Situational Calling

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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. Oh, it's so good to be here.

It's really good to be here. Yeah, Sam. You know, this show is not about situational ethics, is it? It isn't. It's about a situation of lots of things. That's not one of them.

So yeah. Now, this week's show, we're going to be talking about situational calling. And it's not really my idea.

I stole it from Andy, I think, at boot camp. He was talking about it, but he didn't really use those terms. He kind of used a lot of terms that didn't really boil it down to that. What I'm trying to say, Andy, is you just talked a lot, and you're not really even saying anything, you're just playing at the chord.

Mike, you know, he's going to have that. Well, I didn't know it was a dialogue. I was letting you rant on about me and what I wasn't doing at boot camp. It's more fun when you fight back. That's the thing. All right. Battle the fight.

It's on. It's participation thing. So no, what we're talking about this week, and you talked about it in the calling talk at boot camp, you know, about, you know, the old term grow where you're planted, right? You know, that we hear at church and everything, but there's a lot of truth to that that, you know, we're in different situations all the time. If you would have been at boot camp, you know, Jim's had more jobs than years. He's been alive, you know, which I don't know how that has added up. And so we're like 10 year jobs. So I really don't know how. Like twice as many as he had been alive. Yeah.

I've almost been around as long as Harold or Howard. Yeah. But in each one of the places that we're at, we have situational calling. And even at any one time you could have it with your family.

You should have it with your family, obviously, you know, with your work, with other things you're involved in, God has you in that place for a reason. And so that's what we're talking about situational calling. And we're going to use some clips like we always do and talk about some of our experiences where God's used us in places we didn't necessarily expect to be or in ways we didn't expect to be used. Yeah.

And I actually love the clip you chose because to me it kind of just opens up the whole idea. And, you know, clearly it was God that was calling all this deal in case for those who've seen Evan almighty, you know, this is actually almighty. It is. Yeah, it is.

It is almighty. And so you have Morgan Freeman, who's playing God in the movie, steps in as a server or a waiter at this restaurant. And Noah, not Noah, Evan's wife comes in and she's frustrated because things aren't going really well.

And so he enters into the story with her. But what I want you to think about now, we'll talk about when we come back. Let's just listen to it and we'll talk about it. Oh, excuse me. Can I get a refill, please?

Coming right up. Thank you. Excuse me. Are you all right? Yeah.

No. It's a long story. Well, I like stories. I'm considered a bit of a storyteller myself.

My husband? Have you heard of New York's Noah? The guy who's building the ark.

That's him. I love that story. Noah and the ark. You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it's about God's wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry. What is the story about then, the ark?

Well, I think it's a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animals showed up in Paris. They stood by each other side by side, just like Noah and his family.

Everybody entered the ark side by side. But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that? Sounds like an opportunity.

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience or does it give them the opportunity to be patient? If they prayed for courage, does God give them courage or does it give them opportunities to be courageous?

If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings or does it give them opportunities to love each other? Well, I've got to run. A lot of people to serve.

Enjoy. When you listen to that clip and you are watching the movie or whatever and you know that that's God in that role, that's one thing. But imagine that you're the server, you're the waiter or waitress and God just kind of gives you a little thing inside you. It says, I think they're having a hard day.

And that's what happens. That's when we step into that situational calling when we're going through our life and our busy day and things are going on and God gives you something that you notice and says, I think I need to have a conversation with this person. I need to have a word here. I mean, we need to pray with this person, whatever it is. That's the God in you stepping into that situation and saying, Hey, I've got a lot of people to serve and I'm going to talk with you right now. And I think that was pretty cool for me to think about that in that context that wherever I'm at, God has something, you know, for me, regardless of what I think it is, it's probably something different and it's with somebody that I probably don't expect it to be with. Yeah.

I mean, that's around every corner almost. Yeah. And usually catches you by surprise.

It's a phone call from somebody you weren't expecting or it's something that happened in your day that was interruption. And Jesus seemed to specialize in eruptions. Yeah. Yeah. He stopped and talked with the interruptions, right. Where I just tell him to get out of the way. I have to keep going.

Shut up, you blind beggars. Exactly. Exactly. You know, I know we did during the after hours, we do, you know, the story part, but I'm going to share a little bit with mine, pray for me. One of the biggest ones was, and I've shared with it on here before, but when I was at my company back in Indiana and there was a group of us doing a Bible study, there's probably four of us. And I decided at that point to, uh, to send out a daily Bible verse from what I had been reading from that day.

And I would send it to him initially and says, this is a cool verse. Right. And they started sharing it with friends. And then I started adding commentary to it at some point and it kept growing. God kept blessing it. And at some point it was going to a lot of different places, not just in the U S but in different countries. And I had to move it off the company server because they weren't real happy.

I was sending stuff, you know, I mean, they weren't mad, but not something I'm supposed to be doing. And so, you know, I had to learn about websites, had to learn about all this stuff early on. And, and later that became Good Heart Ministries, you know, and some other things. And, and God did that from a very unlikely source, you know, just when he prompted me, Hey, send this to these four people.

I think they'll like this scripture. And so, you know, for me, that was one of those things that that little nugget in time was vital because it laid the groundwork for everything that came down the road, you know, eventually including some of the, partly the masculine journey stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So we got lots of clips and Andy, you had the other secondhand lion clip. He had the other one. But two of us had the secondhand lion clip. And so we end up with this, you know, idea of I'm not your uncle.

So you want to try to set that up? That's your clip. Yeah. That's why I was confused. I'm like, no, we're not playing Andy's clip. All right. So we got a new studio set up here and things are a little bit out of touch as they normally would be, but I'll set up the clip.

There's no problem. So in this movie, secondhand lions, we have two uncles that actually were renowned. You know, people didn't know how they got millions of dollars, but they were supposedly had millions of dollars and they'd been gone for 40 years and their nephew will comes to live with them. Their mom's hope was that he'd figure out how to get their money for her, for her family. But as he begins his journey with them and his, his mother had been lying to him through his whole life. And so the part of this clip that you're not hearing is Walter wakes up his uncle and as he was sleepwalking outside and begins to talk to him that I need to hear some truth from you because all I ever hear from my mother is lies. And so hub is going to give him some truth and then find out that he's got a different kind of calling as well. Yeah, this is a great long speech I give to young man.

Sounds like you need to hear a piece of it. Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. Honor, courage and virtue mean everything.

The power and money, money and power mean nothing. True love never dies. You remember that boy? Doesn't matter if it's true or not.

You see, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. That was a good speech. I think so.

Thanks. When are you going to give me the rest of the speech? You're almost a man. You promise? Wait one minute, you wait.

I can't do that. Wait one minute, you wait. I can't be a good man until you give me the rest of the speech, right? So you need to stick around until I'm old enough to hear the whole thing.

I see what you're trying to pull here. No, you have to stick around until I'm old enough to hear the speech. No, I want you to give me the speech.

You won't be living here then. You're my uncle. I need you to stick around and be my uncle. What about Uncle Garth? He needs you.

What about the dogs and the pig and the lion? We all need you. I need you. No, you're just being silly. No, it's true. It's true. I know you miss Jasmine an awful, awful lot, but if you don't, we'll miss you just as much. It's true.

All right, you win. I'll stick around and be your uncle. I don't expect you to be happy about it. So at the end of that clip, you know, there's an embrace there that is absolutely remarkable as Hub accepts the role of being Will's uncle, but really to an extent to being his father, right? Because Will needs to be fathered. And also, he understands the foundation of truth that he had missed from his mother, you know, just based on her situation. But at the same point in time, Hub now realizes a truth that he had not seen. And that's why Will keeps trying to point out to him, it's true.

It's true. So, Danny, you just kind of threw watching this movie. It's awesome.

It's a new release for me. So just saying, great movie. And Hub is finding himself in places like we're talking about, that you're calling is calling you and you realize you should be you think you should be somewhere else. And it just reminded me of a story back.

We had been in ministry for a little while and I was thrown into a situation where a guy was transitioning from addiction into a treatment center. And we had to go clean his apartment out on Halloween night. We get to stop you in mid-story. When we left our hero, it was Halloween night. Same bat time, same bat channel, right? That's right.

We'll be right back. So, yes, you may wonder when's the next boot camp? Well, let me just tell you, it's the week before Thanksgiving. It's that weekend before Thanksgiving coming up right in November 2022. I don't know when I have the dates right off the top of my head, although lots of people are showing me their hands.

There's apparently some numbers involved. Hi, this is Sam with Masculine 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. A Greater Understanding of Christ is only a joy ride away. The Masculine Journey Joyride Podcast at truthnetwork.com. If not, yeah, there you go Andy. Okay, sorry, it's kind of flying blind here. But yeah, that was Matthew West on Do Something. He was talking about partnering with God, really about calling. And it's like, you know, God's asking, or he's asking God, why don't you do something? You know, you heard the clip, but you know, it's like, we have this job to do and God's like, okay, yeah, but that's why I created you. And that's the purpose. I mean, our identity is tied to our calling, I believe. And that's what God is saying is that, you know, you need to go out and do something about these things.

It's not just me and it's just not you, it's us, we're partnering. Darrell Bock Rodney said that too, not just God. Earlier, Sam, I don't know, but anyway. Well, we left our hero Danny. And by the name, it was Walter in the movie, not Will.

I've been corrected during the break, so everybody not get confused. But when we left our hero Danny, it was Halloween night. And he had one of these situations that God created you, Danny, for that moment.

Yeah, all my family was at a fall festival party, Halloween party, whatever. And so we had to get this guy out of his apartment, pack him up and the place was a mess. His life was a mess.

But my heart and soul call was discipleship. But I wanted that to be clean and neat. And we had to go buy cleaning supplies and this kind of thing. And needless to say, I was slightly agitated over the grand scheme of this thing and things weren't going well. And when we got all done, I'm riding back to my buddy Jim Vitti's house with everything. And I'm crying to God or complaining to God or whatever that was, one of those solemn prayers of David. And so I'm like, I don't understand.

I've had my family's here. We've been cleaning up this mess this guy made. It's his mess. And we've been wearing rubber gloves and all this kind of stuff. And I don't understand. And I will never forget what God told me that night.

He said, I came into your situation and I didn't put rubber gloves on. And it changed my attitude for that day anyway, that ministry is messy and wherever you're calling in, wherever you're planted at can get messy and muddy. And it's not always going to be the ideal situation.

Matter of fact, I think it rarely ever is. So, yeah, I was in my own situation. What brought came to my mind is in this topic was when my wife, I had been told I could teach the Ham Sunday School class, which was a great honor and a great big class at Calvary. So excited, big huge moment in my life.

And I go home and tell my wife and she goes, we're not doing that. We're going to teach special needs, which was completely out of left field from my perspective, because we don't have any special needs people in our family. And I had no idea.

What are you talking about? Well, I went to this thing and I heard Adam Nunn's parents talk about what a wonderful ministry is. And God spoke to me and he said, this is going to be your ministry.

And so that's what we're going to do. And she says, so we're not doing the Ham Sunday School class. So I had a Christian businessmen's committee. Well, I left out probably the best part of my discussion with my wife was my, you know, lack of humility or what you call it, just plain conceitedness. I was like, what about all this great Bible knowledge?

It's going to be wasted on if I can't teach all this that I know to, you know, they'll never understand. And she just gave me this look that only your wife can look as they see through your mask. And, you know, that, that, you know, and so the next day is the next day as I was at my men's group, I thought for sure these guys would be on my side. And so I told them the story, expected them to go, yeah, you need to go home and tell your wife, you know, that this is what you're doing. They am Sunday School class. Instead, this old missionary by the name of Archie Jones looked at me and said, Robby, under the least of these, my brother. And so I went home like eight crow. I said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to resign from the Han Sunday School class.

I'm going to try the special needs for whatever period of time, but I have no understanding. And when I got there, it scared me. It literally did that. These people were hitting the air and looking out the windows and just fixated on all sorts of things. And nobody seemed to be on the same page at all. And that was just, it was actually scary, some of the people for me, because I just had no association with it. They were just for me because I just had no association with it. And these were adult people, you know, some of them as old as me.

So I hung out for about three weeks, literally creeped out pretty good. And the teacher comes to me and says, Robby, I understand you're a pretty good teacher. So I think next week you need to come out of retirement. And, you know, we're going to teach the fifth commandment, which I went, holy mackerel. I mean, I can't even teach my kids. This is honoring your father and mother.

Are you kidding me? How am I going to teach this to this class? And so, you know, God had me where he wanted me and right on my knees, like, God, what do I do? How do I teach this? And he shows me this idea of honor has to do with getting down on your knees, which is pretty graphic.

When you see a six foot five guy get down on his knees. And so I did my best, used flannel graphs, tried to get the idea of mother and father through sign language, what that was. And, and they were looking out the window and hitting the air. And I thought I have taught.

Absolutely. This is, this is, Oh my gosh, what has happened here? Just felt like the biggest loser of all time until the family showed up. And as the family showed up, the students, it was starting to get down on their knees. And the parents were like, wow. And then the other teacher said, well, Robby taught on the fifth commandment. And, and then the tears started to come from the parents. And when the Terrence came from the parents, the tears came from Robby. And I realized, Oh my gosh, how arrogant I had been like, Oh God, like what you've shown me. And, and let me just say from having done that for many years now that what a rescue that was for Robby. I don't know that I've ever, you know, they have taught me so much more than I've ever taught them these wonderfully gifted people and believe me. The honor to teach them is, is greatly valued. So I'll put it that way, Harold.

Well, one of the things that occurred to me is my sweetheart has a saying that we're all special needs in one way or another. The other thought that had occurred to me in this regard with the theme of the night, we, we have the scripture that says, here am I send him. Well, Rodney, here you are. I'm sending you, you've got a clip to share with us. Send me in Robby.

I can take it. Put me in coach. Um, this is, uh, Maximus when he is on the floor of the Coliseum, he's won several battles now, and the emperor wants to come see him and be introduced to him and find out who he really is. And so what's happening here is you've got a guy who used to lead armies. He was the right hand of the emperor. They were tight and the emperor wanted to make him the next emperor.

Well, Commodus actually snuffed out his dad then took, was supposed to take out Maximus that didn't quite go as he planned, but took out his family. And you hear this through him saying it, this is what his identity is. And all through this movie, as he's kind of being brought back to life a little by little and people keep speaking into his life, he comes alive and now he's on the floor and he says all these things about who he is and then what you can really tell that he has lived that out because you have not only the guards, the guys that are around him and gladiators, they're ready to fight for him. At this point, they're ready to fight for this guy's life with the guards that around them. And then the whole stadium stands up and starts chanting at the end.

And that's, that's where you see everything kind of come together. Drop your weapons. The emperor has asked for you. I'm at the emperor's service.

Your fame is well deserved Spanish. I don't think there's ever been a gladiator to match you for this young man. He insists you, I had to be born.

I was a calculus. Why doesn't the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name? You do have a name. My name is gladiator.

How dare you show your back to me? Slave! You will remove your helmet and tell me your name. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the armies of the north, general of the Felix legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.

And I will have my vengeance in this life or the next. So what you have here is Maximus is no longer the commander of the armies of the north. He's a slave. But even as a slave, he lets his identity come out in that situation to where he's still a leader of men. He had so many people that had to speak into his life to keep his spirits up through this whole time that he went from being a slave into being a gladiator, which again, a gladiator is worse than a slave because now you're just destined to die.

That's all you get to look forward to. He's at the service of the emperor. He's supposed to be out there dying on the battlefield, you know, in all these coliseum battles, but he's winning.

He's stepping up and he's leading men who have no idea what they're doing, you know, in a real battlefield. And he molds them and brings them together and brings a whole group of men together as a team in a unit. Or a community. Community works good too, Sam. Yeah, that would be a good word. That's the word we're looking for. Yeah. I'm supposed to use the word community.

So he brought them into a community. Okay. The other question I have for you, Rodney, is when have you been in your situational calling? This was a really tough one, but my wife was really irritated with something my daughter had done and was really working hard, and my daughter was getting hurt. So I had to really step in and get my daughter away from my wife and step in and make that happen, even though my wife didn't want that to happen. It was just a very tough situation. Yes, always.

When it comes close to home in those situations, you've got to step in. And so we're so grateful that you've joined us today. And we want to remind you that you can go to our website, masculinejourney.org. And by all means, register for the upcoming bootcamp. It's coming up again the week before Thanksgiving in November. We'll look forward to seeing you there. By all means check us out masculinejourney.org. This is the Truth Network.