Chaos Can't After Hours

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This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and it's an exciting day. We've got Alan Arnold on with us from Wild at Heart.

Can I actually set it right this time? It's Wild at Heart Ministries, who's been a huge part of our life, you know, and changes in our life, just quite honestly, that the stuff that Alan and John and that whole team has put together with Morgan and Bart, boy, just keep on naming Craig back in the day, just the amazing things that they've shared with their hearts and written, talked about. Did boot camps on have just impacted all of us? Yeah, I mean, we talked about it before the show, Sam. What difference would all of it made, right, Andy? If, you know, to have this message to walk with God in the way that we have as a fruit of this ministry, like can you imagine 2020 without it, Andy?

No, definitely not. That's what we were talking about earlier. Like Rodney said, and I think we've all kind of felt that, you know, I was uniquely prepared, I think, for 2020. But it took me a while to kind of get my feet on bearings.

Everybody was taken back by COVID and then the riots and everything hit. But, you know, just it's typical when life changes like that, when you don't know what's going on to go into fear. And it's not that you didn't experience fear.

But I didn't go in past downturns or past crisis. In the past, that would have been my default was to go to fear and what's going on and where you have God. But now it's just so much, it's fathered me so much in the last few years that I just have much more of a stability in who I am.

And that's really the fruit of what While the Heart's Going After is, is a man teaching a man how to be able to understand he has what it takes, that God's there with him, and that he's being fathered through whatever, good, bad, whatever. So thank you, Andy. And Alan, welcome back. We're just we're so glad to have you here and talking about your book, Chaos Can't. I think anybody would agree that at a word chaotic would be a good word for 2020. But it runs so much deeper when you think about it the way that you lay it out in the book, that chaos really kind of is the enemy.

Right. I mean, the enemy we have, you know, clearly is Satan. But the way that chaos came about, the origin of chaos, if you will, and the way Satan uses that I think it's his primary weapon was so eye opening to me when I finally, through Scripture and through study and through just time with God went wow, like, it sure changes it when you see chaos from that perspective, rather than just Oh, man, my day is over. And my day is, you know, whacked out. So many things are going crazy. And, and I start to get, you know, more chaotic. But when you go, no, actually, chaos is a force coming against me, customized to take me out differently than it would be customized to take you out, and each of you out and each listener out. And you start going, okay, something bigger is at play here. And I can either understand that, and have a strategy for it. Or I can just, it's like walking into a tornado, I can just walk into the tornado and be blown away.

But I really would rather not have that up. And I'd really rather be somebody that is actually an agent of change for good than just that agent of chaos getting spun up and spun up and spun up. And I know you'd written, I read in some of the notes that, you know, chaos started well before man entered into the picture. And chaos was new to us in the Garden of Eden, but it was not new to the Father. He had dealt with it before with our enemy, correct?

Absolutely. And like I grew up just, you know, in church thinking, well, chaos must have been kind of an outpouring of the fall, like that's when sin entered the world. That's when death entered the world. And I guess chaos was part of that package. But you look at it, you go, Well, wait a minute, the serpent that came into the garden was already an agent of chaos. That serpent was throwing chaos at Adam and Eve through confusing questions and through misrepresentation of God, and through evil intent. And so chaos was already there before Adam and Eve chose the fruit. And so then you go back, you know, well, that's early in the book of Genesis. So where did chaos come from? And you go back to Genesis 1-2, and we can talk about that a little more in a different context in a second.

But for now, the Hebrew scholars say what that verse is saying, where it talks about the Spirit of God hovering over the surface of this empty void or this murky darkness. That's chaos. So chaos existed in Genesis 1-2 before the creation days. So then you go, Well, wait a minute, where did chaos begin? Because we're already at the beginning of in the beginning.

And it's already there. And so guys, I went through other scriptures then, on my search, on my exploration, and you start to get into the creation of the angelic being, which are talked about in the book of Revelation, they're talked about in Ezekiel and Isaiah and other Old Testament books. But one of the things we see is these created beings, these angelic beings that God created before time, our time on earth in the world, they didn't come, they weren't eternal beings, they were created, they didn't come from nowhere. And God created them. And when it talks about Lucifer, in Ezekiel 28, it says, blameless in your ways, from the day you were created, until wickedness was found in you.

And you go, huh. So the angelic beings were created blameless. But in this one being who was one of the higher ranking angels, there was wickedness then found in him.

And Isaiah 14, we read that he said in his heart, I will raise my throne above the stars of God. And so we see this created angelic being nurturing a sin and envy and lust for wanting the story to be about him, not the creator. This created being, I believe, gives birth to chaos in that moment.

And how does it play out from there? Well, he talks a third of the other created angelic beings into rebelling against their creator, one out of three. These are beings who see God face to face, who know that he is their creator. And you think that's probably a very wise plan as the created being to think you're going to take your creator out. But that was what they went with. Satan talked him into that. And that was when chaos erupted in heaven, and a war in heaven broke out.

And of course, they were defeated. And they were tossed out of or kicked out of heaven. But we see chaos there after Lucifer let in this envy in his heart, this lust for overtaking God. And so why is that important? Like that's, you know, that's certainly a really interesting, fascinating biblical insight. But it's very practical to us because we go, if that's where chaos started, and I believe it is, well, then it's no surprise that the fingerprints of chaos are the same as the enemy. Meaning, John 10, 10, chaos is out to kill, kill and destroy our dreams, our hopes, our families, our belief, our intimacy with God. And you go, well, right, that the beings who burst chaos, now that's his weapon of choice. It was his weapon of choice to convince a third of the angels to rebel against the Creator. It was his weapon of choice to get Adam and Eve to choose against God. And it's his weapon of choice today. And in 2020, man, he used it in a way that I had never seen in my whole life, where he was spinning up the whole world, it seemed like to just kind of lose heart to lose hope to have no margin to give up to shut down. And so when we see his fingerprints on that, we go, well, no wonder it feels customized to take each of us out, pushes our buttons in unique ways. Because the enemy is very adept at using chaos to try to take, whether it's other angels out or whether it's us out.

He's really good at that. He's not a creative being, but he's really good at using chaos. And he's always moved against the Creator and creation. And now us as sons of God, who love God, he's really, you know, that's his weapon of choice every time is chaos. And we see how it shuts us down.

But, you know, we look at God guides and Genesis one, two, the very first lesson God teaches us in all of Scripture is Genesis one, two. And what is he showing us? He's showing us that when the Spirit of God comes in contact with chaos, the Spirit of God, God's Spirit doesn't shy away. He doesn't shut down. He doesn't wait it out. He doesn't become a full of chaos himself.

What he does is he goes, huh? Okay, here's chaos. And yep, it looks, you know, pretty empty and void. And my response is going to be not to blink, but to have chaos blink, and I'm going to bring beauty, life and order from the chaos.

And I believe that God shows us that in Genesis one, two, second verse of the whole Bible, because he's saying, now you today, as my son, and my daughters can actually do the same thing in your world, in your realm of authority. You go into the empty and void places, and you usher in beauty and life and order. Don't become more chaotic. Don't take the bait. Don't shut down.

Don't sit on the sidelines and wait it out. But actively transform what's disorder into order, what's, you know, destruction into life, what emptiness into hopefulness. And so that's, that's our assignment, I believe, is, you know, with God to go, not just to not let chaos in our own hearts, that's step one. But the exciting part is now we get to go into the chaos with God, and actually make the world a less chaotic place by transforming it like God did in Genesis one, two. Yeah, what's really cool, if you look inside the Hebrew of those verses, and you come down, you see that the Spirit of God is hovering over the mem, you know, the waters, and that mem is a picture of Christ. And so we see once again, obviously, in Matthew, that the Spirit of God hovers over Mary's stomach. And again, you see the beginning of the end of the real conference, you bring in, you know, Act three, as it were, for those who are familiar with larger story, but that's what's going on.

But then come down to verse nine in Genesis, where it says that he gathered the waters together. Well, that word there is kava, and it's actually the root of the word hope, okay, which is the kava, and which you'll see in the book of Ruth, but the idea is that just as Alan just said, that to be gathered together, you see, is to end the chaos, right? He's doing everything he can, even in the cone of silence, to break off communication, right?

He's doing everything that he possibly can to break that. But by kava, by being gathered together, even as we are by Band of Brothers or at the boot camp, you know, you think about it, Sam, or Andy, when we were at the boot camp here a couple weeks ago, you know, nobody wore a mask, nobody talked about COVID. I mean, we were being gathered together, right, Andy? Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, definitely. You know, in that chaos, we did get gathered together, and there was the presence of God, the healing of God, the purpose of God, the creativity of God, and you know, that is what he does. He brings order out of chaos, whereas, you know, we could default and say, well, we're going to let chaos be and not step into that, like Alan was saying, how God stepped up, the Spirit of God stepped up and took action.

Whereas, you know, you could be very passive, and I guess that's a way to cope with something, but that's not going to do very much for your heart. And the really, really cool thing I can't not talk about, because it excites me, because I'm astonished. I really am astonished that on Isaiah 40, when it says those who wait on the Lord, right, go look it up in Hebrew, you're going to find out those who kava are gathered together with the Lord will rise up like wings on eagles. You know, rise up on eagles' wings, however big or porky big would say that, Sam. But anyway, you know, the thing of it is, is like what Alan is saying is exactly like the picture of with, like those that are gathered together with God, those are the guys that are going to rise up with wings on eagles. Like, oh, look at the Hebrew. It's absolutely brilliant. I mean, it's like, it's God's signature.

Alan, one of the, thank you, Robby. Alan, one of the things that the enemy tries to get you to believe is that you're all alone, right? That's his, one of his biggest ploys is you're on your own. You know, but God's really inviting you in the midst of all these things that, that seem like great distractions, chaos, all these things. It's really an invitation for God to walk with him, isn't it? Well, it totally is. And you know, the enemy, one of his, I think the lines that he uses over and over throughout the ages with men and women, and it works really well, is you're all alone.

It's all up to you. Because I think he's constantly striking at the heart of intimacy with God. He knows that's the game changer. And so as long as we just know concepts about God or can quote scripture, but we have no relationship, then we can have a lot of head knowledge and we can speak in our, with our mouths a lot of truth. But if we feel isolated and alone, we are sitting ducks. We are targets.

And God never meant for us to be that way or feel that way or do life that way. And so I think when things get more chaotic, that lie starts to become more believable for people. I really am, you know, all of my owner.

Wow. Like today, I just got banged up and and I and I came home weary. And so I just need relief. And we start looking for relief instead of wholeness. And so we have that extra beer or we binge on a TV series or men turn to pornography or men turn to, you know, some distraction that just gives them relief.

Maybe they work out twice as much at the gym and think that's going to do it. But at the end of the day, we don't need relief from the chaos. We need wholeness and God.

And then we can actually transform the chaos. But to your point earlier, guys, if we get taken out and we think, well, gosh, it's so crazy. We'll just we'll just get back to doing our podcast when things calm down or we'll just get back to our gatherings when things calm down. Well, it's the equivalent of a guy sitting on the bench in a basketball game going, man, I'm just I'm just waiting to get back in the game until things turn. And the coach is like, actually, you're part of the way things are going to turn. Get your get yourself into the game. Like we don't need you waiting on the bench until things turn and then you enter the game. You be a game changer.

And I think that's the invitation. We can become overcomers of the chaos around us, but not waiting for the chaos to end. Not hoping 2021 is better because ultimately we're the ones that God says we can be part of making it better. But we do that actively with God. And we don't do that if we feel isolated or alone.

You know, we that just causes us to shut down. Well, the fruit is going to come down the road. You know, like the fruit of your journey with God is this great book, Chaos Can't.

Right. But I want to step back a step before that and ask you the question as you entered into this. Kelly kind of rose it to you, you know, and some questioning she had for you in the situation, how you dealt with chaos.

You took that to God. What did your journey with God look like from how did he take you into that chaos and how did he help you with your healing? Well, yeah, that that was the real journey for me. And he basically showed me what it was like to get to the end of myself and his men. I don't know, guys, but, you know, I haven't walked in your shoes and I don't know each of you super well. But my guess is each of you have had a point where you had to get to the end of yourself before you step fully into life with God.

And most men do. And I and he brought me there in this season. I was like, chaos is kicking my butt. It is taking me out. I'm losing heart. I'm not enjoying my creativity.

I'm not enjoying my family like I did every time I watched the news. I feel like I've just had some toxic injection into my body as far as hope disappearing and energy going down. So that's what started me into the journey and on the journey. It was God saying, do you want to see how I do you want to understand how I do chaos? Do you want to understand how I move against chaos? And that was like a rescue because I was like, God, if I can understand how you approach chaos and how you're inviting me to whatever it is I'm in.

I am in because my way is not working. And that really began just a lot of time in scripture, a lot of time in prayer, in conversation with God. And a lot of time just looking at my own heart and my own motives. Because I'm a guy who, you know, when things got chaotic in my life in my 20s and 30s and 40s. When I would get chaotic, I would actually go into control mode. And I was pretty good at that.

And in the work world, I got rewarded for that. Like, hey, throw Alan into the midst of the chaos. He'll figure it out.

He'll kill out chaos, chaos. But the thing is, I was doing so at a really great cost to my own heart because I was getting more and more not. So that was for me the journey of just saying, God, I'm at my end. I know I'm not going to handle this well as it continues. But I at least have enough just knowledge and sense to go, please show me how you see this. And whatever that story is, whatever that narrative is, I want to step into that.

And that was the beginning of the turnaround for me. You'd written down, Alan, that, you know, with this invitation with God that you discover things about yourself. And as you're just talking about that, there's great things that you learn how much you can truly handle when God's there with you. Exactly.

Exactly. And I see that play out in positive ways now in such beautiful ways. Because now, if there's a situation at home, we have two teenagers and a 20-year-old who lives in Nashville.

But for a long season, we had three teenagers at home. And, you know, they're great kids, but there's a lot of chaos. And so beyond what's going on in the world, I realized I want to be the dad to those kids who can actually enter the room and be calm, not out-shout them, not out-control them, not be out just to kind of, you know, make everything right at the expense of hearts and of feelings and of relationship. And so part of the beauty of this for me has been, wow, I can actually be a peacemaker.

I'm a very strong man in terms of I'm 6'4", I'm a big guy, I have a loud voice, but I don't want to bring control to my family as much as I want to bring peace and joy. And so that's one thing I've learned through this process is if I step into chaos like God did, you know, when God stepped into chaos in Genesis 1 through the Spirit, He ended up with the most magnificent creation, right? Like those were the days of creation that followed, oceans and mountains and fields of grain and hummingbirds and, you know, the dolphins and ultimately man and woman. Like God didn't panic in the face of chaos and He didn't tighten control over everything.

He actually overcame chaos with beauty and life and hope and order. And, you know, that's what I want to be as a father, that's what I want to be as a husband, as a leader in my community and in ministry. Like I want to be a kind of man who leaves a footprint of beauty and peace and order. And I'm telling you guys in this world today, it feels like everybody's margin is so thin.

That is such a rare, rare commodity is to find the person who is living that way. And I wasn't, but I sure am on that path now. And I'm not saying it's easy, but it is doable and I love it. And that's why I wanted to just kind of shout from the rooftop, you know, hey, this is possible. Like, let's step into this because now more than ever, the world is hungering for a few good men who can walk with God and change the atmosphere for good around them.

Absolutely. And if you step off and you feed the fear, it's going to lead to killing your heart, killing your soul, killing those things about you that make you feel alive. And when you step into it in love and you walk with God through it, that's where you're going to find that life on the other side. And to your point, it's not going to be easy, but oh my gosh, it'll be worth it. And the things that will come, the fruit down the road, only God knows, but how cool is that to be a part of that with Him? Right.

Exactly. And that's why in the last, I would say maybe fourth of the book, I really try to help people see what are ways you can change the world around you. And I riff off of the movie The Mask of Zorro, which is one of my favorite movies. And they have that training circle, the master's will, they call it, you know, where Anthony Hopkins is the older Zorro, the sage is training the young Zorro who would have fought bravely but died quickly. And so I kind of riff off that and say, if you want to know what this looks like in your world, here are 11 levels of training. And just short chapters, a couple of pages per level, but what does it look like to be true in this world?

What does it look like to hold to the vine instead of the void? What is your weapon of life that you're going to use to change the world for good? And so my hope in that was to say, you know, yes, it's great not to let chaos in and to not be caught off guard. But guys, let's do more like God, you know, where the enemy uses chaos as his primary weapon. I think God uses us, you and me and all the other men who love God, like who uses us is his primary weapon for good. Absolutely. Alan, thank you so much for being with us.

We got just about 30 seconds left, probably about 25. Where can they get your book? Where can they find your book?

They can find the book Chaos Can on Amazon.com in paperback or ebook. And I'd love for them to step into that journey and they can follow me with Alan.com, W-I-T-H-A-L-L-E-N.com. Alan, thank you so much. And please go out and get the book. There's so much that we haven't covered. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it and knowing more what's going on. And I can't believe how much it's touched on the things God's already been working on this year in my life. Alan, thank you so much for being with us. Go to masculinejourney.org to download the previous podcast or any other podcast. We'll talk to you next week.