Enough

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.

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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. Darrell Bock Welcome to The Masculine, excuse me, welcome to The Masculine Journey.

You would have thought I would have practiced that by now, but yeah, welcome to The Masculine Journey. We're very glad that you're with us today, and we're going to be doing a follow-up of sorts to last week's show. So if you didn't listen to last week's show, I don't know what to tell you.

I would tell you, you're going to enjoy this week's show anyway. Last week, we were talking about loving in spite, and what you think you might be hearing is not necessarily what you're hearing, right? We're not talking about loving spitefully, right?

That's the way you could interpret that. What we're talking about is you love people in spite of the things they do sometimes. That's called relationship. You know, we talked about, you know, our children, for those of us that have older children.

They don't always do what we want them to do or what we think they should do, what we think is best for them to do. It doesn't change the fact that we love them, right? And so the whole show last week was the whole part of learning to love people in spite of those things.

And then after the show, Robby, when we got together, you ask a very good question that led to tonight's topic or today's topic. Yeah, the question was, at what point do you say that's enough? And I don't mean that you stopped loving the person from a standpoint of, you know, just loving them. What I mean is, at what point in time do you break off the relationship or do you put some type of barrier there in order to protect your own heart or in order to give them room to repent? Tough love, as it were, or that kind of thing. And, you know, where do you draw that line and how do you know where to draw the line?

And what does that line even look like? So I didn't bring up the topic because I had a lot of answers. We're waiting, Robby.

We're waiting on the answer. But you got a great clip, Sam. I do. I do.

I'll play it here in a second. Well, the thing is, I think with relationships, it's a moving line. It's not something that you could sit here and say, you know, A plus B equals C, run.

Darrell Bock Yeah, let me just put this disclaimer out there at the beginning. If you say, I heard Robby tell me I need to break up. No, I didn't say that.

You know, we're just trying to figure out, you know, where to find God in that trying to figure out boundaries part of it. Because one of the fears of doing this show literally is somebody's going to go, oh, now I have permission, you know, to end this relationship in whatever that might be. Not from me. You didn't get permission. Okay.

Yeah, it's not from us that you seek permission anyway. And so we'll get to that in the show. But I'm gonna go ahead and play the clip. This is from a movie titled appropriately, The Breakup.

So Robby just had that disclaimer. We're right away using a clip from A Breakup. But it's got Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. And I've never seen the movie.

I've seen a lot of clips from the movie. But in what she's saying here from the clips that I've seen anyway, I can see her point. And we're gonna kind of come back and talk about it. But they've had a very rocky love relationship, boyfriend and girlfriend. And they live in the same location, the same house. And so it's been a really difficult time up to this point. They've kind of tried separation, different rooms, different parts of the house, that kind of thing. I get the feeling they live in a big city.

So it's not easy to go get a place on your own, that type of situation. But I want to listen to their dialogue and then kind of come back and talk about it and where we pick it up. She's sitting in the bedroom and, and he comes in to talk to her and this is where the conversation goes. Oh, that's not it. They like to talk about Gandalf. Yeah. They're a big Lord of the Rings fan.

I think the movie was before the Lord of the Rings. Oh, geez. You need to double click on this before you hit the space bar. So here we go.

This is the right one. I just, I don't know how we got here. Our entire relationship. I've gone above and beyond for you, for us. And I mean, I've cooked, I've picked your up off the floor. I've laid your clothes out for you.

Like you were a four-year-old. I support you. I supported you, your work.

If we ever had dinner or anything, I make the plans. I take care of everything and I just don't feel like you appreciate any of it. I don't feel you appreciate me.

And all I want is to, is for you to just show me that you care. Why didn't you just say that to me? Gary, I've tried. I've tried.

Yeah, but never like that. You might've said some things that you meant to imply that Brooke, but I'm not a mind reader. It wouldn't matter. You are who you are. Just leave me alone, okay? Right now, just shut my door. Listen. All right, Gary, just please, just leave the room. Listen to me. Gary, just, I don't want to be near you right now. Please just shut the door.

Please. Pretty uplifting clip to start the show. Robby always likes to laugh track. Yeah. Well, it did have a, it did have a clown horn in it. I did put the clown horn in there.

You know, that was supposed to be the last portion of the track was the clown horn. But no, what you hear there is, you know, definitely two people in one way or another that feel like they're, they're giving to the relationship. You know, it'd be easy as a third party person to sit in and kind of watch this play out and say, well, one's definitely giving and the other one's making excuses. Right. But what you're really hearing from her heart is her just saying, I've had enough, you know, I've had enough.

I can't do this anymore. And I think that there comes a point that we have to realize when is that point, whether it's in a, you know, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever that scenario or friends or work relationship or whatever you may, may be, you know, because that, that, that feeling of being unappreciated, that feeling of feeling abused can come in many different forms. You know, it's not totally just in a husband, wife scenario, that type of thing.

It can come in friendships and lots of different ways. Yeah. And I've seen that movie and for, you know, I don't know what you call it, but alert. They don't get back together. You know, that's why it's called the brain hard to watch spoiler alert. That's the word I was. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. It's so hard because for whatever reason, you know, they won't really listen to each other and they don't really acknowledge the other person's feelings and, and give that an opportunity. And so, you know, it really breaks my heart to have watched that movie to go, wow, wow.

How do I not fall into this trap? Because in this particular one, you know, I don't know that it was enough, you know, that they really did, you know, because there wasn't a sense of abuse really. Well, there was some abuse in there. Yeah. There's some verbal abuse. Yeah, there's definitely some weirdness, but for the most part, you know, you could see that, wow, that, that, that was a relationship that possibly had a chance.

If one person could swallow their pride enough to go, okay, what, you know, what's really going on here. So, you know, that one leads me back to my big problem is when, when is that? And you know, I guess it was Rodney that was saying that, you know, you're Jim that you got to bathe that thing in prayer, right?

Yeah. I mean, any relationship you have to bathe in prayer and, you know, it's, I hate to say, you can think that any relationship can't be restored or anything's permanent or terminal, right. You know, it's sometimes you just got to take a break from each other, you know, either, you know, my father used to tell me, you don't have something nice to say.

You probably shouldn't say anything at all. Well, and I think that applies. It comes to a point in time when you're just digging a deeper hole and you have to bathe it in prayer and wait and hear what God's going to tell you to do.

Yeah. I know a lot of times we, we wait till the after hours portion of the show to get a little bit more vulnerable. One time in my life, the way this, this played out is, you know, I grew up with an older sister that I talked about on the show that was not very nice to me in lots of ways, but it wasn't just me that she wasn't nice to. She had a way of being very dividing in the whole family. You know, one time my dad had a physical issue going on and she tried to convince him.

My mom had had an affair on him, you know, just stuff like that. There was always these types of things around her that there was a lot of carnage, you know, and it was pretty pervasive in our life up until the time my dad passed away. And then when he passed away, she came to me and was being very kind before the, the showing and the funeral and was wanting to know what was going on in my life. And I'm like, okay, maybe dad's death will have a positive impact only to find out later that as I heard her talking to people, she didn't want to be embarrassed by not knowing what was going on in her sibling's life. And so she was just getting the information so she could act like she was engaged, you know, that she was a part of the family. And then while we were all at the funeral, she came back and took all the stuff that people had brought and took it to her house type thing.

And she pulled away from the rest of the family. Right. But I also got to say, I didn't feel the calling to pursue her because the story of her life, and I know she had mental issues and I know there were other underlying things. It wasn't just, she was a bad person, but everybody that came in contact with her life was tore up.

Right. And so I really not for her, it wasn't good, but I think for all the rest of the family, it ended up being a very good thing because there wasn't this thing that was causing division all the time on things that weren't really issues. Um, I know at one point, and I'll share this, that she had, uh, had talked to her, her daughter into letting her adopt her granddaughter so she could give her insurance.

And then once she adopted the granddaughter, she kicked her own daughter out of the house saying, it's my baby now. I'm going to raise it. Right. And so you can look at a situation like that. And she's since passed away and, you know, and God would call for me to pray for her, you know, which I would do reluctantly, but I would do, I mean, to be very transparent.

I had a hard time. There was a lot of animosity, but the more I prayed for her, the more my heart cleared. Right. But I do really believe, even though it may not have been the best thing for her, it was the best thing for other people. Right. And I think that's what we're talking about.

My fear about last week's show is that you would have somebody listening that isn't a very abusive relationship of some sort and listen to the show and say, oh, I just got to stick it out. Well, maybe you do. And maybe you don't, but only God can give you that answer, which is what we're going to keep coming back to is you got to walk with him in it and know when to say this enough is indeed enough. And that's what we were kind of talking about earlier before the show is that, you know, God's going to give you an answer. You know, it may come through the wisdom of a friend, may come through God, reading God's Word.

It may, you may be sitting in a sermon at church, but God's going to give you an answer. You know, it might be a situation on a television cell that says, hey, you know, and you'll know it's winning. Or one of Rodney's favorite podcasts. Right.

Rodney's favorite podcast. But when it comes around, you're going to know it's from God. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the thing is one of the key things is you got to be willing to hear either answer. If you're only willing to hear one answer, then you're not really willing to hear from God. That's right.

If you're still praying for somebody to get run over by a bus, that's the wrong prayer to have. Yeah. Go to masculinejourney.org. You can listen to last week's podcast. You can listen to any other podcasts we might have done.

And you can also contact us through the website. Now what do we do? Just be yourselves. Where are you going? I'm going to pick a fight. If it feels like every day is picking a fight, then you might want to come listen to The Masculine Journey and find out why we use clips like these to illustrate the story God is telling in the lives of men today.

The truth is God designed you to pick a fight, but which fights do we pick? Well, grab your gear and come on a quest. Every Saturday at noon. And now the masculine journey after hours podcast masculine journey radio. Hi, this is Sam with masculine journey.

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Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think I would make that a ringtone for you, Andy. Touché. Just based on what happened during the break. Who was that, Andy?

I have no idea. Really? Really?

Y'all told, said it earlier. There's one of the four Beatles. That'll help you.

Paul McCartney. That was one of the four. Yeah. That was the right one. That was the right one. Ringo. Yeah.

Apparently he did. Yeah. I'd never heard that song. I think that actually several people have recorded it. I'm sure several people have felt it, but I actually like that.

I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but I like that song because I've had enough sometimes. Yeah. And it was a night. He said, I can't take any more on there, I think. Yeah. I can't take any more. Yeah.

And the whole rest of the song, if you listen to it, it's about relational breakup kind of stuff. But I think that there's times that it's okay. So you've had enough scripturally, right? And I'm not usually the one that throws scripture out there. Right?

No, I was going to throw a couple of them out there and I'll ask you for one, but think about the time in the temple when Jesus casts out all the money changers. Definitely. Right. That's the time when he just said, I've had enough.

This isn't going to happen anymore. Right. He did it with the Sadducees and Pharisees. Right. Oh, you hypocrites. Yeah.

A whip would not be the best choice probably. But Andy, you had a verse as well. Well, yeah, it was from Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 3 is the place where you have one extreme to the other.

So get out of the way here. A time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away. The time to keep and a cast away is, you know, if that's an individual in your life, there's a time to keep. You continue to pursue after that person's heart.

There's times when you're pursuing after that somebody's heart wrecks your heart. So it's time to cast away. You know? Yeah. And a time to love and a time to hate. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that's healthy about the first of the year, everybody has these resolutions, you know, that they will do. For us, we have Word of the Year, right, that we focus on. But I think it's also, yes, Rodney, I've been focusing around it some, more than last year, a lot more than last year already, which to some is a lot more than last year technically. But I think it's also a good time just to evaluate some things and say, you know, what things need to change in my life? A good prayerful time to evaluate things, right?

And if there are relationships that are out there that are really hurting you in lots of ways to take that to God and say, God, what time am I in? I had an example when I was probably the first girl I really liked, really liked. What was her name? No last name.

I'm sorry, you're from this area. Exactly. I'm going to just keep it between. I'll give you a name, but I won't. We'll just say Sally. We'll go with Sally.

Okay. Sally, you know, just going after Sally's heart and whatever is probably more infatuation than it was love. But I mean, when you first feel it, you don't really know the difference. And, you know, she really seemed interested to begin with. And then she did me wrong. And I just totally ignored her and hurt her feelings. And then a few months later, she came back and made all these, you know, statements that I was like, oh, this is different and did it. That went three times of all in.

I mean, all in. And the third time, it was probably two, three years later, she called me up and I had just moved on. And I actually had gotten serious with God at the time too.

So that helps out. And it was so nice to be able to not chase that again and be able to say, no, I appreciate, I mean, you know, good to hear from you, but I don't think we should do that, see each other anymore. So, you know, that was a place where finally my heart was, you know, I had guarded my heart and I didn't jump back in and just respond.

I had become, I had taken control of my emotions and my heart, so. How did I know that was a story where we use the name Lucy, like from the football? Because you kept trying to kick it.

Don't be messing with the name Lucy. That was my dog that recently passed away. Oh, I'm sorry, dude. Thanks for breaking me down.

Appreciate that. But you got to look at the opposite side of that coin too. You know, look at the prodigal son, right? Did the father chase after the prodigal son? No, sometimes people just need to go away for a while. Did he reject the prodigal son when he came back?

No. And we have to keep that in mind too, that, you know, sometimes people come back, they're very repentive. They're sorry that they've damaged the relationship and they understand that. You know, the son came back and said, I'm willing to work for you, you know, and not be your son. And that was showing repentance to the father. And I think that, you know, there's oftentimes when relationships go one way or the other, and then it can be restored at a later date and time. Yeah, absolutely.

You see that with Paul and Barnabas in the scripture. So I couldn't help it, but the prodigal son was in the newspaper business. Are you making fun of my accent? Yeah, he is. He's periodically making fun of your accent. Yeah, I was wondering, you know, when he went back to work, if he was – I'm sorry to tend to – Well, Robby, since you're talking, you have a clip.

You can play it. Well, it's very much along the lines of what Andy was saying. So I was praying about this, because I didn't come up with a topic for nothing. I mean, it's a place where I struggle a lot.

I really do. Anyway, I landed and kind of threw prayer on Proverbs 4 23, which is the guard your heart, you know, which they talk about constantly at Ransom Heart, that this is a critical scripture, which is kind of neat when you really look at that word guard. I could give you all the Hebrew, but let me just give you the short version, is that, man, you're really – you have your mind set on what's above.

You're looking for light, and you're not letting anything dark get in, okay? Well, very cool from my perspective. I never noticed it, that it's so clear after Proverbs 4 23 comes 4 24, 25, 26, which gives you practical ways. Yeah, it's usually in order like that, Robby. Periodically. So – Periodically. Sort of a chart, you know, anyway. Like a period piece. So the very next line, if you look at it, and I'm going to give you the RSV Robby standard version, is stay away from liars.

And for people with perverse, you know, speech, which means crooked, which means – Or periodical. Yeah. So as I was thinking about that, I couldn't help but think about this clip from the movie Lord of the Rings. You may have heard it earlier. Yeah, we heard the beginning.

It's a teaser. And you might guess it has Gandalf in it. But don't miss out Wormtongue here, because you can see that King Theoden's issues here have come from allowing this Wormtongue, who was speaking lies. Once you buy into him, you make agreements.

You know, they are very, very, very divisive in a relationship, and your heart can get attached to lies that, you know, she's going to be different this time or whatever that may be. And part of guarding your heart and just the wisdom of Solomon is look at, wow, how much can I count on what this person is telling me? So here we go for King Theoden. Should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow? A just question, my liege.

Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear. Last spell I name him. Ill news, ill guest. Be silent. Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.

I have not passed through fire and death to bandy, crooked words with a witless worm. Stop. I told you to do it. Is it stop?

I would stay still if I were you. I will miss you in this spell. So, Robby, what was it about that clip and this topic that really had you intrigued? It's kind of neat that you not only have the person that he should have taken out of his life, right, if they hadn't taken a worm tongue out of his life, but then you have Gandalf, who actually has to come in and give him some release from those agreements that he's made. And, you know, it gets back to a really difficult question that we have pondered since we were talking about this show is, why is it that we feel like we haven't done enough, and at the same time we feel like maybe Jesus hasn't done enough? And Jesus even asked me that question one time, Robby, didn't I do enough?

And, man, our pride is all in the middle of all these connectors that are kind of getting us to this point, which, Rodney, you know, you completely took us through. Well, that's where the, when I was doing a little thinking of, like, you just did, Sam, a little bit ago, some of the obvious places where God said enough. The place I didn't expect to go was 2 Samuel 24, and where David actually numbers the people numbers the people. And I'm like, in our world, we're thinking, oh, that's, what's the big deal? But to God, it was such a prideful issue for him to go do something that he was not told to do, he's not supposed to go do. Joe Abba is even saying, David, don't do this, don't have me go do this, and he told him to go do it anyway. There's not a lot of reasoning as to why he was said he wanted it numbered, there's nothing really given for a reason to really go do it, other than pride really sticking out there.

And that's why, like you were saying, Robby, this pride thing is just so huge for us. And then what was going on in the middle of this whole story is that he's going to end up with, basically, an angel with a stretched out hand, this is in 2416 of 2 Samuel. When the angel with a stretched out hand tore Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from all calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, it is enough, now relax your hand.

The angel of the Lord was standing at the threshold floor of Aranah, of the Jezebite. And it's just like, God said, enough, we've done, he relented and repented at that point and said, I'm not going to punish him anymore. Yeah, I think that that whole pride factor gets in the midst of it. And the only way we get around that is to say, okay, God, I got to let you lead. You know, I got to let you lead and tell me when enough is enough and help me feel comfortable when I've done enough, right, to make me feel like I'm not the answer to their problem, you are. So go to masculinejourney.org, download any of our podcasts. This is the Truth Network.