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, and I'm Danny. I'll be your host tonight because everybody else has left us, Harold.
You are stuck with the fantastic four tonight. Usually, we have a room full of people, and for various reasons and things, people are out for good reasons. We hope. And the and uh but we are a sparse bunch compared to what we normally are. Everybody has their own microphone.
Which is really kind of strange. I was going to say Danny may be our only A-team person here. I'm the resort host, the last resort. I thought this was the A team. This is the A-team.
This is the A-team. We are present and accounted for. I guess we have to ask what the A stands for, though.
Well, yeah, that's probably relative. It stands for Auburn. Ancient. It stands for Auburn. Ancient could be.
We're going to go with all two of those Harolds here.
So anyway, we are continuing a topic on a little different angle tonight, the same topic as last week. If you didn't hear last week's, it is a podcast. You can go back and listen to it first, and you may understand what we're talking about, but you may listen to both shows and not understand anything because we kind of do that sometimes. But anyway. Art, this is a topic you come up with, so will you set it up for us?
Okay, I came up with this through just going about my daily business, and I was in a Feed and seed store that had a a knife sharpener d sharpening device sitting on the counter and I took out my pocket knife and slid it through the device a couple of times and three times and it came out. quite a bit sharper than I was able to uh get it uh myself beforehand. And you know, I've always had uh had uh had trouble. I never uh sharpening knives is is something that I've uh You know, my father could do it.
Some people, family, friends had tried to teach me how to do it. and w maybe watch YouTube even to learn how to do it. And it's something I just don't get. But it's something that that you know, it kind of bothers me and that, you know, uh man that lives on the land and uh you know is involved in the Sort of a man versus nature occupation and has interest in those areas. He should be able to sharpen his knife sharp enough to Shave his whiskers, according to the old Western movies that I would watch.
And some of what we get of What it is to be a man, you know, comes from our family, some from our friends, some from the movies and television. And we wanted to know, you know, well, what is it to be a man, and what does God say it is to be a man?
So that is the topic. We're defining manhood here, and what is it? You know, a lot of times we talk about. riding motorcycles or Um Going hunting, and you know, those are acceptable ways to express being a man. We will say that, but we also say that there's other ways you don't have to do those sorts of things to be a man.
So, that's kind of what we're getting at here. As long as you're walking with God in whatever your pursuit is, your inclinations, your interests, as long as you are taking God with you, you are a man, right? The role you're doing doesn't define whether you're a man or not, or your interest, or. Yeah.
Okay.
Well, Art, I would say you have now learned how to sharpen a knife. Every time it gets dulled, just go to that store. Yeah, that's right. It's only 40 miles.
So you've learned it. It's only 40 miles away, but you know, don't dull your knife very often, Jewey. That's it. Buy a new one and try not to damage it. That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a whole I had a grandpa who, man, he could put an edge on a knife like nobody's business. And I've tried to do it like he used to do it, and I just ain't got, I can get it sharper. But, you know, that kind of thing is, that's a gift, I think. Yeah.
But it's interesting how just something so simple can just morph into one of the most complicated ideas that we have here and we present here. Uh so So apparently what it takes to be a man is knowing how to sharpen a knife. I'm confused. Apparently. And if you don't own a knife, I don't know what you, you know, but anyway.
I'm pretty sure you have to have a knife if you're not. I'm pretty sure. If not, Corner, give you one. By the way, by the world's definition. Andy said last week he didn't even have one.
So we're going to have to work on it. He does computer strength. He does too because corn is giving him two.
Well, he didn't have it with him. Doesn't carry one.
Well, yeah. Yeah, not going to do him much good. Anyway, Jim, you've got the first clip, and you want to set that up for us? Sure. This is one that if you've listened to our show very often, you've heard before.
But it is from One of my Sam and I don't agree on a lot other than God uses humor to talk to us. But the other thing is we both love secondhand lines. And this is Hubs talking. to his I'm trying to say grandnephew, might just be a nephew. Anyway.
But uh his mother has dumped him on his Great uncles and They are raising him. And Hub is. telling him what it means to be a man. And I w I'll talk about what he says afterwards. Not all of it's True, but that's the point.
Those stories about Africa, about you, they're true, aren't they? Doesn't matter. It does, too. Around my mom, all I hear is lies. I don't know what to believe in.
If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn't true, that's no reason you can't believe in it. The long speech I give to young men sounds like you need to hear a piece of it.
Sometimes, the things that may or may not be true. are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. The people are basically Good. That honor, courage, and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing.
That good always triumphs over evil. True love never dies. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, you see. A man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?
That was a good speech. Intro. Thanks. When are you gonna give me the rest of the speech? You're almost a man.
If you haven't seen that movie, it's worth watching. And all of those things that we need to believe in. That may or may not be true, that he mentioned, with one possible exception, are good things to believe in. Uh that people are basically good is the one that I believed in when I was young, and when I learned how evil I could. B and a Very scary situation.
I realized that I wasn't as good as I thought I was. And uh I Thought I could never shoot somebody and I came very close to shooting a person running away from me in the back. that blew up my whole world. But It you sort of said it at the beginning, Art. Uh following God is what becomes a man.
We get so many I joked before the show that, well, you have to smoke Marlboroughs to be a man, don't you? I mean, that was one of the old commercials when you saw the tough old cowboy and that was his brand. The world lies to us about what manhood is. God doesn't. And With this particular Talk.
Uh Hubb and Garth Darthard. real men. I mean, the the stories about Africa were true. upfront. But he didn't even tell the kid that That yeah, he said that didn't matter.
Whether they're true or not. But he had great adventures. He, as he says in another clip, we say fault isn't. two world wars and dozens of others and He was a they were both m men's men. but they also showed the character strengths.
Um the Honesty We Direct approach that uh I think is a big part of being a man. Jesus was not the wimp that sometimes you See in one of our clips, you see a terrible version of that, and I can't stand seeing the clip. But. Jesus was a man's man. He is our example in so many different ways.
When uh He was angry, which did happen. No one was hurt, but he got his point across. And when he was with the weak. He was gentle, loving, caring. And I Ultimately I think and true love, which I get a different take on that then Um Hub.
probably did, but it's uh He was talking about the one true love of his life and There are two of us here that can speak to that. Uh but the Greatest and most important love. is loving God. And the way we show that is loving others. And that's God's version of what a man is, and it's the one I've tried to adopt and mimic.
You know, as uh you were talking, Jim, and and something Art said triggered, and I got to thinking I'm gonna brag on my brother-in-law, which I don't do very often. I hope he listens to this. But uh, you know, my brother-in-law's a big guy. I mean, he's a big guy. And you know, he runs a business in art.
He doesn't hunt. Yeah, he doesn't, but he loves guns. And he does all those manly things. Plays golf, does other thing, but he runs a business, you know, does very well. And I think, but, you know, and he's, you know, he's a man.
But if you see him with, he's raised four daughters and now he's got three grandkids. And if you see that big old rascal with one of those babies. You see the tender side. Yeah.
And that's part of, I think, what we're talking about. Is, you know, not being scared. I think it's very godly because Jesus. you know, he suffered the little children to come to me and I just envision And, you know, the chosen does a pretty good job of it.
Some people don't like it. It's not biblical, but that is one of my favorite scenes of the whole movie, is when he's but you know, in Scripture he talks about suffering the little children. And I just envision Jesus playing with the kids. Just, you know, that tender side Mercy. And that kind of thing.
So I think that's kind of part of what we're talking about. is that the Not being scared to show the tender side of you. You know, I've been scared to show the tender side of myself for a long time. I'm a tender-hearted guy. I cried at the Lion King, I'm telling you.
But it just, you know, those kind of things. I'll cry at a Sappy movie. I will. But you know, I'm not ashamed of that anymore because that's just my heart.
So The uh If you don't know, we got a boot camp because it's an advanced boot camp, so the requirement is to become to have gone to a regular boot camp or an entrenchment. And that is November 19th through the 20 something. Andy will tell you next. The weekend before. Thanksgiving.
So you can go online and register and we look forward to seeing you there. 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 and 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 and 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 all go 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 masculinejourney.org. Beautiful. Always remember, carry on back and equal the splendor.
Now your eyes love your enemy. Should live in life like you carry on my woodsome. There'll be peace when you wonder. But all we really have to rest, don't you cry?
Well Jim, I recycled the buck from last week to give you a chance to defend your honor. Because they beat you up a little bit because you wouldn't hear. I didn't bother watching last week's show.
Well, you couldn't watch it, it was a radio show. Good point.
Well, you could still be able to watch that when Art was on that. We were streaming that way last week, yes. Yeah, we probably killed that for a good reason. I don't know. We do all have faces for radio.
We do, yes. That song really wasn't my choice. God gave it to me. out of the blue as soon as I heard the Topic. And uh uh Send it in saying, you know, I got this.
So if they want to pick on somebody, they can pick on God, and He's a big guy, He can handle it. But uh I I really it encouraged me 'cause first of all it's kind of about the message in the lyrics of that song. You got the poser up front and you Continue on, and I'm at a point in my life where it is very meaningful to me to hang on. Um they'll be Yeah, heaven waits for us, and that is in the lyrics as well, as part of the one part was played there. Yeah.
May or may not have. I think that group did and. It just went away from me who that was. Kansas. I knew it was a state or a city or something.
One of them. It was Kansas or Boston. That was all that would come to mind, but Boston visited first. But uh I I do believe there are believers there. But as my wife has pointed out in watching movies, you know, God's really in everything and you can find him.
She finds is able to find God in virtually every movie we've ever seen. And In this song, it was inspiring to me that All we really have to do is carry on. Keep following, and when we're done, the tears will be over, and the pain will be over, and we will. Find rest. And ultimate glory with the one who has all the glory.
Our Lord and Saviour. Harold, unlike Sam, I'm going to not run you up on the clock. I'm going to let you share if you'd like, and you got some time.
Well, one of the things that I was thinking about when we talked about what the Bible says that A man is. And it occurred to me that if you Go to the Bible and you start going through it, and you're looking. For the characteristics that most of mankind today defines as manhood. What do you find is failure? Because mankind defines things as being.
Masculine. that are not really masculine. The most masculine thing you'll find is Jesus himself. And the closer we can come to being like him, the more we are truly masculine as We should be. things that appear to be weak are often the strongest.
And by that I mean If we're willing to sacrifice ourself for the betterment of some one else. How can you be more manly than that? Can you think of the courage it took? for Jesus to face the cross For eternity and yet walk over and step up to be nailed to it. Uh that takes courage beyond my understanding.
So I think we need to be careful in in looking for the definition of a masculine male. It might be different than what we might think.
Well, I think Harold and I'm I'm gonna toot your horn a little bit because you talk about you and Jan's relationship and being married for 60-something years. That's masculinity. staying married, staying in 'cause marriage is work. Marriage is sometimes hard. I'll guarantee you it ain't been all bliss.
I'll guarantee you that. I've been married 20 some years. But still To hang in there, you know what I mean? Those are the things that I have begun to look at and go, you know what? It takes.
A real man. to hang in there. Because it's easy to walk out. Yeah.
Oh, we've had our share of disagreements over the years. But uh we both have believed from the very outset that God intended for us to be together, that he's right there in it with us. There's not just two of us. Yeah.
There's three of us. And in spite of the fact that I could drive her crazy and she can drive me crazy. Um we're we're both Uh more difficult to drive. in that position now. Than we used to be.
We've reached an age where we've mellowed out a little bit, I guess. Mm. We're both over eighty. Uh we're coming up on sixty three years of marriage. And uh Well Sixty two.
Yeah.
Uh I got ahead of myself. But yeah, and uh But Just today, for example, she was leaving to go to the ladies' Bible class. and I was sitting out in the sunroom doing my devotional readings. and when I saw the car backing out of the garage, Oh I I thought How blessed I am. That she It's still mine.
And I still have those feelings. About her. that I had when I was a real young guy. Oh. And uh it's It is unusual, I think.
but we're b so blessed by God, two have been paired together. And it There's uh there's nothing that's strong enough to tear us apart, I don't believe. That's good. The only one strong enough to tear you apart is the one keeping you together, so you're good.
Well art We're gonna play your clip, you wanna set that up for us? Yeah, my clip came came from a movie titled Fury. The setting is uh latter stages of uh World War Two. It is about um A group of tanks and the tank commander and his group, and they are It is an intense movie. If you like those kind of movies, I would definitely recommend it.
I did uh do a a little looking up on the movie and it is it is not presented as being anything that actually occurred, but kind of based on stories that happened and um that really happened, uh you know, the Depicts the actual scenes, and they did apparently a lot of research into. um making the movie as authentic as far as depicting their how how life how rough their their existence was on as being part of a tank crew, artillery crew. uh during that during that war and uh And it's really a good movie if you haven't seen it. Anyway, in the movie, we've got they come up on their first drill. uh real battle and um Brad Pitt is the unit commander and he has four tanks and And I'm not sure the reason why, but he had a new person running one of the orbital machine guns on his tank.
And he's the one I really want to talk about here. But we'll just go ahead and play the clip now. I had the best bowel gunner in the entire Ninth Army in that seat.
Now I got you. I promised my crew a long time ago I'd keep them alive. You're getting in the way of that. I'm sorry.
Okay, I'm trained to type. Sixty words a minute. I am not trained to machine gun dead bodies. I am trying my very best. Yeah, the part about machining dead bod dead bodies was that machine gunning dead bodies was that they were they were supposed to do that in case any of them was not really dead.
They were pretending to be dead and once the tanks passed they would rise up and start shooting at their shooting at them from the rear. That was one of the things this new gunner was was supposed to do and he kind of balked at it. He failed to do it. There were a couple other Uh things he kind of didn't do very well out on this particular mission. They were They were going um they were taking a field.
There there was uh uh a tree line that the Germans had in uh encamped in and they had They had a couple of maybe machine guns hidden in there and a couple of tank artillery pieces hidden and of course several infantry type people and they were in a tank line They were in a tree line and And they had a group of infantry, our infantry, pinned down in this field. If they stood up, they would have been shot.
So they were just all laying on the ground. And the idea was the tanks were going to go across that field and take out everything in that tree line. All the Germans and the infantry, they would stand up and get behind and walk behind the tanks as they were going across. That is This new gunner really did a poor job, and he was really hard on himself. He said, You know, I just really can't be here.
You know, I'm a typist. I'm trained to be a typist. Inclination is to be a typist, and now suddenly I'm a machine gunner on a tank, and I can't do this. And the the thing is you know Uh the thing is um You know, Brad Pitt is kind of scolding him there about his performance as well. But The thing is, he was kind of trained to do one role, and he finally.
Found himself suddenly in a different role. He was trained to be a typist, which in 1945 was not considered a man's profession, a manly profession. That was something women did. But it was his calling. He was good at it.
He was trained at it. And his role as a typist, I'm thinking, was probably as important as a tank commander's role was in this war. He had to. I assume type up the general's orders and get them out to everybody, type them quickly and accurately and And getting them out, and I'm assuming that would be as important as. Any other role in in the Army.
And that brings me to the point, you know, Jan, I had dinner at Jan's, Harold's wife's house, and Harold's house, and she asked me about my daddy in World War II. I'm running out of time, and I Okay, come to boot camp. I'll finish later. Bootcamp's in November, and we'll finish this up in the podcast. Stay with us.
Yeah.
