The Power of Thankfulness After Hours

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

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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 in the middle of a thankful topic. Aren't we, Danny? Yes, and I'm thankful for it. Are you thankful for it?

Yeah, I am. Okay, so tell us a little bit about the topic that we're talking about today. Well, we've been talking about you can't kill a thankful heart and the process that that looks like, because it's not, I don't think you can live there.

And if I said that, then Jim would scold me on that, you can't live there. So being the counselor in the room, but the process in that and what that looks like and how we get there sometimes or not, because sometimes I just don't get there. But the process of life that you know, life has its troubles and its turmoils, and somehow you got to find a way to walk through that. Yeah, there's definitely at least one or two situations in my life that I still am very struggling to be thankful for.

I know God's hands in it, but I wish he would hurry up. I mean, very, very candid that, you know, I, it's just hard to be in limbo on some things. And, and, you know, I do have at least some history, as you talked about in the first show to look back and say, Okay, God, if your hand was in all these other things, I got to trust your hand is in this, even though I can't, I can't see it or feel it or know it. I just have to believe it.

Yeah. I know, sharing a story that my former job, I had added come to a place where physically I couldn't do what I used to do. And it was tough.

And God opened up a door there. And I moved into lower management, upper management kind of thing. And they got me out off the road, off of my knees and my back and that kind of thing. And it was really, but then it became a place where I thought I was going to die of a heart attack because the stress level was unbelievable. And I was having a hard time because when it happened, I'm rejoicing because God gave me this awesome job and that kind of thing. And then all of a sudden it's kind of like Adam, that woman, you gave me this job, you gave me, you know, and it flipped. And, you know, I came to a place where I knew I was going to have to leave.

And I'm thinking I'm wind up taking a pay cut or, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I just couldn't see, couldn't figure out, like you said, the limbo of, okay, God, I know you opened this door and I know you did this, but here we are, what are we doing? And he opened up a door where I'm at now. And it was now, and it was even better than I began. And sometimes I have to remember in the frustration days of work, because if you have a job, it's going to get frustrating sooner or later.

And reminded that you were in the midst of this and you opened the door and that kind of helps me get out of the, okay, I think I'll just pack up my bags and quit because I'm getting too old to just walk out and quit anymore. So, yeah, part of what you were talking about is, and we've been talking about on this show is, you know, not being able to see what's going on in the background, what's going on. And Jim, your clip kind of does that, right? I mean, in this movie, you have a coach that comes into a situation where the players don't really care for him and his tactics.

Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. They are at odds from the beginning. The kids think they're only way out of their bad situation because they're in a poor school, but they're excellent basketball players. So they're going to make it out with basketball. And he comes in and said, no, that I'll teach you how to be men.

I will, you're going to make good grades or you're not going to play. I mean, he really came down hard on them. And this clip is at the end of the movie.

It hasn't worked out the way any of them expected or wanted necessarily until this point because the coach is actually walking out. The kids are in the gym studying and this is the scene when that happens. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine as children do.

It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Sir, I just want to say thank you. You saved my life. You saved my life. Thank you, sirs.

All of you. So Jim, on this, you know, obviously this boy develops, this young man develops a thankful heart towards his coach. And it's across the entire team. And what really hit me in this is the coach could easily be easily be God. He took them through a lot of rough things to get them where they had integrity and where they were doing the right thing. And they appreciated it and getting there. And then what I loved about this is the coach said, thank you. And I think we need to hear that from God, because when we do what we're expected to do, living in his Holy Spirit, I think he's just as thankful for us as we are for him. If we are living in that glory that he was talking about.

Agreed. This is a segment of the show where we go deeper. Right? It says it at the intro. I listened to it this time. I don't know if you guys did, right? But we go deeper. We're into the topic. So who has a story to share out there that God's kind of laid on your heart about this whole topic of being thankful? Yeah, I have so many it's almost frightening. But nonetheless, I'll share the one that just jumps out at me was, you know, we were fairly well off financially, we thought it was a mask that we were wearing, we didn't realize we had on like so many of my masks. And when Chrysler Financial ripped it off, and we realized that, oh, my goodness, not only were we going to lose a dealership, but we're going to lose our house, we're going to lose our cars, we're going to lose everything.

And I was employing a lot of employees. And you know, and, you know, and I thought I was doing all the stuff, you know, that was, you know, godly, I was involved in church and teaching and, and, you know, men's groups and everything else that you, you know, so I'll never forget the prayer, I'm coming up, what's called Depot Hill, in my little old red out there. And I'm praying and I'm like, God, you know, things are really looking bad for you. And I was sincere in this prayer, like, you know, everybody knows I'm a Christian, and you're dragging me through the mud here. And do you realize what this is going to do to your reputation?

It's a hilarious prayer when I think about it now. But it was completely authentic from my heart at the time, like, you realize, you know, what you're doing to your name here by dragging me through the mud like this. He was so clear that day, I'll never forget it.

You know, Robby, if you'll take care of your stuff, just let me take care of mine. Like I have my reputations intact. And I remember, like, where did that come from? You know, like, I was so sincere. But, but as I processed, you know, now I am 15 years later, right.

And at the time, if you said, Robby, you're grateful, right? No. And, you know, was I ready to confess God's hand was in this?

Well, obviously not. I thought he was, you know, asleep at the wheel. And then the nightmares came. And every night I was trying to sell one more car or meet some goal that Chrysler had. And it's really hard for me to explain to anybody what that feels like to wake up in that kind of a nightmare where you've been under this pressure that Danny was talking about at work for so long. You didn't know what it was doing to your heart. You didn't realize you were being corrupted. You didn't realize where your goals and your thoughts and all these things had been. And you realize that God has extracted you from something that was killing your heart. You didn't know your heart wasn't made for the car business. You grew up in it.

Your dad was in it and you thought it was all you ever wanted. But God has, you know, come in and rescued you from, you know, prostitution. And, and you're still a prostitute, you know, it just is how it is. And it's a beautiful thing now for me to say, oh yeah, oh yeah.

You know, he was, his hand was all over that thing. But at the time, you know, it was just something to walk through. And I'm so grateful for all the people that walked with me through it and walked with me through the healing and brought me to places like this group to be able to see God's hand and all that really has taken place.

Yeah, yeah. Go back to where Jim was at really, the small things, just little things that happened in your life that are day to day kind of things that just kind of jump out at you like, oh my gosh, thank you God for kind of showing me some something that I didn't know. So I just recently took a trip to Illinois to go visit my family. I don't know how many of you out there know that we broadcast in North Carolina.

You just had a revelation you just had a revelation with some one guy who thought, oh no, we were broadcasting locally on a different show that you do, Robby. So it's like, we're going to take a plane trip just for a quick trip. My aunt had passed back in March. We had went out there in February to visit her for a full week, drove out, spent a bunch of time. It was wonderful with the family, got to see her before she passed. But now it's time to actually have the services because everything's delayed, right? So we're just going to fly out and fly back.

Had some cousins make it in, not all, not everybody's able to, but it was just a joyous time for the family to get together and celebrate her life. And I'm like, okay, here we're coming out of this pandemic. Everybody's flying. I'm like, normally I'm not even worried about getting to the airport, getting through security and getting into the flight, but I'm like, man, we better get there early. So I'm telling the kids, we got to get there early. Let's get up in the morning, which isn't the easiest thing for now 20 year olds even to do.

Teenagers are bad, but 20 year olds haven't really grown out of it yet. So we get up, just barely make it out the door, kind of on time. Then it's the, hey, can we stop and get something to eat?

I'm like, really? I've been up. I've already eaten. I'm good to go.

Why aren't you? You know, it's just going through my head and then it's okay. Yeah, we'll stop. We'll be okay.

Okay. You know, I'm already thinking, okay, God, what's going on here? How bad's this going to be? Are we going to get there in time? We go through, it's a little slow to get through the drive through because there's no buddy working, right?

And now it's just the only thing they've got going is drive through. It takes a little while to get through. We get on our way. I'm driving a little extra fast because I'm like, okay, we got to make up some time.

And next thing you know, there's all kinds of construction. Since the last time I had went to Charlotte, this direction, I'm like, I completely missed my turn. Next thing you know, I'm through Statesville. Didn't even know I even went to Statesville yet.

And I see Hickory Convention Center. I'm like, whoa, we're way too far. We're 15 minutes off course now.

What am I, we're never going to make this. I had my son really quickly look up directions. He's like, okay, 321, we can get back there. Okay, what's the ETA?

We're going to get there an hour before a flight takes off. And all I'm thinking is, this isn't good. But I do remember going through my head of, do I trust you, Lord, or do I not?

And I just kind of settled back in because I was, you know, the immediacy of something like that. You're like, oh, I'm ticked. My head blows up and I'm ticked.

I'm pissed. I'm like, we're just not going to make it. And we're driving to get there. To get there. We finally get there.

I park close. We get in. The other part of the story that had me really upset was the night before when I couldn't get a boarding pass to download because I don't have a seat assignment.

That's a whole other story. But we come walking in, we're getting the phone out, get to get to the kiosk and hit the app. And it's like, oh, there's a boarding pass.

We hit it. Okay, boarding passes are downloading. Let's head to the gates.

We didn't walk very far. The gate is at the other end of the terminal and we're not even at the midway point and the line stops. We're like, the guy in front of me, are you waiting for gate E down there? We're standing way down at like C. And the only ones you can get in that I found out when I started asking is A or E. You can go to one end or the other.

Nothing in the middle is even open other than the TSA pre-check. So I'm like, kids, we're not going to make this. If we see somebody, we need to ask them. So I did.

I asked a wonderful guy, I think it was Nathaniel, that helped us. And I was like, am I even going to come close to making this? And he's like, look up the line. Looked at me.

He's like, no. Is there any way you can get us up? Because I know sometimes, you know, if you're, I've seen people get pushed to the head of security that were late. They were, you know, they needed to go because they're super long lines, unexpected. So they asked people, who's got a whatever flight time?

And they move them. He's like, no, I can't, but do you need a wheelchair? My daughter does, because I knew what he was saying. So I was like, I get my daughter and we go through, get her on a wheelchair. He gets us through the whole security thing. We make our flight because there was, I mean, it was at least a two hour wait to get through. And it's one of those things that's like, we're on the flight and we're flying. And all of a sudden, my son leans over and goes, dad, this is what you just did.

What actually had to happen. So it's Luke 11 nine. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. And I'm one of these guys that I never asked directions. I don't like to ask anybody for anything, but I had to, in that case, ask, Hey, I needed help, dude, can you help me? What can you do for me? And I was a little persistent with it. Like ask him a couple of times about what you could do. And he's like, I can, I can help you out.

This is what we can go do. And he was funny. It was cause he's pushing my daughter and he's like telling her, Oh yeah, this isn't the first time. Won't be the last I do that actually fairly often with trying to get people through. And it was just like one of those God things where I'm like, okay, so what is in this God? You know, I'm very thankful that you got me through all this, but I was really, it was, I was thankful on the way there when I knew it was like disaster written all over it for his sovereignty.

Cause I said, whatever's in this, you got something, your hand is playing. And I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm good with that. I kind of settled into that on the drive as I kind of calmed down. And I was like, it was a story I can go back and share because there's some unbelievers in the family and you're able to share this God moments. Like God was in this, look what, and we were able to do this. And then I had other family members that are believers and we'll share some stories of, Oh yeah, cause God was in our, our trip and we did this and this happened. It was just wonderful to have some of the non-believers in the family being able to sit around and hear and soak some of that in. And cause it was just, when you hear joyous people talk about, you know, what they get from God and it's genuine, it's authentic. It's just wonderful to be around those people.

It is. I've got, I've got a little bit of a long story. Um, try to keep it short. When I was, uh, um, going through my divorce, it was not a pleasant time. Obviously it wasn't a pleasant time for my wife or for me and very painful hurting time. And I would not have had a thankful heart. I did not have a thankful heart in the midst of that because it was not what I wanted. I really don't think it's what she wanted. Um, but it was happening, you know, and it seemed like that was the only alternative, you know, looking back, I can look back and say, well, because I wasn't, you know, we were separated and I had my kids 50% of the time, I had 50% of my time available.

And so I'm like, what am I going to do? I've never had 50% of my time available. You know, I've had kids for as long as I can remember.

Right. And so I just decided, and I've shared on here before to, to hop on a plane. There's some cheap flights out of Greensboro down to not far from where my mom lived. And I could go down there and back for less than a hundred bucks most times. And I would fly down there and stay at my brother's house and go see my mom, you know, and I, I, uh, had a plan to do that every other month and I made it through a rotation and a half.

I cheated and went an extra time instead of waiting to go. And, and my mom passed away before I could make another time trip down. But that time was so rich with her. She didn't know she was near her end.

It came up quickly. I mean, she kind of knew she was near her end because she was a lot elderly, you know, at that point, she, you know, I think they kind of live at the end at some point, you know, and, and so getting that time with her, you know, just the perspective that she had and just having one-on-one time with my mom, which I had not had in years was really cool. And then the other thing that I've become very thankful for in the midst of, you know, a situation that was not pleasant was that God redeems things, right? God redeems these things, redeem time with my mom that I wouldn't have had. But, you know, when you're parenting as a team, you don't truly parent the way you would if you were by yourself for either person.

That's a true statement. And so for the first time in my father time, you know, being a dad, I was able to really just parent the way I wanted to parent, you know, and as a result, I think, you know, the boys have gotten closer and my daughters have gotten closer to their mom and closer to me because they've seen more authentic sides of us instead of this shared team. Not that being married and raising kids together is a bad thing, I'm not saying that, but I think God redeemed that in the fact that I have the closest relationship with my kids that I've ever had.

You know, for the most part, and it's just a very joyful thing to be thankful for, you know, that God was able to take that out of that situation and provide some really, really rich and good fruit. I have a story about when I was a chaplain, and this was the, I was in the residency program fairly early. We had two other chaplains that I became good friends with, and one of the other chaplains had a couple, they weren't married yet, but they were engaged, they were 19, I believe. She had leukemia, and he asked us to all come together to pray, and I knew he was a godly man, still is, and so we joined him.

We went down there. I really felt God impressing on me that she was going to be healed, and I knew that God was going to be she was going to be healed, so we prayed over her at length and had a joyful time. They were planning on becoming missionaries. I said, you know, God, these are your children, and they're going to do wonderful things for the kingdom. Within a week, she died, and that rocked my world, because first I thought God had said, you know, do this, and he did, but not to the outcome I expected, and that did a couple of things in my life. I wasn't thankful for it at the time. I was questioning God, like, Robby, you know, this makes no sense.

Why'd you do this? But it made me realize that his plan is not something we're going to understand. It's okay to be in the dark. I never thought that as a kid, but when you can trust God, you don't have to worry about the details, and through that, in my prayers since then, unless God absolutely tells me, pray this way, I will always pray in a way that your will be done, because I don't know it, and that was something I'm now joyful for, because I, after that one very painful experience, I do know my prayers are heard, but I know I can trust him with the outcome, regardless of whether it makes sense to me or not. Yeah, and that's key. You know, we all have our desires of how we want things to turn out. You know, and I think sometimes God has his desires that are the same as yours. It doesn't mean that that's always going to work out that way, and it's hard to kind of say that, you know, God doesn't get his way, but when you live in a place of free will, especially in relationships, it takes two people to want the same thing and God, right, and it doesn't always work out that way.

Andy, what about you? So I talked about it a little bit on the first show, but before I do, I wanted to clarify a statement I made. I had this quote a little bit wrong, but I really like this. Life is understood backwards, but live forwards, and John Eldredge references that a lot, and that, you know, there was a time in my life that I wanted clarity, and it doesn't always come with the Christian faith, is that you always have clarity, but I think you do, whenever you're able to look at things like that, understanding that you're like that, understanding things backwards, but for me, I mean, I talk a lot. Probably the biggest thing that came in my life, like you, Sam, was separation from my wife and kind of our family splitting apart, and for a long time, three, four, five years, I wasn't mad at God. I was still pursuing him, but I didn't know that I necessarily could trust him, but not that I wasn't really putting it on him either. I knew I had my part to play in it. I didn't know where I was at for a while, but I did praise him. I continued to, but not like all the time, but there were times when I would just see his hand and his goodness and things, but I remember some really dark times of just really like, this is just going to go on forever, and I'm never going to get any, you know, I think the scriptures say the hope deferred makes the heart sick, and I felt like my heart was sick, and I just stayed in there with him, and over time, you know, I think I was really finding that work wasn't really that fulfilling at the time, and about that time, I made a job change, and I got involved with this ministry, and I continued to just, you know, pursue God in the way that I knew how, and I was learning new things. You know, just the wild heart message really impacted me, but just going forward in the last two, three years, just an incredible amount of change has happened to where my default has become much more like that Philippians 4-6 scripture about be thankful and everything, but with prayer and thanksgiving, make your requests be known to God, and to really thank him, because I see where he brought my heart from. I see how broken it was, and I see also how much I came. There were things that were limiting me in the way I understood things that, you know, something like a broken relationship had to get me to a point to where I would really look at things differently, but I can remember, you know, I've told the guys that the job that I took opened up a lot of opportunity for me to travel, and when I did, I would go out and I would just get in God's creation, and I would look for opportunities to praise him, and I can remember it was just a couple years ago where I just stood on this, I think it was the Colorado River in Arizona at Moab, and just raised my hands and praised him of where he had brought me from, and, you know, I'm still in the storm, but, you know, just to know that he had done so much in those few years that I'd spent time with him and him teaching me things, that it just changed my heart to where I could truly praise him. Yeah, and that's, thank you, Andy, for sharing that. I think that that's something we can all focus on this week is looking back, as we talked about at the end of the last show, and saying, God, where have you rescued my heart when I didn't see you stepping in? Go do that this week and walk with him. This is the Truth Network.