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. We are glad that you're with us this week.
And if you're joining us on video, you'll realize it's the orange versus the blue.
So it's got to be like Syracuse versus North Carolina by the looks around. Or you kind of have a Duke color a little bit. Yeah, I'm not a North Carolina fan at all, period. None, never, not a. You put us together and we'll be the Nets.
North Carolina, you and C C H, I went to UNCC, and they don't seem to acknowledge any other UNCs. But That is the last North Carolina team I root for.
Now I'll root for them against anybody out of state. But Okay.
Well, it looks like you guys root for them on that side of the state. But but Duke is was my growing up one and I sent most of my money to state, so Good. Robby and Harold, you guys like have grey animals on, you match. Dear mom dressed. You would think they coordinated.
They are coming. They're speechless. They are speechless. Anyway, we'll get on to the topic today. You want to say something, Ark?
You know, speaking of orange color, Sam, you have the brightest orange. Oh, every week. And I really thought that, you know, since you're married now, you would have help dressing. And we wouldn't have to see that orange work shirt every time. It's like every day going to school, man.
I got the uniform. I'm good to go. I get on the bus, ride to work. I'm good to go. Nobody's going to make fun of you.
Well, that's not true.
Somebody will make fun of it. Anyway, I can go from work right to hunting if I want to. I got the shirt to go do that. Anyway, we're back to our topic at hand. We have been working on the foundation series.
And so, what this week's topic is, is kind of a play on that. It's not the foundation of our ministry per se, but it's the foundation of each one of our lives in the relationship with God. And so, what's the foundation of your Relationship with God? What are some of the things that make up that foundation? And we're going to talk about that today individually.
Well, I guess to you, but I mean, individually, we'll share on what that means to us. And we're going to start with a clip from you, Darren. Yeah, I didn't tell you beforehand. Why don't you just catch off guard? No, you know, that's fine.
I like my clip. I'm the one that brought it, so you know.
So, my clip is actually from a movie called Antoine Fisher, which is. We've played clips of Antoine Fisher before. We might have played this one, although I don't remember. Um. But this is a true story about a young man named Antoine.
And he is in the Navy, he's mean, he's angry. Um he's broken. He's fatherless. And he Ends up in an office ordered by a military court. to be in uh the office of a psychologist.
And uh And he and that psychologist become friends It's very shaky at the beginning. But this is after um Uh He has been invited to this guy's house for Thanksgiving dinner and just for being kind. Antoine is a gifted young man. um gifted communicator when he's not angry. and he wrote a poem That he asked the psychologist to read, and he ends up finishing the quote, but If you are A listener.
And we're going to talk about a topic that is based on one of the foundations of your relationship with God as Father. is the relationship you have with your earthly father and we want to recognize that not everybody has that. Many, many men, more today than ever before. have grown up without a father and or um even some father figures period. And so, if that's you, that's okay.
Don't turn it off, don't quit listening. Um There's a lot of hope. And will kind of hear where that baseline starts in this in this clip. No, how do you read it? Please.
Who will cry for the little boy? Lost and all alone. Who will cry for the low boy? abandoned without his own. Who will cry for the little boy?
He'd cried himself to sleep. Who will cry for the little boy? We never have her kids. Oh cry for the little boy. Walk the burning sand.
Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man. Who will cry for the little boy? who knew well hurt in pain. Who will cry for the little boy?
Who died and died again. Who will cry for the little boy? A good boy he tried to be. Who will cry for little boy? The cry is inside of me.
Who will cry for the little boy? Oh yeah, dorm. I will. Right. Oh his thing.
It's beautiful, Aunt One. I know, I told you I was good. Yes, you are. You are good because you're honest. You're more honest than most people.
even in your anger. And so that long pause there was actually a hug. And uh Not in here on the club.
Well, on the cool. The listeners might not have known that. I mean, it's okay if we hug. You know me, I'm a very touchy-feely guy. I never want to hurt anybody's feelings.
But Ultimately, you have this young man who is very, very broken but very, very gifted, and he will eventually use his brokenness, and he will use the fatherlessness in his life to bless other people. Um But it begins with someone else coming alongside him that's full of grace. and also truth, who speaks into his life and says, Hey, This is who you are. And this is the way we live. And What I want to say is That's our baseline.
You might be. very sad over your life with an earthly father or without. that's okay. A lot of us have had that experience. But you were never without God, even if you did not know it.
And God is that graceful. Caring Speaker of truth. that we have to be comfortable enough, to talk to and to to write to, if you will. Um that's where I do a lot of my best work is is writing. Um to just him, not anybody else.
never published anything. Um but I think oftentimes we get caught up in I'm so broken. What's the use? I'm just going to give up. I'll just go do my thing.
And this is my lot in life, that sort of stuff.
Okay. And Here's a guy that's smart enough to mourn and grieve the loss that he had. and accept fathering. from another man and we're we're basically pointing you to father But that happens for everyone in this room through each other in this room as well, as we all father each other. um in that way and so There's our baseline.
Yeah, I think for a lot of us, Darren, is the original way you see God is how you saw your relationship with your dad. You know, I've joked around at boot camp a lot that my dad always loved me. I never doubted that. He was just always too busy with other things. And so that's how I viewed God for a lot of years, in different ways.
That's one view I had of him, was God loved me. You know, he says it in Scripture. But he's got a lot of things to worry about. There's wars going on, there's hunger. You know, it's just me.
Yeah. You know, and God had to break through that. And we'll talk more about that when it's my turn. But yeah, that's often the first thing the enemy uses. Is your vision of what God or what God, what a father was or wasn't in your life?
Harold, I wanted to go over to you and get your foundation. in uh ha what what you would share would be your foundation with the Father. My foundation, I attribute mainly to my maternal grandmother and my mother. Uh for the first twelve years of my life, We live most of it there at her house. And she was a very strong Christian lady.
The next-door neighbors were strong Christian people and we, uh, we rode to church with them 'cause we didn't have a vehicle. Oh. mister Wheeler was song leader. uh rural mail carrier and uh I delighted in a few trips with him where I got to stuff the envelopes in the box. Hmm.
Um but uh Yeah, I I look back and My relationship with my father, as I've mentioned, probably too many times in the past, but uh was pretty strained. He had a problem with alcohol, which meant he had a problem with me. because uh my mother would be laying on the bed bawling her eyeballs out and uh They grabbed me one time just before I nailed him with the claw hammer. Oh. So I look back and uh I I made the statement before For that.
Except for the alcohol. My father would have been great. Hey had a lot of concern for helping other people. He was a very good mechanic. Oh.
He back then he could fix the cars before they had computers and all. I can remember crawling up under a wet, cold house in the wintertime. doing plumbing with my dad helping somebody.
So he had many, many r really good characteristics. And the older I've gotten and the more I look back the more I love and and the more I have forgi forgiven him. A lot of my life I spent in intense anger and frustration. stemming from that. But he had his own demons to fight.
Uh I have forget. forgiven him. uh and hope that I can be forgiven for mistakes that I made. I didn't have the alcohol issue, just the opposite. But because of my terrible temper I I disciplined in anger.
And so must and hiel. looks back at me some somewhat. Justifiability. Like I looked at my dad. I wasn't what he needed at the time.
He needed it. Tried my best, thought I was doing good. Made a mistake. We all do, and that's where God comes in. We'll talk to you after the break.
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 got away from Christ and suffered an overdose and he took my memory. At that time, I didn't know where I was, who was who, what I was doing.
So he showed me a little bit of his power there, letting me know that without him, I'm nothing. I don't got nothing. And I will be nothing.
So I decided to come back. And just right now, for the first time, like I've been through a lot of things, like SUC means. tattoos all over and everything I've been through a war.
So for the first time in my life on this on this camp, I've been able to feel that peace in my heart. I haven't seen my family in over eight years now, but I actually can say today that I'm okay with it. God is with me and He's been dealing with my heart in a way that I never experienced it before. And I'm just thankful and grateful. Register today at masculinejourney.org.
You just called. And you know where I am. Wherever I am, I'll come running. Oh, yeah, babe, to see you again Winter, spring, summer.
Now all you got to do is call. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That was, of course, James Taylor, North Carolina native, but I thought about this song for the bump because regardless of Where you begin with your relationship with God, eventually you always end up with that close, intimate relationship with Him if you continue on that journey together. Yeah. And I hear that song and I...
Think about how I didn't really Believe it or understand it that God was really hungering to be there for me and was always there for me. You know, I just didn't have the eyes to see it. And so that song reminded me of all that he's done in my life along the way to help me see that. Yeah, that's it. Spring, summer, winter, and fall, you know, that's any season, any season in your life.
He's there. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, welcome back. We are talking about the foundations of our faith individually. You know, what's the foundation underneath how we see the Father? And so we're moving on to Robby. Yeah, fun.
was just totally intrigued by this clip that I found. It's from a movie called The Horse Whisperer. And in Scripture Um, horses are really connected to God in a lot of ways. Obviously, there's a white one that's coming and They are a force to be reckoned with. You know, certainly.
Power under control, but sometimes not under control, right? And Uh Fascinatingly, Adam knew inside of what was in an animal, and he named them. And he named the horse in Hebrew with the letter Samic. And that letter. When David spoke of that letter in the 119th Psalm, he says, My flesh trembles for fear of thee.
And there's a sense, right, that Mm. of awe of God that comes from a point there that makes that a fascinating relationship because you can't figure out Really, in the dance that you have with the father, is this somebody to be terrified of? Or is this somebody to love? And interestingly, God is love. And so it's really a fascinating dance, is exactly how I would put it.
And so in this clip, this man who's obviously had a horrendous relationship with his father, he says he was terrified of him. Yet he becomes like a world-famous horse whisperer. In fact, he was the one that sat on the set with Robert Redford when they did the movie Horse Whisperer. And you can talk, and you can hear him speak. Of building that relationship with these horses.
And as I was listening to it and thinking about my early days and my relationship with God, trying to find out where that. dance was? Is this somebody to be terrified of? Is this somebody to love? Is this somebody that I can be honest with?
That I can really trust? because at at some level trust is a gigantic issue in that. And oh Was it worth the effort, right? As I pushed into it, And one of the gigantic places for me of helping me come into that relationship that way was coming to my first boot camp. And coming into fellowship with men who dance with God in a similar way and actually had a relationship with the Father, actually had a talking relationship where they not only spoke but heard.
Yes, through the word of God, but most assuredly also by his audible voice. When you hear this clip, I think there's several nuggets I could spend a lot of time on, but there's just so many things he says that I relate so closely to my own relationship with God. And in some ways, my relationship with my earthly father. First time I saw it was amazing to me. It just blew my mind.
I thought, what kind of voodoo stuff is this? He walks into a round pin, and in five minutes, he's got a horse following him around like a dog. Everything you do with a horse, it's his dance.
Okay. You always hearing about breaking horses. There's a whole element of abuse, really. You don't realize how injustice it is until someone shows you a different path. Yeah.
A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems. In this particular discipline, you have to be a sensitive person. See there, she's starting to protect herself. There's a change. That vulnerability is what makes you great.
That's why so many of the folks that are really good at this are sometimes tortured souls. My dad had a violent temper. He was a terrifying person. When something is scared for their life, I understand that. It's a real trust thing between the two of you.
A little bit like when you're dating, that last two minutes of the date can be a real deal breaker. As we sit alone, I know Sunday we must go. Yeah, I love that. The last two minutes of the day can be a real deal breaker. you know, you just think about it, you know.
Do you say good night? to the people you love the most, you know. And how cherished is that when they were little kids, you know, when you had them and they came up and kissed you good night, Daddy. And it is. It it is is a it's a precious precious thing, but it is a dance.
And you know, to me You know, what a joy it is to have people That have some level of relating with you in that. and have chasing after the Father in a similar way. And so it is foundational in my life. I can't even In a million years, perceive what it would be like at this point, you know, not to have that because, you know, essentially, as we get older, in my mind, we transcend the physical and we become. A lot more spiritual because we don't have the physical bodies we once had.
And so, as we push further into our spiritual relationship, Oh my goodness, to have people around you, a band of brothers. rather than to try to do this alone is huge.
Well, Robby, when you were talking about, you know, primarily, yes, it's the Bible. You know, when I read scripture now, yes, I enjoy what I learn from that, but what my favorite part is what God opens my heart to. It's the conversation after that, or the realization after that, that God gives me. Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Together. The Bible opens the door, you know, but God takes it much further. Than that. And so, yes, it's a Bible for me, but it's the after effects that really hit. Hit the spot.
Right, right. The Holy Spirit starts to reveal it and you get to see things that... are marvelous. Yeah. Mm.
I um I want to ask you, what's your foundational relationship with God? Do you have one? Do you not? I mean, just be honest. You're only talking to yourself right now.
Right. And if you don't, what do you think keeps you from going there? Yeah, maybe it is a relationship with your father that you had or didn't have around. Maybe they were abusive, maybe they were Uh not trustworthy for any w number of reasons. But what keeps you from deep intimacy?
We know we have an enemy that does that. that tries to keep us away and we have an enemy that reminds us of all those things that fathers did or didn't do. But what is it for you? What is it for you that keeps you from going deeper with God? Right, 'cause he's willing and he wants to.
And he's trying to get there with you. But it's a good question that we ask ourselves. You know, for me, a long time, a lot of time, I would trust him with certain issues of my life. You know, God will trust you here, but not here. You know, oh, I'll talk to you about this, but you know, I really don't want you to be involved here.
Alright, and that was me putting governors on the relationship, not letting it go deeper when it needs to. And the freedom we get when we involve him in all those areas is amazing. But it's a trust thing. And it's built over time and it's built over a relationship just like any other. trust relationship.
spending time together. And and and stepping out in vulnerability. Yeah, I think um when you when you think about Um John 14, 6. Um Jesus says, I'm a way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.
I mean, when you look at it, I think God knew. The earthly fathers were going to mess it up. and he was going to get that projected on him as a father.
So he sends his son on behalf of humanity to see a version of God in flesh. And he's a good, good God, and God says, if you've, or Jesus says, if you've seen the Father, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
So he bridges that gap. And gets us back to a proper vision of what God looks like. He was the personification of. of God the Father when he came. And bridges that back, but so many of us are caught up in that broken woundedness from our own father.
And we've talked about that many times, but it could be the distant father, the abusive father, the non-present, you know, some of that's redundant, but you know, it's just not the example of what you expect. And I just I guess what I'm trying to say is, God has done everything He possibly can to give you the proper picture of Himself. Mm-hmm. Because the enemy's doing everything he can to show you the opposite of what it is. And maybe your dad wasn't that, but maybe your dad was a person that you aspire to be and know you'll never be as good as that.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so that's the way you look at God of why I can't have a relationship because God's perfect and I know I'm not. Right. Why are you telling my story? I was alluding to your story.
It's amazing what God opens our eyes to along the way and the healing that's available. through that and I just can't imagine where I would be today uh in my life if I didn't know where I can turn as I need it. all the time. You know, 'cause this world is a harsh place to be. You know, it's not getting better.
Along the way. Yeah, I was looking at the story of Cain and Abel this morning and I was just struck. Almost. just grabbed my heart. That here was this this he murdered his brother.
Right? But when he said he couldn't carry, which is fascinating, the word that we use for forgiveness is what Cain said, I can't carry this burden. God listened. Anyway He gave him the first sign, the word that he chose there that they say is a mark. That word mark is the same word that when everybody was asking Jesus for a sign, like, give me a sign.
He gave Cain a sign. It's a phenomenal thing that here his son had done something unthinkable. But yet when he turned, And he said, Dad, I can't carry it. His dad did something in spite of what Cain had carried. And he will do that for us.
No matter what we've done. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, where are you right now, my friend? Where do you find yourself in this journey?
Are you trusting God a little bit? Are you trusting God a lot? What are you still holding back from Him? What keeps you from going there? That's the question that I always have to face myself because the deeper I get in my relationship, the further I realize I have to go.
That there's so much more that I'm holding on to. And I just ask that we continue to look at that this week and take some time and ask God: God, help me see how I can move deeper into intimacy with you. Go to masculinejourney.org. O-R-G. Or G.
We do have a boot camp coming up in November. Yeah.
