Tribute To Fathers

Jesus said, Blessed are the persecuted and they are suffering big time right now. This is Bible League International and 19-year-old Aria was beaten by her own father and violated by local authorities. You know what her crime was?

Simply that she gave her life to Jesus Christ after leaving radical Islam. They need Bibles in order to endure and persevere. And that's why Truth Network and Bible League are teamed up to send God's Word to 3500 persecuted believers around the world at $5 a Bible.

$100 sends 20. Call 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, or give at truthnetwork.com. This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing 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.

Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week, and I'm actually just glad to be in air conditioning. It's been a really hot week. I mean, I'm glad to be here, don't get me wrong, but I'm really glad we have air conditioning here. If you're not in North Carolina, it has been record heat this week, this time of year.

It's gotta be close to record. David, didn't you say it was like 20 degrees above normal or something? Yeah, the news was saying that it's gonna be 20 degrees above normal temperature for this time of the year, and I think when I pulled in, it said it was around 96, but today when I got my truck, it was over 100, so it was definitely hot out there, scorcher. Yeah, it was tad warm. But yeah, so hopefully we'll be moving into a little bit of cooler weather, and this is not the way the prediction of summer for the rest of the year. But we are in the middle of a series.

Rodney, you wanna tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, we're gonna take a break from our regular scheduled programming. Oh, we are?

Yeah, we are. Oh, okay. And we're gonna get off the pillars. Okay. And then get into the blankets.

Yes, yes, yes. We couched it, as Danny said. Yeah, couch the pillars.

We couched the pillars. So we've been doing a series on the... Oh, shoot. Tools of the enemy.

Tools of the enemy. And we've been going through different topics there, and what we're gonna do is take a break and talk about fathers for Father Day this week. Right, and so we wanna say that because we're not talking about fathers as being tools of the enemy. That's not what we're talking about.

We don't wanna mix those two. Yeah, at times you could ask my kids, that may have been the case, but no, it's... No, that's... Yeah, they have told us that, Sam, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're taking a break to talk about fathers, because Father's Day weekend, it's Father's Day tomorrow, and so we wanna go ahead and talk about that.

And not just our biological fathers, or the fathers that raised us, if it was a stepdad or whatever, not just that, but other people that fathered us in life. And of course, our Heavenly Father will try to touch on some of that over this show and the after-hours show, and so if you don't hear what you wanna hear in this one, please go ahead and go listen to the second one in the after-hours, and you can get that on any podcast location. Just pick one, and we're there, Masco and Journey Radio. And so, Robby, you wanna tell us a little bit about what we're talking about this week, but first, the entrenchment coming up. The entrenchment, and it's F-R-E-E free, right? Free weekend, how fun. It's gonna be in Reedsville. It's coming up September 30th through October 1st.

And again, it's not like a stay overnight kind of thing, but there are some meals involved, and it's like a boot camp experience. In other words, we have some talks, we have some Covenant of Silence times, and people will get a chance to, you know, go after the heart of God for, you know, a period of a weekend, and at least Friday, Saturday. And we're very excited. We've never done it in connection with a church like this. And so, it's New Lebanon Church there in Reedsville.

So, that's exciting. And again, if you go to Mascoandjourney.org, and you just click on the link right there, and you can email the pastor to sign up. And like I said, coming up September 30th through October 1st, right? It's just that Friday and Saturday. And Friday evening, dinner time, we'll have a dinner there, and then have our first session right after that, and then come back Saturday morning.

And we are asking that you please consider making a donation for the meals, just to help the church out so they're not losing any money on it. So, anyway, tell us about this week's topic. Yeah, so, you know, just a really foundational part of the masculine journey is being fathered by God, which has to do with so many times with our earthly fathers.

And so, we have, you know, and that can be fraught with landmines. And I realize that some of the people listening, you know, this is a hard subject. For other people listening, it's a beloved subject. But nonetheless, the way God designed it was for us to have what Jesus had, you know, a father that longed to see his son coming out of the water saying, this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. And then, you know, that was the idea of being the apple of the Father's eye.

And then he gave him the second acknowledgement by saying, listen to him, guys, listen to him, pay attention. In other words, my son has what it takes. And so, every son wants to hear from his father in some way, shape, or form, those two ideas of, you know, you're the beloved, they're the apple of my eye, and that plays out in a lot of different ways. And then, but also, they want to know what they have, what it takes. And so, it's a really neat subject. Again, Jesus wants to set us free from a lot of bad fathering that we received, you know, on all sorts of different levels, even from a coach, right? Or whatever your situation may be.

And so, it's a neat topic to get your heart back, which is the idea of the masculine journey. Thank you, Robby. Now, Danny, you have the first clip of the day.

I do. And it's surprisingly from the Andy Griffith Show, the classic father-son scenarios. But this is from an episode called Opium and the spoiled kid. And this kid has educated Opium on the ways of the world and allowances and the way those things work. And he has gone to have a conversation with his dad.

And to enlighten Andy, he's pretty sure that Andy's not aware of these new worldly ideas and the interchange in between them is classic as usual, but a pretty good father and son moment. Paws and sons. This first. The 75 cent rule. The 75 cent rule. I don't believe I ever heard of that.

Well, that's what I figured. What it is, Pa, is that nowadays, kids get 75 cents a week allowance instead of 25 cents. 75 cents? That's a lot of money. And in a year's time, I'd come to see there's 52 weeks in a year. It comes to around $40 a year.

That's an awful lot of money for a young. They get it, Pa. They do, huh?

And they don't have to work for it like I do. Who is this office today you keep talking about? Oh, Arnold Winkler and everybody. Arnold Winkler.

I don't believe I know him, do I? They're new from Raleigh. Oh, I see.

And the Raleigh rules say 75 cents and no work, huh? I guess. You want it straight, don't you? Uh-huh. Okay, here it goes. There are no rules for Paws and sons. It's as simple as this.

Each mother or father raises his boy or girl, as the case may be, the way that he thinks is best. And I think it's best for you to get a quarter and work for it. You see, when you give something, in this instance, cleaning the garage and you get something in return, like a quarter, well, that's the greatest feeling in the world. You do feel good after working, don't you? Uh-huh. Good and tired.

Well, as you get bigger, well, you'll be doing more and more work for more and more return, and that good feeling will get bigger. Do you understand what I mean? I think so. Good.

I'm not gonna get the 75 cents and I have to work for the 25. Right. All clear to you? Yeah.

The bigger you get, the tireder you get. Ella, you just, you just think about that for a while. Do I have to? Don't you want to think about it? It makes me kind of sad. Well, the thing to do when you're feeling sad is to shoot for the good feeling. Clean the garage. Right.

It's long, Paul. Yeah, you know, growing up, dad was, he's a mechanical genius. He just can fix anything, but, you know, as we come growing up, if we had a bike or something broke, he would always have us out there fixing it with him or doing something, and he taught us the value of, you know, being able to do things and to work for what you have. And, you know, he allowed us to work on our uncle's farm and earn money, and that's what I bought my first car with.

But, you know, if the car broke or if there's something going on with the car, you had to go to shop with him. And I hated it. But the, I just was, I was kind of like Opie.

I was good and tired. And, but, you know, the value of that throughout my life has been that, you know, I've been able to do a lot of things and, you know, if something broke, I was able to fix it and, you know, know the value of what my father has poured into me and, you know, showing the love of taking care of us and, you know, making sure that we did have what it took, so. Well, thank you. This is a show where we're going to have a lot of clips because this is all about, you know, us talking about the father role, you know, as far as in our life, who's played that father role in different ways. You spoke of your dad. When I talk about my clip, I'm not really going to talk about my dad. But the one thing I did think about on my dad that he really kind of gave me was a lot of values. My dad was not a Christian. You know, when I was growing up, he didn't come a Christian until right before he died, several years after I'd been out of the house, you know, but he did have good values, you know, and he would teach me things like you never hit a woman, you never do this, you know, you never throw the first punch in a fight and all these kind of, you know, rules that men live by, kind of stuff, open doors for, you know, for people, elderly and, you know, young people and female and all that that these days may not be as apropos that we do that.

But, you know, it still was good values, you know, and I do owe that to my dad because he was pretty adamant. You know, if I would have ever gotten a fight in school, the first thing you want to know, which if I ever got in a fight, I got in fights all the time. But, you know, did I throw the first punch?

No, but you could do a lot to instigate a fight without throwing the first punch. I learned how to do that one. But we're gonna talk more about this after the break. But let's take a little bit of a sidetrack and say hello to Andy, who's not been with us in a while. Andy, welcome to the show again. I thought maybe you quit.

No, not yet. The night is young. But it depends on how many times you put me on the spot tonight, whether I stay with him or not. Well, he won't be able to look at you funny, Andy. So yeah, I can't stare you down and make you feel nervous.

It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. I just ask you questions you're not expecting.

I could do that. So where are you at now? So I'm on my way back from Missouri. I'm in Kentucky, and had an absolute wonderful trip. And I went back and saw families from where I grew up and saw a lot of relatives and, you know, kind of ties all into this.

You know, Father's Day and honoring father and learn more about him, asking questions from family members. He's passed, but it's been a great time. And I know you guys have been praying for me.

And your prayers are working. I'll just say that. And so you called it Missouri. I always thought it's called Missouri. I wasn't really sure.

The times I went through it felt pretty miserable. If you're from there, they call it Missouri. Okay, yeah. Yeah, they drop a few letters there. But there's quite a few people, I think, that do refer them to Missouri. I don't know. David, I think he's spent some time there.

We'll let him call that. Oh, it was definitely a miserable time in my life. The times I've been through, obviously, just been driving through. But anyway, we're glad that you're back with us, at least on the phone. And you'll be back in person next week. But we're going to come back and talk more about fathers. Here in the room, we're about 50-50, I think, for fathers that are still alive between Andy and the rest of us. And so it's a little bit different feeling when your father's still around than when he's passed.

You have different perspective. But go to masculinejourney.org to register for the boot camp or the entrenchment. We'll talk to you in a minute. One of my favorite things about boot camp, well, the favorite thing about boot camp is every time I go, I encounter God. And as anyone that has encountered God knows, generally speaking, it's nothing we expect. Real encounter with God out of the blue. He knew what I needed. I knew what I wanted.

And those two were rarely the same thing. Register today at 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. In the middle of the night, I look up to the sky. I can hear you singing over me through the fire and the flood. I know that I am loved.

I can hear you singing over me, yeah. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. And we're talking about fathers. And that song was called Song of My Father from Urban Rescue. And it's only appropriate that we talk about our Heavenly Father during this weekend, who is obviously, as Robby set up, the key in our masculine journey and who he chooses to initially partner us with as our earthly father and then the people he brings in our life throughout our life to help fathers.

And so he's been navigating that and continues to navigate it. And we just give him all the blessings for the progress that we make and all the credit and just thank him for the way he loves us. And that song just really... I never really thought about God singing over me before.

It was just a really cool thought. I remember singing to my kids when they were little and they couldn't tell. They were tone deaf. They couldn't hear that I couldn't sing really poorly. But yeah, just as a father sings over the kids and what a just a pleasant thought that was for me.

But we're back on the show and Robby, we're gonna be talking about your clip next, right? Yeah, so this is from a movie, Boyhood. And that idea of the father singing over us, it's really... I never forget when I did the fatherhood talk that all of a sudden it hit me, wait a minute. When people say that their father died, so they went with their backup plan, which now God is my father, that's not it at all. That he was the original person that wanted to make sure that you existed.

And if you study genealogy at all, you'll come to the conclusion like, man, all these people barely escaped death in order that I could be on the earth because God really, really wanted me to be around and that he delighted in me. And so this movie is called Boyhood. It's about a father who had these children and want to chronicle their life. And you know when you're a new father and your kids are born, you're just so excited about the journey and what's gonna happen.

And they actually ended up making a movie over what the clips that this guy put together. But in this particular scene, unfortunately, like life happens, his wife divorced him, and so he's still in a difficult place. And you can imagine that there you are, a divorced dad, and you're picking up your kids at school and you're trying to engage them in a conversation. And if you ever picked up your kids at school and you ask them what you do today, you know what this father has experienced.

And so he decides to get a little creative, and we'll take it from there. But I said no because I knew what a hard time you had quitting smoking, Dad. How about that? Is that so hard? Dad, these questions are kind of hard to answer.

What is so hard to answer about what sculpture are you making? It's abstract. Okay, okay, that's good. See, that's, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know that.

I didn't know you were even interested in abstract art. I'm not. They make us do it.

But Dad, I mean, why is it all on us though? You know, what about you? How was your week? You know, who do you hang out with? Do you have a girlfriend?

What have you been up to? Let's see your point. So we should just let it happen more naturally, okay? That's what you're saying. Okay, that's what we'll do.

Starting now. So I love the intimacy of, you know, it starts out like we all do with a mask on. We're not going to tell our parents what really happened. And, you know, he's got a mask on too because he's just doing the dad thing, right? You know, this is what dads do.

We ask how was your day? But it goes to a different level of intimacy as he gets a little creative to get them to say things. They say things that take him off his guard. And the next thing you know, you have a real connection. And, and you're finding out, you know, how cool your kids are. And, you know, is his son's statement from the backseat where he cares about his dad.

Like, Whoa, wow, son, you care about me like I care about you. And, you know, it's just, it's, it's an awakening. And, you know, I think it's really neat, for example, Sam, you know, that Caleb's taken you, you know, this weekend, you know, tell that I think it's more than cool, right? That, yeah, we have that kind of thing.

Yeah. Caleb asked me this last week, my youngest son graduated and, and Caleb was home. And, and he asked me when I was over at the party, you know, with him, and he's like, What are you doing next weekend?

I really don't have anything going on. He's like, Well, come stay with me in Raleigh. It's Father's Day weekend, you come stay at my apartment. We can hang out together. You know, I got a coupon for an escape room and whatever we want to go do. There's some restaurants we can go to or do some of that. And it was such a cool thing for my heart to know that my son wanted to hang out with me.

He has friends over in Raleigh as co workers, there's lots of things he could fill his weekend with. But he was choosing to fill it with me being there with him, which I thought was really pretty cool. Yeah.

And so who wouldn't, I mean, just delight in that, in that situation. So maybe or that son that could invite your dad, you know, I can't invite my dad anymore. Wish I could, you know, to go on that kind of adventure, but you know, to be to be invited to go do that with my son or grandson's Oh, would that be cool? You know?

Yeah. And whether you have the dad or the son, this is an opportunity to take and go, wow, what can I do to show my dad or my son that I love them? You know, or someone that was your father figure that, Hey, you were very important in my life. Just write him a letter even.

Cause I mean, an email, a text, uh, you know, if you write them a letter and send that, you take the time to do that, that helps really show somebody, wow, I really care about you for anybody wanting you want a letter, just kidding. Write a little, write a little letter and mail it to my local Christian car guy. So Robby, what about your dad? Uh, my dad was just like that, you know, from my standpoint, I, you know, whenever I showed up, he wanted to know what was going on in my life. And even though he didn't particularly care for what was going on in my life, you know, cause let's face it, man, I was in Scientology. I did some weird things, right? Shenanigans, shenanigans. Yeah.

Majorly. He was, he was Robby Dunmore's dad. This could not be an easy task, but he, you know, he was kind of like that father that said, well, let him plug it into the wall.

He won't do that again. You know, that's my dad, you know, he was going to let me do some really stupid stuff that would teach me and it did, it did. And so he gave me great freedom, but he always cared. And as I think, you know, love covers a multitude of sin and I never, my dad always was letting me know I had what it took. And he always, always, I was the apple of his eye.

And so I realized that a lot of people didn't have that, but I was so blessed that I did have that. Which I think is also reflected in your heavenly father with your life. Yeah. Oh yeah. Ooh, deeply.

He let me do some really stupid stuff. Exactly. And look where you're at. I know. Andy, we've got about a little over three minutes left. Do you think you could set up your clip and play it or you want to do it in the after hours? That may be a stretch.

I'll do my best. It's from the Field of Dreams. It's a popular scene. Field of Dreams is kind of a back to the future kind of thing where Ray, his dad, was a baseball player and died before he was born. And then his dad comes back into his life through these dreams and these weird things that become the Field of Dreams. And really it's kind of when it's winding down, he's met his dad, he knows who his dad is. His dad doesn't really know who he is, but he's just inviting him to come and play catch with him in which any young boy would do it.

He never had that opportunity with his dad. It really kind of plays into that and his influence in my life in sports and stuff, something I enjoyed. So go ahead and play it. You catch a good game. Thank you. It's so beautiful here.

For me. Well, for me, it's like a dream come true. Can I ask you something? Is this heaven? It's Iowa.

Iowa? Yeah. This morning was heaven. Is there a heaven? Oh yeah. It's the place dreams come true.

Maybe this is heaven. Good night, Randy. Good night, John. Hey, dad. You want to have a catch? I'd like that.

Randy, go ahead. Yeah. So it's just a, you know, very simple, very, very relational. Does it get into a lot of aspects of fathering from the aspect of do this son or anything? It's just a matter of father and son and how, and quite frankly, I feel like when we get to heaven, our fathers are there. We will be playing catch.

There is something about that shared joy in doing something as simple as throwing a ball back and forth. And, you know, like, my, my dad was there to play catch with me. I know some guys, they didn't have father to do that.

And I hurt for them. My dad came from a long way. I'll get into it after hours a little bit more, but I mean, his dad, he never really knew his dad and his dad died at an early age. And I think he is much, as much, as flawed as he was, he did a great job with, um, with me and my, my brothers and my sister. And, you know, I just, uh, that, that, that whole thing about just being relational and fathers and son, and not so much of, you know, we take everything we do these days, things to be performance-based, you know, you do this, you do that, just being there and being in the relationship, not that we don't have to, uh, not that we don't get the fact that we have what it takes.

That's important to pass along, but that can even be influenced in a game of catch. So Thank you, Andy. And I know your dad was big in your love for adventure.

Yeah. He demonstrated that to you and took you on adventures, which, you know, led to, uh, your love for doing that. And you've been on one for the last, uh, seems like month now, but I know it's only been a couple of weeks. You know, we've been missing you, even though we gave you a hard time, we definitely have been missing you and glad to have you back next week and learn more about your story. When we come back after, uh, on the after hours, we're gonna talk more about the fathering, you know, other people that have fathered us in our life, more about our heavenly father and hear from the rest of the guys on their story. Uh, you can catch that at any podcast outlet. You can go to masculine journey.org. You can download it there, listen to it from there. Also go register for the entrenchment coming up and it's coming up October 30th, September 30th, October 1st, and then the bootcamp November 17th through the 20th masculine journey.org. We'll talk to you next week. This is the truth network.