Spring Cleaning After Hours

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This is the Truth Network. Announcer 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. Matt Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and we are very glad that we're talking about this topic. See, I threw in a different little thing there.

We are glad you're with us as well. Robby, you want to tell us a little bit about the topic today? This was your topic. Robby Decluttering is what we're talking about. This is spring cleaning, maybe, as we're talking about May, right, Sam?

Sam Yeah, we're just right inside May, as we learned in the last show. Robby And so, the idea is that, wow, as we get older, God has this unique ability sometimes to unclutter us where we're grabbing onto something he's pulling out of our hands, you know, like unbelievable. But we can, at times, make choices to dig into things that we want to unclutter and, you know, kind of prepare the soil, as Andy's wonderful clip we heard in the first show, you know, that our hearts are full of this soil. And if we've got a bunch of stuff growing in there, there might be some stuff that is needing to be uprooted. And so, there's the idea.

Robby Well, thank you. Jim, let's go ahead and get to your clip. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it? You want to set it up?

You want to…? Jim Well, I was happy when we listened to all the other clips that nobody really seemed to understand what decluttering was the same way. I kind of honed in on organization. And when I looked it up, I saw all these different clips of how to organize everything in your life, none of which had anything to do with what I was feeling it was supposed to be about. And I am a very disorganized person, as some of these guys can attest to, unless it's dealing with numbers.

I'm pretty good with numbers, but everything else is a mess. And I thought, and hopefully this was God planting it in my brain, but I said, the only way I'm going to be organized is to be perfect. And this is from Saturday Night Lives, and it's about being perfect. It's Friday Night Lights.

One of those nights. Or Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live. I'm more from Saturday Night Live than I am Friday Night Lights. I was a lousy football player. Friday Night Lights. Here we go.

It's Billy Bob Thornton. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is that you did everything that you could.

There wasn't one more thing that you could have done. Can you live in that moment as best you can with clear eyes and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that, gentlemen, then you're perfect. I want you to take a moment and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever, because forever is about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes. And I want you to think about Booby Miles, who is your brother.

And he would die to be out there on that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys, my heart is full.

My heart's full. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

Give us another test, and we will go to the past days. Amen. When I heard that, what really hooked me was the having love in my heart.

I've always pursued the loving others and as Jesus said, it doesn't big deal if you love those that love you you know everybody does that but loving the unlovable is what I pursue and that kind of if I can have that level of love which I'm having the opportunity to live that out and I'm not doing it perfectly which the perfect does sort of fall short and always will till we're home but when I am in that place of loving it kind of declutters everything else and I have the peace and joy of my savior and when I get into the flesh I put those down and pick up the rubbish that we all need to declutter from so the talking about and we said it in the first show but the pursuing just plan a which is becoming more like Christ is the only plan I got left unfortunately I don't have to do it too much longer I don't think well that's kind of somber I say that with my heart full of joy and peace well that's good I mean if it's 20 years that's still not long that's right scheme of things I hope it's not 20 years because that'll be pushing 100 but we're 90 I thought I was good at math I was wrong yeah I beat you to it Rodney you did pick a really good clip from Saturday Night Live that was pretty serious I was surprised about that anyway Rodney you know it was just another one of his southern girl moments it was it was well Rodney way you have a microphone you also have a clip I also have a clip I when we were talking about you know what the topic was going to be it was about more about decluttering and decluttering our lives and taking things in or out of our lives what should be their kind of conversation and as I went along my 5s brain for those of you that know about lean and 5s and simplify came to mind is like see a simplicity you know if you're going to declutter you're going to simplify things and so I tried to think of things movies clips and other things I couldn't think of anything but then back to where we were with the attributes of God and then I thought about the doctrine of simplicity and I was like well what would be out there on that and when I found this clip here from Sinclair Ferguson it's just a clip from a sermon that he gave on this doctrine of doctrine of simplicity for God so we just play that we can come back and pick things up. What do we mean when we speak about the simplicity of God this doctrine that has been held and expounded by almost all the great theologians of the Christian church from Irenaeus in the early centuries through Augustine and Anselm and Thomas Aquinas and the great Puritans and the great orthodox reformed theologians. What do we mean by the simplicity of God?

We mean something so stunning so singular as to say that God as the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it that God is pure spirit or to put it in other terms echoing what we have already heard today that God is without origin that God is without composition that God is without becoming. He is and in a sense that is the first and the last word that is to be said about God. He is as God and He is all He is always that He is. As the older theologians used to say, there is no potential in God. God is all that He is. So you've got the simplicity of God and that you know the first time it really shows up is when Moses sees the burning bush. He's like well why is it not being consumed and God comes to him and says hey I want you to come back and free my people and he's like you know who are you basically? And you know very simply he says I am who I am and it's just God is what He is. He doesn't change.

He doesn't go through. He doesn't throw fits. He doesn't one day he's joyful over something I do or down about something I do.

He's unchanging. Where me on the other hand I completely change my attributes to make me up. My emotions go up.

My thoughts go off in a different direction. Things set me off and you get mad or upset but with God He's just the same. And for me to think about simplicity of life is to become more like Christ. So for you know be as your Heavenly Father is perfect. You know be holy as your Heavenly Father.

Those things just kind of kept jumping out in my mind is like well the more and more I work towards Christ and work towards Christ and work towards holiness and work towards like Jim said perfection. That's the march towards getting more and more decluttered in your life. So emotional things that you carry in your past from relationships from you know school or work or whatever you had that was good or bad but you're living in there in that past. Declutter that. Go back deal with it. Get it out of there.

Uproot it like Andy's clip had and get it out of there. So those are the things that kind of were with me this week when it was like if you just want to be moving ever towards a decluttered life and not having all the emotional baggage and other things you want to drive to the point where the Word and God are driving what you believe and think rather than things of your own emotions driving what you believe you know and moving that direction. I know in my life that you know the the frequency of those types of things and the magnitude of them you know what these emotional outbursts have all decreased since coming to Christ. It's something that I've actually feel that I've gained some stride in so it gives me encouragement to think about that that hey there is something in there where I've simplified my life and I am moving in that direction although like Jim said we're not perfect at it but it's the move in the direction and where are you heading that's really important. Thank you Rodney.

I really need some work on the bad drivers that are in front of me because I find I don't have the temperament that I need to have for them. Neither do I. It was interesting how much theological discussion this generated when we were up there earlier and one of the things that I said to Rodney during the break is the older I am I didn't do this part the older I get the more I laugh the more I cry and I sort of extrapolated that into I think God is laughing and crying all the time and that sort of sounds like that simple oneness that you spoke of and I like that. Okay Harold what about you what what on this topic would you like to speak and share on? Well Robby said something to me earlier and I my reply was well I got nothing and he said oh so when they took your job away and then I got to thinking well yeah I was pretty much a workaholic I had almost 44 years in systems analysis computer programming and it consumed me it was a love of mine my wife referred to it as one of my mistresses and the motorcycle the other for a while for a while and the fact that I was retired against my will but that gave me the opportunity to do some things that I would not have done otherwise I was given several jobs at church doing powerpoint doing the website doing the directory you know a lot of things like that that I picked up that I would not have done if I had remained in my job but also thinking about the fact that we choose not to declutter ourselves sometimes God will declutter for us for example when the Israelites had had made their worship such a mess he sent them off into a 70-year exile to get straightened out and so if we get too too bad of shape he may intervene and make us change what we wouldn't change on our own a 70-year exile would be about a third of your life wouldn't it here yeah that's probably a long walk for you back then she says going back earlier in time my sweetheart says I never would have made it out of the desert because as your earlier comment about drivers I've had a tendency not as bad now but I have a tendency to be critical and yeah I've got mine down to the slow turners the ones that turn really slow I have no patience for those people there's nothing nothing worse than a zipper merging camel just that's true for those who don't know herald's favorite thing in the world is zipper merging or not and he doesn't have a microphone now but he will well let me say that we're not talking about pants zippers yeah we're talking about the interstate where a lane's closing down and people try to forge their way up to the front and then we're talking about the interstate down and people try to forge their way up to the front and then when you play the ant game where everybody has to stop as opposed to everybody merging back two or three miles back up the road so you maintain your speed apparently our government thinks it's a way to do it because I see the signs on the road I'm just saying so you take that wherever you want to go with it think zipper think zipper let's let's not David how about you in this topic you know I'm gonna kind of piggyback off of what uh herald just said so if you don't declutter your life working on it praying about it and everything like that then God will intervene in it and most recently for me you know thinking about this topic I was praying at work the other day and was just you know asking God to speak to me about about this topic and what I could use and everything like that and he ultimately you know as some of you guys know decluttered my life pretty much instantly and he does that quite a lot he's done that through throughout my life quite a bit and and you know just anybody out there that's having any issues with it thinking about that they're they're feeling like the waters are muddy you know their head's full and everything like that just pray about it but be prepared what's going to happen when you do thank you David so question for you guys obviously you know I didn't tell you about the question so I'll go ahead and tell you a little bit about it now so what has God replaced in your life you went through a painful decluttering right or something you didn't want to let go of only to find later on that he had something else in store for you that was so much better for you right now Danny you spoke to that about you know literally your life right the way you were living your life you know he stripped that whole part from you and onto a better place I'm assuming your wife's listening so you better answer yeah she told me so yeah the um well fast forward a few years and you know we move into King up into this area it was a whole nother decluttering because I had to let go of a ministry that I pretty much had a death grip on for a while because I had identity tied up into it wasn't a bad thing like Andy was talking about you know the roots and the and the fruit of it was there but God said let go and we picked up and moved churches moved houses moved counties moved dogs everything and you know so here we are and it it honestly you can see the fruit of it all thank you and mine I was thinking about what you said Sam it's interesting that you know I guess about the same time we lost the dealership my wife was really really hurt by the people in our church when I had cancer and I went through my brain thing and all the different things that I went through is my wife would tell you that you know I couldn't pass by a hospital without it somehow sucking me into it but everybody always wanted to know about Robby hospital fuse like cheers that's how it was but they would always ask how I was but nobody seemed to really get into what my wife was going through and it's really quite easy easier to be the patient than it is to be than it is to be the spouse of the patient and in so many different ways and the hurt of that resulted in a giant change in a shift in that I I loved our church and I was very involved in our church and I had this opportunity to teach a big Sunday school class my wife wanted no part of that because of the wounding that she received from the church which you know all these people had great intentions they just didn't realize that but it didn't change the fact on how Tammy felt and she wasn't comfortable in that situation and so what I felt like was clearly our direction of ministry got changed a lot and one of the ways it got changed was as as we talked about many times as I started teaching special needs but the other way that it changed it opened up this in other words I I really was falling into legalism I know I was and there were so many things that I was doing because you know I don't know that that was that was what expected it was my duty it was this it was that and Darren and Sam came along and I went to that first boot camp man I watched you know that movie and I was like this is not a Christian movie shame shame shame uh it was Deliverance right and it Defiant we did not we will never show Deliverance at boot camp it's Defiant but totally different theme totally different there might be something to use with Deliverance that's funny Jim's becoming contagious oh yeah okay so yeah that would have been a really a long shot from legalism but nonetheless anyway as I started walking with these guys and I started to see what community really could be right and and the posing that had gone on in church of people you know I'm fine you're fine we're all fine you know everything's fine well it ain't so fine you know it just didn't and the idea of posing and and digging into our wounds and stuff like that and so you know really to me what looked like a really hard thing like I was losing my ministry to some extent like like Danny um through the injuries of my wife but I couldn't make her go to something she didn't want to go to and so that led to this opening of of this place in my heart for what really became like oh my gosh has this been a delight and a joy for me you know ever since most of those that say fine have been ground to powder so at a certain level they're honest that's a good point that's a good point for me God had opened up the door you know for us to to come down to North Carolina which I've shared on the show before that I never expected to live anywhere at that point I'd already lived in California and had been back to Indiana and kind of thought I'd just live there the rest of my life and thankfully he rescued me from that but now he had us come down here and it was an exciting time and there was a part of it that was very exciting and it was very much an adventure and then you know as we came down here and the people and I've talked about it at least once before on the show but the people that we were closest to who had our small group with and all that I could literally probably count on one hand the amount of messages we got after we moved to North Carolina a random Facebook post maybe you know maybe there's 10 you know over that time and wasn't expecting that painful realization you know you just thought you'd be in a different place but you'd still keep rather close because we'd shared some deep intimate stuff but the same for me Robby is I wouldn't have had room for the community that God had planned for me which is you guys right this is my community yeah I've been going to church because David's making me go to church but thank you David it's been nice but no and I do have a community that's developing there but for me this has always been my community all right and I'm so grateful for it because we share a lot of stuff we've had a lot of things that's went through Robin and I both lost our mom in the same year we have two separate moms I lost my mom he lost his mom we're not brothers as well you are brothers well we are but not yeah anyway but you know walking through those things together you're walking through different seasons with each one of you has been powerful for me and I'm very grateful for that and that would not be available had we stayed connected I don't think our hearts would have been open for that I've been accused twice in the last couple weeks of being a narcissist so I think I need to talk because I'm important but when you talked about what's been the decluttering we had a great example that God called us to Alaska we were living in not that big a house in Asheville and after giving selling a few things giving away a lot more things I still had a 60 feet long average four and a half five foot tall and six to eight foot while I can't talk six to eight foot wide pile of stuff to be hauled off at the front and nothing was more freeing in my life that I recall outside of accepting Jesus as my savior than getting rid of all that stuff and taking off to Alaska free from the clutter yeah there is that there is that anyone else have anything to share we got just a little bit of time well I think like there I think again the emotional baggage that you carry with you from other things I'm currently in the middle of a separation headed towards my divorce and it's just it's something that I've been trying to figure out what you know God has in store for me but it has greatly simplified my life and decluttered some things because it's just me and the dog it's kind of like okay I can deal with that I don't have a lot of other things going on in my life that are you know interfering or have to go worry about I can me and work and I it's just a moment for me to really reach into God and kind of find out okay why now what's going on where am I going and really I find it very calming to just be like trusting and I've never had that in my life it's always been worry about everything and now it's more of well I really don't have to worry about it what was most important to me doesn't seem to be lasting or it's breaking up so it's like okay well then I'll just I just trust you Lord and walk with you and just it's a very freeing thing which my word for the year is freedom so I'm just kind of letting that roll this is not a suggestion on how to declutter your life though divorcing your life though divorcing your wife no I don't I got nothing well she's she's you know she's actually divorcing me if it's getting official and I really what am I going to do you know stand in the way and really make it worse no yeah and God's got something on the other side for you if it means getting to keep her I'm going to keep the clutter your wife I'm assuming you're talking about to say it you didn't clarify anyway thank you for listening we're going to talk with you next week we have an exciting topic don't know what it is yet but join in I know you'll want to know because God's going to tell us about it here soon go to masculine journey dot o-r-g to register for the upcoming boot camp November 17th through 21st we'll talk with you next week this is the truth network