Beauty to Rescue After Hours

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. 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. Well, welcome to the Masculine Journey After Hours, and today's topic, we had talked about rescuing the beauty in our broadcast, and so, as promised, you know, we're gonna go a little deeper.

You know, my question and... I think we flipped the show there, didn't we, Robby? Oh, no, we're going deeper. See, we went deep in the last one, but we are deeper. Oh, we started in the first grade, and we're gonna go all the way through. No, we're not gonna go through college.

We're actually, we might make it a third or whatever. So, all right, so you remember, Andy, do you remember? Yeah. Right.

Ever passing the love note, was that something? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we're talking about rescuing the beauty like with a core desire. God has got this desire to rescue, right? And so the idea of this whole series on the core desires is we have a heart, because God has that heart. Yeah, yeah. And so awakening our hearts and becoming wholehearted to see all that God really had for us was this idea that it was a really good thing when we were crushing. Yeah. We didn't know it, but we've hidden that. Yeah. And so we gotta go back to that point where you were passing the notes, Andy.

Yeah, so the passing of the notes, you know, that desire was awakened, you know, and it is in men, but, you know, kind of like it is when we get to be adults, you know, when we start passing the note, it was usually something like, you know, do you love me, yes or no? No, it was like. We didn't go as far. Well, that's true.

That's true. It was like. I like you, too.

You like me. But a lot of times, you didn't even have the guts to go and do it yourself, so you had to have somebody else take it. Oh, yeah.

Or ask the little friend. So we brought desire with no skill, right? And great fear and trepidation. In trepidation.

Exactly. And so most of those times, it probably, you know, I don't know, ended up the little friend that delivered the notes, the one that got the girl, because he had. So here's the question, Rodney.

We're going deeper. Can you remember this action? Like, you were going to call that girl, right? And you pick up the phone and you dial two numbers, hang up. Does this sound familiar? Pick it back up, dial three numbers, hang up. Oh, then, oh, man, you make the call.

Her dad answers. Does that sound familiar, Rodney? No. No. Not at all.

Really? Never had it happen? Never got to making the phone call.

Rodney didn't have a phone. How about the, did you do the love me, love me not with a flower thing? Do you remember that? I think I did.

I remember I've got some memory of some point in time probably doing that thing with some girl, but I have no idea who she would have been. That's where it's like, man, that's, that's way too far for me. You've buried it. We need to uncover.

We need to excavate. We often do hide those memories deep in our subconscious when they're unpleasant. So you had a really bad time up there. I guess so. How about a first grader? She shot you down, man. I can name girls that were cute back then when they were young. And it's like, but I, it was never like one specific, like, oh yeah, no big crush. It was just, oh yeah, she's cute.

And that one's cute. But that was it. Oh man.

I remember I got to sit next to Ann on the bus one time. No. Oh, it was, oh man. Yes. Go ahead, Jim. Go ahead. I was remembering it, Ann.

Of course. Jim, Jim's got one. If it's in the phone book, Jim's liked her. And what page was that on the, on the yearbook? Was Ann on? Ann was 11th grade. Oh, okay.

It's a little more serious, but she didn't know it either. I was in fourth grade back there, you know, on the bus, like, oh my goodness. It was the deal.

I mean, it just was. And so, you know, those are, those are memories that are really quite precious if you begin to just dig around in them. And so we would suggest to you that, like, yes, God has that for you. That same crush feeling that you can have it for God. But again, if you have that for your bride or for somebody you're pursuing, like, man, this is really fun. This was really, like, something that makes me come alive and makes me want to, you know, enjoy my life. Like, it's something that really is really a neat feeling and something that we are meant to have. So sometimes it goes wrong and you're in the river and you're being chased by an Indian. So, Andy. Yeah, something like that.

Thanks for the, thanks for setting my clip up there, Rodney. So yeah, this movie's from Last of the Mohicans. And it's really a weird time in the frontier. It's French and the Indian are going against, like, the settlers and the English. And there's this protagonist, Magua, that's chasing the settlers.

And so Hawkeye is talking to a beauty, somebody that he had connected with. And they're trying to escape these Indians. And they've gotten caught in a bad situation under this cave.

You hear the water pouring in. And it's kind of the whole thing about where the man is basically making his commitment to come after the beauty and make sure that she is rescued. Right, because what's happening is they're fixed to be overrun. Yeah, they're being chased, right.

They have no choice. But if they don't, if the men don't leave, then obviously the Indians are going to kill everybody. So the idea is if the men leave, maybe they'll leave the women alive and the men can come back and actually rescue the beauty.

And we won't do a total spoiler alert for you, but that's a bit of a setup for it. So yeah, in that clip, I mean, it was just that commitment that he would be there. I think, I don't know if this is true, but you hear that one of the biggest fears of women is to be abandoned. And this whole idea of rescue is a matter of a man coming after a woman's heart in a way that they're seen and they're appreciated and they're valued to the point that the man's willing to risk something to rescue them. And it's not like I think, Robby talked in the first show about me and my daughter, we had a conversation and she knows, you know, I've told her about, you know, one of the, that being one of the core desires for a man is to rescue the beauty. And, you know, that's kind of, it can be offensive to some women because it's like, well, you know, I'm no damsel in distress that needs to be rescued.

But I mean, God made a woman's heart, I believe, to be rescued by him first, God, but then a masculine heart with good intentions. So. And so you had a chance, right? We did.

Yeah. There was, there was shortly after that, after we had this discussion, you know, sometimes life is the best teacher. So there was a situation that came up and I'm not going to get into the detail, but after that situation, I said, do you see how I had to step in here and rescue this, doing this rescue for you, for your heart, because it was something that your heart needed. And, and she got it then because, you know, again, she wasn't, you know, my wife, she was my daughter, but the same principle applies that we have to go over to the hearts.

We're focusing on their needs and what, what we see in them and helping them achieve that. So even in the Garden of Eden, we see the original failed rescue, right? That, and you can see this portrayed in so many movies that Adam was right there and here came, you know, evil chasing after Eve, and this was Adam's moment to step in and rescue the beauty.

And unfortunately he failed to do anything. And, you know, we, we all know the result of that. Well, you know, if you watch, and I think many people have seen the Netflix movie, A Christmas Bride. Well, you know, here's the scene where there, you know, there's actually I think Christmas, a princess bride, you know, the Royal wedding is the, is the episode. And, and she wants to, you know, do her wedding her way and have her dress and all that stuff. And, you know, they have attendants that are making sure that she gets this dress and that, all that stuff. So they have this meeting with the, with the King and her, and he has this perfect opportunity to say, no, we're going to do it my wife's way.

Instead, he does not do that. And, and the big breakup happens right then when she, when he does not come to her defense. And so we see this played out in our lives constantly. Like if my kids start jumping onto my wife happens all the time, right? And here's my moment, even adult kids, right?

Cause I'm a little older. I'm fully aware that if you do not, then your wife heart gets crushed in this deal. And you've, you've missed out on this opportunity, at least see that this was where you were supposed to rise up and you were supposed to come to the rescue and okay.

How exactly to solve this work, Harold? Well, one of the ways that my sweetheart thinks I rescued her is that for years, she would ask me that I want her to get a college degree. Well, she didn't need a degree for me. I loved her from the moment we met, but I knew how important it was for her. So when she finally decided that she was going to go, I supported her totally.

I did library research. I typed her papers. I held her feet to the fire and wouldn't let her run away in the last month. And she thinks that that's the most wonderful thing in the world that I did for her.

She tells people that she could never have gotten her degree without me. And I wear that white hat with a big grin on my face. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and there it is, is an opportunity to actually step into these things, Jim.

One of the things I want to defend myself first. You did actually bring up a very painful memory. My first note was in the seventh grade to Debbie. I haven't thought about her probably since the eighth grade.

Okay. And she checked the no. Or she rejected me in the note. I never said another one until the twelfth grade.

And then we were already sort of chatting it, but that was a little bit. Most of mine were with my wife in first year of college. But all of these girls I had crushes on until the twelfth grade.

I never shared that with the girls. So they were all unrequited, unresponded. Unrequited meaning?

No response. They didn't even know. So I guess it wasn't even unrequited.

I loved them from a distance. But in the twelfth grade, I took a chance and failed. And that was the first one. And that was at seventeen. And a couple months later I went to college and met my wife and fell in love with her. And she was requited? In October. Not unrequited?

Yep. She requited. And that's the punch line I'm getting to because I told her, I mean we got married and, ok we're going to do it. We met in October and got married the following August. We were eighteen then. And we really rescued one another because it was us against the world at that point which brought us together in a real way.

And we were each other's first, which is very special and something to hold out for guys if you're in that position. But it really is a matter, and what I wanted to address was what you're talking about. You said, you know, that having that security is important. We all want love, male and female. But most guys will say that respect is more important than love. And most women will say security is more important than love. And it's not security as in, you know, I've got my house, garage, two and a half children. It is a security in relationships that is critical. And it is so easy for us to crush women just by not being there for them. And I did that to my wife multiple times.

But when we went to Alaska in 2000, 21 years ago, I finally got the respect I'd wanted all those years because I was willing to sacrifice for her when she was in a terrible place. So Harold, did you guys do notes on like papyrus? What did you use? Smoke signals. Smoke signals. Seriously, did you have some back in the day in the 40s? Was it probably when you were in elementary school? Yeah, mid 40s.

I would have been in elementary school. Yeah, there were little notes like that. You know, do you like me? Yes or no?

Please check. I think that's universal. Been around a long time.

If they did it in Alabama, you know, it's pretty much you know. So, you know, we obviously all are very thankful for all the years that you have and the experience. But you know, here we are. You know, you guys have been married what 50?

57 going on 58 come June. Right. And so I'm like, beyond blessed to have Harold and his wife in our regular meeting, we do Thursday mornings, the Christian Business Men's Committee, even though Jan always comes. And so I know as a couple that you two are as romantically involved at 80, maybe more so than you ever were, right? Yeah, I love her dearly. And she knows it. I make no secret about it. I think that's important for men to do. Too many men say, well, I told you I loved you on the day we got married.

If I change my mind, I'll let you know. Well, that's just being stupid. But what I want to get at it, you know, since we're going deeper is, he's 80. And it's still going on, guys. I mean, I don't know how to put it other than that. You know, it's, am I right, Harold?

And it's still going on. Like, you guys have a very intimate, very close, deep, beautiful relationship. Yeah, that is completely like date nights and all that stuff a lot.

Yeah. She loves the fact that I always open the car door for her. That's a practice that I started before we were married.

I'm not talking about opening the car door. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. But I'm talking about other ways of showing love and respect. So here's the thing, Harold. I don't think, you know, I imagine when I was a 30 or 40 year old man, I thought, man, by the time I get 80, this is going to be, you know, this thing in a word. But it's not like that at all, is it? Well, it changes, but it doesn't have to end. Yeah, it's a neat thing. But I think it's really helpful to have men around.

I do think it's helpful to have men around to tell you that, hey, you know, you can have a beautiful intimate relationship on and on and on. And I can't imagine what, you know, where it all is going. But, you know, I'm not up to Harold yet. But I still, you know, I'm still really, really thrilled to be married to Tammy 33 years. And I was like, man, I never thought it would get better and better and better and better.

But it does. Yeah. Because there is that sense of, man, nobody's going anywhere at this point. Well, one of the things that I have loved to talk about with with guys is the fact that when you're married to someone, as long as we've been married, there's an awful lot of remember wins.

You say, hey, sweetheart, you remember when, and we did this, we went there, whatever. So, you know, after 57 plus years, we got a lot of remember wins. Yeah, I'm with you.

I'm with it. Because and again, you raised a family. And now you've and now you've raised grandkids together.

I mean, you got grandkids that are all serving our country. Yeah. And, you know, just a really beautiful thing for people. Like, that is part of what I love about the masculine journey and the idea of being in community with young men, with, you know, men in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, because you get an idea of the whole spectrum of what God has.

And it's a treasure. One of the things that I think is really important is being willing to share. If, you know, if a younger guys is fixing to undergo something that you've been through, you know, we've talked about the scripture that talks about bringing comfort, where you've been comforted. And I think I think being willing to share your successes, and also your failures.

I think that's very important, because you can help people stay out of trouble by sharing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And or comfort them once they've gone into the same ditch that you've found yourself numerous times, right? I mean, there we are. Yeah. And so it's, you know, it really is. So Danny, usually you have tremendous words of wisdom for us. So I'm curious what you've been thinking over there. Think about how many times I've been in the ditch with these relationships.

They needed one of those, what is a motor grader, they cleaned the ditches out. You know, by the time I was 30, I was convinced I had no idea about relationships. I mean, I had just my life was not pretty at that point. But you know, God's redemption is great, because I'm now married to Michelle, not the one from first grade, if you listen for sure. It didn't work out that way. But you know, we will have been married 19 years next month.

And the redemption and the restoring of the things that the locusts have eaten have been great. And I love what somebody said about it, we kind of rescued each other. And because she'd been through two pretty traumatic marriages, especially the second one.

And he was not a nice guy. And sometimes she questions the third one. That's me. And you know, I'd been through two marriages and that guy, but there is that part of I love what Harold said that you remember when and Michelle and I spent the weekend at the beach by ourselves this weekend. And we were talking about the laughing that we do now, just us and the dog at the house, and we laugh and we cut up. And, you know, even after all this time, and I can't imagine if it just gets better and better.

We just giggle all the time, by the time we're 80. So it's pretty cool, right to have somebody around in your circle of friends, that that, you know, has had that, and you can, you know, glean from it, and whatever. So the idea again is your heart has all the capacity to love that it did when you were crushing on that girl in the third grade, and Jesus came to bind up the broken heart. And so we lose pieces of our heart.

We just do. But the neat thing about boot camp, I can honestly say in my own life, was it's shown me that it may hurt to go back into those places and ask Jesus to come in and help recover those little pieces of broken heart that were broken off along the way that have caused me to want to hide those desires and actually come alongside me in trying to restore, you know, what it was we originally designed to do. And so, you know, Rodney, I'm, you know, one of my neatest things, I get to see young men like you that have come up, you know, joined us at these boot camps out there rescuing, and so you've got the talk, the beauty, the rescue the beauty talk. Yeah, we're going in some deep waters here, because this talk is—every boot camp is one of those that you—I'm surprised at how much I get out of the talk, because everybody seems to do it differently and have different places where they're at when they do the talk. Because I remember Jim's last time, it just kind of blew me away, and I was just like, I'm like, why am I still getting blown away at this specific talk each time it comes up? I'm like, there's something there, right? So it's like, that's where I'm still digging around with God right now for this upcoming talk, and I've got way more notes than I got with more notes than I got time for, so it's like, okay, I've got to whittle down to what's important. You've got a 30-second clip you've got to set up, so go for it. Okay, want me to set that up?

Yeah. All right, so, men, when you go down the wrong path, and you're going to—as far as adultery that's in this clip here, this is Fatal Attraction, and this is how bad it can really get, guys. So, what can I get you? I've got scotch, I've got vodka, I just—I should leave— Just cut it! I don't know what you're up to, but I'm going to tell you it's going to stop right now. No, it's not going to stop. It's going to go on and on until you face up to your responsibilities.

What responsibilities?! I'm pregnant. I'm going to have our child. Alex, that's your choice, honey.

That has nothing to do with me. I just want to be a part of your life. Oh, this is the way you do it, huh? Showing up at my apartment? Well, what am I supposed to do? You won't answer my calls.

You change your number. I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan. That statement right there has stuck with me from the moment I heard it in that movie.

I'm not going to be ignored, Dan! And it's like, oh my gosh. That just jumped right out at me forever. I always remember that clip from that movie and what he got himself into. Watching the movie, I'm thinking, this isn't real. He's got a beautiful wife and a great kid and a great family life, all this wonderful life over here.

And he's going to go waste all that with her? It just, it made no sense until I got older and figured out there was more things going on in the world. But I just remember that so vividly of, wow, this is just messed up because I was probably too young to watch a movie like that, but yet was watching a movie like that because he had like HBO or something and he's like watching it late at night and you're the only one up yet. And you're just like, what the heck is going on here? But those kinds of relationships and those kinds of things are so real for so many people. And if you want to get restored, there's only one way to go and that's with Jesus.

And he's the only one that's going to be able to do that. We talk about what happened in the garden, like you were saying, and he's going to come for you at some point in time. And I'm just hoping as everybody says, yes, I want to be rescued. Yeah, because we obviously were talking about the core desire that we want to awaken in your heart, but we also, you know, part of the boot camp is we talk about battle, but then we're going to have a warfare talk. You know, we talk about adventure and then we got your place in the story talk to show how, you know, we're going to get into these that Sam was all buffaloed, right, Andy? And you actually can straighten him out now, so. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, back on adventure. So I went to Colorado boot camp in 2018, I believe it was, and Bart had talked to it. And Bart's always done the talk and he talked about desire and risk and validation that go into adventure and finding your calling. But there's three types of adventure that we deal with, casual being the kind of the kind of go out and find fun stuff to do.

Then you have crucial, where you're taking care of your family and your career and then critical adventure, you're calling what God's called you to do for the larger story in your life. So, Sam, we just want to get you straight there. You know, we don't want you to miss out on that.

Meanwhile, to get all that stuff, you got to go to MaslerJourney.org, register for the boot camp next week. We would so love to see you. And of course, you can always just email any of us. We'd love to deal with any topic you want us to. We're just so grateful that you listen and walk with us on this podcast all around the world. It's amazing. All the people that are listening, we thank you for doing that. This is the Truth Network.