Guarding Your Heart After Hours

Hi, this is Roy Jones with ManTalk Radio Podcast. Our mission is to break down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Radio Broadcast will be starting in just a few seconds. Thank you. Welcome to Masking Journey After Hours. And if you joined us in the first episode, we've been, if you didn't, I'm gonna tell you what we were talking about.

So you're good either way. We were talking about what are you doing during this season to give your heart life? Right? There's plenty that's coming at it just to kind of just chip away. Just attack it.

Right? All the COVID updates, all the things you got to do, all the protocols, all the things that you need to do. All these rules and regulations and all these things that are just tying you down. The political atmosphere. Oh, my gosh.

If you don't feel oppression there somehow, I don't know how you don't. Yeah, I mean, you could maybe play like 10 seconds of the clip that we played earlier, too. Because you definitely don't want this to be said of your heart by the time this season is over. Yeah, but it could be if you're not careful. So let's just get a few seconds. Okay. He's dead. He's dead, doctor. He's dead. He's dead.

There you go. And it goes on for a little bit longer, but it gets pretty funny that even he's worse than dead. His brain is gone. You know, which happened right after the debate the other night.

Oh, yeah, pretty much. Everybody that watched it, their brains had been sucked out. Oh, if you made it, if you made it, I didn't, I didn't even watch any of it. Honestly, I watched a lot of it in clips afterwards. And, you know, my oldest son watched it. You know, he's in a second round of being able to vote, you know, and so he's really engaged.

And he was like, I can't believe I can't believe I watched this all. Yeah, it did get real good. But you have to think about it. You have all the social unrest stuff that is important. And the political thing is important. And the COVID thing is important. And they're vital.

And you need to know certain things, but it can wear your heart if you're not careful. Right. We played the bump in the other show of hungry heart, you know, everybody has a hungry heart. What are you feeding your heart during this season? Are you feeding it things that gives it life?

Or are you letting it consume some things that doesn't? You know, early on, I was real consumed. Number one, I was sick. I was in the hospital. When they shut down the hospitals, literally, when it was announced, no doctors visits, you know, no, no hospital, no elective surgeries, all that stuff. I was in the hospital.

When they shut down the hospitals, literally, when it was announced, no doctors visits, you know, no, no hospital, no elective surgeries, all that stuff. I was in the hospital when that happened. And I looked at my doctor and said, Hey, look, I know I need to be in here for another three or four days, but I'm going home. And she said, Yep, you're going home, you're married to a nurse, she can take care of you, we're gonna get you out of here. And I was like, Good deal, let's go.

And so I was feeling, you know, good about that. But then coming home, I can't do anything. I mean, I'm cut from stem to stern, you know, I mean, I was I was laying in bed, you know, just healing. And I'm watching the news, you know, constantly watching all this COVID stuff and researching everything I could get on the internet.

I'm a, I'm a researcher, I'm a teacher at heart, and, and I want to dig and dig and dig. And, and so, and I was doing that for, you know, quite a while, to the point where it was like, no, this, this is going to kill me. And oddly enough, while I was in the hospital, I had had an experience one night, I couldn't sleep, I have a hard time sleeping in the hospital because of hospital beds, and I can't sleep on my back.

And when your whole sternum to, you know, belly button is cut open, you can't lay on your side, initially. And so I'm just laying there not sleeping at night, and literally almost in tears, just saying, God, I really I'm so tired. I just need some rest.

I just need, you know, some sleep. And, and at one point, I'm just having a conversation with God. And I look down at my stomach, and there's this massive wound. And I went, man, that is some kind of wound, isn't it? And I just feel like God's going, Yeah, yeah, that is. And, you know, a wound is a great place for healing to start.

And I was like, Yeah, yeah, I could I kind of get where you're going there. But what type of healing are we talking about? And so, my word for the year has been healing.

And we talked about this three weeks ago, I wasn't there that night. But but as I began to process that, you know, I all year long, God has been going after that and just reminding me, Hey, hey, we're, we're, we're doing some healing. And so some of the things I've done for my heart this year, and it is opposed, but some of the things I've done is opposed. What did I say? Well, it sounds like you said it was opposed. Oh, no, opposed, opposed. Yes. No, it's not a it's not a pose as in I'm posing. Right? Yes.

Thank you for clarifying that. I do pose a lot, just, you know, not not in that particular area. And so, you know, one of the things I've started doing is, you know, we have a good friend that that is also a deeply spiritual counselor.

And so I've, I've started, you know, spending some time with him every couple of weeks, and digging into some stuff. Because, honestly, when, when I was first diagnosed, as you know, when I ended up in the emergency room, and the doctor said, Look, we're gonna have to cut you open, and we're gonna have to cut your colon out, and we're gonna have to give you a colostomy. I went, No. And she said, Well, you really don't have a choice. It's either that or die. And I said, I'm good with that. You know, and, and so, Kim, our friend Kim Whitehurst, who's a great counselor in the triad area, if you live in this area, and you need counseling, I would highly suggest Kim.

You know, Kim goes, So what was what was with that there? And I mean, why were you willing to die rather than go through something that was going to bring you some healing? And so been digging into that a little bit, and asking that question, and God's really, you know, bringing some healing in that regard, and some enlightenment on that. And so, you know, trying to do that, trying to take the mo, I'm also building a house this year, and that's extremely stressful, because I'm the contractor on it, basically. And I've never done that before. So I'm losing my mind right now.

But basically, I try to start out every day with look, if this is the worst thing that happens to me this year, I'm okay. You know, I mean, so the plumber hadn't showed up for the last seven weeks that he was supposed to show up and, and dig a trench. He's trying really hard. He's just not doing and I won't say who the plumber is.

But anyway, that's my dilemma. His equipment is sitting in my driveway right now. It has been for three days. He lost his equipment for a while. It's now there. We found it. I, you know, Sam told me the other day, you should just text him a picture of his equipment, say, Hey, I found your equipment for you.

But I still don't have a trench and I still don't have a water pipe, you know, going from the road to my house. And so but again, I'm not gonna lose my mind about that. I can laugh about that. Now it's it's a little bit upsetting because it is delaying things. But if that's the worst thing that happens to me this year, I'm okay with that, honestly. And I'm trying to adopt that mantra a little bit.

Yeah, it's good. I, for me, I had a situation that it's not nearly as deep as yours, you know, but it's been very revealing to me. I had back in May at these two 30 foot plus trees, maple trees in my yard. I didn't know what they were until they split in half. And that'd be cut up, you know, but that a weird storm came through. And I was like, well, that was kind of a weird storm seemed kind of violent at times. And then I started getting texts from my neighbors that my two front trees had split in half. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, nothing hit the house. Fortunately, nothing was really too bad in the street, just enough that it had to be dealt with. And, you know, it hit at a time where finances are really weren't in a great shape. And I'm like, how's this even going to work?

I don't even know how to do it. And you got kind of stepped in and helped me find somebody that came over and got the trees out at a reasonable price. And I was just mad about it for a while, you know, because I really liked those trees. They had shade in the house.

They were pretty. And I was mad, you know, and I wasn't really mad at God, but I was just mad about it. You know, I'd look at these big stumps in my yard and go, those used to be nice trees. Well, so I went through the process, you know, around July sometime, I had somebody come grind the stumps out. And I thought, well, at least if I could get somebody to grind them, because I went to rent a grinder, and it's cost more to rent the grinder that has somebody to do it. And so I had somebody do it. Again, money that I wasn't sure I had. And they came and did it. And then I said, well, I'll just haul off the mulch, not knowing that two trees produce 31 wheelbarrows full of mulch.

Two stumps. Yeah, I'm still healing up the scars of my thumbs. But what started happening is I worked out there and it was hot and it was miserable. And I was unhappy. I was frustrated about it.

I didn't want to be there. Once I got all that mulch up and got the rest of it cleared out, and then I put some topsoil down and put some grass seed down and put some straw on it a few weeks ago, started watering it. And then I was out there checking it every day. All of a sudden I see these little green things jumping up. And my heart was, as those little pieces of grass would come up, my heart would become more alive. And I realized that it was just this whole taking something that felt very devastating. And I don't mean that like a health situation, but just something, a shot to your heart that just makes you mad. It's like, really? On top of all this other stuff, I got to deal with this too, right?

And then all of a sudden God said, no, I can use this. And I checked my yard before I left. I had these two little spots that still aren't growing grass, but they're getting some green now. I'm out there watering it every day and just the joy. And so for the last three or four weekends, I've been out working in my yard just creating more and more of a nicer place to go outside.

Last Saturday night, my son ended up having something he needed to do and wasn't home. We're planning to do a fire pit. I went outside and sat for seven hours at the fire pit and just enjoyed it. Listened to some music, just sat outside. It was a beautiful night. You know, just watching the fire, you know, all that stuff.

And just being out in nature, feeding my heart on things that wasn't Netflix. You know, because part of the thing that we're talking about, how's the enemy becoming after you during this time? And so anyway, that was a long story. God really helped me. That story sounded like to me it was the story of Jonah without the whale.

You know, the gourd and how the gourd came up and then God took it away and all. And it's like, cool story though. Well, thank you. You know, it's been good. It's helped me realize I enjoy taking something and turning it into something that I feel is better, right? And I think everybody's like that in one realm or another, whether that's, you know, with equipment or whether it's with building something or whatever that might be. You know, but for me, I've found, okay, I need a little bit of that each week to go do something that's going to improve to where I can look at it and go, that looks a little better because of some effort I did. It does my heart well.

It gives you some purpose. Yeah. And it's not like this big earth-shattering thing.

It's not like people are going to go by and go, oh, those total spots at your yard look awesome. You know, it's not that. It doesn't need to be that because it's about my heart. You. Yeah.

And your heart. It's bringing my heart to life because honestly, for the most of the time up until then, until the trees came down, I was looking for a new Netflix series or something on Hulu or something that, you know, Disney Plus or whatever that I hadn't seen before that I hadn't seen 20 times that I would be willing to watch again. Well, then like, you know, Robby Ted, you showed him the show Kublai or what? Cobra Kai.

Cobra Kai. And it was like, oh, I got to watch the backstory. And then he just binge watches the whole thing, you know, and it's what you get into.

You get into a certain groove and Netflix is just prime for that. Next episode starts in five seconds. You don't even have to get up. You don't have to push anything. It's like, I can even wait through that. I don't even have to hit go now.

Well, every once in a while they'll come up and say, are you still watching? Right. So you have to hit the button. Exactly. Otherwise, that's when you shut off. That's when you know you've been watching too much. It's at least a couple hours before that happens. I've had it happen.

Oh, yeah. And not that, again, watching Netflix is a bad thing. There's sometimes that my heart needs just a little bit to unwind. There's good stuff on there, despite all the other bad stuff. Even if it's just stupid stuff on there that you watch, like I'll sometimes I'll just go on and put on that show Pawn Stars out there and just to watch what people are bringing in. They just like history.

And not that I really like the show or even really like the characters that much. I like the things they bring in. And so I may just put that on just to kind of clear my head. But six hours of that would not be good for my heart. Well, that's where we have to go look for the things in something else that's good for us. Some other people are, oh, I just love the characters. Well, you like the stuff.

And we have to find what's good for us in our heart, and it could be different at different seasons. Exactly. Mine was Alaska's Last Frontier. You like that too, Darren? I've always liked that, yeah. Yeah, just the can-do attitude of that and then the adventure that they have and stuff. And it was a go-to, but eventually I began to realize I need something kind of like you.

I need something I'm actually touching and stuff. And I put out a garden. My word for the year was abundance, which I was thinking it was going to be more like restoration, but it came back to abundance. And I have to say that this year has been one of the better years for my heart, and it's because I got quieter. Now, I've not been good through this.

There's been times when I've watched the news too much. I've gotten focused on stuff that I don't need to or whatever. But overall, it really has been a good year of abundance with the Lord. I feel much more like in John 15 where it says I'm connected to the vine. Harold, you were mentioning Scripture a while. I've been on the one-year Bible plan for two years now, and I'm probably going to finish up. It's going to take me two years to read through the Bible, but it has done my heart. And it's kind of funny going through that plan how many times the Scripture really did match my time. And I'm like, well, the plans said I needed to do this in a year, but I'm right on time. So that was one thing, but back to my garden, my small garden.

I don't have a lot of room up in Boone where I'm at, and I'm kind of on the side of a hill. But I planted some tomatoes, and then I planted some squash. I got this huge squash.

That was really cool to do. It's been a while since I've been able to garden. And I don't know that I could say anything really produced an abundance, but my jalapenos, I kicked it out. I mean, you guys were the benefactors of that. But it's just been a cool year of, with all the bad, God can be there providing you what you need for your heart. He knows how he created us. He knows what we need. And if we just seek him, we'll find those things. Yeah, the painting I've actually been working on that I think it's going to end up being, it started out as a scene from the beach from a couple years ago when I first started on it.

And it happened to be night, so the water was really dark. And so the more I've been sitting there and kind of where I've been, it's become like hopefully moving from 2020 to 2021, one side of it's really dark and got a lot of rain clouds and lots of stuff, and the other side you're starting to get some light. And I'm really hoping that that's a mantra that says, okay, it's going to be better the next year than it was this year, because I feel like my heart's been kind of making that travel of just feeling this oppression, because the enemy comes after you during this time. Proverbs tells us, is it Proverbs 3.20, Darren? 4.20.

4.20. Guard your heart for it's the wellspring of life. Well, don't take that lightly. Guard your heart because that's what gives you life. You may think it's your brain, but I promise you it's your heart. Your heart is where you do your deepest thinking. You don't fall in love with somebody because it makes good financial sense.

I promise you that. You don't fall in love with somebody because your heart says to fall in love with them. If you have a kid, it doesn't make financial sense to have a kid.

None at all. They cost you lots of money over the years. You better have a big farm. But your heart, man, hold them for the first time and it's over, right? Right, those heart makes the biggest decisions. So guard that heart. Earlier I gave the hint about the You Bible for your phone.

Got another one. Jeff Lagarde Smith arranged the Bible in chronological order. And it's arranged so that you read through the entire Bible in a year. I've been doing that now for quite a number of years. I highly recommend that as a way of trying to help your heart in these times.

Because starting your day out in both of those two ways will see you down the road away. Yeah, you're feeding your heart something good. Yeah, and you've got to have that community. That's where you have community with God and you have community with some others in a different way, as well as our Tuesday nights, which is, you know, like you said, Andy, you've got another group started that's going.

I mean, brotherhood for us guys is important, sisterhood, and then shared community, whether it's through church or some other way. It's all good. For me, I'm more like you, Andy, this year has been one of the best from my heart. I really have not been into the COVID thing at all. When it started, I didn't watch a whole lot of news. I'm like, well, yeah, it's going to come here. It's going everywhere.

Look how bad it is in China to start with. And it's like we're all standing around in shock trying to blame everybody. And it's like, well, if you all would just shut up and try to just solve it together, I'm sure we'd be all better off, you know. But you have then all the other things are happening. And I knew about it. And I listened to enough to go, okay, I'm informed. I know what's going on. I know enough truth.

So let me get back to the truth and get into the word. And that's been really good. But just to be able to – for me, I've been out fishing more.

I've never been a big fisherman. I got to the point where I'm talking to my son. Well, I'm doing this. I'm thinking that.

What do you think? And he's like, Dad, I think you know more than me now. Because he's like, you're out fishing and doing this stuff. And he hasn't fished now for a while. He's in school and he's just busy. And he had to work all summer too. And he's just a busy guy.

And he's working multiple jobs and going to school. And he's just bared down. So I'm like, well, I'm kind of the opposite. I'm freed up. I've got time. And I'm taking time.

I'm being that intentionality. I'm like, I am going to go fish. I'm going to go do this and that. I've talked to all the neighbors because there's a set of ponds behind us.

And all people live around the ponds. I've talked to all of them. And they say, is it okay if I come down and fish? Do you mind?

Can I do this or do that? And got to know them. It's been really nice.

And the guy that comes out at about 5.30 in the evening to 6 o'clock and walks his dog. So I get to see the dog and pet him. And we talk and chit chat. That is so freeing.

That is wonderful for my heart. And you have to be intentional about going out and doing those kinds of things. And those guys, I think we get so caught up in providing and doing all the responsibility stuff. And we feel like they're being a good soldier.

But whenever you walk away and don't really take care of your heart and do these things you guys are talking about, you're not going to have the life that you need to continue on to do those important things and have the influence to your family that you need. Yeah, Rodney was talking about something. I've been trying to figure out a project I can do in my yard. I'm going to go fishing Saturday morning. Because I've been fishing I don't know how long. I enjoy fishing. I'm just going to go out.

Hopefully I'm catching when I'm out there, not just fishing. You know, I was afraid you were going to share the story again, Rodney, how you used to listen to our podcast. You found something you really like. Yeah, right. A really good podcast, yeah.

Something that's fresh. Hey, I'm clear back to season four or something. Well, you know, as we're talking about this, we've got another clip that we can play from Bagger Vance, which we all decided is, you know, probably as a group, it might be our favorite movie. And ultimately, what happens if you don't do some intentional work with your heart, you'll end up kind of like Bagger does in this clip. And if you remember the movie, he's had a horrible day. He's 12, or Judah, Juna. He's 12 shots back. He's getting his head handed to him. And Bagger's trying to cheer him up a little bit. And Juna just doesn't want to hear it.

And then this conversation happens where Juna gets really deep for a minute about the, basically the life of the heart. Let me tell you something. There's no difference between winning and losing, and anything in between. What's lost is lost. A man lives, a man dies. And in the end, it all turns out the same. You're alone. And that's all you're ever going to be.

Matter of fact, alone. So a soul is born with everything that the Lord can give it, and things don't go its way, so it just gives up, and the good Lord just takes everything back? That's right. And then the soul dies, alone. But that's pretty much what you said? That's right. That's a sad story, Mr. Juna.

Yes, it is. And that's just about the dumbest thing I heard any fool say, ever. You got yourself a hard eye there, Mr. Juna.

The soul is born with everything, don't look, dies, and the good Lord. You're a funny man, Mr. Juna. Well, Harold, you knew Juna personally, didn't you?

Yeah, he watched him hit the ball 300 yards off the tee. Harold was the little boy following Juna around in the movie, and so, I don't know, what do you think about that? Well, I'm old, but I do have one more recommendation. Okay. If you don't already have one, get a dog. That's true. I mean, dogs are therapeutic if you don't believe that dogs don't bring life. My dogs have been sick a lot lately, and we've spent a lot of money on them. Thankfully, we have pet insurance.

But, man, I love them. I mean, we have three of them now. We are supposed to be fostering dogs for a rescue until somebody else adopts them. The problem is, all the ones we foster, we fall in love with, and we decide we need to keep them. Well, the good news is you're 100% on adoption. Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, I'm with you, Harold. You know, when all else fails, when you can snuggle up to a dog and pat his head, or when I'm sitting there in deep thought and frustrated and my dog comes up, and this will tell you a lot about my life, I'll be reclined in my recliner, and my dog will come up behind me and lick my bald spot. And it's hard to be upset about anything when your dog loves you that much. I took my dog this last week. I have a dog that was my daughter's dog.

Now, it's been my dog. He's been with us 13 years. And, you know, I thought, oh, he's slowing down.

He's getting a lot older. And, you know, during COVID, I haven't been able to get him out to get him groomed or anything. And, you know, he just had slowed down so much, I'm thinking, he's not going to make it much longer.

You know, I may not have him another year. Wouldn't have got him a haircut? You think he's a puppy? He couldn't see. That was his problem. He had all his hair in his eyes. Now he runs around like he's a puppy again. And I'm like, where's that magic haircut for me, man? That's what I need. But that's what we're talking about is give your heart a shot of a haircut or something that makes it see a little differently. Darrell Bock We don't have that problem, do we, there? Darrell Bock Yeah, yeah.

You don't have to spend money on this. But, no, that's exactly what's wrong with us, though. We walk around in this fog. We walk around with what the world, what the enemy keeps hitting us with, right?

And we've got to guard our heart and give us that shot of life. Scott Cunningham You know, I've been listening to a podcast that I like, other than ours. I've been listening to John Eldridge's Wild Heart podcast here.

I've listened to it for years. But the last five weeks, he's been talking specifically about the ambivalence of the second coming of Christ. That we kind of live in this ambivalence of, well, you know, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people out there right now saying, hey, it's coming. It's coming next week. It's coming next month.

It's coming the year after. And I don't know the answers. And, in fact, you know, my Bible tells me that we're not going to know. But there are some signs, perhaps, that'll tell us when times are getting closer. And I know this, we're closer today than we were yesterday. But one of the things that has made a difference in this time for me is that. Just thinking about, you know what, I probably have lived a lot of my life not really with that expectation of, this might be it.

This might be the year. And I'm good with that. I'm excited about that, quite frankly, because I'm looking for some deeper restoration that's only going to come, you know, on the other side of this. In the meantime, what I'd ask you to do this week is just be honest with yourself. Do you feel weary? Do you feel beat down? Do you feel like you just don't have much going on? You need a shot at life. And go ask God, where can I get that life this week?

But I can tell you, you're going to get some great life if you come to the boot camp November 12th through 15th. We're not doing it to make money. We don't make money on these things. We spend money. We see people's hearts come alive, and we know that's what this world needs. This is the Truth Network.