Attributes Take 2

Hi, this is Joanne Vigner with the podcast It's Storytime, Meemaw, and answered prayer for stories that point children to God. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

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. How fun that you're joining us today on The Masculine Journey. We are on a new kind of adventure. We're taking the attributes of God that we see in each other.

Take two. So Andy, you guys did this once. Andy's on the phone as well as Sam because Andy's not able to get down here from Boone, but Andy, you guys did this show before and you didn't get it all done. There was too many of us, too many attributes of God. We have to do pillars. Andy King Yeah, we have to do pillars. Yeah, some of us were missing.

Not me, but some on the phone are actually in the studio and I think everybody wanted to cover their person they had, so there's more to come. Take two. Darrell Bock There really is. And Sam, when you think about it, you know, when Jacob blessed his sons, he was telling them who God knew they would become, right, who they would be. When he was blessing them, he was speaking over them the attributes of God that he saw in his own kids. And so as we have a chance to talk over our brothers like this, we're literally blessing them in that we're sharing with them how God sees them, right, Sam? Sam Weaver Yeah, absolutely, and unlike here in the South, when you bless somebody, that cannot be a bad thing. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about speaking words of affirmation over them.

Darrell Bock Right. So since this is take two, I took a completely different direction and they gave me the grace to host this particular show. And so when I had COVID and I wasn't able to take part in the other show, it kind of broke my heart because I really did want to share how I felt about my brothers. And so as I began to pray through this and God and I went on a little adventure, and I know you're not going to be shocked to know this, but what he did was he started showing me how I saw the Hebrew letters in each of my fellow men here. And so as they all represented the Hebrew letter to me, then how cool, because based on my study of the 119th Psalm, there were verses that would tell us the attributes of those Hebrew letters that would kind of illustrate that. Well, the way that I have sort of templated the 119th Psalm, as you may know, there are eight verses on each Hebrew letter. And the seventh verse in each letter, there's what they call the delight in the fear of the Lord anointing. In other words, this is the way that letter would delight in the fear of the Lord. And so as I took these letters from my brothers and began to isolate them and say, oh, yeah, this is Sam, this is Harold, then all of a sudden these letters came to life for me, so I have a verse, the seventh verse to share with each guy as we get there. But my person I actually drew, that was Danny. And so to jump right in here, as you're probably not going to be shocked, when I thought about Danny I was thinking about goodness.

Well, goodness, when you think about it in the Hebrew is the letter tet. It means goodness. And so when you think of goodness, you can't help but think of Andy Griffith. And so when it comes to good judgment, Andy Griffith had good judgment, right? He could find the good in almost any situation, turn it for good. So here we have him with Barney. He needs a little instruction on how to love on Thelma Lu with some good judgment, like Danny.

And I'm sure that anybody listening could see completely Danny giving this information to Barney if necessary. Here you go. Now tell me, did you get a little kissy? No, I didn't. You didn't? No, I didn't.

Didn't? Well, why not? Well, I don't know Andy. Well, I can't help it. When I'm alone with her, I just freeze up. I don't know what to say or what to do. You better tell that girl how you feel about her or you're going to lose her. Girls like to hear things like that.

I know. Well, there's plenty of things I think I have to say when I'm alone, things she'd like to hear. Oh, you can?

Sure. Like what? Well, Andy, see, that's where it gets tough. Now, I usually think of these things when I'm shaving or soaking my feet at night. Well, play like you're soaking your feet now and tell me some of the things you say.

Come on. Well, I say, I say, Thelma Lu, I like you, Thelma Lu. I like you a lot. You're the cats. I never said them three words to a girl before, Thelma Lu, but I mean it. You're the cats. I think about you all the time. Sometimes at breakfast, I stare down at my eggs and I see your face right in there. Well, there's nothing I'd like better than to have you as my steady girl, Thelma Lu, because, well, like I said, you're the cats. Well, that's beautiful, Barney. I mean it. There's not a girl in the world that wouldn't like to hear things like that said to her. And do you know why? Because you're sincere. So, Danny, you've heard that clip, right?

On multiple occasions. And so, you know, I could say Danny's the cats, but, you know, that would be law. No more corgis.

He's going to start breeding cats. Yeah. But anyway, so when you get to that seventh verse in the tet section, if you look in the 119th Psalm, here's the way this verse reads. And those of us who know Danny know how much this verse speaks about him and his attributes. So it says, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. And so a little definition on that verse. Statutes are the most difficult of all the commandments to follow because they're the most mysterious and the most holy. And it's hard to get them unless you go through some things.

Unless you, like Corn would say, unless you've seen some things. And so when you see that in Danny, you know, you can't help but see it was good that he was afflicted because it gets you, right, his closeness to God that you only get through those kind of things. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah. He's definitely been afflicted and he definitely brings a heart from that affliction, from that place where many of us may have been, but he can relate. And it's just, it's been interesting since he's come on because he's the rookie guy. You know, we had his rookie card out there for last year and now he's in his sophomore year.

You know, we don't want that sophomore slump, but here he is. I mean, as soon as he came into the ministry and we met him and it's just story after story after story, the man, I'm like, he's really getting to where he can rival Robby in stories because he's got a lot of them. And that's not easy to rival Robby in stories. And it's great to just hear that all the time.

Andy? Yeah, I agree. Just the heart to know that, you know, that he had been called out in the place to trust God in his previous life of ministry. And, you know, he had been faithful in that all along. But then when he, you know, came and it was like he had been with us all these years. He quickly adapted, but yet I think it was something new and refreshing for him. But just to see his willingness to walk out, you know, a different type of life and ministry that he had before.

To see, you know, what God has done in our lives. But then he brought his, like Rodney said, he brought his own stories that were refreshing to us, that encouraged us. And it's just been a joy to see him grow with us.

And that time, I mean, whenever guys come to the boot camp, you know, you just don't know. You know, not everybody always receives it the same way or has zeal for it and really goes with it. And I think it was something that Danny was looking for. And just the way he's carried on in that and been faithful. You know, he has had it up against him, but I believe God has been faithful to bring him through it. But just to see his faithfulness through it, it's been cool.

Yeah. Harold? What is truth? Thy word is truth. And what I see in Danny is truth. He's come into this group and he's bared his soul. You know, he's told us that one of the things about the Bible that makes it so real is you get the bad along with the good.

Nothing is hidden. Nobody's perfect. Danny has revealed some of his imperfections and yet here he is.

And so when I think about a characteristic, I think about truth. So just because we've got to get through eight people in two shows, so we're going to move on here even though we want to get to everybody as much as we can. The next one that we didn't get to last time was Wayne. And so Wayne wasn't here like I wasn't here because he had COVID. So I had COVID. Wayne didn't have COVID, excuse me. I had COVID. You couldn't get here because you destroyed your job, right?

Yeah, I was moving at the time actually. Okay. So Wayne, when I was praying, saying, God, who is Wayne? He gave me the letter shin, which letter shin is this idea of hearing.

It's this idea of chewing on because the letter actually looks like a tooth and the idea is to oxidize as you chew on things. And so when you hear the Shema, you hear that shh sound or you hear that shh sound that's in shalom, it is that you're going to hear, oh Israel, the Lord is one, right? And if you think about hearing, you know, Wayne hears.

And so when you look at that seventh verse in the shin section, it says, As my soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. In other words, Wayne is like a believing machine. He chews on God's word that he receives from the scriptures, but also that he gets him as he hears.

And then he loves this exceedingly to the point that like it's more important in his job, it's more important than anything else in his life, that this is what God has, and this is where we're going. And to me, to know Wayne, you've got to admit, I mean, he always looks like he's chewing on something. What would you say, Sam? I would say that, you know, when you talk to Wayne, you know you're going to get a thought out, prayed over response. You're not going to get this stuff off the cuff. You know, Wayne's going to take it to heart.

He's going to speak from his heart. And I think that that's something that you can only do when you walk closely with God. There you go.

So we've got to go to a break. Of course, we want you to think about going to our website, masculinejourney.org, and registering for the upcoming boot camp, as we all will be blessed, right? We'll all get to become who we are becoming as we get closer to God and get a chance to see that. So go to masculinejourney.org. For me, describing boot camp, when I heard the stories from the stage that the other men had, and then during my prayer time, I'm getting a download from God on where my life is and how I have wounds and I have a place in His story. To know how I heard from God is one of those things.

He really does communicate with us. Register today at masculinejourney.org. One of the things that's been a true joy to me is having my sons go with me to boot camps and watching them get an understanding that I wished I would have had at their age. It took me several years and I'm still probably learning it a little bit as we go, but watching them get a good foothold into manhood and understanding what's important, what their role is, and how to stay away from the enemy to receive healing and restoration in a way that you love on others. Register today at masculinejourney.org.

Welcome back to Masculine Journey. So for those of you who turned in last week might have some idea of why we played that bump. We're going to share that later because we're in the middle of talking about Wayne. If you're wondering about the bump, we'll get to it.

Don't worry. Why were these guys playing Carolina Girls? Well, we have a reason.

We do. And it's in there. But when we're talking about Wayne, we want to bless Wayne and say these are things that we see that God so clearly has gifted Wayne in so many different ways, like when we do our Wayne wildfire experience. And so we're hoping that you come to boot camp just so that you'll be able to experience what it's like to be in a bonfire, which you just think how a fire itself represents the shin. If you were to look like a shin, it looks like fire, right? It's got those flames.

That's what the idea of is because it's literally oxidizing things. And so with these bonfires, people are coming together in community, and they're talking, and Wayne brings out things at these bonfires that really, it's shocking. Isn't it? Almost every time, Rodney.

Well, that's the thing. You're sitting there, and the discussion just kind of starts to happen. And Wayne just has a way to, I don't know, just when he meets you for the first time, say something to you that you're just like, oh my gosh, that's just like so true. And he sees those things, and he says those things from his heart that he hears from God that he's able to share. And in those moments, there are more, that's probably the most open time we have in the whole camp.

And it's really because it's coming from his heart. That is so open. Right. That's right there.

Danny? Well, when you choose something, you oxidize it. It becomes energy. Right. In the New Testament somewhere, it says, without faith, it is impossible to please God, and faith without works.

And that's what I see with Wayne. I wrote down, just kind of getting an idea of what we're doing, water-walking faith. Because not only does he hear, he does. And the stuff that you've walked out on, the stuff, Wayne, that I've been a part of, just listening to your stories, of not just hearing something and sitting on something, but putting it into action, has cost you some, but following God usually does. And so there's so much power there that you're not scared to step out like Peter on the water. You know, I don't think he had a self-help book on water-walking. That's awesome.

It is. Jim? One of the things, and I know Wayne pretty well, that you don't always see up front is how gracious and kind he is. He's a very loving fellow. In fact, he probably would not have played Carolina Girls, but he's that kind of good friend. We would.

I don't know why you played Carolina Girls, so I'm interested. Oh, it's coming. Oh, yes.

You have to wait to after hours so that we can get the whole roast on, but that's coming. But we've got to get to Rodney, because we've got so many people to talk about in so little time. So Rodney, I think those who know Rodney are going to relate to this. The letter Zaddi means righteous. And the idea of that is that it's a cry in a deep, deep place that things need to be like Jesus. And the way that things get made right is on a tree.

It was on the cross, right? And the letter Zaddi looks like a tree for a very specific purpose. A tree is at a right angle, and the idea is to get things right. Well, if you were to come to boot camp sometime with Rodney, he wants things to be— in fact, we call him Ramrod, because he's trying to get everybody there on time. Things have to be right. The systems, all these things, they're all coming together. But really cool, when you get to that seventh verse of the Zaddi that we're talking about, here's the delight in the fear of the Lord when it comes to righteousness.

It says, trouble and anguish have taken a hold on me, yet thy commandments are my delight. And if you don't, Rodney, you can see constantly that he's got all this turmoil about all these things around him that aren't right yet. He delights in the right things that he does see in a way that only Rodney can. So if you know Rodney, you'll also know he loves Clint Eastwood, because there's a Zaddi out there. Like, you did not want to do something wrong around Clint Eastwood, especially if you're a giant, you know, somebody like that that used to take on James Bond.

And if you get in a Western movie with him, it could really hurt you. So this is a scene from the movie Pale Rider, and what's happened here is he's a preacher, and these bad guys, including this giant, have been picking on all these people, and they're out in this field trying to break up this big rock. And so what you don't know when you hear this clip is when you hear the giant scream, which you'll hear, and then you'll hear a rock break. Well, the idea is they've been trying to break up this rock, and so God provides this unique way to break up the rock. What happens is the giant is going to hurt him, and the other thing that you can't see is that he's got a sledgehammer, and he's fixing to hit Clint Eastwood, but he fails to see that Clint Eastwood also has a sledgehammer, and he uses that in a very private way that would make most men scream very loudly. If you get my drift. Breaking up rocks. And then, you know, Clint being this addict that he wants to help the guy out and make things right, so he tells him he needs ice.

And so you get all that all in the same clip if you listen carefully. You messed up some of my boys, preacher. Nothing personal. Probably won't take it personal when we tell you to get that carbon canyon down. Well, there's a lot of sinners hereabouts. You wouldn't want me to leave before I finish my work, would you? Club. Work done now, preacher?

Part of it, leastways. Take it easy. Put it in a little ice and that'll take care of you. Thanks for stopping by, son. You think you can make it? Ice.

Ice. Well, the Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways. And how many times have you watched that movie, Rodney? Well, I don't know how many times, but I just watched it within the last two weeks. And there's something really cool about that that you can see as you get to know and you see that, you know, it's really a delight to see people that delight in righteousness.

Sam? Yeah, I think there's something that's inherent in all of us that, you know, you just want things to be correct. You know, but I think a lot of times that filter we use is correct in our view. You know, I want justice for me and accountability for you, kind of thing. And where I see Rodney excel is he plays a mediator and says, no, justice the way God sees it. The best that he can interpret that, the way God sees that he'll play, you know, both sides of the coin so that you can see, you know, different people's perspectives. And I think that that comes at a very good gifting as you deal with relationships and deal in different dynamics.

And especially with what he does for work, I'm sure he has to enter into that as well. And so, you know, I just see that as something that not a lot of people can do is look at it from outside of yourself, you know, and try to find, you know, where is the rightness in what God would see to the best of our ability. Yeah, it's a gift. It really is to have people like this in your life that can see things like that. You know, if you think about it, you're walking with this band of brothers and you've got this guy over here who knows, can see the right things that I can't see. You've got this other guy who could choose better than I do. You've got this other guy who sees the good in things.

In other words, all these people have these attributes that give us tremendous things. And so I'm going to get to my friend Andy who happens to be on the phone. And when I thought about him and prayed about him, the letter nun, which the letter nun has to do with your soul because your soul is an afesh in Hebrew.

You can hear that end sound. But it also is a letter that means faithful. And in so many ways, when I think of Andy, I think of faithful from a standpoint of not just does he have faith in God, but he has faith in me. You know, I can hear when he has faith in Rodney or I can see when he has faith in Danny and I can see that he has faith in all of us that it really reflects beautifully like on the closeness that you feel.

And so when you get to that seventh verse in the nun section for Andy, I think you'll see this if you know Andy well. It says, Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart. And the idea for those of us who understand this message that we're talking about is his testimonies are the larger story.

You see? And so what it's saying is that we've taken on the larger story as our heritage. When that becomes your story, when the larger story becomes your story, that happens as a matter of faith and it happens as a matter of your soul. Your soul takes it on.

And as a result of your soul having this testimony that is literally the word of God, then your heart rejoices because you see that you know how the story's going to end, right? If you have that kind of a situation, you can see that, Jim. I got him right there where I wanted him. No, I'm not paying attention. I got distracted. Let me use this one.

That one's cracking for me. Repeat that for me. So when it comes to Andy and his attributes, that's what we're talking about?

Okay. With Andy, it is, for me at least, he is a good friend. He's someone that will always, and it's sort of similar to what's been said about me. He'll walk with you. He'll be with you. He is very gracious. And that, I think we looked at last time, and maybe we'll look at some more.

We will. And as a matter of fact, as we go out on this break, I'm going to let Harold, Harold's got a microphone, so I'm going to let him talk. I see Andy as a doer. God was a doer.

He did, and it was good. Andy, you know, there's a prayer meeting in Washington. He's hitting the road. The highway's not too far for him to go and do.

So that's what I see about Andy, is he is a doer. He'll take action. So we got four more to do that's all coming in the after hours. If you go to masculinejourney.org, and you'll even find out why we played Carolina Girls. You probably don't want to miss that. It's all coming up in the after hours. Do it in at the podcast at masculinejourney.org. This is the Truth Network.