The Heart of the Father 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 we are excited that you're with us. We're only about a week away, six days, five days away from boot camp.

And so very excited. It's past Andy's bedtime. It is past Andy's bedtime. You know, I tried to get Danny to flip you like I would flip you if I sat next to you, but Danny wouldn't do it.

He just kind of looked at me. Yeah, I know. But by the time you get out of the chair, you could be through the door.

He would catch you eventually. So I guess this is your method of fathering me, right? It is a method.

I don't say it's preferred, but it is a method. I'll agree with that. We ended up finishing up the regular show talking about who we are in God. And I think that's important to understand that we're brothers and sisters in Christ. And this is our identity. It's the truest thing about us.

You know, it doesn't matter how bad we screw up. That's not our identity. You know, you're, you're not a doctor. You're not a lawyer. You're not a janitor.

You're a brother or sister in Christ, and that becomes your true identity. And so I kind of wanted to open up with this next clip. If you come out to the boot camp, you'll see this clip. And it's a trailer from Robin Hood. And the older man, help me out, Andy, because you've done this. I can't think of his name. It's basically explaining to Robin who he is and who his legacy of his father is.

Thanks for the input. No, go ahead. I don't, I don't, it's the trailer, so I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't remember the guy's name either. He's a sage in his life. There you go. He's a famous actor, so we'll just play that.

And Russell Crowe's in it. So we'll go ahead and play that. I think I have much to tell you about history, about your history. Your father was a visionary. What did he see? That kings have a need of their subjects.

A dangerous idea. Rise and rise again until that must become a lion. My father died for this. What does it mean?

It means never give up. A king does not bargain for a loyalty that every subject owes him. In the name of King John, pay or burn. The laws of this land enslave people to its king. A king who offers nothing in return. Robin Longstride, also known as Robin of the Hood.

For the crimes of incitement to cause unrest, I declare him to be an outlaw. Robin, your father was a great man. You are your father's son. Are you ready to be who you are?

Yes. What we ask for is liberty. Liberty by law.

Rise and rise again until that must become lions. So we listen to that. It says you are your father's son. One of the things we were talking about between the breaks was the legacy that we leave behind.

It's not just being fathered by God, but fathering those around us, basically in the name of God, if you will. We find ourselves, I was sharing a story of what was going on today. I've got a beat up old Jeep truck that I've had for ever. And I kind of laugh. This was one of my first purchases out of college. It's 30 plus years old, so I'm now aging myself. I didn't tell you how old I've got. But I laughed when I bought the truck because I had a friend who told me, Jim, why didn't you buy what you want?

You're going to have this truck forever. And I laughed at them. And what I didn't realize is what he saw in me at that time growing up. Yeah, I was one of those problem children that were racing on the streets.

We had nothing better to do but play with our cars. And I was fathered, not by my dad. My dad had no clue what I was doing half the time. But I was usually fathered in those early years by my friends' fathers. I had a friend named Troy. And his dad basically helped us tear down a 302 Ford engine for his Mustang and put it all back together. And you learn things along the way. So here I am now with my beat up old Jeep that's, you know, and I'm laughing because it's recently gone a heart transplant.

My youngest son has placed a V8, a Chevy V8, we'll just put it that way, into this engine bay. But he didn't get things completed all the way. And because I had been fathered by, you know, Troy's dad, I knew things were missing.

And I'm basically cleaning up the rest of this build, if you will. Well, what was interesting today was that my oldest son, and I'm like you, Sam, you know, I've got a couple kids from my first marriage, which I fully admit, I completely screwed them up. And so I've got these two boys for my second marriage. And I love them dearly. I, you know, I don't even want to call them stepsons.

Because to me, they are sons. And so, you know, our oldest is in the house. And, you know, through some serious tragedy in his life, he's come to, him and his daughter have come to live with us for a period of time until he can get his schedule worked out, so on and so forth. So not only am I fathering him, because he brings his truck in, he's got a Jeep Cherokee, he's, you know, adding all sorts of parts to and stuff.

And we discovered just because it says it does a certain thing online, doesn't mean it's gonna work right. And so it was funny because we were having fun with it because I told him it didn't sound right. And then about three hours later, he's looking at me with my dash tore apart.

And he looks at me says doesn't sound right. So coming out of my dash. But God gives us the opportunity to pass that on, to father those around us and not just be fathered, but to father those around us. And I'm finding my opportunity to father my granddaughter. She's four, she just turned four this week. And she is a handful. But in that, I can see, you know, I can love her well. And let her know that, you know, God loves her, you know, that her daddy loves her. And that way, she doesn't see God is this person with this baseball bat, if you will.

I think a lot of times when God uses you to father people, you obviously don't hear it as, hey, I'm gonna go father that guy, what you hear is I'm gonna go help that guy, I know how to do that. He doesn't really know how to do that. And I'm gonna show him what I know. You know, I mean, I know this amount of it. Right. But in the day, and at the end of the day, that's still fathering. Right.

You're helping them grow in an area that they didn't know how to do it. Andy, Andy, I looked at the Danny and said, Andy, it's a haircut. It is it is.

It's a it's a it's a similar way you wear your hair. Yeah. I've been chewing on John 14. I know I'm the one breaking the scripture thing here.

So you are. But John 14, verse nine, where Jesus, they've asked him to show, show us the father. And Jesus, a little frustrated, says, he who has seen me has seen the father. And that's kind of become a prayer of mine is, Lord, let him see you in me.

Because that's ultimately what we were talking about your glory. This is shining back. And when I think about that, I think about my dad and my dad, he's, his birthday's coming up. And he's a be 78.

Wow. And he's a master with cars, you know, Harold could be your dad. Yeah, actually older than he is. But he, you know, he taught us about cars and about so because that was that was one of his passions. Yeah, but dad was not a openly emotional guy. So the enemy snuck in somewhere along in my childhood. And and, you know, dad was at all the ballgames dad was at the practices. And I was not a star athlete. I made a joke last week with some guys that the reason I like golf is because nobody's throwing the ball at me and nobody's trying to tackle me because they got it.

You know, I like that. But wasn't an athlete, but dad was there. And so him pouring into me, but somewhere lost a connection in there. But just recently, when I picked up the book father by God by john Eldridge, it just kind of lit me up and a friend of mine challenged me to write a letter to my dad. So last father's day, I think it was right before you played that clip.

I think before I met you guys. But I wrote a letter to dad, but what in that process, I realized the sacrifices that he had made that were unspoken in and the the fact that when dad is present, I feel secure, even now. And to reflect that with your relationship with God, when dad's always present, there should be some security in that. And if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

So those kind of reflections is kind of how I see this. And with my own kids, I have a, I don't call him a stepson. He's, he's not my biological son, but if you meet him, you know, he's been around me a lot because we carry on a lot of stuff. But, and I have a daughter and yeah, the enemy tried to convince us as, as parents that we were just awful parents because we'd been divorced twice, both sides, you know, and the trauma of all that.

But then we realized that, you know what, life kind of takes things over sometimes and they survived and they're pretty good kids. My daughter sent me a text today to put on my calendar for August, 2022. She will be known as doctor.

She'll have her doctorate. Yeah. You know, I don't know where she got that from because I'm still thinking too. And to defend my Southern heritage, we use the term, we don't use the term father very much.

We use daddy, which the scripture says, we cry Abba father, which is a term of endearment, which means daddy. So, and they ate the last supper, not the last dinner for all of y'all who liked that one. So that's a good point. Good point.

Yeah. One of the things for me, I'm realizing that I am growing in trusting God as father is I've had some situations over the last few weeks that just normally would send me into a worry, tailspin, right? I was at work and pulled over a curb and didn't see this little grate sticking up and pulled about half the front of my car off, you know, and normally that would have freaked me out. Cause right now I didn't have the funds to go get it fixed. And I just, I was like, man, I guess it happened, you know, and I went home and found it. You can grill a glue, a lot of stuff together and it'll hold for a period of time.

It's still holding. It looks brand new, you know, I'll get it fixed when I get the money, but I didn't worry. And I didn't stress that same day. I thought I lost my glasses that I just got new back in September.

And normally I would be tearing everything apart, you know, and, and I did look and I couldn't find them. And I just said, well, you know what? I got an old pair of glasses. I'll just wear them.

It won't be great, but I'll get through until I can get another pair. You know, and this happened to show up. I found them, they slid in a part of my car.

I couldn't find a few days ago. The air conditioner wasn't working. And every year that's, that's the story of my house. My air conditioner doesn't work upstairs. And you know, normally it's quite expensive because it's an old air conditioner.

I'm kind of a milking along because I don't have, you know, $7,000 for a new system. And so I had to have somebody come out and look at it. And I, and normally, honestly, I wouldn't have slept the night before worried that it's going to be more than I can afford to do right now. And I said, well, you know what?

God, you got it. You know, I'm not real too worried about it. And the guy came out and it was $120 a pair, you know, and it was just like, it could have been 600. It would have been okay. You know, I would have figured out how to do it, but it was more just the, this, this feeling of finally in my life, I'm feeling like, God, I know you're there and you got my back and I don't know how it's going to turn out and it may be quite expensive, but I know either way we're going to get on the other side of it.

Right. And, but the enemy would have twisted and turned those things. I wouldn't slept for a week. You know, I would have been stressed out. I would have been probably pretty crappy to my son, you know, cause I had been stressed out, you know, all the things that would have been side things of that were gone because I said, okay, I got a, I got a father I can trust in.

Doesn't mean it's going to work out the way I want it to, but it's going to be okay. Yup. Andy, you got anything? You got the microphone in front of you. I think Jim was going to ask a question. He pushed it in front of my face. Well, I'm going to ask you a question then.

When has, when has God brought somebody in your life to father you? Specific example, no general, well, lots of times, you know, no specific example. If you can't think of it, well, thanks for the heads up on that. We talked about it.

My mom was totally different. I was kind of tracking with you though. I will say this before I get into that is just the fact that there were a lot of times in my life where it just seemed like I was always running from the one crisis to the other.

And it was like, Oh, we're here again. And I would wake up in the middle of the night, just worried about stuff, you know, and just worried that if I did, I have what it took to provide for that need to fix that problem, to keep us, to stay employed, you know, to stay married to whatever it is. And, you know, through the sonship is where I've gotten that grounded confidence in God that, you know, like you said, it may not work out the way I think it will work out.

But when you talk, when you walk through the Psalms and you talk through, walk through the gospels, it's constantly trust God, trust God, trust God. And that's not the normal Christian experience in a lot of people's lives, particularly mine. So, but as far as bringing people into my life to father me, so, you know, there's a lot of things that I still don't feel like the day to day.

I'm not a mechanic. I do well in technology, but I've got my limits in construction and whatever it may be. But there are things that I do have skills for, and that's a form of fathering. But as far as what it took to become a man who's confident, where I feel like I have strength, I've told a story about my new name, I feel like God had given me my original name was Andrew, meaning strength. But as far as individuals, I'm not going to judge.

I'm not going to try to be too nebulous and not specific. But everybody on this team in some form or the other has fathered me through the words that they said, either on this radio show at boot camp, through a text, you know, and that's the way God does it. A band of brothers is key to being fathered. And I just have that, and I praise you guys every time we do these type of shows to talk about how you get fathered.

But, you know, it would be dishonoring to God, in my opinion, because he put you guys in my life. I know that I fathered you in teaching you not to sit next to me, because I would probably flip you someplace and we'll irritate you, right? And so that was just a neat little fathering moment between you and I. Yeah, I can only imagine what your kids are like, Sam. That's why every time I see them they are hitting you and smacking you and doing something. Yeah, it was a lot more fun when they weren't bigger than me. Yeah, and they're much bigger, too. They're much, much bigger than me. Yeah, Eli could just overpower me if he really wanted to. Yeah, it would be ugly. Yeah, I would even pretend.

Yeah. And again, what you guys are talking about a lot is, hey, I had this father in my life. I had somebody, whether it was mine or somebody else's, this guy took interest in me. One of the things for me, I don't really have that story of, hey, I spent a lot of time with this man who was my father. My dad, you know, we didn't have any real serious heart-to-heart talks. He was not a Christian. He was a good man. He did a lot of things for those around him, but he also was pretty selfish in a lot of the things that he did and didn't have time at certain times when I really needed him, but yet was not completely absent either. So it's a squishy-washy kind of in and out. And where I kind of learned it was by observation.

So I would see something in maybe somebody else. And a couple of coaches when I was in high school, because those are the kind of your most, I'd say, years where you can be molded and shaped and you can go different ways, but my JV basketball coach who was also my science and math teacher was just very steady and consistent. And so during basketball he was always on us to do the right thing all the time. He didn't let us get by with anything. Boy, when I went up to varsity, it was so lax. I'm like, no wonder.

We don't have any discipline on this team. Fortunately, the team, so the grade I was in when we all got there together as a senior was like, okay, we were better together. Because we also had as a JV team as a freshman, he was the JV and freshman football coach. So I got to know him real well. He also coached wrestling and he was the PE teacher.

So I got to interact with him a lot. But he, again, was another man who was just not going to let you get by with anything. He was holding people accountable. We had so many jokes about him because he would be like, if you screwed off and did something, you'd be five, jerk. He'd get down and we'd always make fun of his voice and stuff. But these were guys that were very serious about what they did and weren't going to just let people get by with things.

And you can see, I could watch so many other men just let people walk over them or look the other way with things and just let things go. And I always looked at these two men as men that were upstanding. And what was great about the JV, about the football coach was we were really good as a freshman team, as a JV team. And then we had a couple of really bad coaches that came in. So the time I was, every single year that I was in school, we had a different varsity coach. And then our freshman coach got to be our seat when we were seniors, got to be our coach.

We loved it, man. He held us accountable. He made us good again because we kind of really fell off. And we had a very talented, a more talented team when I was a junior than probably we did when I was a senior. And we had way more success when we were seniors. And it was because of leadership because he was somebody who was... Fatherhood. Yeah. And it was that he took time to let you know where you should be and what you should be doing and what your role was in things. And it was just different than what most guys are doing. You could tell when somebody loves you and cares about you versus somebody who's just there.

Right. And Sam, I want to thank the coaches and the teachers out there. One of the things when I was putting together my collage, if you will, for the talk at the camp was I was kind of shocked how many teachers ended up in there that took time to point me in the right direction. As a young man, I was all over the map. I could have found myself in jail a billion times. I often tell my wife that it's a miracle I made it out of high school alive. I mean, I have lived a rich life, let's just say. But the teachers and the coaches are often the front line and they're taking their time to father these kids.

I know for me personally, probably one of the biggest father figures I had was a swim coach. And he would take time and he would laugh at some of my stories. I just recently was in an automobile accident and I laughed at him because he's had me recreate this event. And I'm telling him about it and he burst out laughing at me. I didn't realize what would actually come out of my mouth.

And he goes, when the car landed, Jim, what were you doing off the ground anyway? So, you know, it's those teachable moments that, you know, and I just want to take time to thank the coaches and the teachers out there for the time they do spend, the time they care about the kids. For me, one of the things early on in my career in construction, I had no desire to get into construction. I hated that type of stuff and I had to eat. And so I got into it temporarily until I could find a real job. And I've been doing it now for 35 years, you know. But one of the reasons why I've been in it for so long is a guy didn't invest a whole lot of time in with me. But when he had time, what he told me was really good, you know. And part of it was he wanted to go away from the job site and go see his girlfriend, you know. So he wanted me to run the job site.

So he was imparting wisdom just out of necessity. But still, one of the things that he told me, he said, look, you're going to make mistakes in your decisions. You're going to have to make decisions every day. You're going to make mistakes, right? But the worst thing you can do in construction is not make a decision because the job comes to a halt. Don't make a $10,000 mistake. Make a $200 mistake. But I promise you, you're going to get more right than you ever do wrong and you'll learn from the wrong and you won't do it again.

And it was so incredibly freeing. And I still run into situations 35 years in the industry that I've never ran into before. And I look at it and say, is this a $100 decision, a $10,000 decision? You know, what do I need to do, right?

Do I need to get more information? Or I just make a judgment call and then if I'm wrong, I'll just fix it. The good thing about construction, it can be redone, right?

And so it can be costly. But you know, that was very freeing for me and it's really helped me throughout my career. And it's one of the things I've tried to pass on as I've done training with the people I've done training with is to say, look, don't let it intimidate you. You're never going to have all the answers, right? You're going to run into a new situation all the time, right?

But just make a good decision and move forward and keep going. And so for me, that was a big one. One of the most influential guys in my life, other than my dad, would be a guy I met about 19 years ago and some of you guys met him at the boot camp we came to with Jim Biddy. And you know, he was somewhat between a father and an older brother that I'd never had. And I met him at Sunset Avenue where we used to go and don't see him a lot or talk to him a lot now since we relocated. But he poured into me in so many different ways and he was kind of the guy who had all the wonderful construction tools and skills and those kind of things. And he kidnapped me a couple of times and took me to mission events and stuff like that and made me stretch a little bit. So, you know, I'm grateful.

I don't know whether he listens or not, but I'm grateful for him. A couple of things I'd like for you to do this week as you've been listening to the show is go out and ask God, God, open my eyes to the people that you've brought into my life to father me. The other thing we didn't really get into is the times that God's intimately stepped in and fathered us. And we all got stories of that, but also ask him, God, when have you stepped in and fathered me? When did I have calmness when I shouldn't have had? When did I know that everything was going to be okay? Those are the times God said, you know, I got you.

Right? And spend time with him and ask him to unveil those things to you. And then register for the boot camp because he's going to tell you a whole bunch more there. masculinejourney.org. Register now. Talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.