insisted, yes, that's your name.
And then I decided going back to the cabin to figure out how long I was going to live based on what percentage of the moon it was. And I clearly heard him say, don't do that. I did it, and that's sort of why I was talking about it.
So chances are you're wrong.
Well, I'm sure if that was going to happen, that it won't now, because you don't get to know those days. And Danny bought a truck a couple of years ago, and he named it Gibbous, hoping that you would wax it, but you haven't. And so, Danny, your clip is from. It's from the series Picard, which is a spin-off of Star Trek Next Generation, basically. For you Trekkies out there, all three of you, and Jim.
And you know, so I find we're the one minority most of the time. But I love the series, but this is toward the end of the series, and what they've done is they've gone back in time. 'Cause you can do that on bare mount T V. It'd be nice sometimes, I think, but probably mess something up. Anyway, and They've had all these adventures, and they've come, and there's a character in there called Q.
And he's in several of the Star Trek series. And he's he's a bit of a godlike creature, but he's Also a bit of a troublemaker. He's just kind of mischievous at times. But he's come to say goodbye. And he's come to help them get back to where they belong.
And what you'll hear is one gentleman saying he's not going.
Now they're back in like our present time and you know they're from like way up in the future. And he said he's not going back. And you know, he explains why. and what he has found in this past adventure Is renewal. And that's what made me think of this clue.
I've used it before. And you know, I love the series and everything, but you can play the clip and talk about it on the other side.
Well, as you like.
Now are we all ready to go home? Bags packed. No. I'm staying. Chris You know you can't do that.
The timeline. I'd have a fit. You know? Nothing stuck. I mean, I was living alone on a cargo ship with five holographic versions of myself.
Not very encouraging. Then I met you. I never had a family in any real way. We changed all that. All of you did.
This is where I belong. Jaluk. I'm home. Make a good future. Yeah.
Maybe it was always supposed to be this way. Time's a funny thing. Yes, it is. Interesting. Interesting, Danny.
Yeah, and you know, what made me think of it with the topic of renewal and stuff like that and I'm like you, Darren. I don't know where I'd be without the hope of renewal. And especially in the current season of my life. But I was thinking about a time, seems like it was. Eons ago.
that You know, when you know, caught in alcoholism and drug addiction, the way I found hope and renewal. was to go back into my past. And you're even in this masculine journey. Thing, you know, we we talk about wounds and talk about addressing things that happened in the past. because there are wounds and there are things that if you don't deal with em You can't go forward.
You're just kind of stuck. I've met so many men in men's ministry that are just stuck. Because there's something they can't or won't do with. Usually they won't. And you know, I was that way for a long time.
But you know when when finally you know the time come and I had to deal with some stuff It's funny, my wife and I were having a conversation the other night. I said, you know, it's funny, once you decide you're going to deal with these things. When you get on the other side, it's where the hope and the renewal and the things flood in. And you find a new life that that is incredible. And you know, that's what I've found, you know, and and You know, even in current situations, you know, last year, a diagnosis of cancer was pretty severe.
And I gotta make this quick. Got a minute to go. And the and then the. But you know, the hope of renewal and watching your body renew itself. Because your body's a fascinating thing.
But anyway. Maybe more on the other side, who knows? Yeah, well, Danny, that's uh It is Very scary when you don't have any hope. And oftentimes, my wife and I will see people going through things like that. And she will almost inevitably look at me and say, I don't know how people do it who don't have faith.
Because that faith gives you the hope of renewal, and we would love to share that with you. We appreciate you listening. If you would like to come to a boot camp, We've got one coming up November the 19th through the 22nd. You can go to Masculine Journey. Radio.
Yeah. And register for that boot camp if you've been to one of ours or someone else's. We would love to see you there.
