What Makes You Come Alive

Hello, this is Will Hardy with Man Talk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Network Podcast.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now.

Welcome to the masculine journey. We are very glad that you're with us today. And you know, I was excited. I thought we were going to have pretty much everybody back, you know, that's here on a weekly basis. And then Andy bailed at the last minute.

Can you guys believe that? It was, I mean, it was like he just flew in from what, what state? St. Louis. St. Louis. Well, the state would be Missouri.

State, Missouri. I thought it would get a little more specific. It's kind of like it's in Boone and he just wasn't up to driving all the way over here and then driving back to Boone.

It's unthinkable. Well, he just, he just came from Charlotte. It wasn't like it was that far away, but his arms are really tired. You know, I mean, Wayne drove from like a lot further than that to get here. I'm just saying.

Oh, he really did. Yeah. He came from Virginia. Yeah. Oh, that's a whole nother state. Yeah. You want to name a city in that state? I just wonder if we could pronounce it properly. The Virginia version or the North Carolina version. Yeah.

I can't say either one. I think it's Wayne-ton. Wayne-ton. Yeah. This is south of Waynesville.

Waynesville. Yeah, that's what it is. It's the birthplace of Jeb Stuart.

That's what it really is. He's let, what, maybe two miles from there. I don't know who Jeb Stuart is.

He was born in Virginia. Okay. Barely. We're going way off track here. Yeah, no.

I know I'm not finding life in this part. I'm just saying. So, Jim, this is your topic this week and I actually am saying it to the right person for the right reason it is your topic.

And it is what brings us to life and one of my after that is studying history, particularly the war of northern aggression. Okay. Okay. Little wicked political turn there, but that's okay. That's okay. You know who won the war.

Anyway, we'll just keep going. You think it's a scoreboard? Scoreboard. Just look at the scoreboard.

Four score and a lot of years ago. Just saying. Anyway, the topic, what makes you come alive and obviously joking with each other makes us come alive and that's why you hear us do it every week. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much every week and picking on who's not here. That's good.

Andy, I hope you feel loved. Yeah. We picked on you a little bit last week. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You actually did. Yeah. You said some good stuff to us and it was surprising.

Yeah. Anyway, onto the topic, Jim, help us understand what you mean by where do you find life? What makes you come alive? You know, help, help the listeners understand, you know, what you're thinking with that. When this topic came to me, my wife and I were on vacation up in the mountains away from most reception and just loving to be in God's creation and that brought me to life.

I mean, I felt like I could breathe once I got above 2,000 elevation and that is one of my joys and that's what had me think of this topic and from that point, I realized there's so many things that both kill my heart and bring it to life and I wanted to focus on the things that each, and it's different for different people, although some things we do share in common and that's kind of what I wanted to talk about and see in my brothers tonight. Sounds great. Robby, you have the actual first clip, so if you want to set that up. Yeah, absolutely. It's from a movie called The Good Dinosaur and as soon as I heard the topic like what makes me come to life, anybody that knows me, just the thought of boot camp in any way, shape, or form, you know, brings it to life and we're like in any camp, right? One of the scenes that's classic is the campfire scene and we have Wayne who's, you know, does Wayne's wildfire experience and I got to tell you when I think back to some of the classic campfire discussions, especially the last boot camp with corn and some of the stories that get told and so here we have some dinosaurs. They've had some some wounding which has a lot to do with boot camp and now they've got scars and so like all men, they're going to compare their scars and the young man there has got a little lesson to learn on fear. That's a good one.

Gonna scar up real good. That's nothing. Look at this. I run into 15 outlaw stagos. They're all bigger than me and meaner to me. What happened? Fought them off, of course.

Was winning too. Then one gets his dang spiky tail stuck in my foot and pulls. Whoa.

Still can't feel my toes. Which comes in handy when you're kicking piles of bolts. She's jealous. Fellas. Once a stampede of longhorns was coming right at me but my tail was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was dead for sure so I chewed the dang thing off. Who does that?

Nobody does that. That was crazy. I'm surprised you don't have one right across your face. Butch, how'd you get your scar? I don't know if you're ready for that story. I can take it. Oh yeah, you got a dump.

That's a good one. It was a hundred degrees in the shade. I walked for five days with no water. Then I saw it.

A pretty pond. I bent down to take a drink when these crocs launched out of the water. One croc bit me on the face. Ain't no way I wasn't that separate.

Except for one thing. I wasn't ready for dying that day. I bit one croc in half, tail whipped the other, and the last one. Well, I drowned that croc in my own blood. Whoa.

Dang. Oh, look, look. Gives me little gooses every time. I love that story.

You guys would have liked my papa. He wasn't scared of anything. I'm done being scared. Who said I'm not scared? But you took on a croc. And I was scared of doing it. If you ain't scared of a croc biting you on the face, you ain't alive. Listen, kid, you can't get rid of fear. It's like mother nature.

You can't beat her or outrun her. But you can get through it. You can find out what you're made of. Yeah, so there's so many things in that clip that relate to boot camp. And I really, you know, it's just really neat that we have this two times a year.

Like we get ready and we got one coming up in November. And there's a lot about that that has to do with fear. There's a lot that has to do with wounding and scars. But then there's a great deal of finding out that you have what it takes. And in order to find out if you have what it takes, you got to be tested. And, you know, that's in that scene. And part of the test, as far as I'm concerned, is you're sitting there listening right now, right? Is are you willing to go on that adventure with God and sign up for a boot camp and see if you can go there and find more of your heart?

Because that's the whole deal. He wants you to live with a whole heart. When you brought up this topic, Jim, you know, boot camp came actually to mind.

And it was one of my first boot camps, actually, my very first boot camp in Colorado. And John shared the quote from Howard Thurman, right? And it says, Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that, because what the world needs is people that have come alive. Right. And it was a very monumental thing for me, because it made me really focus on what are the things that make me come alive, you know, at that point in my life, because I think these are sometimes a seasonal thing. Yeah, there's some things that make you come alive your whole life.

Right. But then there's also things that I think God has in a season. You know, in my first season of this, I came back from my first boot camp and started a youth movie Bible study.

We called it, we always had the same questions. Where did you see God in this movie? You know, who is the God character?

Who is the Satan character? You know, just stuff that simple from boot camp, and the kids loved it. You know, and it was for that season, it was such a great time for me, my girls were in youth, you were able to do that.

And that season passed, you know, and then it went to another season, which ended up leading into, you know, boot camps and the things that we do now. But God was just making those things come alive at different times for me. And coming alive to me is really more of a state of mind and heart than it is what you're going through.

Adventures have always thrilled me, and I'm good watching them on TV now, where I lived a lot more of them years ago. But it's, it is always, there's always something to learn. There's always something to experience.

And the only ones that really matter are the ones that are coming from God. And that is obviously our focus here, but it really needs to be the focus of what brings us to life. Because we go after a lot of things that just kill us. Chris Yeah, and I think some of those things, the enemy is good at masking to make you feel like you get life, initially, right?

You know, why do you guys get hooked on pornography? Because at some level, it feels like there's some glimpse of life there, of one sort or another, you know, however you want to call that. But there's death that comes from it. This is what we're talking about when God helps you find things that bring you to life, adventures with him, those different things, things that he lays on your heart for ministry. Chris One of the things that hit me in Robby's clip is fear.

It can go either way. It can let you experience that you do have what it takes. It can have you fighting the good battle and coming out on top, like Sam did. We'll go call him Sam.

I love Sam Elliott. So that was a hook for me. But it also can fear can put you in a hole where you're not really living.

You're just you're breathing, but you're no longer alive. And I think we see that a lot in our society right now. And that breaks my heart. Chris Yeah, it's gonna kind of change gears on you here, Jim, just a little bit. Got a 55 second clip.

I want to go ahead and play real quick. But it's on the topic of fear. Keith, we have 55 seconds.

No, we do not. So we'll do it later on in the show. But we'll talk about it. So for those of you that haven't talked and talking, what a great word.

I will wordsmith today. For those of you that have not spoken yet. What what what in this topic, Rodney can speaks to you. Thank you, Wayne. I had I had a great trouble trying to figure out what made me come alive, because there is no like one thing other than Jesus.

That's the easy, obvious answer. And when I hear a great sermon, or I hear some great podcasts, and I think about God in a different way, and our boot camps, when God comes live differently than he ever has before, those things make me come alive. But those moments in regular life that can make me come alive, just vary so much.

A lot of it's with family, doing just regular family things that are traditional that we always do, and the family gets together to something that's very mundane and everything about and all of a sudden there's the of that little God moment where that little spark that just comes up and says, Oh, Lord, thank you for that because I wasn't expecting that. Thank you, Rodney. In the break time, why don't you go and register at masculine journey.org for the boot camp coming up in November 18th through the 21st. What if one weekend wasn't up to you that you could go and God would orchestrate it all masculine journey boot camp basic training designed to give men permission to be how God made them passionate warriors for the kingdom based on John Eldridge's wild at heart experience four days purpose for God to come after and perhaps reawakened dreams and desires he uniquely placed in your masculine heart fall boot camp coming up November 18th through the 21st. Go to masculine journey.org and register today. Hi, this is Sam with masculine journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're gonna talk about ways that you can help support the ministry. One way you can go to smile.amazon.com. Go to smile.amazon.com. There's information on our website there on how to do that. You go to facebook.com and click the donate button or you can go to masculine journey.org and find the donate button masculine journey.org or if you want to mail something in mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina 27285. So Jim that was uh your bump so if you want to tell us a little bit about it. Well it is my bump it's not normally my genre but if you want to hear a really great version of that come hear my daughter singing at our church sometime. It is it's one of the more modern ones that really does move me and that's one and that's part of it you know we are we do come alive.

We are dry bones. I'm feeling drier and bonier than ever in my life but uh he we can come alive in him and that's that's really what brings me to life plus it was a real easy search you look for come alive and it pops right up there. Yeah it's pretty much in the lyrics there the chorus. You want to tell us about your clip that you want to play here? Yeah the clip will probably be shorter than the setup but we've had a rod excuse me a bunch of those and not too recent history. I guess that was three or four weeks ago we were picking on him. I was picking on him for that because he went longer than I did after I rambled like I am now. Yeah but this this is it is from butterfly circus it's about a 21 or two minute clip. 21 or two minute movie that everybody should pull up on youtube and watch but this clip is the circus master who is showing all of the circus performers your the what you're seeing up front you're not seeing because this is radio but it's them dancing and doing all of their strengths and showing what they can do that's pretty amazing stuff and then he comes over and talks to the new fella in the circus who has no arms and no legs and he has been a a freak show and you will hear what the old guy would say about him when he was introducing him and this is really about it doesn't matter what you're coming from it's what you're going to that gives you life yeah and there's a little bit of a changeover in the middle of it and it's where they've been showing their backstory right you know there's a skipped area where you're seeing that all of them had terrible times until they found their glory in the circus ladies and gentlemen here are some boys what this world needs is a little water splendid isn't it the way they move full of strength color and race they're astounding but you curse from birth a man if you can call him that who got himself turned his back upon stop it why would you say that because you believe it but if you could only see the beauty that can come from ashes are they different from me yes you do have an advantage the greater the struggle the more glorious the triumph now jim in this this clip you have the circus master that plays the god character right and from without without the right context what he said can sound extremely mean oh it was well and then jesus did that he would say exactly what you're thinking about yourself and it would come across me you know do you really want to be healed well of course we all do but he believed that about himself and as long as we're stuck in that self-image of you know i'm not gonna amount to anything i don't and nothing gets me excited anymore if you're in that place you've definitely got no problems greater than what this man did certainly not physically and he had it emotionally and spiritually he thought he was useless and having that directed back at him because that was what the previous freak show guy had said introducing him and he'd get spit on and all kinds of awful things that happen and he accepted that he bought into the lie that he had nothing to give and if you have stop it yeah and that's where you know in loving kindness god does step in he will right and he has to break through that so you can see that there is hope on the other side of that the uh i guess i'll jump into it quickly now but i've had an experience this week with a cousin that doesn't really know god because he's been on the opposite end of the scale he's very successful he's everything he's ever tried to do he accomplished but right now he is living in fear of and has rejected me because of vaccination status which to me is just sad i mean i the vaccine vaccine may be a great thing i don't know and that was my point i don't know but he condemned me because of that and he is holed up in his nice house in charlotte and not living and that broke my heart yeah you definitely can do that you know it's hard to be in that place danny you have some thoughts today yeah kind of the microphone keeps coming over here so i thought about this topic and and you know the uh in kind of a tough spot in life and um dealing with a lot of death and death is coming and just lost a father-in-law and losing a mother but i thought about about a story forgive me where you know communion means something to me i was blessed to go on a mass walk and we did communion a different way and you know having come out of addictions and thought i was living jim you know living it up so to speak but i was dying on the inside and come through this journey this amazing journey god's had me on and um we did communion and you know i didn't know whether god loved me or not but when i stood up hard to explain but when i stood up another guy hugged me i didn't ever see his face at that moment but it was literally the arms of jesus and i knew it was loved and that's life to know you loved well thank you danny appreciate that um jim if you want to play the last clip you should probably set it up so we can talk about it uh well i was actually gonna do that in the second part of the show but we can do that now no we can do it in the second part of the show i'm easy i did want to say that i was very appreciative and i don't know why we've never done it before but danny did have us doing communion before the show and in church services that is a focal point for me actually experiencing god in a very real way and so that meant a lot to me and want to thank you for that tonight danny and and i do identify and that is the time i come to life anytime there's an encounter that's a god encounter that's that is a living moment and those are dwarf everything else in my life that's been fun but and i'm a fun loving guy but the experiences that have been with god both heartbreaking and joyful are much better than the happy little episodes we seek sometimes to our own detriment yeah i think we're going to find you know as we talk the rest of this show out and through the next show that it's it is those times with god whether it's an individual adventure or a collective adventure right that we're doing together you know there's some things that we'll share in the after hours that we all kind of have the same kind of story you know we all like the outsides and you know being in the wilderness kind of thing in different ways you know and then we're going to have some unique ways that god really takes us on an adventure as well when i was pointing at you because you're looking at me you're the one talking yeah i'm looking in your yeah um so i didn't really get to talk about what brings me alive you know in the beginning in our green room session there but um yeah i've gotten to do a lot of things in life i was a bull rider i rode motocross i've raced cars i've i've i'm kind of like jim's you know cousin who could achieve anything that i put my mind to and my answer is the only one i know now is to walk in the will of the father i've had more adventures in the last seven years than any of that combined the joy that's brought me i mean the things that he has me do yeah fear is involved because what i'm learning is if if if you think you're here and father call you to something and you can do it on your own it's probably not him um he asked us to step out in things that require our faith in him and and um and it has it is taking me on some amazing adventures i've been without a job for a year and a half now um you know no no income no no help from uncle sam you know nothing of that stuff this is me trusting totally on father and in the midst of that there's been struggles there's been hurts there's been pain i haven't gotten it all right every time um but that's part of the learning experience and the growing in faith and and learning that he is here with this and so for me the the greatest part of and it's kind of like what you talked about it um danny it's my heart is for others to know that he loves them and that they can hear his voice that he wants a relationship with you he doesn't require a man on a stage every sunday to reach your heart if you'll listen he does he uses us we're all we're all donkeys that he rides the back up right he rides us into town and he uses our voices from time to time to love on each other but he wants a relationship with you it even says in scripture there'll be a day when if a man comes up to you and prophesies you'll stone him to death because you'll hear from father on your own um and that's that's his desire for us um that that's where we live from or where we should live from wow that's a lot to chew on you asked it's got a lot for me to ponder there yeah uh no those adventures with god there are the way that it is and when we go into the after hours we're going to talk more about specifically where he has us today right in this area everybody but rodney because he's still figuring it out i'm teasing rodney now uh but please consider coming to the boot camp coming up november 18th through the 21st i know we talk about it a lot and we talk about a lot because it's so impactful you know i can't even count the number of them i've been to and every one of them been unique and every one of them god has had something for me and i can promise you i don't know what that is for you but i can promise you has something there for you so go register at masculine journey dot org for the upcoming boot camp november 18th through the 21st and join us for the after hours you can download it at any podcast location we'll talk to you next week this is the truth network