This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.
So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are talking about a topic that came up last week in our After After Hours, a time when we get together and we talk about stuff and share life. And Art was talking about his.
his belief that a real man, especially if you're from the country, Knows how to sharpen a knife. That's right, isn't it, Art? Yes, that's right. And what brought me to that was I was at a store, a country-type store that had a device sitting on the counter to sharpen knives. And I ran my knife through it two or three times, and it came out.
A bit sharper than it had been. And, you know, it got me thinking, you know, I just had this belief, you know, to be that I should be able to sharpen a knife. A man such as myself should be able to sharpen a knife, but I'm not. And so. Um How much man am I?
I mean, what defines a man? What do we mean when we say masculine journey? And what does society say about it? What does our experiences say about it? And more importantly, what does the Bible say about it, which we'll get to next week.
Absolutely. Thanks Williams Jr. says that. You can skin a deer with your sharpened knife, and you can run a trot line, and a country boy can survive. That's right, yeah.
And you've done that thus far. I've done that, but with a dull knife. That's even harder. That would probably make you more of a man at that point. Yeah.
Well, we are back to playing some clips.
Now, in the previous show, if you didn't get a chance to listen to it, go back and listen to it. But I'm going to just sum up a couple things. Andy talked about growing up with a belief that you have to risk in order to be a man, that if you're not willing to step out and risk. that you're not really a man. And Robby talked about success, you know, looking at what defined success and how that looked when he was young and how it changed over time.
Right, to what true success looks like. And so we're going to look at a couple other aspects of things that we believed. And Darren, Art picked you for the next clip, so we will go with you. A real man picked me. Art made a decision.
He took a risk and made a decision. He did. I would point out he's dull. Yeah.
I am very dull.
So, yeah. In this clip, it's interesting. You're going to meet two guys, and one's the son, one's the father. And the father is basically giving the son kind of a diatribe on what it is to be a father. Is James Earl Jackson in this one?
No, he's not. He is not. It's Danzel Washington. And James Earl Jones plays the same character in a Broadway production of this, which I'm sure you've seen, Sam. Oh, yeah.
Right after the singing ones. That's right. Yeah.
They're called musicals, Kayla. Yeah, as soon as he leaves the ballet, he goes to the singing ones, and then that's my circuit. Yeah, yeah. That's why Sam's a real man. No.
So, you're going to meet two guys, and Troy is the one that does most of the talking. He's the father. And Troy gets asked the question by his son: why haven't you ever liked me? How come you don't like me? And Troy begins to explain to him that, A, it's the wrong question.
But what you don't know, what you don't get from this, is everything that's gone on before. That Troy. He provides for his wife, he provides for his son. But he's very, very wounded. from his own.
Bad. Mistakes. By his father's mistakes, He was Terribly abused by his father. He does some time in prison. He gets out.
He's straightening it up. Um But he has a father that showed him no love. Also didn't take care of him very well. And so Troy's trying to figure out what it is to be a man. And this is his description.
that we're gonna listen to, but The reason it it makes you know, sense to me. is because I grew up Not being told this by my dad, Because my dad was the exact opposite of this guy. Um But so many of my friends Literally fell in love with my dad. I mean, they would come over. I'd be gone.
They would come hang out in the backyard, sit in a lawn chair and watch the stars with my dad because he was so good. at caring for your heart. Um because their fathers were not always. And so this was kind of what we grew up with in the 70s. um eighties, early eighties.
A real man was somebody who took care of their family, provided for their family. and maybe, you know, one or two other things. Here we go. Can I ask you a question? You got to ask me, Mrs.
Dewiggy, the one you got the questions for. How come you ain't never liked me? Thank you. Uh What law is there to say I got to like you? Come here, boy, when I talk to you.
Straighten up. I asked you a question. What law is there to say I got to like you? None. All right then.
Don't you eat every day? Answer me when I talk to you. Don't you eat every day? As long as you're in my house, you put a sir on the end of it when you talk to me. Yes, sir.
You eat every day. Yes, sir. Got a roof over your head. Yes, sir. Got clothes on your back.
Yes, sir. Why do you think that is? Because of you? Oh, it's because of me. But why do you think that is?
Because you like me? Like you. Can I like you? You're about the biggest fool I ever saw. It's my job.
It's my responsibility. A man is supposed to take care of his family. You live in my house, fill your belly with my food, put you behind on my bed because you're my son. Not because I like you, because it's my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you.
Now, let's get this straight right here and now before I go along any further. I ain't got to like you. Mr. Rand don't give me my money. Come payday cause he likes me.
He gives it to me because he owe me.
Now I don't give you everything I got to give you. I give you your life. Me and your mama worked that out between us.
Now, don't you go through life worrying about whether somebody likes you or not. You best be making sure they're doing right by you. You understand what I'm saying?
So and I kind of grew up in the in the southwestern part of the United States and And that was Um In I guess maybe what we would call a John Wayne culture, really. Um and that was Not far from what most men Um walked around with was, Hey, I'm taking care of you. Um I'm taking care of your mom. I'm here every day. Um what else do you want?
Kind of thing. And so a man with somebody that did that had nothing to do with how you cared for. people's hearts, it just had to do with how you cared for people. If you know physically. And so provided they're you provide.
Yeah.
I'm provided. I told you I loved you. I mean, you know, if I change my mind, I'll let you know. that sort of thing. That comes from the movie Fences, I didn't say that early, which is not easy to watch, by the way.
Um it it's it's a little bit brutal, but it is it's it's worth a sit down and and watch it. It's probably not a family movie. It's probably not a family movie. No, there's there is some language in there that In 732 cuts, I cut out. Yeah, not a date-night movie.
Yeah, it's not a date-night movie. Um but Yeah. grew up kind of mixed because I had this really good dad. But he didn't go to church with me, didn't take me to church, didn't teach me to pray, didn't teach me to read scripture, none of those things. But he was always there.
I mean, he was at every little league ball game. He was at, you know, anything I ever did. He was there and he was supportive. He wasn't the kind of dad that berated you when you missed the ball at shortstop that day or any of those things. And I saw those dads.
I mean, my friends had those dads. And so My dad was kind of like Andy in that he was not the risk taker.
So I grew up. Becoming the ultimate risk-taker because I thought, well, That's where my dad's lacking. You know, he's good here, here, here, here, kind of checking off the report card. Um something Harold mentioned earlier. But the one place where he was lacking was he was not a risk taker.
So I was going to, you know, not have that deficit.
So I focused really hard on being the risk taker. And when you do that, you end up falling on your face an awful lot, and it begins to hurt over time. And not only does it hurt you, but it hurts the people around you.
So, yeah, you do need to take some risks, but you also need to be wise about it. You know, learn to use. what God gave you in your head before you used what He gave you in your gut, the fire in your belly. Yeah, it's um how we grew up and and we're just touching on one aspect. There's many more aspects to all of our lives, you know, of other expectations we had.
This is just the ones that. kind of stuck with us. over time, but there the the society tells you. you know, a lot of them that you know what it looks like and or the the pressure of the environment you grew up in. Right, it may look different in different households because of the way it looked like i in their family history, their genealogy, so to speak.
Uh my clip comes from a a movie called uh uh Monty Python. No, Monty Python, The Holy Grail. It's Money Python, but it's Holy Grail. It's a little more serious than the clip I've it is. Get some tissues ready.
It's a tough one. And so no, if you've never seen Monty Python, it's a spoof. And this is King Arthur. He doesn't have a horse. They're hitting coconuts together that sounds like a horse.
It's that kind of movie. But he comes up to this knight. the Black Knight that won't let him cross because he's trying to get somewhere and he's saying he begins the thing with, you know, you have to get past me, basically, is what he says. And what you don't see throughout the clip is as they're fighting King Arthur, cuts off the Black Knight's arm. And then he keeps fighting and he cuts off the other arm.
and he keeps fighting, and he cuts off one leg, and he keeps fighting. And then finally he cuts off the other leg. He's hopping around trying to bump into him. After both arms are gone, he's trying to kick him. And this is so just to have the context of what's happening here, but I want you to listen to the dialogue as they go through this.
I move. For no man So be it. Yeah.
Now stand aside, worthy adversary. Tis but a scratch. A scratch? Your arm's off. No, it isn't.
Well, what's that, then? I've had worse. You liar! Come on, you pansy! Oh, yeah.
Pay out! No.
Victory is mine. We thank thee, Lord, that in thy mercy. Come on, Nane. What? How about you?
Okay. You are indeed brave tonight, but the fight is mine. Oh, and enough, eh? Look, but you've got no arms left. Yes, I have.
No.
Just a flesh wound. Look, stop that, chicken. Chicken, look, I'll have your leg. Right! Right, I'll do you for that.
You what? Come here! What are you gonna do? Bleed on me? I'm invincible!
You're a loony. The Black Knight always triumphs! Hi, Joe! Come on then. What then?
Alright. We'll call it a draw. Come, Patsy. Oh, oh, I see. Running away, eh?
Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!
So, a little bit of denial going on there, right? When I was born, I was not. I was not a planned baby, you know. Um. I came along.
My dad was a lot older than me. He was 49 years old when I was born. Most dads are older, but a lot older. Yeah, in most cases, yeah. In our society, that's the way it works.
But anyway, he was significantly older than most dads, right? He was 49 years old, so by the time I got to be. Early teens, you know, young kid. Um, dad was approaching sixties. And so he had been born in 1914.
And he was raised during the Depression, right? And so he was an adult during the Depression. Likewise. And so he'd seen some things, right? To quote one of our friends, Corn, he'd seen some things, right?
And so he had perspectives I didn't. But growing up, you know, in the late 60s through the early 70s when I was in grade school, If something would happen and I would fall down and skin my knee, You know, I wouldn't have a chance to run to mom. He would just, you know, look over at me and say, Well, it's too far from your heart to kill you, just toughen up, you know, and things like that. And if I really did it pretty good, he said, Ah, just rub some dirt in it, right? You know, that that was going to fix everything.
And if I still continued to cry or whine about stuff, he eventually it would be, if you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about. And so the signal, and my dad was a good man. He had it much worse than I did, what I learned as I grew up. But he was doing the best that he could. with what he had, But that didn't stop the wounding from coming and and the belief that, you know, a real man, you just shove those wounded parts of you down so no one else sees them.
Doesn't work real well. It doesn't real w work real well in friendships. Right, if you can't be vulnerable with your friends, it obviously doesn't work well in relationships. Right, that if you just or that Black Knight, it's just a flesh wound. Right, come back here, I'll bite you.
You know, that you're just going to have the tenacity to keep going. You know, even though that you're wounded very badly. And along the way, when you live in that world, you wound others. Right, and you continue to get wounded. Another part of my belief growing up, and it had to do with m molest the molestation happened to me as a kid, that, you know, a real man could get the woman.
You know, as I've talked about on the show before, just With my own wounding and things like that, and looking for her to answer my question for me that I had what it took as a man. Uh typically the people that I would go out with would uh go out with somebody else while they were still going out with me. Right, and then the whole signal behind that is, see, you're not really a real man, 'cause a real man would be able to get the woman. Right, and so the wounding continues and continues, and this expectation that was not based on truth. It's an expectation that's formed out of a wound.
Typically. Right, or a way that you want to deal with life based on how you were wounded. And it becomes that expectation of what a man is. And so the question that we'll talk about, and we'll talk more throughout the show, but as we pause for a second, I want you to think for a second. What expectations did you have?
Right. In your world growing up, what did a real man look like? Yeah, was it the provider? 'Cause men do need to provide. There's parts of that that's true.
Right? You know, was it shove it down, don't deal with it, just keep going?
Well, there are times you do have to put your nose to the grindstone. But not every time. Right? Or maybe you always have to risk. And as Darren said, risking at all costs doesn't usually work well.
And and the stories go on. But what was your story? Where does the enemy have you tripped up and where does he still have you tripped up? We shared where we grew up. But he still has us tripped up in other areas and God's just exposing us to those.
Yeah, and the good news is this. that No matter what the answer to those questions were, and I do really, I mean, I love that you. presented that. And I think our listeners, our friends, People who walk with us, they do need to go ask that serious question. Just sit down.
maybe with a pen and paper one day and say, Okay, What did I think a real man looked like? and and go that but The beauty is that God Is obviously the real man, right? He is the best man. He is the real father. He's the best father.
Jesus is the warrior and the poet and the High priest and the sacrifice, and the Messiah, and all of these different things. And so there's an aspect. To all those things that are in our lives. And that's one of the reasons that we use the verse that we do to start this show. Um that you know, comes out of Jeremiah 6.
Um Where Yeah. Jeremiah is is is saying, you know Go to the crossroads, look. and find the good path. um the ancient path and follow that. Um You have to look for it, though.
That crossroads doesn't come to you. And so, to Andy's point, yeah, you're probably going to need to take a little bit of risk to go ask God. God? What have I thought a real man was? How has that shaped?
who I am to day And are there things that now You need to dig into Lord and kind of break the agreements that Robby brought up um about who a real man really is. Because if we're operating out of those old Lies, those old answers, then we're probably not the man we want to be. We're definitely not the man that God created us to be. And I'm not throwing that out there as a pressure thing. I'm not trying to throw guilt on anybody.
I know I mean, I turned 61 last Thursday. And Um Literally had just one of the most moving experiences of my life. on that morning. Um where Um You didn't have grouper the night before, did you? I did not, and I didn't have flounder either.
That's what I was trying to think of. That's an inside joke. I had a bad flounder for supper tonight. I might not be here next week. But.
The reality is that God can take you and wants to. It's not.
So many of us, because we think a real man is a guy that never needs help. A real man is a guy that can figure out everything on his own. And God is standing there going. Dude, that's the last thing a real man is. A real man is somebody that learns to depend on me.
A real man is somebody who. Is capable of walking with me because I want to go with you. On this journey of true masculinity, And walk beside you as you figure it out because he loves it. It's like watching his kid hit a home run. you know, when he sees you go, Oh, that okay, I get it, you know.
That's the way the Father's love is for us.
Well that brings me to a question. What current things is God working with you on? to break Darren, you kind of mentioned that. I realize more and more clearly Of all the things, you know, I think I get closer, and I do, I get closer to being there. But then God brings to my attention other things, and it all for me is around control.
You talked about that. You know, I'll sit there and literally pray and say, God, I give you this, I lay it at your feet. And I Three minutes later, I'm googling something trying to figure out how to fix whatever the thing I laid at God's feet is. Right? Or, you know, maybe there's a YouTube video on this and you know, trying to find a way to solve it myself because I just can't seem to leave it there sometimes.
You know, and and that just leads to stress and to worry and to anxiety and those feelings of I don't have what it takes and all the things that the enemy wants you to believe. Yeah, that's an amazing thing. I've studied deeply the other day on Cain and Abel. And You know, you're aware that Kane's name means to acquire or. Mine.
That's mine. Right. You know, Eve, if you go back to the equation, is she had The boy with Adam, and she says, you know, with God, and she uses that very important word, with God. I have acquired a man, and so I call him acquired. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
In other words, she took immediately within the 20 billion seconds to go from, I did this in a partnership with Adam and God. But now it's mine. Which was the story of Cain's life. You know, he that that offering was his and that's the reason why it didn't Get the respect of God that caused the problem with his brother to begin with, right? And so all these things that were supposed to be his had to do with that whole idea.
Of mine, mine, as opposed to, and I never thought about it, the exact opposite of mine from God's standpoint. is with. Oh, we can work on it together. your own sin. Let's we'll work on it together.
But you wanna take hold of it, do you? Mine. You know, I I used those seagulls, you know.
Sorry. I mean, that's why you have books, uh, all these books in the library. I mean, or in the bookstore on self-help, right? They know what it right. Yeah, you know, independently of God, and it gets back.
You know, you know, I'm going to go there, right? We're getting back to the orphan spirit again, right? Yeah.
I was going to buy you a Life for Dummies book, you know. I need one. No, I do. We all do. It's called the Bible.
It's called the Bible. Absolutely. Absolutely. Grant's over here. He's got it open for us.
Yeah, he's got it, man. He's ready. He's ready to preach. Go ahead, Grant. Let us have it.
He's grabbing it. We're going there. Go ahead, Grant. First Genesis. It said that uh god God made a man in his own image.
They did. Man and female. is man. From the beginning. Right.
Right. They're both maiden as well. Yeah.
Yep, they're made in the image of God. That's female. Yeah.
Well, guys, what else would you share with the the group about expectations and what they do to you? How did they hold you down? Oh man. Um. very seldom has a Obligation, expectation, and there's different between, you know, I said I'm going to do this and I follow through with it.
I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about this overwhelming sense of I'm obligated to do this. I don't like it. I'm not happy about it. I don't even know if it's right, you know, whatever. But that sense of obligation.
Um pressure It does, I mean, pressure just destroys things. I mean, you put too much pressure on the inside, it's going to explode and blow things, you know, out. You put too much pressure on the outside, you're going to collapse and, you know, you're going to end up like a submarine, you know, going to see the Titanic. All of those things. God Uses those if you will take them to him and say, Okay, God, I'm under this stress, I'm under this pressure.
How much of it is of my own making, and how much of it is yours? Because if God's doing it, Wedding. you know, and work with him. But if it's you or somebody else that's doing it then you need to give it up. Absolutely.
So, take back to the same question that I asked you a little bit earlier. If you didn't have an answer, work on it this week. What expectations, what things did you have, what did it mean to be a man to you growing up, and what is it now? And where do you get that from? Is it something you've been told?
Right? Is it something you've just led to believe? Or did it come from God? And so spend some time this week on it.
Next week we'll talk more about this topic. Go to masculinejourney.org.
