Memories of Fall Boot Camp

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Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us today in this post-Thanksgiving celebration. You know, guys, I'm still full of turkey. I don't know about you, but it just, wow, just so much turkey. And dressing.

And dressing, yeah, mashed potatoes. Just a touch. And cordon bleu, too. Yeah, well, some had cordon bleu. Yeah, I mean, Danny. Yeah, he had to be different.

Dare to be different. But no, we are not talking about Thanksgiving, although we are very thankful just having come from a boot camp. We had it last week, and it was an amazing, amazing time. And so we're going to be talking about the post-boot camp radio show. That's what we're going to talk about today, just our experience of boot camp and get some clips in, our favorite clips from it and favorite stories and those types of things.

And so we hope you had a wonderful holiday that the family didn't drive you too nuts. I know it's not quite over for some of you, but you got it. You can make this. You got the power.

Just go to Jesus and ask for strength and you'll be fine. Anyway, Andy, you want to talk a little bit about your clip? Sure. So this clip is based on Thanksgiving. So coming out of Thanksgiving, if you had somebody that, you know, did a prayer like this, you may probably, you probably want to maybe invite them to the next boot camp. They, we can help them out in that area, you know, so, but it's, it's, this guy's going to meet the parents and it's their first Thanksgiving together and they've asked him to pray and it's kind of awkward. Yeah, it's, it's Greg and then DeNiro, Robert DeNiro plays the dad, right? And so we'll play it from the original meet the parents and Greg, the potential future son-in-law is getting ready to pray. Greg, would you like to say grace? Oh, uh, well, uh, Greg's Jewish dad, you know that. You're telling me the Jews don't pray, honey?

Unless you have some objection. No, no, no, no, no, I'd love to. Pam, come on, it's not like I'm a rabbi or something. I said grace in many a dinner table.

It's okay. Oh, dear God, thank you. You are such a good God to us, a kind and gentle and accommodating God. And we thank you, oh sweet, sweet Lord of hosts, for the smorgasbord you have so aptly lain at our table this day and each day by day, day by day by day. Oh, dear Lord, three things we pray, to love thee more dearly, to see thee more clearly, to follow thee more nearly, day by day by day. Amen.

Amen. Oh, Greg, that was lovely. Thank you, Greg. That was interesting, too. It was interesting. Yeah, so where did that get used at boot camp, Andy? So, yeah, yeah, okay, so I did the poser talk for the first time this time, and I, you know, I've got a few favorites around the poser, you know, the Mr.

Mom 220, 221 clip, but, you know, this was like, perfect timing with Thanksgiving coming up, and, you know, I've been that guy. I've been that guy praying, and, you know, it is kind of over the top on the pose, but, you know, there's a lot of times that, you know, we say things to impress the people that are around us, like, in a prayer like that, where, you know, the integrity is not really there, and really the connection with God is not there. Greg does, he definitely gives an effort, though. He does, he's got an effort there, and you notice when he starts to really fully slip into the pose is when he thinks he's pulling one over on everybody else, and they've never heard the song lyrics before, right? And so you can hear his voice cadence change just a little bit.

He's like, oh, I got this job. Yeah, exactly. And I like it.

Makes my Pentecostal prayer sound pretty good, I'm just saying. Yeah, shorter. That's right. Shorter.

I bet the food got cold there, too. But he's such an accommodating God, you know? Yeah, he is.

He is. Yeah, it was pretty fun to watch that talk go through that. I think that that, at boot camp, you know, obviously a lot of you listening haven't been, and some of you have, but that's the first talk where it really turns inward. Yeah. Right? The first few talks are kind of a more... Set up. Contextual, historical, a understanding, you know, laying the groundwork kind of stuff, and then it really, with this talk, gets pretty personal.

Yeah, right up in your business, yeah. It does. It does. And so that's one of the cleaner clips we can play from that particular thing.

True. Jim, did you want to add something? I found one of the more interesting things in that clip to be the sweet, sweet, Lord of Angelic Armies. I mean, that's not the words he used, but the Lord of Hosts is a warrior God, but he's sweet.

Yeah, my favorite part was Smorgasbord. When you start to pose, it's kind of funny, you tend to use words you don't usually use sometimes. I mean, that's one indicator of, wait a minute, do you really use that in everyday talk? You know, kind of thing.

Because you're trying to impress, right? So let's explain posing a little bit. I know we've done shows on it. So Andy, you just did the talk. Do you remember any of it?

Do you want to talk about it? The biggest part to me is like, yeah, posing is an effort to deceive or distract from the real you. And we put on these fig leaves, these masks, to make people think we're one way when we're really not that way on the inside. And a lot of times this false identity or false self that we get from continually posing, I mean, it talks about it in Genesis 3, when it happened, when the fall happened. And we don't really realize that we do that. And it becomes kind of hidden to us. And really, I believe that for most men, the only way that you're going to get exposed to this, sometimes other men will call you out, but most of the time they won't.

It has to be God. And you have to go in and you pray and say, go to a covenant of silence and say, God, how am I posing to my family, to the people I work with, or whatever? Yeah, that quote from Genesis, which just kind of, if you've done the talk, it rings in your ears, right? That I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid and clearly Greg, he was afraid because he was naked, not used to. And so he hid behind, you know, those kinds of things. But the beauty of it, especially like you say, the covenant of silence, which, you know, some people would not been to a boot camp, wouldn't understand that we send people out and for an hour, ask them for the first time, a lot of them are in this exact Greg position.

They've never been that out there for, you want me to do what for an hour? Listen for God, like what? So, you know, it's pretty funny when you think about it that they're out there actually, to an extent, posing with, right? And so here's God saying, well, you know, here you go, let's walk through this. And it's really a beautiful thing when we see, and one of my favorite memories of boot camp is watching somebody say, oh, I did hear from, oh, I did see, I can reach, I can touch God.

And instead of the fig leaf getting all the love, for the first time in your life, there's real intimacy. Oh, I was going to say was, you know, what you said there, where God has to expose it, that's a really, really good observation there. Because I know with some guys that, you know, I've tried to help see that in themselves, you know, they take it as an attack, as soon as you kind of bring that up. God's got to expose it. And you got to be willing. The person has to be in a place where they want to hear that, where they're ready to hear that.

You know, I know me and myself, whenever I saw it in myself, you know, and that's usually how it works. Yeah. We won't talk about the other guy. Just two of the three.

How many personnel? I don't know. A couple things on that. I'd say it's either God has to expose it or your wife. If you're married, she'll kind of call you out on it once in a while, right? I remember working with a guy years ago that had told everybody he was in the, he was a police officer and he had done all these things.

And, you know, it had kind of hinted that he'd, you know, done more of the clandestine kind of stuff from not secret service, but, you know, not FBI, but, you know, kind of alluded to it. And then the first time we got her out, his wife, she's like, you were never a cop. You know, knocked him out of his knees, man. You know, then he quit work and not too long later.

So I don't know that he ever got healing for that. But yeah. Well, the thing I think about the boot camps and that talk too is that most guys, you know, you hear whenever you go and somebody talks about sin or things that aren't lined up right with the word of God, most of the time are their behaviors and they're not heart motives and that kind of thing. And a lot of times guys, I think they're hiding and they become so used to it. It may not be that they really are doing it to deceive at least consciously, but they're doing it in such a way that they're just not really aware of it. And when you point it out to them, I mean, I was more open to it when I started thinking about it. Yeah, maybe I do that. And then I started relating it to my past and I'm like, Oh yeah, I was really posing there. It becomes, it's not as, as, as of a hard thing that you would think to be exposed.

It's it's morally God is kind in the way that he points these things out to you. Yeah. And we'll move off this part of the topic here in a second, but I guess, you know, what's wrong with posing if no one's hurt, right? That's a question you can ask. And Robby, you said part of it was, you know, you don't really receive the love if you're putting on a false front because they're loving that front.

They're not loving you. Right. But also, you know, shame can be hidden in the mind amidst that, you know, when you go into the car dealer and you have no idea what you're talking about or the repair shop, you know, I've been that guy, you know, and, and, and there's some shame that at the end of me, let's kind of fester in there.

If you pose, right, you know, let you live as less than what you are. Right. And so there's a whole lot more to that, but you have to go get that out of the way.

So God can work on the stuff underneath. And so that's really why we, we look at doing that. We don't have time for another clip. So we have to keep talking about posing. We got a couple minutes left, Jim.

I was just going to say two 20, two 21, whatever it takes. Yeah. You know, I think when we see other people pose, it makes us laugh sometimes. Yeah. Right. When we see it and they don't, you know, and I think that that's funny and you're right, Wayne, it is hard to call people out on it now, unless you're in a group like us. And I think there's times we do just call each other out and that's often the way we do it. Yeah.

Two 20, two 21. Yeah. And ultimately the way you want to have that discussion is lifting someone up, not, you know, coming up from underneath them, not coming over top and trying to press down on top of them and bring that shame. Why are you staring at me when you say that? Well, I'm looking over at that specific part of the table there. That's yeah. Well, if you miss this last bootcamp, you know, I'm sorry, you missed a great time. It was an amazing experience, but we do have one coming up, believe it or not. We actually already have the dates.

It's coming up March 31st through April 3rd. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah. March 31st through April 3rd, 2022. Amazing.

Already 2022. No, you can't go register quite yet, but within the next week or so you can, or you can reach out to us on Facebook and get more info. Hi, this is Sam with Mask on Journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're going to 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 masculinejourney.org and find the donate button. masculinejourney.org. Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. What's your greatest concern in life right now? A fractured relationship, a health issue, a financial setback? Next on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip answers the tough question, where do you turn for answers when life gets hard?

Hear how God can speak into your situation, no matter what you're facing, and give you unexplainable hope. Don't miss Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I think it's just annoying enough to make you want to get up. No, I'm just kidding. So Andy, that was your bump.

So why? We're at boot camp. Oh, good call. We're at boot camp. And hopefully that is there to wake you up.

We're there to wake up men's hearts, right? Yeah. Good save.

Good save. I thought you were just the gym with the shofar. You're just emulating that to the best of your ability. Anybody says they could play that on a shofar is posing. Yeah. You do a good job with the shofar.

If you don't come to boot camp for any other reason, come to listen to the shofar. It's pretty cool. You're looking at me. I'm setting up the next clip. Yeah. Well, you want to talk a little bit about it and set it up. So it has some context.

It requires a fair amount. We actually had a couple of clips for that in the boot camp, and we're going to have a couple here. This is Will, and Will has no arms, no legs. And he is at a freak show and a sideshow for a carnival. And he is approached and rejects a fellow that he is called out by here. But where he's being introduced in this clip is they're looking at the performers just putting on a show in front of some folks outside of their houses, and they're giving out free tickets to the show. And he's talking about how beautiful they are. And the beauty comes from ashes.

You'll hear that said. Because all of these people were really down. One was pregnant and thrown out of a house. One was too old to still be doing the trapeze, and he's playing the accordion beside the road.

And one is the strong man, and he's beating up people in the bar when he's drunk. But they are now in this circus. And Will is feeling sorry for himself because he can't do anything, and that's where we are visiting.

Yes, nothing I would add in there. You're right. He was originally rejected the offer, the invitation from this other circus master to come join, and then does.

Well, he actually runs away and stows away in their wagon. Splendid, isn't it? The way they move, full of strength, color and grace.

They're astounding. But you? A curse from birth.

A man, if you can call him that, who God 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. I say they let you go too soon. Good luck out there. It's your problem now. You're no good to me, so get out. Good enough for me, doll face.

Here you go. They're different from me. Yes, you do have an advantage. The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph. That's the line that I just loved and used this in the fathered by God talk. But the greater the struggle, the greater the triumph. And he is coming from a place, and it really blows his mind, you know, you have an advantage because you are so disadvantaged.

And so few people are able to see that, that if they are coming from a very difficult situation and give themselves to God and are fathered by God or carried through that, the triumph is great. My hero before anybody knew about him, and I probably won't be able to think of his name now, but Dr. Ben Carson. I read his book 30 something years ago, and he was poor. His mom worked hard just to raise him, and she was a single mom, but she would not let him accept that he was any less than anybody else. And he, well, if you don't know who he is, you should.

I wanted to vote for him for president, but didn't get the chance. Yeah, I think back at some of the people that I've known along the time that I've actually made the statement, well, that I don't think they'll probably ever accept Christ, right? They're so far on that other end, right? They're so disadvantaged in some way that they see that, and then when they accept Christ, they're the ones that come the most on fire, time in and time out. It's like the lukewarm person a lot of times becomes a lukewarm Christian, but the one that was the extreme, right? So the greater the challenge, the greater the triumph.

Yeah, who has sinned much, loves much. Yeah. Yeah, it was really good. Robby, do you want to go ahead and set up your clip?

I think we can go ahead and get it in before we go to the after hours. Yeah, so moving along in the story, you know, they're trying to find a place for Will in the circus, right? Because he can't do a whole lot.

And, you know, obviously all of us reflect God's glory in some way, and they're trying to figure out exactly what that is. And clearly, Will is struggling, and so they go out to go swimming in this clip. He's trying to get out with them to go swimming, and he slips. What you can't see is he slips and falls on his chest. Now, realize he's got no arms and no legs, so how does he get up?

And the ringmaster goes by him, right? And he says, hey, aren't you going to help me? And he says, oh, I think you can manage. What that causes Will to have to do is to figure out how to get up on his own. And then you'll hear him strain, and he finally gets up after you hear the strain. And then you'll hear him celebrate. It's actually my favorite part of the clip, where he waves his little shoulder, and he's going, yee-haw, because he found out that he could get up on his own. And then he actually falls in the water, which everybody thinks he's going to drown. They can't find him. And lo and behold, his glory is that he actually can swim.

And we'll talk more about that after we hear it. I can't find my daughter, brother. Where is he? He's right there, in the cocoon, see? He'll be fine.

You won't even recognize him when he comes out. Oh, wow. Hey, hey, George, puppy, I need help to cross. Can anyone help me? Hey, George, can you help me? Hey, where are you going? What's the matter with you? Are you just going to leave me here? I think you'll manage.

What? I guess I'll just magically get up, huh? Hey, George, puppy, how's the water? Time for a swim.

Hey, Will, you coming in? So the movie, it's a short thing. You can watch it on YouTube. It's called The Butterfly Circus. And at the beginning, you heard him talk about the caterpillar. And the whole idea is, and you may know this, that in order for a butterfly to fly, it's got to struggle to get out of its cocoon in order to build its wings up strong enough to be able to fly and thus illustrate the point that Jim just made. The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph. And you know, we get a chance from our own experience to see how we struggled the first time we went out to a covenant of silence and tried to, you know, flap our prayer wings for an hour. You know, like if you go out there for the first time, you're like, you want me to do what for an hour?

Just sitting out there, you know, and you start flapping your wings. And we get a chance to see guys, you know, that come in and, oh, man, for the first time, we sense they've connected with God, real intimacy. They hear their names. They do things. And what Will is doing on their screen, you know, saying, look at me like that. Oh, and you can see the smile on a guy's face when he's actually heard from God. Those are things he never forgets for the rest of his life. And hopefully, you know, we get a chance to help do that, that God is the one that actually does it. Darrell Bock It's pretty cool to see, you know, from the first time they're introduced to it at about, you know, 10 in the morning on Friday to Saturday night, how much their life has kind of turned upside down when they go out and they start having these covenants of silence and really getting some time with the Father and getting some healing, stepping away from the pose, new name, all the things we go over, understanding Him more as a Father.

It's pretty cool to go through that. Harold, did you want to add anything? You don't have to. I was just looking at that being out. Darrell Bock Hey, they did it to me a while back, Harold.

I'm going to do you now. Darrell Bock Yeah, well, he put the microphone over there. I thought you had something to say. You do.

Okay, there we go. Darrell Bock I can always count on my buddies. Darrell Bock Yeah.

Darrell Bock Yeah, I don't have a clip. But one that really resonated with me was the kid. And it starts out with a guy that's very arrogant, cynical, semi-angry all the time, doesn't relate well to people. And then the second clip shows him as a youngster with his father sort of berating him because the mother was sick and was going to die. And then it shows the softer side of him and what he had learned when he tells his younger self, she's dying, and he's got to raise you by himself.

He's scared because he doesn't know how. And it really resonated with me because I had a lot of anger with my father because of his drinking problem until I realized that his wife, before he married my mother, was pregnant with their child and died with typhoid fever. And so, you know, it came to me that my father had his big load that he had to carry and that had a lot to do with his drinking issues. And so that's a beautiful thing to me to see in real life. And I did get over my resentment of my father. Thank you, Harold.

I was corrected. It is up at the website. You can go register for the boot camp coming up March 31st through April 3rd. We're going to talk in the after hours about our favorite parts about boot camp, our favorite memories. So definitely go download that if you listen to it on the radio. And we're going to show some more or play some more clips. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.