God's Interruptions

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 to have you with us.

And we have some people back that's been gone, and we have some people missing. You know, Grant's missing, Andy's missing.

Well, some of us are missing Andy, not all of us. But, you know, I just have to clear that up. He's missing us. Yeah, he's missing us. But yeah, hopefully they'll both be back next week with us again.

But Jim is back from, what was it, like a month you were gone? No, just. A little less than three weeks.

Okay. It seemed longer. I could have said it seems shorter, but yeah. Yeah, well, welcome back, Jim. We're glad to have you.

And you came back, and you actually have the topic for this week. Yeah, that was totally accidental. But that was the theme of our trip: God's interruptions, because nothing really much went according to plan while we were. driving around Great Britain. And uh that is an experience that uh I won't do again, but it was an experience worth doing.

Now it's God's interruptions and how He can radically change our plans. just about any time. And uh ours was a great trip, but A lot of things I expected to happen did not, and a lot of things happened that I did not expect, and many of those were God things. When you have a flat tire, it's generally not a great thing, but when you have a flat tire and you can Talk to the guy that's changing the tire. in his truck, which I've never seen in the US.

He had a tire machine and a truck and was changing the tire there. And got to talk to him about Jesus and gave him a little Jesus, and he was. Not a, and I always love it when people say, I'm not a religious person. I said, neither am I. I don't like religion, neither did Jesus.

But we had a good Talk and he did take the Jesus and appreciated it. We're good. That's good. One of the things that when I was on the min um mission trip last year to Roatan. That they would always say, the missionaries down there would say, is ministry happens in the interruptions.

You know, when you have something all planned out and something goes awry, that's usually an opportunity for ministry to happen in one way or another. And as I've thought about that ever since last year, it's like that's most often true. Right. We think that the interruption is something, oh, well, it didn't go as planned.

Well, thankfully it didn't. Because otherwise we probably never would have got What we needed to get out of it, which is a lot of what we'll be talking about today. It reminds me of my favorite Ricky Corn story of my mission trip. Can we air this one? We can, we can.

It's exactly what you're saying. He's seen some things. Yeah, Ricky Corn, you know, just a wonderful, whole-hearted man that serves with us on Masculine Journey. And I went on a mission trip with him to Jamaica. And you guys know that it was with the North Carolina Boys Academy.

which was part of teen challenge and there was a leader that you guys know well by the name of john and john's fairly formal i'll use that word And as we're getting right into the van to head off into our trip into Jamaica, you know, and it's night. And he's like... You do not feed the homeless. Whenever we stop, the last thing you ever do is you do not feed the homeless.

Now, we're going to go to a restaurant here, we're going to go into this Burger King, and whatever you do, do not. Is everybody clear on this? And he goes around that because he wants everybody to be so clear. Ricky, are you clear? I'm clear.

We're not going to feed the homeless.

Okay. So we all pile off into the Burger King and whatever. And I'm the first person actually to come out of the restaurant other than apparently Ricky. And when I do, here's Ricky sitting there with this homeless guy with a hamburger. And I see the whole scene.

And.

So, of course, John comes out and loses his mind, right? We get in the van to leave the restaurant, and he is losing it on Ricky. Like, what part of I'm not going to do this? What part of we're not going to feed the homeless? Like, how in the world?

And Ricky just listens to him, like, okay. I get it. Yeah, he doesn't put up a fight. And again, if you know Corn, if he wanted to put up a fight, it would have been on. But it wasn't.

He was just like, okay, I understand. And so, man, you know, we get out of the van that night and we're headed into the room. And I'm so, Ricky, can you kind of tell me what you're thinking? He goes, Oh, man, I came out of the restaurant. And that guy was going through the trash cans, and he was filling up drink cups with whatever drink to make this one great big mix.

And I watched him just toast God and go, God, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for this drink. I just praise you for this. And he drinks this. you know, mixture of drinks that that he had.

Suicide is what we used to call those. Is that what it was? I didn't know. But anyway, Ricky was so impressed that he was like, dude, I gotta buy and so he went over and shared a meal with a guy Not because but he he just saw him praising God and for Ricky and for me, right? I saw Rick's heart that day and I've never forgotten it.

And it was completely an interruption, I guarantee you, for John if he's listening. He felt interrupted. Yes. For me, it's a moment that's just precious. I mean, it's absolutely.

Um to see that man's heart, to see Ricky God showed up in Jamaica.

Okay. Yeah, that's a spirit of the law moment rather than a letter of the law mo moment. I mean that's. That's that's what Jesus meant was. Yeah, let's deal with the spirit of the law sometimes and let's deal with the letter of the law sometimes.

That's right, absolutely. Danny, you have the first clip for this show. Yeah, it's from the Hobbit and after getting a bunch of grief from you guys 'cause I'm not a great big fan of Lord of the Rings and that kind of thing for I know gasp. Didn't even read the books. But um Anyway, the the joke is Oh no.

And that's all I have. Oh, that's it. Anyway, at least it didn't say comic books. Yeah.

Well, that would have been an upscale for how to get to that. Yeah, absolutely. It probably would have been. Anyway, the scene is from The Hobbit, and it's where. Gandorf interrupts uh Bilbo.

Gandorf. Whatever. Yeah, it was Tim Conway playing. I told you, I didn't read the book. It's all right.

It's all right. The world is a lot of Gantor. I showed up willing to trick it.

Okay. Yeah, all right. All right.

Okay. Anyway. The bearded guy. Yeah.

Yeah.

At our age, it's not good to laugh this hard.

So anyway, he interrupts his life and wants to take him on an adventure and and He just doesn't want to go. And it's pretty obvious with that.

So as we play the clip, you can hear the interchange between them. And you know, this is a lot like God showing up a lot of times.

So play the clip. Take it away, Gandorf. Here we go.

Sorry, I didn't eat here. Good morning. What do you mean? Do you mean to wish me a good morning, or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning?

Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on? All of them at once, I suppose. Can I help you? That remains to be seen. The I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure.

An adventure? No, I don't imagine anyone west of Bree. would have much interest in adventures. Nasty disturbing. Uncomfortable thing.

Make you late for dinner. Oh. Yeah.

Good morning. To think that I should have lived to be good morning by Belladonna Took's son, as if I were selling buttons at the door. Beg your pardon? You've changed. Not entirely for the better, Bilbo Bacins.

I'm sorry, I don't know you. But you know my name, although you don't remember I belong to it. I'm Gandal. And Handalf means Read it. Here it comes.

Not Gandalf, the wandering wizard, who made such excellent fireworks. Old Toop used to have them on Midsummer's Eve. No idea he was still in business. And where else should I be? Happens.

Well, I'm pleased to find you remember something about me. Even if it's only my fireworks.

Well, that's decided. It will be very good for you. They're most amusing for me. I shall inform the others. Inform the hook?

What? No, no. No, wait. We do not want any adventures here. Thank you.

Not today. No. I suggest you try Over the Hill or... To be fair, he didn't enunciate very well his name.

Well, and Bilbo didn't remember his name either, so I don't feel bad. Absolutely. Good point. You're in good company. Yeah, they they they were in the movie together.

But you know, I I thought a lot about how, you know, God interrupts us and several different stories came to mind, but Yeah, one in particular was when We were We decided to do a ministry house there in Asheboro. We had a ministry going in there, I think, and then the opportunity came for us to do a transitional house. And it was just kind of like God sitting down saying, hey, let's go on an adventure. and we had to remodel the house and that kind of thing. And it was exciting up front But then as you know the wheels started to roll it was scary and there were times when I was like I don't think we want to do this adventure.

But, you know, you're in the throes of it and that kind of thing. you know, it's priceless once you look back and see If you jump out in faith and go, okay, Lord, I'm going to follow you, no matter what this means. and how You know, the relationships that were formed in that process that still exist today. The the how the community came together. in lots of different ways.

and just the different types of things that happened And my life will never be the same again. just simply because God interrupted something that was going pretty well as a ministry and then all of a sudden it just changed everything. And, you know, yes, there was some chaos, 'cause there always is, but you know, it changed and it taught us so much about people and ministry and and that kind of thing and and you really You're good and bad. But anyway, that's how, you know, that's what it made me think of, you know, God's interruption.

So. Yep.

Well, thank you. If you have any questions or want to rib Danny a little bit about saying that, go to masconejourney.org. But you can send us an email, and it'd be danny at masconejourney.org. Or if you want to talk to Robby or any of us, you can do that. Gandorf.

Or Gandorf. That is not the good one right yet. Anyway, we'll talk to you after the break. Bye. 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. You know, I think I was 13 maybe in my first camp. I'm now 28. You know, these look a lot different from when they looked back then. Back then, it was a lot more finding direction, and it's still finding direction, but it's also being reminded of what that direction was and where did you lose it along the way?

Let's reclaim that and take it into your next step. You know, talking about being fathered, I had a good dad, I had a great dad, and a lot of things were great. And, you know, you had your faults like anyone else, but I think I always told myself I don't necessarily need God's love because I'm okay. And that's what God's been working on with me for this camp: hey, yeah, you do. You're not going to make it without me.

And He's really just shown that He delights in me, and I am the apple of His eye. And just really being able to feel that this camp has been a lot different from anything I felt. Register today at mascularjourney.org. Is the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide No escape from reality Open your eyes. Yeah.

Look up to the skies and see. I've just jumped over.

Well, welcome back to Masculine Journey. And yes, this is a Christian radio show, and we were playing Queen. And Darren, that was your bump. Do you want to talk about how that ties into what we're talking about?

Well, I think. You know, there's a is this real life or is this just fantasy, right? Absolutely. I mean, we're asking that question. I know I ask the question all the time, really?

I mean, really?

So that's kind of where I ended up with that. I just thought, and Jim's topic, and I thought, man, that's a song Jim would fall in love with. And so, and already has. And I knew the battle was not. Keith leaving the mics off long enough for Jim to sing along with the clip until the words stopped.

That was the first thing I looked at to see where the microphones were and where Jim was. I backed off a little bit. Yeah, he did. Mm. That that song, when he suggested it.

this tip me is perfect because We don't know what's going on. We live in the physical world, and that's what we perceive, but. Real world is the spiritual one. And if we're missing that, We are Living in fantasy. And reminds me of a bumper sticker that a DD person had on their car many, many decades ago.

that said uh that Reality is for people that can't handle fantasy. And dwarf and boys like that. Dorph and Dorphin. Is that illegal for us? I have to say that, and maybe this is just totally off topic, but what the heck.

Um when that song came out my middle sister was getting married. Excuse me, my oldest sister was getting married and she lived in the time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Linda and I, my other sister, lived in Albuquerque. And so we took it upon ourselves to drive a 1969 Rambler American to Detroit. And it made it? And we did it without any sleep.

And so we had taken these back in the day, no-doze. Oh, yeah. Yeah, caffeine pills. Unbelievable. And that song played, I didn't care what city we were going through.

And my sister, normally a very quiet you know, s laid back quiet because she had two brothers that would Totally wipe her out. She got to singing that song and she would put Jim to shame. And I can still hear her, I can see it in my eyes. I'm just a poor boy. But all into it.

And Okay. You know, of course, we had no idea who Queen was at the time. You know, we had no idea about anything. Here comes this new song, and it was just wild. And just a great memory, just a great memory.

Of some time I had with my sister, you'll never get that back. Absolutely, absolutely. Harold, I wanted to kind of take it over to you because I always give you something to talk about at the very end of a segment, so I didn't want to do that to you this week. Do you want to talk about interruption from your life that God got you with? Yeah, actually I'm still on it.

Mm-hmm. Uh I was sailing along as a student at Auburn University and for many years through high school and so forth my Plan. was I was going to be a jet jockey in the Navy. And I had passed the written exam for Aviation Officer Candidate School.

So I thought, okay, I get my degree, if I pass physical and so forth, I'm in training. Little did I know. that God had a different plan in mind. And uh so there's this guy that eight's at the boarding house where I work. And uh he tricks me into a blind date with his sister.

So this is on the Friday night before Thanksgiving, nineteen sixty two. And uh we meet on this blind date. Then we're together again on Saturday afternoon and Early evening. Sunday afternoon I get invited to spend Thanksgiving at their house. with their parents.

Which I did. And lo and behold, I'm back there at Christmastime. and having not given any thought whatsoever to the fact that I could possibly be married, I find myself down on one knee asking this girl that I've known for almost six weeks, To be my wife. And uh she was foolish enough to say yes. And so I went from thinking I had a full plan for my life.

to uh oh, what do I do now? And uh so I ended up joining the Alabama Air National Guard, spent six years in that. and uh we got married on june the sixth, nineteen sixty four. This past June we celebrated our sixty second wedding anniversary.

So I didn't have the plan. But to me It's very obvious that God did. Uh-huh. Otherwise we would have never been together. He orchestrated the whole thing.

And so I s I can look back and say Good job, God. Thank you. You're doing good. I'm assuming that aviation school was going to be in Kitty Hawk. It was the Wright Brothers aviation school back in the day.

I was going to say, man, I hope I don't live to be married 62 years. Yeah, that was just his last wife. It was the first two. Harold's been married once. Yeah, well, we'll clear that up for you.

Harold, we love Piccadani. You know that. Yeah, uh that's fine. Plain milk's fine. I can see a Harold Danny plot being created here.

If there has to be humor. Let it be on me.

Okay. Well, I think it's up to for discussion whether it's humor or not. I guess our guys will tell us on the air. Darren, you have the next clip. Yeah, this is from uh The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Uh the the version before um Robby and Harold hit masculine, you know, Age. Uh evidently There was one way back in 1842 or something, but this one is from 2013. And Walter is a guy that's got it all planned out. He's a computer guy. And he Does the exact same thing every morning, eats the same breakfast, walks down the same hall, does everything the same, but.

He's interrupted by this beautiful girl at work. But he's scared to death to talk to her. And uh so he decides to go on E Harmony. and one thing leads to another and You'll kind of pick up the conversation there, but the one of the females in this that says, you know, I like adventure, you know. Go Go after the guy.

Um that's the girl. that he's shooting for early on, but doesn't know how.

Okay, here we go. Uh, you're trying to use your eHarmony account for the first time? I am.

Okay, uh, I'm looking at your profile. Oh, the been there, done that section. You left it blank?

Okay, well, I haven't really. been anywhere Noteworthy or mentionable. Have you done anything noteworthy, mentionable? Hey my man, you still there? I just like zoned out for a second.

Do you do that a lot? Uh what is it you call it when he goes into one of his little places? Oh, zoned out. You hear that now, man. Look what I found!

What's that? Travel journal dad gave me. We do have ahead of us the privilege of publishing what will be the very last issue of Life magazine. And for the final issue, we just received a telegram from Sean O'Connell. I expect full consideration of negative 25 for cover.

It's 25. It's not there. I know. Maybe it's still on him. What's the matter?

I lost a picture of his. I like mysteries. You should go! Crack the case! You were Sean's partner.

You were the person who worked the hardest to make sure his work was realized the way he wished. He finishes work.

So you're trying to find this guy? Yes. Yeah, well, I'm flying some radio parts out there in five minutes. You find out right now? I just gotta finish my beer.

The weather doesn't look so great. It's not. Looks like there's a storm moving in. Yeah.

How'd you get to Afghanistan? Through Yemen. Violent place. That's why the airfare is only $84.

So Walter ends up Trying to go find the greatest photographer, you know, that Life Magazine's ever had, supposedly. And He's been the behind the scenes guy that never got any glory.

so he doesn't know what to do with glory when he does get it, but But the beauty comes along, and God interrupts him, like he did for. Harold. I mean, Harold should have used that clip. But the reality is that. His mother says to him, Hey, you were you were his paw you were Sean's partner.

You need to finish his work.

Well Guess what? We're God's partner and uh and we are His bride. and we need to finish his work. Jesus' life was interrupted, if you think about it. Um a couple of times when he was in heaven, it was interrupted.

to come here and set aside his deity and become like us, and then it was interrupted again on a cross. I don't guess it'll be interrupted anymore, thankfully. But That's the reality of life, it's full of interruptions. And I love what you said about the missionaries that said that to you last year. That's.

I mean, if you think about all the times we've done mission together, this group of guys. The most ministry was usually done in the messiest Mm-hmm. conditions. Absolutely. Well, and you think of Jesus' life, you know, it's recorded in Scripture, and he's on his way, and the lady touches the hem of his thing, you know.

I'm sure Jesus knew what was going to happen, probably. He was God, right? But it was not what he was doing right at the moment. You know, and ministry happened in the midst of that interruption. Yeah, I don't think he did know who was.

I mean, he literally turns around and says, Who touched me? And his disciples look at him like he's lost his mind. They're like. Uh dude, Jesus There's a bunch of people pushing around you. Everybody's trying to touch you.

And.

I would actually Oh, this is the end of the show. No, go ahead. We got time. Point, counterpoint. I think it's really cool that really what's happening, in my opinion, Jesus wants to have a relationship and she needs to step up.

and say it was me because she needs. to be acknowledged in front of everybody. say that really he was interrupting her life in so many different ways. To push into the relationship, which was more important than the healing from his perspective. But Jesus never treated anything as an interruption, he addressed what was right in front of him.

We need to do that, too.

Well, we need to wrap this show up. Pray about how the interruptions that happen in your life are maybe happening now, that God is using them. We'll talk with you next week.