Memories of Fall Boot Camp After Hours

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk 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 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. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours and we are in our post Thanksgiving After Hours show. It's the first one after Thanksgiving, for what it's worth. No, we're actually a post boot camp After Hours, which is a big deal as well.

Yeah, sort of a poster child. Yeah, it sounds a bit like we all have a little turkey lag going on. We have, boot camp is amazing, but for the next few days, you know, up to a week, I'm kind of tired. We're tripping on tryptophan, man. We are. We had some turkey. Yeah.

Hey, man, you're tripping on tryptophan? Yeah, I better have a good time. We were very thankful for a great boot camp, though. Yes, we were.

And for the turkey. We are. Not were, but just are. We've been talking about the boot camp. We've been playing our favorite clips from the boot camp. And we're going to ask questions about around the boot camp from this last time. And if you don't know what a boot camp is, you probably haven't been listening to us. So you can go back and listen to some past shows, go to any of your podcast outlets, you know that they have any podcast, I think we're on pretty much all of them, for Masculine Journey. And so you can pick it up there. Obviously, you picked this one up at one of them. So go back and listen to some of the old shows. And the boot camp coming up next is coming up March 31, through April 3, 2022. So I know you probably don't have plans now. So men, you know, men crack me up.

You know, I love the boot camps and men's boot camps that we have. But invariably, we'll be setting it one number and it almost doubles within the last week. Yeah, every time as much as we promote far enough ahead and sometimes triples. It does.

It does. So mark it in your calendar now. I still don't know what I'm doing that week. You don't know we have a boot camp. Oh, okay.

Yeah, you do. And the week before, if you put it in your calendar, you'll know right now that's coming up right. Okay, so back to our favorite clips from from this last boot camp, and I'll go next. And, and this is from Rodney's talk, actually. And we've used the clip before on the show, but it always makes me laugh.

And it brings some really things to the forefront of my mind that I need to be reminded of pretty constantly. And so we're going to pick this up. And it's a it's a husband and wife. And she's beginning to talk about just all this pressure and stress she's feeling.

And then he tries to step in and help her with that. And so we're gonna listen to it and come back. I just think it's helpful because you can see it when you watch the clip to actually know that there's a big nail sticking out of her forehead, a physical nail sticking out of her head. And so, you know, it's pretty obvious, you know, what what the situation is, because there's a nail in her head.

Yeah, so we're gonna pick it up and go from there. It's just, there's all this pressure, you know. And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me. And I can just feel it, like, literally feel it in my head. And it's relentless. And I don't know if it's gonna stop.

I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's ever gonna stop. Yeah. Well, you do have a nail in your head. It is not about the nail.

Are you sure? Because, I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there- Stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing- You always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail out- See, you're not even listening now. Okay, fine. I will listen.

Fine. It's just, sometimes it's like there's this achy, I don't know what it is. And I'm not sleeping very well at all.

And all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them. Yeah, that sounds really hard. It is. Thank you. Ow! Come on!

If you would just- Don't! Should have probably set it up, but then they tried to kiss. And so they hit heads and he hits the nail and then just starts it off again. And so, um, Harold, I want to get your thoughts on this because you were laughing through that whole clip. So obviously there was something that was striking a chord with you. Oh, I've watched that video several times and showed it to other people. And it just always is so funny to me because it's so typical. Women want you to listen and we want to fix the problem.

We couldn't care less about the listening part. Have you shown it to your bride? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

You're a brave man. She tolerates a lot out of me. Yeah. For me, this clip is always so good to remind me that I'm never going to fully understand a woman's heart because I'm not a woman, right?

I don't even know if I fully understand my heart, you know, as a man, right? Let alone trying to, another, it's not a race, another species or whatever it is, you know, whatever that is, you know, the other- Gender. Gender. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.

You guys got the- He took that species of Klein and Zegers. I know. Well, I was thinking it and I saw you mouth it and I'm like, okay, I'm good.

But no, you get it. I kind of think I'm going to figure this thing out. And then I realize, and what I love about this part in the talk, and Rodney did a great job of talking through this is, you know, we are both men and women made in God's image, right? We're equally made in his image, but we're just made differently in his image, you know? And so what women bear in his image, and again, as a generality is, you know, tenderness, thoughtfulness, you know, all these things that men don't tend to be, you know, they tend to do it more often.

We do it very less often, right? You know, and men have their strengths. And so it reminds me of a couple things. It reminds me of, it's okay that I'm not going to figure this all out, right? I just got to walk with God through it because he's the only one that's going to help me understand, right?

Because obviously I'm not going to get there on my own. And so he understands both men and women quite well, right? And the other part is, is, you know, that's a reflection of God. And I got to appreciate that as much as it can frustrate me sometimes, right?

Because I do just want to solve it. Harold, I just want to say, well, if you just do this, it's done, boom, we're gone. Let's watch a movie, you know, but no, it's, it's more to it than that.

I can remember the specific conversation between Michelle and myself, and she looks at me and goes, I do not want you to fix it. I just want you to listen. And I'm thinking, what good is that? Yeah. Just perplexed. Yeah.

I want one of those little chest timers. When it's time to listen, I can just go done, done, done, you know, like that. But no, it, and I get it. I understand that people don't want to be listened to and don't want to be solved. And, and I understand that in my own life, there's times I just want to be listened to, not necessarily solved, but just get something off my chest.

Right. But that's more so in the relational nature of their heart, that that's, that's vital to them. Now I'm going to start with all generalizations are wrong, including this one, but men have that as a rule, have that tendency to want to fix things.

I mean, that's what makes this funny. And women are looking for a connection emotionally. But I think God was very, I mean, I know God did it on purpose, but think about if you were able to fix your wife and get her the way you think she's supposed to be, you'd then go on to the next project. Yeah. I'm never going to figure out my wife. We've been together for a long time closing in on the big 50. What's that like, Harold? But it really is a matter of, you know, there every day is a new challenge and that's good.

It's not a problem. But yeah, having that, uh, feeling as opposed to fixing can go a long way in keeping things happy in the home. I know that John Heldrich writes, you know, about how he designs women and men differently so they can round off the rough edges. But you think after 50 years, there couldn't be any rough edges left.

You think it'd be like a river stone at that point. The thing that again, what I find more than beautiful is we have the opportunity to take what we learn through the scriptures and through John Heldrich and all that stuff. And when you have to do the talk, you finally learn the material.

Like you've seen the talk, I don't know how many times if you've been to a lot of boot camps, but we get an opportunity to really focus when we do it. And the thing I learned about the talk that Rodney did, which is called the beauty talk, is we talk about the rescue, the beauty all the time. And this is the thing that just resonates in my heart when I think about that is it says you are to be like tender with her brokenness in this case, the nail, right? But you're supposed to be fierce towards her enemies and that what a cool thing to understand as a husband is like when, and often unfortunately, the kids are the enemy, right?

Like last night, I can remember one of my kids was struggling over when we were going to go do the Christmas tree and this big, huge thing broke out. What my wife's expectation was is that Robby to the rescue, right? Because I'm supposed to be fierce towards her enemies and tender towards her brokenness. And so what a cool thing, you know, from my standpoint is to see, isn't that exactly what Jesus is? Isn't that how he loves the church is he's, you know, fierce towards my enemies and tender towards all the shenanigans.

We decided at boot camp shenanigans is a Hebrew word, Keith, in case you wondered. Yeah. The challenge becomes like, even in your story there, Robby, you've got, you get a couple of beauties there. Cause what I was going to say is understanding this message, you know, I'm not currently dating anyone or anything like that, but it helps me understand my relationship with my daughters better, you know, that they want to be listened to. Right. And when I can keep that in the right context, I can really help their hearts a lot just by being there to listen and letting them sound off.

And even a mother-in-law or next mother-in-law is the case might be an aunt. Yeah. You know, it's, it's really neat to, to see that. And again, we didn't show the clip, but you know, the Jean Valjean, um, from the movie Les Misérables.

I just thought I'd say it for you. Or did Nanny Les Mis something? Yeah. Les Misérables. But anyway, you know, there's, there's this scene in the, what's his name?

Venecence. What's I can't think of his name that plays in that because there was three or four different Les Misérables. You mean like Javert?

Liam Neeson. Right. Him. Oh yeah. Right. He goes from this convict who's accepted this label, right.

Which we talked about in the poster that we accept this label has made this agreement that this is who he is to becoming this new creation, you know, and then once he's got his whole heart back, he's able to speak in to, uh, uh, what's her name? Um, yeah. Fantina. Yeah.

Fantines, you know, where, where she obviously you've done that. Yeah. Maybe you do it next bootcamp so you learn it's for. It's a beautiful example of a guy who steps up, protects her like crazy, and then she kind of comes onto him.

But yet instead he, he, he offers a genuine strength to her and his tender towards her brokenness. So yeah, I will say the clips that we use from bootcamp are so much better than the movie. We picked the best parts. That's for sure. Uh, Danny, you have a clip, right? You're going to actually kick us off into the next season in the Christmas season. Yes.

Clip is from Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and it's where they arrive at the Island of misfit toys. And you see some interesting characters and bootcamp. You see some interesting characters.

And so usually in the mirror, usually in the mirror. Yes. Either that or well, we'll go ahead and play the clip.

It's going to go downhill quick. We'll go ahead and play this. Jack. No, Charlie. That's why I'm a misfit. My name is all wrong. No child wants to play with a Charlie in the box. So I am here.

Where's here? A scooter for Jimmy. How would you like to be a spotted elephant or a choo choo with wheels on your caboose? Or a water pistol that shoots jelly? No misfits. How would you like to be a bird that doesn't fly? I swim. Or a cowboy who rides an ostrich.

Or a boat that can float. We're all misfits. If we're on the island of haunted toys, we'll miss all the fun with the girls and the boys when Christmas is here.

The most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day of the year. We're all misfits too. Maybe we could stay here for a while. Well, you'd have to get permission from King Moonraiser. Dr. Q, King Moonraiser.

I'm not sure who King Moonraiser is. But in Psalms 133, it talks about the brethren dwelling together in unity. And that's where the anointing falls. And it is always interesting how God puts people together that are, you normally wouldn't hang out with them. And the different personalities, but to see the camaraderie and see this conversation happening and that conversation happening and we were even talking about you know, two people that travel together and they were just different as day and night. So it's just interesting.

I want to be a dentist. That's Hermes. Hermes from the, yeah, it's not very good with Hermes. But still I'll practice it between now and Christmas. I got time. So Robby, you had a question for the group, did you not, that you wanted to ask? I know it's been burning.

You just went, I can't wait to get to it. I know I'm shooting it right at Wayne. Wayne, what was your favorite memory of boot camp?

Well, I'm a little biased, right? You know, but I think mine was definitely Wayne's wildfire. And not so much for, I mean, this year's, we talked about it, this year's was one of the wildest fires we've ever had. But honestly, the best parts of that fire are always the men who stick around after everyone leaves. There's almost inevitably always two or three guys that stick around who, you know, God wants to speak into their lives and a few men stay back and we get into these conversations and it opens them up even more to hear from God the rest of the week. You know, it just amazes me how God does that all through the week with all of us, you know, and other men, you know, you talked a minute ago about how some men, you know, gathered around that aren't even part of the boot camp and start talking with one another and ministering to one another. And God just always does that. He always aligns the right people at the right time to heal some wounds that we don't even realize we're there to get healed.

So yeah, if you would, the first night when you see everybody coming in, Danny, you couldn't have described it more accurately, the island of misfit toys. You know, I mean, you just have every walk of life, you know, coming in, you know, every financial group, right, is represented. Just all the demographics are pretty well represented in one way or another.

And yet God has a plan for that particular group. You know, it's always the exact right people that are there at the exact right time. And yeah, I even, you know, towards the end of the camp, as everybody's packing up and leaving, I'm watching guys again, who aren't even a part of the ministry, taking pictures together and trading information, you know, contact information.

So it's really fun to watch. Yeah. Did you have anything else you want to say, Danny?

Not at the moment. Well, what's your favorite part about boot camp? I think mine would have been the listening prayer.

Just simply because it stretched me in a way that I didn't believe, but to watch the, it was almost like guys, you didn't think we were going to say anything or have any part of it engage and then realize that God is listening and he is speaking and just the interchange that we had in our own group that was just, and then to hear the stories from another group, how different it was, but yet it was the same. Yeah. Um, Robby, do you mind explaining what listening prayer is? You know, uh, we don't do it every boot camp. We do it at the ones God feels like we feel like God's telling us to.

Yeah. It feels really awkward and very risky when you sit to do it. But you, we broke up in teams of about seven with each group having one or two members of the team there. And then we say, okay guys, there's no preaching allowed. We set some guidelines and say, well, we're going to start out. We're just going to ask God for a name and we're going to, if you hear a name, that's all you're going to say is I hear bill or I hear Jerry or whatever name you hear. And we wait until we get confirmation on who God wants to speak into generally is the way, but you know, it was kind of neat.

The stories that came out of this. And then after we've got some confirmation on who God wants to speak to, then we all just simply listen for what God wants to speak to that person. And you know, that's the setup, but Oh my goodness, where God takes that. Um, we've never not done it and not gotten blown away, but you know, sometimes we risk it and sometimes we don't. Well, and I think we do it when we're, we feel like we're called to do it.

We're trying to, trying to listen. You know, there's parts of boot camp that is pretty structured. You know, you do it at every boot camp and then there's a free following element where we say, okay, God, what else do you want?

What's unique for this camp that you want? And just as we randomly split up, we, we, we paired off in teams and that part wasn't random. But when we, you know, you were up there and you said, just count off around the room, right?

I didn't know if you're going to start on the right or the left in the middle, whatever. And they counted off one to four and we split into groups. And so, you know, God knew who was going into each group and they all were in the right group, you know, as we heard back of, uh, and they were all completely different.

You know, the experience with God, what was consistent about it was God touched hearts and move people closer to him. Yeah. I think what was cool too was, you know, sometimes you get some resistance to this cause it's, it takes us out of our comfort zone. How much more does it take somebody other comfort zone?

That's never done it before. But from what I saw in our group, you know, some people spoke out a little bit more, but it seemed like everybody was receptive and understood the idea and like, okay, yeah, God does talk. And so many of them did hear from God and during that, during, you know, their own personal time in covenant of silence, but then during the listening prayer as well.

Yeah. And our group really cool. Um, that was such a diverse group. Again, we had one of the guys from the rescue mission was there and he'd been homeless. And then there was a guy that was in our group that felt called to the homeless. And that was the guy that we ended up feeling like God wanted to speak to. But as, as we started to speak into him, obviously he was, since that was his calling into homeless ministry, then obviously the guy from the rescue mission, you know, began to receive that which caused actually another guy that was from the same church as the other guy. And the next thing I knew God was speaking into everybody in the group in some really cool ways. And clearly everybody came away from the experience seeing that God was, you couldn't orchestrated that in a million years. Um, the way all those answers came and you could see really what God had for this group. Yeah. Our group, uh, Danny, it was, um, you know, we said, Hey, let's listen for a name. And next thing you know, we're here and everybody's name that's coming out. And I think that, you know, you'd probably echo the statement that, you know, God had something to say to everybody in there. He did. Thank you.

I got nothing. It was, uh, it was interesting because what little bit came, someone said they saw me in a bubble bath and I thought, where are we going with this? It broke my prayer concentration. I had a lot more than prayer concentration at the time. I'm just like, I had a hard time getting that image out of my mind.

I'm still praying over that right now. This oddly feels a little like deja vu with the live radio show there. So, uh, Andy, you have the microphone in front of you.

What was your favorite part about, uh, bootcamp? I'm asking Robby's question for Robby. Well, it kind of goes back to Danny's clip and just the whole idea of this island of misfit toys. I mean, God doesn't see any of us as being miss misfit in, you know, in his perspective, it's the way man sees upon the other man's heart. But with that said, you know, we do come from a diverse background. We have a lot of unique brokenness in us.

You know, it talks about, we've talked many times about Isaiah 61, where it talks about, he came to set the captives free to heal the broken hearted. And a lot of times I used to say, that's got to be somebody, not me. That's somebody that's really had it rough or whatever.

We all, we, I mean, that's what you hear in the boot camps and the talks. Every one of us has our story of brokenness. It's on the stage. Everybody in the, in the audience has their own brokenness and that's the way God does it. That's how we help fix each other is talk about our brokenness to one another. And I think it was all that buildup of us sharing from the stage, but more as more than that is everybody sharing individually. Like when you were talking about how guys were bonding and taking pictures together, nobody told them to do that.

They did it because they chose to and they wanted to, and that's where their hearts were. Jim, what about you? I was sorry.

I pass the mic to Danny because that was my choice too, is the listening prayer. But there was one highlight for me is watching. This was a man, he wasn't in there for the whole boot camp. He just came for Saturday and thing after there, there were like four, maybe five things.

And Wayne was part of that group too. And every time something was said, it looked like he'd been punched to the gut. He was jumping and it wasn't even a punch to the gut. It was like a shock that God would really be talking to him right then and there. I mean, he was amazed. It was, it really touched him.

Um, I am pretty sure he'll come back to a boot camp, but beloved brother. And it was the weird, the, the words were, even the name was kind of weird and it worked out that they were very specific for his situation. That was real joy to see for me. Robby, what about you? What's your favorite, uh, memory from boot camp? Well, on a very personal note, you know, in my own covenant silence time, I, I was, it was funny cause Andy Tate took part in this. I went out there and I was like, God was like, I want to show you something. And so I thought he wanted me to get up and walk and show me something. And so I go through that covenant, don't see it.

The next one I come and he says, I want to show you something. And there is a daggum watermelon plant in this, the rocks that are there in the amplifier. So it's a really gravel thing. And this, somebody must have spit a watermelon seed and this watermelon did not know it wasn't supposed to grow where it was planted. And so right at my feet is this watermelon showing me clearly there could be fruit.

If you grow where you're planted. Thank you, Robby. And we do have a boot camp coming up if I haven't said it three times now already, but it's right. The date's down. It's March 31st through April 3rd, 2020, 2022. We want to have you there. Go to the reg register at the website now, if you'd like, and we'll talk with you next week, enjoy the rest of your weekend and spend some time just celebrating time with God this week. This is the truth network.