Vulnerability With God After Hours

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It starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are talking about vulnerability again today. We talked about it last week with being vulnerable with others and what gets in the way. And this week we're talking about being vulnerable with God and what can get in the way.

And so if you didn't listen to the first podcast or the first show, you could go back and listen to it. But real quickly, guys, what's some of the things that can get in the way of being vulnerable with God? Andy, do you have something? Yeah, I think probably the first one would be pride.

Pride and fear, I think, are the biggest, too, to me. Anyone else? I just had the trifecta of the me, myself, and I. The three of us always kind of seem to trip over something and get in the way. The tripping trinity is what we call it. Tripping trinity. There you go. Yeah, you got those going. It's a classic triple threat.

Yes, it is. Anyone else? Do you want a song? Funny thing you ask, when Rodney kicked off our being vulnerable, well, the show. That's the word I'm looking for. I still can't find my words. It reminded me of a Rich Mullins line in a song that always gets me teary because it's me.

I'll fight you for something I don't really want, rather than take what you give that I need. When he was talking about his dad, I remember, I love flying because my dad loved flying. He would have the wheel, and I would be, in my mind, as a young kid, flying. Then later, he let me do things that weren't dangerous doing it.

Never got a pilot's license because I know how bad I am at attention to detail, and that's kind of important in that line. But it really took me there. And I love my time with God, and I did have a good day with God today. And I love doing that. So why don't I pursue it?

And it is. It's primarily out of the fear that I'm going to be asked to do something I really don't want to do. Yeah, there's that fear. There's the relinquishing control. That's the pride part, I think, more so. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the way it really kind of plays out. Yeah, I know better. I know better how to run my life. The illusion of control. We don't have it. No, no, no. We recognize that.

Absolutely. We're deceived in that, no doubt about it. But we definitely, it is pride that I know how to handle my life. But if I let go, who knows where I'll end up? Sam, you're always talking about going to Africa.

Yeah, that'd be on a mission trip to Africa. We think we have control, and God does allow us the ability to make really bad decisions. He doesn't stop us, you know, and so we do have some level of control in the midst of it.

But it's that whole letting go. Somebody like Jonah or somebody like that. The fish story. Well, I've got an example that I'll share. This was quite a few years ago, but I had been going through a pretty bad time, and I made myself vulnerable, and God convinced me that I needed to confess before the entire congregation what I needed prayers and forgiveness for. And I remember standing up and saying something along the lines of that my name is not Jimmy Carter, but I'm guilty of lust. Well, when you've been a part of a congregation for as many years as we had at that point and still do, now coming up on like 45 years there, but you've got to get rid of your pride.

And I had to, but it was something that I felt like God wanted me to do rather than just get down on my knees in the room at home and say, God, forgive me of my lust, because I felt like by doing it the way I did that I might influence other people that had a need that could be met. But being vulnerable can put you in a bind. It can. It can, and it will, but God's got that plan all kind of worked out. You know, the other couple things I was thinking of that we talked about in the earlier show and we'll move on from there is agreements that we make with the enemy, you know, specifically about ourselves or about God.

You can get in the way. And then just our upbringing of what our view of God was. You can get in the way of having that vulnerability if there's not a trust relationship or not a relationship that's really there. You can go to church for a lot of years and not have a relationship with God. If you were never vulnerable with your parents, how are you going to do that with God unless, you know, he breaks through? Yeah. So Andy, you have the first clip it's from the TV show, the chosen, the chosen season to episode one.

I just watched it not too long ago. And when this topic came up, I was like, okay, I know the perfect scene for what I see vulnerability as now we were talking earlier, vulnerability to me, you know, it can be a variety of things. It can be vulnerability for past wounds or deep sins, or it can be current things that you're dealing with, whether it be sins or whether it be God's calling you to do something and step out in faith. Like he had people to do in the Bible and we just don't want to do that. You know, whether it's sharing our faith, whether it's becoming involved in a particular ministry, whatever it is, you know, a lot of times we resist those things and to talk to God about them. God doesn't sit there and want us to just say, okay, I'm going to reluctantly go and do it. And our heart's really not in it.

He'd rather us voice our concerns or whatever about what's going on. So since I, sorry, I got off course there, but I was just sharing, sharing my heart of the way I saw vulnerability. But in this particular instance, this is, uh, like I said, it's from the chosen. It's Jesus and his interaction with the Samaritans.

He was, could have went around Samaria, but he chose to pass through. And the, the, the scene before this is actually his interaction with the lady at the woman at the well. And this is a particular Samaritan that he goes to eat supper with. And the backstory is his disciples had blessed this man by sowing his field, cleaning it out, got it all prepared, but he goes and he wants to eat dinner with this guy. And they start talking about this man's story and I don't want to give it all away.

We'll talk about it on the other side of, of the in depth, you know, part of the clip That's not true. This is what we Jews do. We tell and listen to stories. Our stories connect us.

Tell me your story. We ran out of money and food. My little Rebecca, I could see her lips to her skin and her eyes turned gray.

It had been a drought so there was no work in town. I had a friend in Tiratanna who was also in bad straits. We traveled south past the frame and lied in wait along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We attacked a Jew who was traveling along, pulled him down from his horse, took all his money and all his clothes. He fought back so D'shawn knocked him down, hit his head on a rock, thought he was probably dead.

D'shawn was to take the Jews belongings and sell them to bond traders in Anathoth. I was to ride north and sell the horse at a Roman outpost, but I wasn't on for 10 minutes and she reared up through me, broke my leg. I had to, I had to crawl on my elbows and forearms to the nearest town and beg for a ride back to Zikar, worse off than before. So now you know what you've done, the kind of man you helped. Every day I think about that Jew, naked and alone, on the road, possibly dead.

I could be a murderer, he didn't die. Somebody came along and helped him, how do you know, Milik, I know, I promise you, he did not die. So what you have is, this is a Samaritan and you know, you've got your Jews mixed in and they go and eat with this family and the Jews are all, you can see them on the, on the movie, you can see just kind of how they are pulling back just from the Samaritan. Well this Samaritan actually, you know, he needed money and he just explained, he was vulnerable with Jesus and basically explained his crime. Now you can see in the dialogue how Jesus kind of pulled that out of his story and that's how God does with us a lot of times.

When it's hard for us to be honest with him, he will be gracious and try to pull the story out of us. But as it goes on, basically Jesus tells him that, you know, what all that the, you know, the man that you thought that you killed, you know, he lived, you know, he was taken care of and I think it kind of plays off the Good Samaritan story on that. But the end of it is, is Jesus was gracious in this man's vulnerability and what's really cool, you don't see this but in the next scene you see the guy that was, you know, basically confessed and explained the situation, he wakes up healed the next day. And then you see a shot of Jesus smiling and, you know, that's just the way Jesus does it.

I mean, we're vulnerable, we're open to him. He comes in and blesses our lives and then we are healed from whatever, you know, we are experiencing, that wound or that sin. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I think that, you know, especially as you're dealing with wounds, you know, obviously that's the way God operates.

And I do like the beginning of that clip, the almost playfulness of Jesus acting like he doesn't know. Darrell Bock Right, right. Dr. Darrell Bock Right. I mean, he knows the story but he's like, oh, I didn't see a pastor, you know, or whatever it is, right.

So, you know, I like that playfulness, you know, that he kind of draws that story out as you're talking about. I think that there's also times that we were vulnerable with him and we never ever know the outcome. Dr. Darrell Bock Right, that's true. Dr. Darrell Bock Right, or we don't know the outcome yet, right.

But he still calls us to that vulnerability. Dr. Darrell Bock That vulnerability and that obedience to share and then, you know, we're to leave the results up to him. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I mean, there's situations, you know, if you have kids, they're going to make decisions that you don't necessarily like for them. You don't think they're great decisions for them.

They make them. A lot of times there's not anything you can do, you know, and I found myself many times in those situations just saying, you know, Jesus, I need help here. I don't know how to handle this. I don't know what to do or what not to do. Just give me some direction. Give me some insight on what to do and he'll be gracious and help you along the way. I don't know the outcome of those situations yet.

They're still playing out but yet, you know, it still gives me trust when I can be vulnerable with him and he responds to me. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I think that's the key too. When we talk about vulnerability, really it's God's desire for us to be honest with him and it's no different than him calling out to Adam in the garden, you know. He wanted Adam to admit that he was naked and he was afraid.

He was like, he had, Adam had to come to that terms of what his state was and be honest with God to tell him about it for God to be able to do anything for him. Dr. Darrell Bock Right. As long as we got that barrier between us and God, we can't get to the healing and we can't get to what's there.

You know, Robby, I know you said this a couple of shows ago but, you know, the definition of intimacy, right, that's really what we're talking about here is that's what God desires is this. Dr. Darrell Bock Into me, see. Dr. Darrell Bock Right.

Dr. Darrell Bock Right. Just look as deep as you can find and when you do, I love the thing I love about that clip and the listeners that haven't seen the series wouldn't necessarily know. The guy is limping around really bad and he's crippled but he's crippled more than just physically crippled, right. He's crippled in that you can see in the way he speaks that he feels his phenomenal guilt that's just absolutely unbelievable. And yet, you know, to get back to the early part, I don't know that if he'd checked his gauges that he realized, you know, if he, you know, this check engine light was flashing at him, you know, because he's just trying to get through life and he's going to brave through another day with his cripple. Well, you know, I think about my own struggles like if you'd have known me maybe eight years ago, it was 2014, so, you know, I had a lot of struggles in my life.

Some at a meeting, you know, after hours. After after hours, you know, became vulnerable talking about a struggle he was having with forgiving his father actually and he was talking about how he was interacting with his inner little Sam and as he described this very vulnerable situation and how he had gotten this counseling, it gave me hope because he was vulnerable. It set off this opportunity for me to be vulnerable. And so as I listened to Sam, I was like, man, could this help me with the thing that I feel worst about in my life, which is at that point in time, my addiction pornography. And so the very next morning, I'm like, God, you know, here we are.

And you know, and I know this is this is something I just can't beat. You know, is there something in my story? Like Sam's story? Is there a little Robby story in there that I need to know about that you can and just like your clip, Andy, there was a story.

And so Jesus was, yeah, Robby, you got a story. So let's, you know, and I took four or five that came through my mind of, you know, shenanigans that had gone on with me sexually when I was younger. And he helped me pick out the, you know, it was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, that's the one. And it was, you know, something that happened with a family member, like so many people's stories is and and essentially, you know, just to make a very long story short, I got my innocence taken away. And God wanted to give me back my innocence card. So I was vulnerable with God. And doing so I got my innocence card, which gave me forgiveness. And I, like that cripple man, didn't have the guilt anymore.

But I was still walking around with a limp because I was crippled to really share this with my family, which is where it really needed to be shared. In other words, it's one thing to admit your sins one to another, but actually to the person you're sinning against, you know, that's a that's a biggie. And so it just coincidentally, there was a couple's retreat that was coming up like two weeks later, if you could imagine this scene, like, Tammy had been very specific with me if you know, when she ever saw like, we went to see fireproof and as we're coming away from fireproof, if I ever found out that you looked at his thing like that, you know, I would divorce you in a second, you know, so I knew right then I was real safe to, you know, share all my secrets. And so I was like, man, and so here we go on this couple's retreat, and they have of all things never even heard of it before. You know, the last day, they're like, Okay, we want to do a double covenant, not cone, but covenant of silence.

Okay. And this is you and your and your spouse. And in this double covenant of silence that Darren and Sam had dreamed up, we want you to share something with your spouse that you've never been able to share. Oh, you know, I, I, there's no there's no explaining the difference between into me see, okay, to where you've actually received forgiveness from the person. In other words, this, that guy felt bad because he'd killed the Samaritan while the Samaritan was sitting in front of me.

Right. And, and you're getting that kind of into me see as a result of because as we talked about when you're vulnerable with God, he's going to take you. He wants to get a complete healing. In other words, he doesn't want you just to get rid of the guilt.

He wants you to get rid of the cane and jump for joy and all those kind of things. Well, you know, clearly it was a long healing process before anybody jumped for any joy. However, you know, like, Oh, my goodness, what a gift as a result of, you know, being originally vulnerable with God, which only again, would have happened would not have happened had had Sam not been, you know, vulnerable with us. Thank you, Robby.

I had a thing today wasn't really thinking about the show, to be honest, I can't remember what happened. Big backstory, Eli's car broke down, and it was in the shop. And so he's been driving my old pickup truck.

Which is great. It's a 1975 pickup. So it's one of those big old ones, you know, he's been driving it.

And the other day, he said, Dad, can you listen to this? And I was listening to the car. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's a water pump. You know, it's gonna go out at some point, you know, said, you know, where you should get your car back in the next couple days, just try to take it easy on the truck, you know, well, the next day calls me. And, you know, the belts are broken. And I think the water pump part was seized, is what happened.

And so we went and got the car and got it home. Well, I was thinking about something, I'm going to fast forward to something else. I'm thinking about someone, and I don't remember who the person was, honestly. And I was thinking about them not being initiated.

Right. And so I was thinking, well, they've never been initiated in this. And he's like, well, who initiated you?

Like, yeah, good point. And then it got to this, to a car thing. And I said, yeah, he's never been initiated in that, God.

And he's like, well, who initiated you in that? And it brought me back to a memory that I've shared at boot camp of being so angry. When I was young, my first car, the water pump went out. And I had no idea how to change it. My dad had had a stroke at that point, there was no way he could help me.

My friend's dad was trying to tell me how to do it over the phone. You know, which I didn't even know what the nut was he was wanting me to look for, you know. It's right next to the alternator. I'm like, well, okay, what's that look like, right? And so, you know, I had all these things.

Well, when God said, who's initiated you in that? I thought, you know, I've got the truck at home. I didn't take it to the shop. I didn't want to take it to the shop. I thought, well, maybe I'll get a mobile mechanic, maybe I'll do something else. And then I just said, no, I'm just going to fix it. Do I have Eli? He doesn't know it yet. So if he listens to this show, he'll find out.

But I was just going to, one of the weekends I have him, I'm just going to have a water pump there. I'm going to get the belts and we're going to fix it. And if we can't fix it, what's worse that can happen?

I get somebody to help me fix it, right? But it's like, you know, God's still saying, I still want to help initiate you, you know, in your vulnerability and allow you to help initiate your son. You know, and I'm actually kind of looking forward to the project.

Now, I'll probably not be looking as forward to it when you have a 1975 Chevy and the bolts have kind of rusted. You know, it's going to be kind of tough to get those off. But it was part of the, I was thinking of someone else in vulnerability and God kept bringing it back to me. You know, it was such a good thing and it was such a good thing for my heart.

So, okay, maybe there's redemption from something of when I was, you know, 17 years old, which is the same age Eli is right now. Darrell Bock And you were vulnerable before the whole audience too, right? Scott Horrell Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Darrell Bock You're going to have to give an update in a few months. Scott Horrell Yeah, it'll be a little while. It'll probably be a month before I can get to it, but it's the pickup.

It just sets outside anyway. I want to go ahead and get to another clip. Actually, yeah, we have time for it. This is from Evan Almighty. And in this clip, what's happened before this, Evan's wife has prayed asking for the family to become closer. And so she's really vulnerable with God and then all of a sudden her husband decides he's supposed to build an ark. And if you haven't seen the movie, sorry, I'm ruined some of it. But she gets really frustrated and fed up and kind of leaves him. And she stops at this restaurant where she has an encounter with a waiter who also happens to be God. And I want you to listen to how it plays out.

Oh, excuse me, can I get a refill, please, coming right up, excuse me, are you all right? Yeah. No, it's a long story. Well, I like stories.

I'm considered a bit of a storyteller myself. My husband. Have you heard of New York's Noah? The guy building the ark.

That's him. I love that story. Do you know the name of the ark? You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it's about God's wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry. What is the story about then, the ark?

Well, I think it's a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animals showed up in pairs. They stood by each other side by side, just like Noah and his family.

Everybody entered the ark side by side. But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that? Sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience, or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they prayed for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? Well, I've got to run.

A lot of people to serve. Enjoy. Yeah, it's a great perspective. Sometimes those things we don't understand that happen, God's got a use for those, right? The rest of the story with me in the car, it's actually much deeper than that.

The only thing I've ever done on a car in the last 30 years is changed the brake pads and the rotor, because I learned how to do that. But anything other than that, I took it to somebody, because I was fearful. To be quite honest, I was afraid that I would not know what to do, and there would be nobody there to help me. And so God had heard that.

And I said that to him in ways of, I hate this feeling this way, God. I can work on houses. I can work with my hands. I've learned how to do that over the years.

This is just a different type of project. Why am I so scared? And so I look at this as an opportunity in the truck. It may not come out okay, but that's all right too, because God will bring somebody in to father me and show me how to do it, right? But it gives me an opportunity to redeem something that once I thought was lost, right?

And I'll gain some strength back in having been vulnerable is what the goal is and what I hope to do. And so I'm really kind of excited about that project because it's been a lot of years and a lot of agreements in the making, if that makes any sense. Okay, now we're quiet. So go ahead now. No, go ahead.

Chip, Dale, come on, one of you guys. I was just thinking about the, not sure why, but when my second marriage went down, I've got parents that are still married, they've been married 50 some years, and it was going back to what we were talking about earlier. I don't know how to make this work. And I found myself living at my grandmother's house with many broken relationships, two failed marriages, and doesn't take long to figure out that your picker's broke. And I found myself down by my bedside one night and I said, Lord, my prayer is if Mrs. Wright has passed me by, make me okay with that.

And if she hasn't, you're going to have to make it so obvious that even this idiot can get it. And that was my heartfelt prayer was, and a short time later, I met... That's pretty vulnerable there. So a short time later, I met Michelle, my wife, who in December will have been married 19 years.

You could add the other two marriages of mine and hers together and not get 19 years. So it worked out for the best, but just not knowing. Yeah. And letting God lead, that's part of it. I think that being vulnerable is just saying, God, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to fix my sin. I can't be strong enough on my own. I need you. I don't know how to handle this situation with my kids. I don't know how to handle this situation with my spouse or at work or with finances, fill in the blank, but to be vulnerable to him and say, and I don't even know how it's going to work out, but I trust that you're going to walk with me through it and we're going to get through it together and we're going to find some healthy place on the other side, whatever that looks like. Go to our website, masculinejourney.org, register for the upcoming bootcamp, November 18th through 21st. This is the Truth Network.