This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.
It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
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 the masculine journey. We know what time it is. Do you know what time it is?
It must be 12.02.10. I'm just guessing, Sam. I think it's pretty close. We don't have our normal bump music, so... No, but we have a cell phone. We do, and we're live today. We are live. We're live from boot camp, which is always exciting. It was exciting. It's always exciting.
We don't know what's going to happen at boot camp. We're hoping our listeners are listening, and we're hoping that we're broadcasting, but hey, we have had an amazing time. Yeah, it's been amazing. We've gone through so much stuff over the last couple days and so much more to go.
It's all the stuff we talk about on the radio in depth, which is pretty awesome. Well, for those of you who just heard the Christian Car Guy show in Kingdom Pursuits and encouraging prayer, I want to thank you all for your prayers. Yes, my father passed away, and his funeral is tomorrow at 3 o'clock in Oak Ridge at Central Baptist Church, so we would love to see any listener who would love to come out. I would love to see you personally for that celebration of my dad's life, but it's made for an interesting boot camp for me, but it was kind of cool for me, really, Sam, that God came from my heart and gave me something like this to be able to do while I was processing the loss of my father.
Absolutely. It gave you the opportunity to even have your daughter come last night for a little while, which is really pretty cool to have her here. And reminisce about some cool old things. Randall, who is our cook here and also the caretaker for the camp, my dad celebrated his 86th birthday at a boot camp, and he still had the 8 and the 6 from when he baked him a cake that year, and Brian sent me a picture of my dad, and so it's kind of cool. It's actually very cool, because, you know, last night, Sam, you gave a talk on fatherhood that, you know, pretty much had me in tears, but I guess you know why. Yeah, I think it was more had to do with not me. But, you know, I thought a lot about your dad over this past boot camp, and it's been hard to actually be in our cabins, you know, because it seemed like he and I were on the same bathroom schedule in the middle of the night, and I would see him, you know, as I would walk out, he'd be on his way.
It'd be Bob, it'd be Sam, you know, we'd walk on through there, but, you know, it's nice always having him in the cabin to talk to and things when he was there, and so it's been kind of hard to be here and not have him here with us. Yeah, yeah. Well, we got some new folks in front of us that we better talk to.
Yeah, we do. We have Jackson, who is from the North Carolina Boys Academy, and Jackson, how many boot camps have you been to? This is my third one.
Third? That's awesome. And so... So, what's different about this boot camp for you than the last couple? I think this one went into more in depth with how important the father role in our lives is, especially at a young age, and how we, like, stay with the mother for a short period of time, and then as we grow up, we need our dad in our lives, and I feel like the more you guys talked about that, I felt my heart, you know, just bursting out more and more towards that, because that's something that's really tender and soft-hearted for me.
Yeah, dads are quite vital, you know, in lots of ways, and, you know, the concept last night we were talking about, not concept, but the reality of, you know, God being Father, is something that just takes a while to get your head around, you know, and really step into, you know, which is really pretty cool. Now, the third boot camp, weather's been amazing. You guys had a great time. Did you play softball yesterday?
I was really tired from all the airsofts, so I just kind of sat down. Oh, okay, there you go, yeah. So it's been a fun, fun time. Now, have you had some good quiet times?
I have. That's good. Anything God's been sharing with you there? There was this one verse that, I forgot what it was, but I know it's Matthew 1625, I think. It was about, when I first heard this, I was just, like, amazed by it, because it was just so, I just felt like the Holy Spirit just hit me with it. It was just, like, how I find my life through Him, and because I felt like I've been putting my life into so many different wrong areas, and I haven't really found what life actually was, and now that I get to see that, if I put my life through Him, I know who I am in Christ. Well, that's a great perspective, you know, that we look for life in all these places that don't provide it for very long, you know, that we do have a source that we can come to and have it forever, you know, and that's really cool that God's been opening your eyes to that.
That's special. That was William Wallace's speech, wasn't it? Yeah, whoever wants to lose his life will save it, and it's amazing how that gospel plays out, you know, in the masculine journey. That verse was really particularly illuminating for me, more so this time than any camp, and I've heard it I don't know how many times, so that's really cool. You've been to a couple boot camps. Pardon me? You've been to a couple.
Yeah, I don't know how many. How about you, Corey? What's the most, what's the best part for me, a boot camp? Yeah, so far. So, I think from this go around, you know, coming in, having been here before, and just really looking forward to coming, I really look forward to the covenant of silences, and if you don't know what that is, after each of our sessions, they put up some questions, and we just go off for an hour, just be with God in nature or wherever you can, you know, just find quiet, and you just reflect on those questions, and you take those questions to Him, and, you know, I spent half the camp last time pissed off and mad at God during those times, but, you know, this time I've, you know, He's opened my heart so much to Him. He just revealed so much to me in this weekend, just, you know, page upon page, that it's just pouring out of me. That one agreement that you made about your brothers particularly, it reached to me.
You want to share with our listeners what happened with that? Yeah, so, having found out that, you know, my biological father, I'd never met him, and the father that I'd known for my whole life at 13 years old, and wasn't really my dad, I made an agreement with myself as a 13 year old, because being a 13 year old, you can't really rationalize things that well, that for whatever reason, because my brother was just my half brother, that he wouldn't see me as his real brother, and that he wouldn't love me like a real brother. And, you know, the enemy's going to play with you, the enemy's going to play with your mind, and that's one of the best things I've taken from these past two boot camps, is to break those agreements.
You know, the enemy's going to pray on those and twist it in your mind, and you have to break those agreements with yourself that you are good enough, you know, you are worthy. God loves you, and you don't have to, you know, you don't have to be the best- And so when you actually shared that with your brother, tell what happened. When I actually shared that with my brother, you know, he, of course, there was a lot of emotion, a lot of tears, but he said to me, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, you are my brother, no matter what happens. And, you know, we've just, I mean, we've been closer ever since then, I mean, it's really, you know, he's the best person in my life, you know, the closest person I'm closest to on the face of this earth, and, you know, I'm just so thankful for him, and, you know, he's just done nothing but foster a really wonderful relationship that we have. That's awesome. Yeah, and you felt loved, you know, for real. So, Spencer, you know, this is, this is one of my favorite guys.
Is this your third boot camp? Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, they're all my favorite, though, actually. Well, yeah, you tell everybody that. And you mean it, though. You do mean it. I do mean it.
You do mean it, absolutely. So, Spencer, it's your third camp. So, what's different about this camp for you than some of the others? Well, I have to say, this boot camp, like, I've actually, back at the academy, since I'm 18, and the academy's 13 through 17, pretty much, since I turned 18, I could leave, and I would lose everything. And this past week, I've really been, like, struggling and talking to a lot of the coaches and the staff there. And just yesterday, during the first covered in the silence, I heard the word determined. And I put those two and two together, and, like, I need to be, the Lord is pretty much telling me to be determined to finish the course, to finish this program. Because if I leave, I'll just go back into drugs, go back into, I lose all my high school.
So, I just lose everything, my relationship with family, God. Yeah, and that may be part of a name that he's giving you, too. Yeah. You don't know. Yeah.
Right? To be determined. And that's pretty awesome, because you're close. You don't have that much more to go, do you? I have seven and a half months left. Okay, yeah, that seems like a long time. So, a 17-year-old or an 18-year-old, that's a long time. It seems like forever. But for us, it'll be about a blink, you know. Oh, yeah. I guess for me, more than you.
Well, yeah, pretty close. So, what are you looking forward to at the camp that you've got, you know, you still have a day and a half? What?
Just to see what else I can get from the Lord, and just see with the talk, see what else I can actually apply it to my life, and not just sit here and listen to it. Yeah, that's cool. Plus, they gave their gun experience. You can just shoot things. Yeah. That's always fun. It is fun.
It is fun. Yeah, it's been a really great camp. It's been interesting to see, Robby, they change. You know, every camp, even though you go through the same talks, we have different people doing them a lot of times.
But even when you're doing a different talk from before, God brings out new things in your life. And it's been really cool to see. It's hard to explain. You know, we've been doing these since 2009, you know, 10 years of them.
And so, I don't know, 18, 19, 20, whatever. Oh, yeah. A little bit different. Really different for me, because I actually, you know, with all that was going on with my father's illness, and all that was just over the last month or so, I kept meaning to get to my talks. I meant, kept meaning to prepare for all this. But I just had one thing, you know, hospitalizations, all these things coming at me.
And trying to spend as much quality time with my dad as possible, because I knew time was short, I didn't get it done. So I figured, well, no problem. I have all my notes from my previous camps. I've done these talks many, many times. I have everything I need.
No problem. So I get down here, as I prepare it Wednesday morning, and pull up my computer, which really I hadn't looked at for whatever, a month, and all the notes have been corrupted. And so I have no notes. And at first, I thought that was a tag saying, Sam, Satan, Sam, whatever, whatever. But I realized that, no, it was God wanting to take me deep into the, you know, in other words, in order to get it right, I had to go back deep. And yeah, He took me places that really He knew. And it really took my mind to focus on, wow, where are we going with this talk? And I had to do it fresh, because my notes were gone. And there it was. And it was a journey for me.
It was just beyond amazing. Well, the rest of the story, once you finish both your talks, do you want to tell the rest of the story? No, go ahead. No, your notes showed back up. Oh, oh, yeah.
There's no doubt. I went to print my last, you know, when I finished the warfare talk about 9 o'clock this, no, it was about 6, 6.30, and I go to print it, and there's all my notes back on the computer. And I'm like, okay, no problem. Yeah, it's been definitely a weird camp that way. Well, Jackson, how are you today?
Uh, good. So first boot camp? Second boot camp?
First boot camp. Okay, so how's it been for you? It's amazing. I'd say it's really bringing me closer to God, personally. I feel way more connected than I did when I got here. And now that we're about to leave, I feel a lot closer, and I feel a lot more comfortable with myself.
That's awesome. So is it anything like you expected it to be coming into it, and what's one thing that surprised you about it? I really didn't really, like, think we'd have, like, so much sessions in covenant of silence.
I thought it'd be activities and stuff, but at first I was like, that's a lot. But now every time, like, I'm really trying to use it, and the talks are really helping, and I feel like God's showing me and telling me things. What's your favorite talk so far? Uh, I think the one this morning was pretty good.
So, because it really spoke out to me this morning. The warfare one or the beauty one? Uh, the warfare one. We're in a war, and that there's, you know, that's where our notes go going. Yeah, yeah, it's been crazy with that this time.
Yeah, that is so awesome. And not to mention, he took a big hit when he was playing softball, didn't you? Yeah, he got a dinger. I wasn't out there. What happened? But he got right back up, you know, what if that verse about a Christian man may go down? Because he went down.
Yeah, hard. He went down hard. When he hit a shot right down the third base line and popped it right in the knee. He didn't even go out of the game.
No, he was right back in. Just brushed it off. That's a hot corner over there. Yeah, now you know. Yeah. That was Wayne that hit that ball, by the way. Yeah.
Yeah, I saw the whole thing. Well, thank you, Copeland. That's, that is cool. Very cool. Robby.
Sam. We've got some really cool talks left to do. I know you won't be able to be a part of them with us today. We're going to miss you, but there's so much more boot camp coming. I'm actually going to do my best to try to, we have the good heart talk, which we've only ever done once in the history of masculine journey.
And after that, things kind of went south. Yeah, I'd love to have you here. That would be great. So it is my, it is my hope to make the journey tomorrow morning to hear that because, you know, that was one of my hugest misunderstandings with my walk with Christ up until, you know, 10 years ago when I started discovering it, which is the name of your whole ministry is good heart ministry. So it's a big deal. Yeah.
Yeah. God helped me with that starting in 2005 and was obviously a big revelation to me. And so anyway, well, welcome, welcome to masculine journey. We are glad to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Well, thank you.
So this is your first boot camp. It is. Yeah. It is. I've heard about them for a long time from you.
I was gonna say, it's not your first invite. Right. No, I'm kidding. Yeah. Well, I went to church together. So yeah, I know.
Yeah. So first boot camp, how's it been for you? It's been really good.
This is the first event like this that I've been to really since I got recovered about a year and a half ago, year and a half, two years ago. And there's so many things that God gave me peace about things in my past that God gave me peace about. He showed me what my identity was, but I never had to really come to reckoning with him.
I never had to deal with him. And so this whole week has been really up and down. You know, I'm here with the boys academy. I'm just supposed to be watching these guys, but I've gotten so much out of this just by being here. Yeah, it's hard. God will still come after you no matter what responsibilities you have.
Right. You know, we talk about as we prepare for the talks and things that there's times he just floors us in the midst of, you know, we think we're on task and being busy and we got this and this. He's like, oh, no, I've got something here for you. Yeah, plus we get to sit through, you know, and I think it's critical really to seeing what God has for you is that all these other guys have studied this stuff and they get an angle on it that you never thought of. And you get to look at something, a diamond in the cave, and you go, oh, wow, I've looked at that verse a dozen times. I never saw that and they were getting close to that.
I never realized that that's how that connected the dots. And that's some beautiful stuff out there. That's good.
It is. So we got more talks coming up. I know you guys are thrilled about sitting in here and listening to the talks, but then we get some more free time activity and there's some really cool talks coming up yet. And the listening prayer. We have listening prayer, which will be a fun adventure tonight. It's a risky thing, isn't it?
Which Will hasn't had a chance to experience it, but Corey has. Share a little bit about what happened there. So listening prayer exercise, I had never attempted anything like this in my entire life at the last boot camp. And again, I can't echo how much I did not want to be here, but basically you just sit in a room and you, you know, everybody prays on something and there's no specific thing.
You just pray on something that keeps, you know, God puts on you and you, you just say what you're feeling. And it was a, it was a big moment in my breakthrough at the last boot camp. Cause Kenny, who was the, he's like the head of the, the, the, the boys group. I hadn't spoken to him, hadn't talked to him.
I didn't introduce myself to him. And then Spencer who spoke earlier and they said, Corey over and over again, they kept saying, I keep getting Corey. I keep getting Corey. And then Kenny, he, he said, yeah, he's like, I keep getting Corey and I keep getting this image of Jesus, just touching him and saying that he is flawless. And Robby was in the room. Rodney was in the room.
Spencer was in the room. And I mean, it broke me down, like on the spot. I mean, I was crying more than I've cried in a very long time.
And it was, it was a huge breakthrough moment for me. And that's when I first heard God cause I kept getting Cindy with an I or at the end. And it happened to be Robby's sister who needed prayers at the time.
And it's actually on her way right now to the funeral. Yeah. And I had no idea because I hadn't spoken to anybody yet. It was really connected to what we were, what we've been talking about.
And yeah, it was a, it was a, it's a risky thing. When you just start asking God, you don't know where that's going. Yeah. It's a, you know, you walk in trust with God, you know, but you're sitting there with a group and you say, okay, we're just going to listen to see what God has to say. And you're like, boy, I hope to hear cricket. But so far we've done it, you know, how many times and God's always there.
It's coming tonight. Yeah. And so speaking of that, you know, we have Dylan and one of those listening prayers that when we were at the boys Academy, that's what everybody heard was Dylan. Am I right? Yes, sir. You remember that?
Yeah. I remember we were like sitting there praying and it was, we were in the back room. It was in the staff room and I was like, I wasn't a Christian then. And I was really having my doubts about Christianity. And I was like, before the entire thing happened, I was like, I don't really see how this could be real. And I was like, if not, then it's probably just a coincidence. So I was like, I was like, God, if you're real, I'd, can you please just show me? I was like, can you please like, let me just be one of the first names called out. And like, right after I got finished praying that it was like one or two people was like, I'm hearing the name Dylan.
And I was like, I don't know. It just really amazed me. And I think that's one of the, that's one of the biggest things that helped me grow in my faith was seeing that.
And it's one of the main things that led me to become a Christian, to remove those doubts from my life. That's amazing. Now, this is your second bootcamp or third? My third bootcamp. Your third bootcamp. Okay.
I knew you'd been here before. So what's different about this bootcamp for you, especially since, you know, having gone through that last summer? This bootcamp is different to me just because I'm learning to personalize the talks more than I have been throughout the past bootcamps. I've kind of just been looking at them as principles. Like, yeah, this is, you know, this is how it runs and everything like that, but I can't apply this to my life just because of how things go. Because I know for me this time, I'm learning to personalize some things more than others, like the father, the father things and the, and making negotiations or like agreements with yourself. And I'm looking back to see what agreements I made about myself because throughout my childhood, my father wasn't there.
And there were a lot of problems surrounding him and he died when I was like younger. So I'm learning to look back and see what negotiations I made with myself and, you know, to see if some of those negotiations are, you know, what I'm experiencing today as problems. Absolutely, because those give that foothold, you know, we talked about. And that's a great exercise that God will, God will take you back into those kind of one at a time and say, okay, let's go ahead and break those together. And that's a great place for you to be right now. And it'll be, some of it won't be as fun. Going through, but at the backside of that, it's going to be just an amazing place for you to be, you know, and it'll draw you so much closer to God.
It'll be really cool for you. Thank you. Plus, you know, you raising your shield of faith just raises all of ours. I mean, we see stuff like this with Courtney and we're just like, oh my goodness, God is showing up in all these different ways. And it's like, yeah. And, and do you realize why that for me and you Dylan, your dad's in heaven and now mine is too.
Thank you. Oh boy, Robby, it's just overwhelming. Some time to listen to what God's doing and, and get to see just, uh, we don't often get to see what he does. We know he's working and just to hear it, it's just constantly amazing. Just what he continues to do, not only in our lives, but the lives of the people he lets us be in touch with. Oh man, I am personally very excited about our next guest because this is like, I'm hoping he comes to every bootcamp from now on, just because if you pick him on your softball team, you will not lose. There's no way this guy is like a one man team.
It's unbelievable. But Daniel, no, we're so grateful for you guys being able to be here with us and, and, you know, again, seeing that bright light out in the audience where you can see that God's in a light in your eyes, really. And you've been over at Alpha Acres and now you're at the rescue mission. Tell us a little bit about your journey.
Uh, well, you know, I spent the last eight years, 10 years almost living for myself, uh, working as a bouncer at several nightclubs and bars down in Florida. Uh, kind of just fueled my fleshly desires, so to say. And when I hit a point in my life where, you know, I, I, I didn't know what I was becoming and who I was, I just realized that, you know, something had to give, something had to change and I knew it was the lack of God's presence in my life. So I hopped on a bus at three 30 in the morning after a shift and came up here and checked in Alpha Acres, man, and it's just been, uh, a blessing to let God really heal me. Um, a lot of time of reflection and self-awareness of where I fell short and, uh, all the, the unfulfilling nights, you know, I've, I've, I've lived.
Um, you know, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's been, it's been real or unreal almost, so to speak. So, so you came into boot camp, like you had no, you weren't like a lot of people were, you knew ahead of time, I'm going to be going in a few weeks. All of a sudden they just came in and you guys get in the van, you're headed towards boot camp.
Yeah, it was a Wednesday, pretty much. I mean, I've never done anything like this, but on Wednesday when, uh, one of the, uh, guys down at the mission asked, you know, it was like, Hey, tomorrow, if you want to leave, go to this boot camp in a place you don't know with people you have no idea about. It's an adventure, right? I jumped on it right away. I was like, absolutely, man, I definitely will. And this place has been great, man. Again, a lot of, uh, um, more, you know, self-awareness and, you know, you kind of, uh, it's a, it's been a good way for me to see the different angles that Satan tries to come at you and the different perceptions you may have in situations that, you know, really, I don't know, I've really brought a lot of light to do things like that. It's been, it's been great.
It's awesome. And then you got to play softball. So you got to, yeah, we, we annihilated that.
We punished them that we walloped them. It was like 20, what? 24 to six. Yeah, maybe you're being nice. I'm being nice. Was it more like 29 to six? It was, but I'm telling you, you're just glad you're playing a game that you hit the target, everybody shoot you. Yeah. This is the truth network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-27 19:50:02 / 2024-01-27 20:02:41 / 13