My Brother's Keeper After Hours

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and many of us are here in the studio, but a couple of us aren't. Jim and Andy are joining us over the phones. And Jim, this is actually your topic this week.

Thank you for picking it and going away. And we had talked in the previous show a little bit about what it was, but can you set it back up for us, what we're talking about today? When this was tossed out there as a, next week is your show because you haven't done one lately, I immediately heard what I read in Genesis earlier about, and it was a sarcastic response to God's question. Am I my brother's keeper?

But our answer needs to be yes, which it obviously was not between Cain and Abel. But where I went with that is, you know, well, where I went personally, and this may or may not be where other folks want to go with it, but am I willing to give beyond where I'm comfortable with what I'm giving? Am I willing to lay down my life for others?

And did use the clip of someone who chose to be a medic in a combat zone and saved dozens of men from being killed by the Japanese in World War Two. And most of us aren't going to have a story quite that exciting, but all of us have a time when we have really stepped out and outcome is up to God. But, you know, are we willing to step out?

And if we've got an example of that, we'll all share them. I'm willing to lay down your life for others. And you may, because I'm really getting to the point where, okay, God, what else do I have to do before I can come home?

Well, Rodney, since you have the microphone in front of you, it was a long thing to grab. Yeah, I was just watching good. Oh, you can do that. It won't work out well, but you can do that. So what does being your brother's keeper mean to you? And can you share a story of when you've stepped out and done that? I think being your brother's keeper is going above and beyond going something more than just the ordinary and doing it for nothing for you, doing it only for them. And in that vein, I have an aunt who's just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and so I'm trying to reach her with Christ as much as I can. She's confused, I think, with the gospel message, doesn't really know what it is, doesn't really know Jesus, and this is a point in time where I would not be really comfortable doing this kind of thing, because there's also then all the other family members who go to church, think they're saved, but I'm pretty sure they're not. I'm definitely not Jesus here, but I have to at least try, right? So that's where I'm at right now, is just trying to go a little above and beyond and talk about the gospel, I don't know what Christ is.

And again, when her daughter was asked by my mom, do you know if she's saved, the answer was, I don't know if she's been baptized. So that kind of gives you the background of where I'm at, and just trying to say, okay, we need to have a little deeper understanding. So that's where I'm trying to step in and be my aunt's keeper, and also then my cousins.

Thank you. Yeah, and I think the previous show, we've talked a lot about the monetary value of taking care of strangers and those around us. But for me, being my brother's keeper has always been more of spiritual, being not only a disciple, but discipling others in their Christian walk. And I can recall when I was between marriages that a new Christian, somebody who just had become a Christian, a particular friend of mine thought I was the home for wayward Texans.

We won't name anybody. Hint, hint, his name starts the same as mine. And I ended up taking this gentleman into my home, a complete stranger to me. But through that process, I found myself discipling him and helping him get started on his journey with Christ. And for me, that's how that's always been interpreted in my mind is, am I my brother's keeper? Am I helping him with his walk with Christ, not so much the monetary end of it? And you also shared a great story with me over the past boot camp, which really helped me out in my walk. So I appreciate that.

Praise God. Yeah, I talked in the first show where I first show where I struggle to give people money. It's not that I don't want to help them. I just, I'm never sure what they're going to do with it. And I know that that probably shouldn't matter.

But for me, it kind of does at times. When I, as you guys were talking, God reminded me of a time back in Indiana, back when, you know, you'd look on Craigslist to buy stuff, right? And so I'd found a computer, a guy was selling well over an hour away from me. And just had everything I wanted, you know, he was selling it. I went down to meet with him, got down there, met him.

He told me very quickly, he was got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, had less than six months to live. He just bought the computer and was selling it, you know, and we started talking. And I ended up buying the computer from him.

But, you know, he started talking about not knowing how there could even be a God and some of those things. And we started talking. And we continued to talk. And I went and visited him probably three or four more times.

We talked on the phone several times. Really thought that he was going to accept Christ. You know, I was supposed to come see him on this day.

I don't know what day of the week. And I got down there and was all excited because I was for sure God was gonna, you know, get this one, you know, and got there and he'd already moved. You know, and I was pretty devastated initially. And then I'd prayed about it.

And God said, No, I asked you to do what you did. Right. It's my job to take it from here.

Right. It wasn't your job to get him across the line, Sam. It's my job to get him across the line. In those aspects, you know, when Robby was telling this story, it brought to mind a time that happened to me, where I was, I think I was heading for to work on a very cold morning. And I had just pulled through the McDonald's drive through and got myself a couple of, you know, egg and bacon biscuits, you know. And so I'm starting to pull away and there's this woman basically blocking my way.

Right. And she goes, I'm so hungry, you know, can you spare something for food? So I reached down to the bag in order to be able to get away and handed this woman a biscuit and then start driving away. As I looked in my rear view mirror, this woman was chowing down on this thing like it was the first meal she had had in months.

I felt so bad trying to eat that other biscuit going down the road. But it had brought back, you know, there's times when, you know, God presents people to us that, you know, we help along the way. You know, sometimes, you know, as the word tells us, we're doing the seed, you know, planting the seed, sometimes we're doing the watering. And I think that in that particular aspect, you may have been planting the seed for somebody else to pick up and move on with that. Yeah, it, for me, it helped me understand that I have to be available when God wants me to be available. You know, it may not be helping every person at every stoplight as I drive down through the town. You know, maybe it's not helping everybody do that.

Maybe that's not what he's called me to, but being available when he touches my heart and said, no, this one's yours. Right. This one's one that you need to help.

And it always seems to be when I'm most frustrated. Yeah. Or in the biggest story.

Yeah. Well, when I went to get the computer, honestly, when he first started to tell me a story, I was like, oh my gosh, I do not have time for this. I'm going to be late getting home, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he told me the rest of his story.

I was like, oh my gosh, I was extremely late getting home. But, you know, it fostered into a really good couple of weeks of soul searching and praying with somebody. And I don't know the outcome of it.

I probably will never know the outcome of it, but it doesn't matter that God knows the outcome. And hopefully, you know, he's able to take that before the guy left the earth, that he was able to be a part of the family. Harold, you had a story that you wanted to share, but first what's it mean to be your brother's keeper? To me, it means showing Christ.

It means a lot of, it can mean a lot of different things. It's sort of already been mentioned. But, yeah, the being out of the comfort zone story is probably about five or six years ago now. It was on a Wednesday night and on my way into Bible study. This was pre-COVID days when we were actually meeting on Wednesday nights. And there was a fellow along the side of the road close into Mocksville. And later, when I was on my way home, this fellow had made it about a mile or two on out the road.

And this was a very cold, windy, real bad day. And when I saw him the second time, he was crouched down trying to get out of the wind. And so he was within, I don't know, about a mile, mile and a half of my home. So I got home and I told my wife, I said, I have got to go get this guy.

And so not knowing what I might be encountering, I did get my handgun and put it in the car. So I went back and stopped and asked the guy where he was going. Well, he was going on over to Lexington. He was coming from Ohio. He had gotten caught in the rainstorm earlier that day. So he had gotten wet. And so I actually took him all the way over to Lexington, where he had a niece or somebody that was living.

And he had a little threadbare jacket or whatever. Well, I had an extra jacket at home that I had thrown in the car that I gave him. And I'm not telling that story for any personal glory, but I'm just telling it to say that I felt so great about that, because that was a person that was in real need.

And sure, it cost me a little bit of gasoline and some time, but that's nothing compared to what he got out of it. And that's something that will go with me to my grave. That was a time when I was a little bit scared. You know, that's the reason I got the gun.

I used to hitchhike a lot myself when I was in college, but it's been a while. Things have gotten a lot different in the intervening years, but you never know. You know, we're told that sometimes we may be entertaining angels unawares. And so I didn't know the man, but I felt like that I left him in much better shape than he was in when I found him. And to me, that's being my brother's keeper. Thank you, Harold. Andy, what about you?

So, Harold stole a little bit of my thunder, but really, you know, you think about, you know, being your brother's keeper. I think I've heard the saying, you know, the opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is indifferent.

Sometimes we live that way, and then we're not actively looking for opportunities to love. And I would like to give you an example of, you know, strangers that I've ministered to, and I have. I really have.

There was one a couple years ago. I was out in the west report of North Carolina, just ran onto this lady on the side of the road, kind of asked God if I should go back, went back. And there was no doubt that that's exactly who I was supposed to minister to that lady. And those things are awesome, but I also don't think we can discount our brothers. For example, our brothers, our band of brothers in the ministry, and that we're all responsible for keeping each other. And we do. We do through the, you know, the group texts that we have of ministering, reaching out to others, somebody will share a need. And it's not like we just say, okay, we'll pray for that.

We follow up, we see how the brother's doing. We see God answering a lot of those prayers that we prayed, if not all. And I just think it's important to remember that God puts us in a particular community and those, we can't discount those people, even though those are the people that would love us back, like Jim scripture says. That's still though, God puts us, he knits us together with those people. He knew, he put us all together. He brought this ministry together and everybody has those types of communities.

And I think it's just really important to remember that that's day by day stuff that we can do as far as being our brother's keeper. Yeah. And you're making a pretty big assumption that we're going to love you back. I'm just saying that you're making it. No, we do love you back idiot. And honestly, as you were talking, you're feeling the indifference of my casting that on you.

Yeah. Back when I was going through my divorce, if it wasn't for a good friend of mine that talked to me multiple times a day, you know, every day, I don't know that I would've made it through it, you know, and, and he helped me as a good Christian friend and, and it made all the difference in the world. And, you know, and he likes to have the saying a lot of times, you know, sometimes you just need Jesus with skin on. And that's who he was for me during that time, because I felt like I needed a voice I could audibly hear consistently. Not that God's not capable of that. That's just not how he tends to talk to me, you know? And I think that God put that friend in my path during that time to help me get through what he knew I was going to need to get through.

Cause I don't know how I would've made it through without him. Right. And it's not always a stranger to your point, Andy, a lot of times it's, it's a loved one. It can be a, you know, a cousin, niece, a nephew, an aunt, Andy or Andy, I'm looking at you and said, Andy, Rodney, as you talked about, you know, that we're all called to kind of do that. I think that we just need to be available. You know, I don't think God calls us to go fix everything, but he calls us to be available on the things he calls you uniquely to go do.

Right. You know, maybe I'm not real passionate about all the people at the stop sign. Nothing.

I don't care about them because that's not what God's called me to today. Now tomorrow, my way in, he might, that's how God works with me. Is it laying on my heart at the first stop light I get to, you know, that's kind of, he makes me eat my words quite often, but no, I mean that it's being available to what he wants us to go do. Now, Robby, you have a ministry along these lines that you do that you help people pretty consistently.

Yeah. The Jesus labor love is a great training, God training ground for God teaching me stuff. Like I'm going to tell one story that I have discovered truly. And when you really apply yourself to help somebody else, it's one of the keys to the kingdom that God gives you stuff for somebody else that just will blow your mind.

So here's the example. I had this company, it was a battery company that claimed they were going to help me with anybody I ever needed a battery for. And so I'd had several of them that needed a battery. And then this lady outside of Fort Worth, Texas needed, she'd been an accident and the fender was up against the tire. So she couldn't drive it. The battery had been crushed in the accident. And, and I was trying to figure out how to help her.

I didn't know anybody in Fort Worth, Texas. And so I called this battery company thinking, well, this is it, you know, they're, they're going to this, I'm finally going to get a battery because these people are located in Fort Worth, Texas. Well, after two weeks and it's getting right, like a few days before Christmas that year, they finally, after two weeks, called, sorry, we can't get you a battery. And I was, because here's this company has resources like out the kazoo and they're not going to, you know, do this simple thing. And I am just screaming at God in prayer.

I'm like, you know how you would, like, God, really? Really? These people could buy this lady a car.

These people could do anything. They won't give me a battery. And God in his very gentle way says, so if you care so much about this lady, I mean, why don't you do something? Yeah.

Okay. And it was that I even, I didn't have the financial resources to give her a battery right at that point in my life. I really didn't. So I was like, okay, God, what do I do? Well, he's like, you just figure out who's close to her that has a body shop and you start calling them.

And so, you know, with Google maps and all, you could do this. Well, it's scary. You know, it's not the easiest thing in the world to call people. You don't know and ask for help. So I make this phone call to this, you know, Joe's body shop, first phone call I make, and it's within two blocks of this lady's house and I get the receptionist and I tell her the story. I'm with a Jesus labor love.

We help single moms and widows. I have this lady who's got this car, blah, blah, blah. Oh, you're going to have to talk to bill, you know? And I'm like, okay, well get me bill. So, you know, here comes bill and bill, you know, I'm with the Jesus labor love and I helped single moms. And they said, do you mean to tell me that you talk about Jesus Christ on the radio? Well, yes, sir. And I didn't know at that point, the conversation was going to go downhill fast or where it was going to go. And he says, let me tell you something, son, you can't outgive God. I'm not, I'm not only going to help that lady.

I'm going to help her today. This car is going to be back on the road and it's going to be on the road today. Well, you know, I wasn't the best in the body shop business for some time. And I'm like, yeah, no way.

I didn't say that to him. And I'm like, you go, dude. I mean, here's a phone number and you make it happen. He went, he, he got off the phone, he went over there and, you know, fixed her car, put a battery in it that, you know, here it was two days before Christmas.

That lady was back on the road. I've thought about that so many times when I start to think, well, there's no way I can help this person, you know, cause it's so often I'm overwhelmed by the needs that people have or them, but I'm telling you, you have keys to the kingdom. When you step into God says, help this one. It blows my mind the time and time again. And I got lots of stories like that one, that one, just one of the more colorful ones.

It's amazing. Not only do you have a chance to be the middleman cause that's who you really are in all these cases, whether you realize it or not, we're just the middleman. God's got the blessing and that person over there needs it. And you just get to be the one that gets to be in the middle of it. And then God shows off and then you get to tell about his glory. And that's, that's a neat thing.

Thank you, Robby. Awesome. I was with a company when I first moved down here and they were very giving company. They, you know, like to give out. And so they had said, okay, this Christmas time to find somebody in need.

Right. And we want to help them through the company. And so, you know, I put some feelers out and found a lady over in tobacco Ville that, um, had become a wheelchair bound and didn't have a ramp to get in and out of her house, you know? And so, um, was able to coordinate the, the, the guys that work with me at the time. And we went over and we built a ramp and ended up replacing the door because the old door was not big enough for wheelchair either, you know?

So we ended up replacing the door and doing some other things. And it was such a great thing that to watch their hearts come alive as they were helping this lady that none of us even knew to make a difference in her life. And, and I got to meet her a little bit and talk with her a little bit and went home and talked with Heidi is when I was married. And, and we decided instead of getting so much things at Christmas, just to find out what her list was. And so the kids and, and, and, uh, bought her Christmas and went over and celebrated Christmas with her.

And it's probably one of my favorite Christmas memories with the kids. You know, it wasn't about what they got, you know, it was about watching somebody else get something, um, that they needed just to get through life. You know, and it was such a great feeling of being to be able to be a part of that and watch God at work in the midst of it. Cause we're able to share some testimony and do some things while we were there, you know, and that's all available a through a company that was a Christian based company, but also, you know, through, um, God's work of saying, okay, this is the one I want you to help.

Right. Which is pretty cool, Jim, it's still your show and I know you're on. So we got, got a few more minutes left. What else would you like to cover in the show that we haven't got to yet? Uh, those stories were great and that's a big part of it.

Uh, don't know that anything's missing other than it has been touched on, but I want to reinforce the fact that the outcome is God. I mean, we're, we don't have to follow through necessarily the way we think we're going to have to add many of my, well, I'll give you my story for today. I, there was a little girl where we were eating lunch and she was running around and having fun and her mom was having a hard time keeping up with her. And I heard the name Deborah and I thought that's what her mother said.

I was wrong, but that later in the story. But anyway, God impressed on me to tell this little girl and she couldn't have been much more than three. And I don't know how much she understood, but I was supposed to tell her that God used Deborah in the Bible and she was a great, powerful woman. And that, you know, she was hearing from God and she needed to share what she heard from God with others. And I did that as well as I could with her. And her mother was a little, she was receptive to it.

That was sort of a, who is this crazy old white guy? And it was okay. I mean, I enjoyed that, but turned out her name was something different. And the meaning of the name, I mean, the meaning of the name I thought with Deborah was she's a little bumblebee. And that's what I saw. That's what drew me, drew my attention to her, but I was wrong.

And I also am what God is telling me. Well, maybe you were a prophet and you were giving her her new name, but that was actually kind of what God told me. And her name was even better than bumblebee. I mean, it was something, I wish I could remember it.

It was a sweet little girl with a great name, but it really had to do with being part of God's glory. And that gave me goosebumps. It sounds to me like you're really poor at eavesdropping is what it sounds. Well, that too.

It's the old ears. But I very clearly heard her say Deborah, and it was close, but it wasn't that close. I'm pretty sure that was God that was with me. And he does that. But our response to God is what we need to do to be sacrificial. And Jim was talking about me. Often we do things just to let me get this done because I'm supposed to, but those turn into the biggest questions if we pursue a man respond to God's call.

Yeah. If we just walk with God through the midst of it. And so I don't know where God's calling you to help your brother today. I don't even know who that brother is, but I know God does.

And so just ask him to make you alert and aware of what he's trying to tell you when those needs come up so that you can be that person to help. I think it's Deborah. I think it's Deborah. Jim, go find a Deborah. I'm just saying you're supposed to go find a Deborah, but thank you for listening. God puts another one in my past, I will. All right.

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