Masculine Journey Lover

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.

The masculine journey, not the name of the show, but what it's named after, is part of from the book, Fathered by God. And John talks about this masculine journey that we're on, going from boyhood to death, basically from birth to death and all the different stages in between. And Andy, you want to recap some of the stages we've been through and then just talk a little bit about the stage we're talking about today. The one today, is it the moron stage? It is, it is. It's a moron stage.

Most men are in that quite a long time, depending on the person. Robby, I just want to know, is that spoken in love? That's all I want to know.

Yeah, so go ahead Andy, why don't you go ahead. We started off with boyhood, 0 to 12. Just kind of where you're learning that you're the apple of your father's eye and that you have what it takes.

Cowboy ranger, 10 to mid 20s. You're really experiencing adventure, nature, hard work and life is hard. And warrior, we went over that last week, 16 to 30 and beyond. Know that you've made, as a warrior in God's image, you learn that battles are to be fought and that they're bigger than you and that you have to call on God for that. I want you to pause before you go to the next one.

Okay, so I was talking with somebody about this actually last night. The first two stages are so incredibly fundamental and I know we've talked about that, but if you don't get what you need out of those first two stages, every other stage will be complicated and it won't go well. If you get wounded in those first two stages, which pretty much everybody does, or underdeveloped, which is a wounding, it's never fostered, it's never grown, that type of thing, you're going to have a hard time with the rest of the stages. Because in that boyhood stage, you're supposed to be delighted in, the apple of the Father's eye.

It's not based on performance, it's not based on any of those types of things, it's just because you are who you are. And your dad delights in you. And that's what you're supposed to get from that and a lot of people don't. No one does to a perfect degree.

Not like God. And then the next stage, you need to learn that you have what it takes in those adventures. And so if you fail during that time or you realize that you don't have what it takes in an area and there's no one to help coach you through that, how are you going to be prepared for the warrior? How are you going to be prepared for the next stage and the next stage? And so it's all important because they build on that. And so as we've talked about before, the value of doing this and if anyone would like the spreadsheet, we can send it to them.

Just reach out to any of us at masculinejourney.org. And to make that clear, it'd be like Robby. Not to email any of us that we don't have that one yet.

But just Robby, Andy, anything like that. And we can send it to you because going back there with God and letting Him father you in those areas so that you can be a better warrior, a better lover, a better king, a better sage, that kind of thing. And so, Andy, sorry about the delay there.

I just want to pick it back up. Sure. So we're in the lover stage today. The age, late teens, the rest of your life.

We know that there's not an expiration date on when you can stop loving, obviously. Discovers beauty, discovers poetic is more than analytical, begins to know God as a lover, learns to give and offer versus see what He can get. You know, I think a lot of us relate to that. And how it's wounded, you get the woman too soon before you're fully prepared, takes question to the woman, fails with the woman, remains undeveloped when a man stay, you may remain undeveloped when you stay in a world of analytical, logical.

Yeah. I think it was an actually wild at heart. John wrote this part, but he really does a good job of describing a kiss, right? When you use the logical, analytical, what a kiss is, it's two mandibles pressing together, blah, blah, blah, with potential fluid exchange, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, right? But that doesn't describe a kiss.

You know, when you've really kissed somebody that you love and there's no words for it, right? And that's the difference between that analytical and the deeper thinking underneath that's not reason oriented, it's heart oriented. And so I want to go back to something you said there at the beginning, because when we talk about the lover stage and a lot of our clips are going to deal around a man and woman relationship, but there's so much more to this and we'll talk about it more in the after hours.

But it's where you discover beauty, where you discover, you know, God is a lover, right? The lover of your heart, that type of thing. And so going from there, but we do have a clip coming up and Danny, you have the first clip.

And so if you want to tell us a little bit about the, uh, the first clip we're going to play. Yeah, it's from the show blue bloods, and it is an interchange between Jamie and Eddie who are married. They've not been married too long. Jamie is, uh, I drew a blank, uh, what's his name? He's Tom Selleck's son, Tom Selleck's son in the show, and they've been married and he's really trying to be a good husband.

And he has thrown all barrels at a night to wow his wife, basically. And she comes home and you can play the clip and we'll talk about it on the other side. That blouse looks beautiful. It does? You always make me laugh. I do?

Yeah, it looks great too. You get a cut in color. Did I get a cut in color? Do I ever get a cut in color? See, that's what I love about you.

You're 100% natural. Jamie, what's going on? Nothing's going on. Oh, you got me daisies. Your favorite, right? Lillies. Oh, oops. My bad. It's okay. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Could you not?

Sorry, too hard? What are you doing? You know what I thought we could do tonight? Watch TV and pass out. No. Head to Central Park for a hike. Jamie, I just worked at Dumble.

Would you rather we do a spa day? Oh. Oh, I see what's happening. You complemented my hair. Words of affirmation.

There's frittata on the stove. Acts of service. You got me flowers, gifts. You gave me a massage. Physical touch.

And a hike in the freezing cold. Quality time. You got all five love languages. Well, I didn't know which was your language, so I tried to do all five. It was a little much. Maybe you were right.

Maybe we should just start with English. In that case, I'm sorry. You're sorry? I don't want to be the husband that belittles his wife when all she's trying to do is make us better or have more fun. You did it.

Did what? This whole time I've been trying to figure out what my love language is, and you just showed me words of affirmation. Yeah, so so many times I have been in Jamie's shoes, I think, trying to do the analytical lover thing.

And if I do X, Y, Z, it should come out this way. And, you know, not only and I love the way you set this up is not only in relationships with women, my wife, but also with God. Because if I pray enough, I read enough scripture, if I go to church the right amount of times, then my relationship should be OK. And it leaves you so hollow. And so the struggle has been in those arenas that to analyze a relationship and think it should come out in a certain way.

And it hasn't worked so far. So, yeah, you're trying to figure out God's love language. Yes. Yeah. And it's in his job description, as you say. Yeah.

God is love. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty much. Anyone got any thoughts on that clip that you'd like to share? I thought it was pretty cool that he's at least trying.

Right. For so many people, they just would say, you know, I'm not going to or in this, it appears he's trying with a pure heart. As well, it's not necessarily what can I get out of it as much as how can I love well. And I think that's pretty key. Even when you don't do it right, if that's your intention, you're at least going with the right direction.

You know, you just got to walk with God through it and try to find a better way. I'm going to play a clip from a song that I used to like. It's from John Mellencamp.

At the time, it was John Cougar. And it was a song. I need a lover. And the lyrics would go, I need a lover that won't drive me crazy. And I thought it was kind of funny until I actually read the lyrics. And so I'll play a short little snippet from it and I'll read you what it says. It's a really, really bad song, you know, in a lot of ways. It's got a good rhythm.

But anyway, we will play it and come back and talk about it. So it's really hard to pick up stuff from lyrics and I get that, especially as they're singing. And so he sings about, I need a lover that won't drive me crazy, some girl to thrill me and then go away.

Wow. I need a lover that won't drive me crazy, some girl that knows the meaning of, hey, it's a highway or hey, hit the highway. This is all consumer.

I mean, this is a, I'm in this relationship for what I can get 110%. This is all I'm about. I don't really care about your needs. I don't care about anything for you.

It's just about me. And that's where a lot of times men, maybe women as well, can find themselves after they've been wounded in those other stages. When you've had some deep, deep hurt, at some point you just kind of shut down those parts of you that would welcome that or accept it. And you go from being someone that we heard in the first clip to somebody you hear in the second clip.

Someone that just tries to consume it. And there's a season, a couple seasons in my life that I would say I fell into that. And both, one coming out of a season of, you guys don't know my story, you've heard it before, but I was molested as a kid and the enemy telling me you'll never be a real man. Well, you know, I was going to do anything to try to make me feel like a real man, you know, and left a lot of carnage along the way. You know, and again, after some betrayal in my life, you know, you just kind of shut down that part of your heart. Right? And when you shut it down and you don't open yourself up to it, you end up in some really bad places hurting people.

You know, and so anyway, not a great song, probably won't like it so much anymore. Go register with the boot camp coming up November 17th through 20th, masculinejourney.org. 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. When a man loves a woman, spend his very last dime, trying to hold on to what he needs.

He'd give up all his comfort, sleep out in the rain. If she said that's the way it ought to be. Whose bump was it? It was your bump, right, Andy? Yeah. Do you not know how the show goes? Oopsie.

Let's tease it. So that was the Righteous Brothers? No, that was Michael Bolton.

Michael Bolton. Oh, yeah, he stole it from Gretchen. Yeah.

There were better versions. Yeah. You know, just those words. A man will do anything for the love of a woman, spend every dime on her. And she says they ought to sleep out in the rain. Yeah, that's good. And a lot of times, we were just talking about taking your question to the woman.

When you bring a certain amount of strength, you don't have to be, you know, led around with those kind of ideas that a woman sees something attractive in you and what you bring from who you are. But, you know, that's not necessarily it sounds like this song sounds like so romantic and all that. But it's really it's kind of like yours. It's not complete.

The complete story. And that one's a lot better than the one. And it actually most women think it's a great love song. And I used to ask men or women when they say, oh, I really love that song. You really want a guy that's that wimpy?

And I caught something in at this one I forgot about. He says he's doing it for himself. So it's a selfish thing that he's rolling over.

The interesting thing about it, he says, is sit out in the rain and that sounds wimpy. Yeah. But in the Song of Solomon. Right. The famous setting where, you know, he says, open to me. Am I right?

Yeah, my sister, my love, because my head is filled with the drops of the night. Right. That's that's in there.

And then that's Jesus knocking. He's out there. But he's pursuing her because he knows what's best for her. Right. He's offering his strength.

So there is a big difference. And when we're talking about taking your question, in other words, in that clip with Jamie, the question I have. And because Jamie is sort of an insecure guy, if you've watched the series much, he's a good man, a really good man. But I'm not so sure he knows he has what it takes. And so when you listen to what he was talking to, his wife is like, I don't want to be the guy. Well, that's you know, that's still about me, right? I don't want to be that husband. You know, I want to, you know, and so you can't help but wonder, is he going after our love languages in an effort to bring her his strength? Or is he doing it so that he doesn't have to be that guy? And, you know, sometimes we don't realize ourselves what our motives might be.

And, you know, so we hear those words like, I don't want to be that guy. Well, yeah. So that sets up my clip pretty good.

It does. So with this, my clips is from a big fat Greek wedding. And here we have Ian and Matula. I don't want to say you're on.

Let's make them all be wrong. I can't remember her name. Yeah, I can't remember. Yeah.

Anyway, that could be right. Anyway, she's Greek. She is.

She's the one very insecure. But the thing about it that I would really like, you know, I can't listen to it enough is the lover is a learner. And the idea in Hebrew of lover and learner and heart are all three very much connected in the first letter. That is happens to have that L sound, the Lomet. And so when you think about that, you're he is interested in finding out about her and he brings his strength to her when she gets really insecure.

So listen to how he draws her out when she's trying to hide and then comes for. Well, you know everything about me, then I'm a pretty strong vegetarian teacher over at Lincoln Park. I don't know anything about you, except you're Greek. OK. Christmas.

What do you do for Christmas with your family? My mom makes roast lamb with mint jelly. And. And I'm Greek.

Right. So what happens is my dad and my uncles, they fight over who gets to eat the lamb brain. And then my Aunt Lula forks the eyeball and chases me around with it, trying to get me to eat it because it's going to make me smart. So you have two cousins. I have twenty seven first cousins, just twenty seven first cousins alone. And my whole family is big and loud and everybody's in each other's lives and business all the time. Like, well, I'm serious. No one in my family has ever gone out with a non Greek before.

No one. And you're. You're just, you know, wonderful, but I just don't see how this is going to work out.

So work out what what's to work out? We're not a different species. Yes, we come from different backgrounds. And and hey, here's some news about my life to this point. It's boring that I met you and you're interesting and you're beautiful and fun and you got a weird family.

Who doesn't? I just want to spend some time. I just want to spend a little time with you. So, you know, to me, there's there is that tremendous desire to learn that is so fun in the relationship with God, in the relationship with your mother or your daughter or your granddaughter. Like, how fun is it to have your four year old granddaughter and begin to examine, you know, Shirley Temple with her, like, you know, whatever it is that she's into.

You know, how fun is that? Because you're going after their heart and into their story. And, you know, it's really, really neat that that that is stuff that connects to your heart and you can feel it and it connects to their heart, because when people are interested in you.

Right. That it brings them out. A couple of things from that clip.

I love when he obviously when he speaks, he calls her beautiful and all that. But it's more for me the you say you have a weird family who doesn't write the affirmation of everybody has a weird family. And did you was the Hebrew word lamb, lamb, lamb? Oh, Lamad. Lamad. Lamad. OK. L.A.M.E.D. So can you help me break down the song?

Lama de la mama, Lamad, kadiny, kadiny, dong. Anyway, I wasn't quite sure. It sounds like that. I think Jim could sing it. I'm pretty sure.

I think he could. No, but you were close on the Greek Lambda. OK. There we go. David, I think we do have time for your clip. I got to see when we're done. Yeah, we have time for your clip. Like right to the end. Yeah, right to the next show, if you prefer.

I mean, it doesn't matter to me. But this has a different aspect. That's what I want to get your clip in now. So this is from Fighting Within. It's a young MMA fighter that's trying to overcome his troubled past and dig into his newly found faith. And when we come into this scene, he's sitting in front of a convenience store with an older gentleman. This is actually the second time in the movie he visited him. And the gentleman's eating gummy bears. And really what this clip speaks to me is about we can't truly be lovers until we know God's love. And knowing how to get to that. And so we'll let him explain and then we'll come back and talk a little bit about it.

I like these little green ones. So tell me this. How can God love someone like me? Just because you're his creation.

His child. He loves you like a newborn baby. But you have no idea all the bad things I've done. The pain I've caused.

That's right, I don't. But I do know what God has done for you. What he wants for you. What can I do for God? It's not about what you can or can't do for his love. It's about your faith in him. Who he is in your life. How does faith change anything? With faith you'll seek and you'll find God. Once you find God, everything changes.

Not because it has to, but because you want it to. You want to do things his way. Sounds like I've got a lot of work to do. You know, all of these jellies are just the same. Yeah, that was interesting, the end of that. What did he say? He said all of these jellies taste the same. So you've got to slow it down a little bit sometimes to catch what he says.

And he's got a point there. When we're talking about God's love or the brand of God's love, the world likes to make us think that we can just go to Crotchdale or watch a Hallmark movie and that's what love is. Or going through the Cowboy Ranger stage into the Warrior stage. I know when I was in those stages and still currently in some of them, I would just basically didn't love the woman. I was going more of my flesh desires versus really coming back and looking at it from the love that God shows us. And until we truly do that, we can't really love ourselves or anybody else.

For me, I didn't really start. I've always loved my wife. I will always love my wife. But I didn't really know the true meaning of unconditional love until I got myself right with God and could feel the love that he was giving me. And then I started to not necessarily go out and say to somebody, God loves you or I love you because God tells me to. It starts to show in your everyday actions and how you actually love the people around you because ultimately that's what we were called to do, right? Love the people around us.

And sharing God's love with the people around us saves lives and ultimately will save our life. Just recently on the way to the radio show, I was talking to my mom. And as we were talking, she was like, we're really proud of you. And I was like, well, thanks.

Why are you really proud of me? She was like, because you became a good person. And I was shocked at first. And of course, I had to come back to praying about it and getting right with God before I said what I said. And I told my mom, I was like, well, I've always been a good person. And then the conversation got a little weird after that. And we got off the phone and started really praying about it and thinking. And it was like a one-two punch from God straight to the face, really, with it. The fact was, I have always been a good person, but until I really acquired and understood what God's love is in the lover stage, nobody else knew that. And now it's starting to show. And I'm grateful that my parents are proud of me. I've always been there, but finally found the love that God shows and got it out there. Yeah, you're finally in a safe place for it to come out, potentially. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, growing up all through my life, I've been married three times and really messed that up. And it was more of not going after it from a godly perspective or from a Christian's perspective, more of a flesh perspective. Well, thank you, David. There's so much more on this topic. We still have to get our Braveheart clip in because there is a theme all the way through Braveheart that hits every one of these stages. And so we're saving that for the after hours. You don't want to miss it. Go to any podcast outlet to download it.

You can go to iTunes, Spotify, just name it. We're probably there. Or you can go to maskongourney.org, download it, listen to it while you're registering for the boot camp coming up November 17th through 20th.

You could do both of those at the same time. We would love for you to do that. We'd love to see you there. Again, maskongourney.org. We'll talk to you next week.