Enough After Hours

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio.

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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 we are continuing the topic that we started.

And Robby, that's why I asked you to get the microphone because I wanted you to kind of set up what we're talking about today. You haven't had enough? Well, after this, I've had enough. By the time you finish this one, you'll have had enough of enough.

Yeah, today's topic. So, you know, last week we talked about, you know, loving in spite of, not loving in spite, but loving, you know, when you're getting trompelled on to some extent and continuing to love. And so that left the question, you know, kind of out there, when is enough? And again, another disclaimer, this is not Robby giving anybody permission to opt out of a relationship.

It's just, you know, how do we get to that place where we can sense a peace from God on where he wants us in this relationship? And as Andy put it so well in the regular show, you know, there's a time to love and a time to hate, and there's a time to gather stuff. I'm just kidding.

All right. Well, yeah, I just, I was thinking of all the emails I've already prepared to say, Robby said, you know, to all these people I want to, you know, kind of break some ties with. Robby said I could do this. That's going to be my opening line.

No, don't. No. Robby inferred. Yeah.

Robby implied. Is that any better? No gathering of stones. Well, if you listen to the first show, we had a record number of scripture. We had like four scripture and we're still not done. Yeah. Yeah. We're scriptureful today. We are.

Yeah. And there's more. And there's more. So Danny, you have a scripture that you would like to share with us.

We're really waiting. Well, in John 15 says, Jesus said, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. So it will be even more fruitful. And I was thinking that along the lines of that's enough is, and we've talked about this as relationship wise, that sometimes I need pruning.

Hopefully, I'm not going to be one of the limbs that are cut off and thrown in the fire. But pruning relationships and only God knows what lets us be fruitful and what doesn't. And that's why we refer back to him, I think is the pruning that I need.

And nobody really likes that. Well, looking around the room, the pruning started with most of our hair. I've been very pruned.

I can only look like a pruner. But that's a great thing. You know, Jesus even said, there's times that pruning needs to be done. And Rob, you made the point in the last show, that doesn't mean you stop loving that person. No, right. Just because you're not having normal interaction or any type of communication doesn't mean that you are released to quit praying for them, to quit loving them in a different way.

Right. And continue to ask God, you know, where do I fit in this? How can I help? How can I help? Where do I fit in this? How can I help?

How can I help? What role? But being fully aware that he knows if it's going to be a permanent pruning or he's going to let that branch sprout again. Yeah. Maybe just cut off a little bit of the edge. Just the hair. Just the hair part.

Kind of go from there. So Andy, you had a clip for us, right? Well, you had like 12 of them, but you have a clip that we're going to play now for you.

Right. You did a great job. That's enough, Sam. You did a great job. I've had enough. You did a great job on clips this week.

So now I was trying to be thorough. So now the one we ended up choosing, I think between the group was one from coach Carter is a coach who came into an inner city program that the team had been really good, but they were all failing students and he's trying to lay down the law and to father these kids. And in doing so, one of the kids, uh, that you'll hear talking, he ends up just bailing in the beginning. And then the coach allows him back on the team. And when he comes back on the team, and this is stuff you won't see in the clip, but when he comes back on the team, he really has to run all these sprints and all this stuff. His teammates actually step up and help him do fulfill the requirement. He gets back on the team. Well, and where the clip picks up is the coaches sitting down with the players.

They haven't done so well in their studies. The tape coast takes action. And then after he does that, this kids, he bails again.

So you've got a couple of occurrences of enough in this clip. Gentlemen in this hand, I hold contracts signed by me and signed by you in this hand. I hold academic progress reports prepared by your teachers. We have six players failing at least one class, eight players getting incompletes based on attendance. Gentlemen, you have failed to up. I'm sorry. We have failed. We have failed each other. Now there are some of you who have upheld this contract, but know that we are a team.

And until we all meet the terms of this contract, the gym will remain locked. Mr. Thompson, Mr. Gessick, and Ms. Sherman have generously volunteered their time to help us reach our goals. But coach, I have a 3.3. That's good, sir. Do you score all the points for the team too? Do you score all the points for the team too? We are the Richmond Oilers.

Do you know what Oilers stands for? Sir, know that you're not just walking out on me. You're walking out on them. I had to beg you. And then I ran all those sprints. I did all that. I killed myself for you, sir, to get back on the team. Oh, man, it ended.

It did. While you're over there pantomime and like you're a ventriloquist or whatever. I'm going to use more scripture on the anointing.

Is that what you're doing? Now I can't get past what does Oilers stand for? Because you never answered my question.

It's anointing, I'm telling you. Evidently, the kid must have not known the answer because he just walked out. Yeah, I don't know the answer either. I forget what it is. I think he brings it up later in the movie.

And Jim and I were doing the from Wizard of Oz oil can guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Tin wood man. Yeah, exactly. That guy. I think we're getting off top.

You need the parotical oil. If you don't get that reference, you got to listen to the first show. Exactly. It's that's the hook to the other show. Right? It is. So in that, I mean, sometimes saying enough is the right thing. Right?

But it's again, we get back to walking with God in it. Yeah. He was sitting there. And when that clip was playing, when I was not acting like the 10 men with Jim, I was thinking about a company I work for in California. And if you don't know a whole lot about me, I'm pretty loyal to the companies that I work for.

I was with the company in Indiana 17 years before they closed their doors. I've been with my current company eight years, you know, I get with a company, I believe in the company, I stay with the company. And so as with the company, I was a young builder, had a lot going on, had a lot of houses going, we had probably about between 80 and 100 houses going, there's about five of us to work there. And I was in charge. And, and I had a boss that came in that didn't hire me, but he came in after I was working there. And he spent the next six months telling me how I was not fit to do the job.

I was too young, they never should have put me in that position, that kind of thing. And then he was amazingly surprised when I quit and tried to talk me out of quitting. You know, but when I look back at that, it was at the point when I could say, you know what, I had enough. And I went to work for another company and stayed with them the whole rest of time I was in California till the recession hit out there and construction shut down.

I was with them pretty much most of the rest of the time, but I went to work for somebody that appreciated. Right. And I think sometimes we look at that enough as always being unhealthy. And it can be very healthy if we're walking in God with him. Yeah, I think there's a time that we as people, God intends us to have enough at a point in time. I mean, Paul and Barnabas had a time where there was enough, they just weren't seeing things eye to eye. And they came back together later on.

It was that time that they need a separation. I mean, and I think a lot of us, to Robby, you know, Robby, we know that he's faithful. Jesus says, and I'm gonna drop some scripture for you guys again, Hebrews 13 five, he says, I will never leave you or forsake you. So that really puts something in our heart.

That's the standard. Okay, Jesus will never leave anybody. Therefore, neither should I. But, you know, as individuals, as broken human beings, there's times where we just have to, you know, put some space between us and the other person. Because like we were talking about earlier, your heart can't always stay engaged. And it's not necessarily meant to particularly if you have two individuals with separate visions, you know? Yeah. And I think God continually puts us in, and we've talked about it, the Ransom Heart, Wild at Heart team wrote a book about the divine conspiracy, right, where God actually puts you with people that will help rub off the rough edges, right, to become more of a polished product.

And that's not what we're talking about. You know, because I think that's just part of being in a relationship. We all need to grow and change and become better people, right? Because the world's kind of stripped us down.

And we're work in progress type thing. I think it becomes on the unhealthy side when you start losing sight of who you are, right? When you no longer know who you are in the midst of a relationship or for you to stay in that relationship, you'd have to pretty much give up your values or how you see life, those types of things. And then you have to say, okay, this is not at a healthy place, right, God? And I need you to let me know how to handle this. You know, maybe not even at that point are you supposed to bail, but at least definitely keep taking back to God saying, God, I can't stay in this place.

What do I do here? Because I don't think he wants us in those places that are truly unhealthy for us. So everybody's quiet. Rodney, you have a clip. And this is probably the most positive. It actually is the most positive clip we're going to play tonight. It kind of depends on if you're looking at the whole movie or just at the clip portion. Well, I think when you explain it, they'll find out why it's so positive. Yeah. So Schindler's List isn't the most uplifting movie, of course, but I think most people probably have seen it.

If you haven't, you definitely need to. It is set in Poland in World War II. And Schindler is a businessman who decides he's going to make his fortune by bribing the Nazi party into giving him factories. He's like, oh, I'm going to hire the Jews because they're cheap labor. And the next thing you know, he's developing relationships with these folks that he's working with.

He begins to become friends. Then he basically loves the people and gets caught up in their plight and actually becomes their savior, ends up saving well over a thousand people from going to concentration camps and from going to Auschwitz. And the actual list itself is specifically 850 people. At the end of the war, when everything was about loss for Nazi Germany, they said, okay, we're going to send these people to Auschwitz. And he says, one last, probably the last thing he had for his money, he was able to get this 850 people sent to his factory in another city. So he was able to keep saving people. He made a lot of money in this business and then used it all and ended up broke at the end of the war because he was doing everything he could to save Jewish lives.

And where this clip picks up is the war's ended. He's walking out of the factory. All the Jewish workers that he had are standing around looking at him, watching him come out. And he's just kind of saying what he wants to give to everybody. He's like, everybody should have this. And then he gets out there and they have a letter that everyone has signed that basically is saying, no, this man is a good man.

Don't arrest him. And everybody in the factory signs it. That's one thing to watch for. The next thing is you'll hear is that they gave him a ring and he can't read it.

So they explain what it says in Hebrew. So listen for that. And then he breaks down a little bit and ends up talking about, you know, he didn't do enough. And then after this, which I cut off the end of the clip because it just gets too long, but that time is he completely breaks down. He's crying and all these people start coming around him and hugging on him and loving on him because he is like many of us.

We feel like we never do enough when we really want to, when our heart's really in something, it just doesn't feel like you've ever done enough. And they're telling him, no, you did, you did, you did. So we'll go with the clip. As soon as peace occurs, I want that cloth distributed to the workers.

Two and a half meters each. Also, each person is to get a bottle of vodka. They won't drink it.

They know its value. Likewise, those Egyptian cigarettes we organize. It'll be done, everything you ask. We've written a letter trying to explain things in case you were captured. Every worker has signed it. Thank you.

It's Hebrew from the Talmud. It says whoever saves one life saves the world entire. I could have got more. I could have got more. I don't know if I just, I could have got more. Husker, there are 1100 people who are alive because of you. Look at them. If I made more money, I threw away so much money.

You have no idea. If I just, generations, because of what you did, I didn't do enough. You did so much. So Rodney, you know, that clip, you know, you obviously have somebody that made a huge impact to their time and then obviously generations that followed, as it said in that clip. But, you know, I was thinking, as I was listening to that, if you go back to Desmond Doss's story, you know, this whole concept of just one more, you know, just one more.

And I think that, you know, you get to see them mirror God's heart and the fact that, you know, they don't want to see anyone lost or anyone perish that doesn't need to. And that's not what we're talking about, you know, in this. But we are, you know, talking about that time to say, when is my heart valuable enough that I need to step out of this area? But that's, you know, that's a healthy, very healthy way that someone said, there's enough here and I got to do something about it.

Chris Right. And then you can get so caught up in that, that that becomes the ulterior motives. I got to keep going and going and going. And now he could be wrecked by always living his life saying, I never got the one more. But he's got to be able to say, I did do enough. God is very pleased here.

And take that and run with that in his heart. Because if you allow those little one things, because we're never perfect, if you allow those little small things to really eat at you, you never just put them at the foot of the cross, they're going to eat you alive over time. And that's what the enemy gets that foothold on, makes those agreements with you. And then next thing, you know, you know, you're getting slatted up against the wall.

Darrell Bock That's what I've heard it said. And it keeps running around in my soul kind of that, you know, every religion in the world with the exception of Christianity says, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, where Christianity says, done. And, you know, that ends up being the point because I feel like this almost every week in the Jesus labor love, like, here come all these applications, whatever resources we have. And like, I have this huge desire to enter into each of those battles and try to figure out a way to bring God's blessing with his help, you know, prayer and everything that I can possibly do. But, you know, you leave a lot of them going, man, I didn't do and at some point in time, it's really a wonderful exercise to give that to God and say, okay, I didn't get that.

What do you want me to do with this? And it's an individual what Jim said, as we were prepping for the show, almost every one of those things is an opportunity for you to surrender to the one who actually did get it done. And it was enough, right? Yeah, and it's hard. You know, I think that if left to our own, we would leave relationships way too early, way too late, you know, because we'll take on things that we're not meant to take on. You know, I think that there's a healthy place as you listen to the Schindler's List thing of saying, I wish I could have done more. And then there becomes an unhealthy place of feeling like it was all up to me. Yeah.

Right. And I think that that's the risk we take in a regular relationship as well to, you know, we don't include God in the midst of it. And we say, okay, if I could just do this better, if I could just do this differently, if I could just I, I, I, I, I, right, instead of going to God and saying, God, what do you want from me? Yeah, and it's hard to find that balance always between, you know, it's very easy to run to, I got to do more, I got to do more, or I got to do nothing.

But there's a balance is really somewhere in between. And that's where you got to basically search with God and find that and, you know, go to him and ask him, he'll, he'll reveal to you, if you go earnestly, it may not be what you want to hear. But you have to be open and obedient to hear and do what he says.

That's the hard part. Yeah, I mean, I'm saying the same thing you guys are saying, but just it gets into a matter of what part came with us as part of the fall and being an orphan child is we wanted to take control upon ourselves. So all relationships, successes are up to us, and I'm going to stay faithful and keep going after that person indefinitely. That's not what God intended. Anytime you take on control and and get him out of the mix of actually being the one in control and getting guidance from him, you're messing up. I mean, that's, that's my take on it, because that's what I've done a big part of my time, big part of my life. And it's, it's nice not to feel it takes the pressure off. When you feel like you're the one you're the glue that holds a relationship together or whether somebody chooses to do right or not, or whatever. It's not it's not our, it's not our job to function in the role of God.

Chris Right. And I think that, you know, if you go through life in your relationships, a lot of things you have to ask yourself is, am I growing in this relationship? Is this relationship helping me be a better man or woman? And where's this relationship taking me next? You know, we all know those relationships that take us down bad roads. Those are those relationships, we probably should follow the depths of, you know, sin and so on, so forth. But, you know, I think if we honestly look at the relationships, bathe it in prayer, like we've been talking about, you know, go to God, say, God, what do you want me to do here?

What do you want me to do there? You may not get the answer right away. Because sometimes the person has to grow or you need to grow in order to repair or heal a relationship or to continue, as the case may be. And like Robby was saying, sometimes those relationships are never recovered. Yeah, I know if Jim, our buddy, Jim Graham was here, and I hope he's feeling better.

I know he wasn't feeling well this week. You know, he would talk about in his story, which he shared on the air many times of there's there's a period of weather the storm, right, that not every relationship and Harold, you could probably speak to this more than anyone in the room. You've been married a lot of years, you know.

Yeah, it's yeah, when I don't remember, you know, BC sometime. But yeah, no, you've been married 56 years, right? Yeah, counting our engagement time.

I've had my sweetheart now for 58 years. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough.

How do you know that? Do you look at the abacus you started counting the years off? Well, I can only say that, you know, if God gave me another 40 years, it still probably wouldn't be enough. And to me, that's the other side of the issue about enough. A lot of our discussion has been of when you reach your limit. Well, with my sweetheart and me, there is no limit, you know, and I feel so blessed. We both want to serve God, we try our best. He's at the center of our relationship.

And I can't say that there's enough, you know, even after all these years. So you just sit around singing Kumbaya, you never argue, you never have a crossword. Oh, Robby's load the dishwasher together or anything like that.

Because Robby knows periodically, right? We we have extreme difficulty communicating. My wife throws hand grenades. I use a sniper rifle. She was a second grade school teacher.

I was a systems analyst, computer programmer. We are so different. And we do have difficulty communicating.

She thinks that I'm a mind reader. I'm really not. But our love for one another and our love for God keeps us looking for the more, but it'll never be enough. Right. Thank you. That's a good word, though, to really, I mean, that's wisdom, because I mean, we all we know that, but, you know, some of us had challenges in our relationships. But just to hear that, that that's what the perspective we should hold on to that, you know, we go always continue to go the extra mile, even though I think there's certain situations, but to be that committed to your wife. That's awesome.

Yeah. And Harold, I know that there's been rocky times, but it's the love that you have for each other and love for God that's helped you get through it. So somebody, but, you know, it's really been blessed to work with Harold and Jan closely during the few fairly vocal outbursts. The beauty of it, because, you know, Danny said it earlier, that you got to have two people plowing, right. And I watched them both swallow like 14 gallons of pride in order to enter in to try to figure out where do they go from here, in spite of the fact that you can see by the red faces and the bubbling over. But then I also have to say, you know, as is watching these two is they do express their displeasure with each other.

It's not like they've been holding it in for 56 years, I can assure you that, you know, it's all out there. And allowing the other person to love them and to get their perspective and to be able to feel like they know you well. So if you're around Jan, if you're around Harold, you will definitely have the sense of I know who these people, I don't have to wonder if Jan's upset with me right this minute. All I have to do is say the word Solomon and the nails come out. But no, it's really, really refreshing place to be with people that live from their heart and they speak from their heart.

And there are two people plowing on the same. And I think you brought up an important aspect, you know, God's got to be the center at any relationship. You know, if you have something in common with God, and you know, you both have to answer him for your behavior. I think it makes a big difference.

Yeah, it definitely does. And I think involving God early, early, early, early, early on in the relationship is key. Amen. You know, I've been in the online dating world, you know, off and on over the last few years. And I have learned the lesson to definitely include God very, very early, you know, because when you're dating people that are of my age, you know, in their 50s, I heard somebody said, you can do that. How's that working for you? Yeah, yeah, it's, it's had its challenges, you know, have you had enough yet?

I've had enough. That's why I haven't dated in quite a long time, actually. But no, I am involving God in and I'm asking him to pick the next one for me. But no, it's definitely, you know, including him in every step of the way, not just when it gets rocky, but early on. Right. And one thing I'll say is things don't usually get better from the way they start. So if it started pretty rocky, it's probably gonna stay pretty rocky, at least for a fair amount of time. So that's a pretty good indicator of, I may not want to get real deep on this one yet. Right. But again, the key is all that we talk about. Walk with God in the midst of it. Only he knows when enough is enough, and what enough truly means. We'll see you next week. This is the Truth Network.