Motivation After Hours

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

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.

We're glad to have you with us today. And we have a first this week. Well, I guess if you listen to the last show, it's a second, but it's still a first for the overall week. Yeah, it's a first on the after hours. So it's still a first.

It is a first in the after hours. David actually showed up, A, brought a clip, B, and picked a topic. That's awesome. Good job, David.

Yep, yep. So our topic this week is motivation. And I was really going for not your standard definition of that, more of what gets you going when life beats you down to continuing your walk with God.

And it comes from 1 Corinthians 15, 58, from the message version. With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground and don't hold back. Throw yourself into the work of the master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

For me, motivation wise is, you know, the things we do here, the Masculine Journey, the entrenchments, the boot camps. But even deeper into that is the fact that I get up every morning and come in contact with the community. And I never know who I'm going to come in contact with. And I've had the opportunity. Well, I want to say God's given me the opportunity to be able to share some of my story with people that, you know, I never thought I would have talked to about that.

So that's how that gets me going in the mornings, for sure, especially when the warfare is just beating you down and you just don't know where to go. Yeah, I can't imagine how much your day can be significantly different from one hour to the next, just depending because you're working with, you know, just anyone that walks through the door. Yeah, on an average, for the business is what they say, the business model on a average, I see about 3000 people a day. Wow. So those who don't know, David works for sheets. I do. I do. You know, I'm sure all our listeners has the sheets probably on every corner.

Great company to work for. If they're in this general area, if they're out west, not so much. If you're in Ohio and we're moving into Michigan, so not trying to plug you on. That's not west. Well, Ohio is heading out west. It's Midwest. It's west of here, technically. Yeah. Middle west, right? Yeah. We have a thing called the Mississippi River. Usually on the other side of that is usually what the term is.

In Mexico, Colorado, California, the Pacific Northwest, Idaho. Well, I mean, we're going for, you know, you never know. Eventually. Yeah. At some point, we're going to be out towards that way.

Right now, we're more on this side. Yeah, it's on the east coast-ish. Yeah. So anyway, who has the first clip? You do, David. That's right. Oh, I do. Oh, yeah. Perks of, you know, picking the topic, I guess. Yeah.

You get to pick when you go. This is an audio of speeches kind of mashed up together. Found it on YouTube. I'm not a big... Is it sort of a monster mash? It is. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean... It's a graveyard smash. Yeah.

It depends on who your motivational speakers that you like are. It could be. Yeah.

Boris Karloff, all the guys. Yeah. I'm not a big motivational speech listener. In fact, just for this topic is the first time I probably ever typed in motivational speech in YouTube. But it's some good stuff. So let's take a listen.

We can come back and talk about it. If fear is cultivated, it will become stronger. If faith is cultivated, it will achieve mastery. Take faith to be what we hold in ourselves. Faith must be fostered by the man or woman you see every day in the mirror. The only thing that will change your life is you must raise your standard.

The thing you said should happen has to happen. If you can believe it, you can achieve it recognized for success. Success every day. Success is a daily thing, not a destination thing. The secret of success is determined by your daily agenda.

We make decisions and then we manage decisions. What you want to be tomorrow, you've got to do today. What I do doing.

Keep trying different things. Passion is. It is the full force of your attention and energy that you give to whatever is right in front of you.

Just start doing. Your passion follows you. It should not be healed because somebody else likes you.

It should be healed because you believe something good about yourself. The road to success is through commitment and through the strength to drive through that commitment. Everybody has a calling. Calling is something that was just a whisper to you. And when you begin to honor that whisper and to follow that, you end up being the best that you could be. I dreamed big dream.

Big dream. So, you know, listening to that, there's a couple of different things that I take away from it. One of the main things I take away from it is the part where he said, you just got to do. You know, when I'm, whatever I'm going through, when life's got me down, whether it has to do with my family or, you know, this past weekend at the entrenchment, to save the story, I had to rush out towards the end.

The opposition was real for me right at the end. It's just a thing where I know God's got me and I'm just going to do it as much as it might not be fun and it might be ugly. I mean, because let's face it, you know, war is ugly and we are in a war every day. And so, you know, just to put boots to the ground of that and stay motivated is sometimes hard to do. And we pray about it and try to work through our motivation through that way. But for me, sometimes it's just me looking in the mirror and talking to God and saying, you know, I got this, I can do it.

And let's go do it. You know, you're talking about, you know, it's a daily thing and, you know, war is typically fought in the trenches, you know, at least historically, you know, it's been fought in the trenches and it'd be easy to get in that trench and have it become a rut if you're not careful without having a larger story perspective or having God to help pull you out of that, you know, into some other places, whether that's just mentally for a little while or spiritually for a little while, hopefully physically, you know, once in a while to where you can get a break. Because I know that just as anyone in battle needs some R&R, you know, our soul needs it from time to time. And God's grace, He does give it to us. You know, it's not as often as we would like, and it's not as soon as we would like, but it's in retrospect always in the right timing. You know, when He knows we can't really do any more and we're leaning into Him like we should be, He, you know, He finds a way to give us some type of relief that looks different for all of us. And I mean, it goes back to the sonship talk.

I mean, you know, for me, where He gives me the relief is being with my band of brothers that have fathered me through lots of things in just a short amount of time. I mean, I've been hanging out with you guys for a little over a year now. And just the aspect of my life that y'all have seen and have helped me through, you know, by the grace of God has just been crazy because, you know, most people that I know would have seen half of what y'all seen have been like, I'm out. We keep a blog. Yeah, I figured as much. We keep like, all right, this is a little too much. We're going to kind of, you know, we're going to cut them out of this group message.

No, no, not usually. But Danny, welcome to the show. Glad to have you with us. I know that, you know, you slept in or what happened? You're a little late.

I'm not sure what happened yet. Oh, okay. All right. I'm working on on call this week. So my schedule is from 11 to seven. So yeah, you get here a little late. Yeah. So anyway, motivation for you.

How would you answer the question if David asked you one? Well, he opened up with, you know, not in a classical sense, I guess, of motivation, but, you know, being in the trenches and, you know, maintaining a, I guess, a fire, if you would. It's sometimes tough because, you know, life has a way of beating you down. And sometimes it's just a matter of, and it's already been said really well, it's just kind of taking a step back and just pausing for a moment, be it a day, be it, you know, 10 minutes, just to regroup and refocus and get back in the larger story. So, but we do need that, that sabbatical time, if you will, or that, you know, I think it was something about a Sabbath. So that is a necessary thing. So it sounds familiar.

I read somewhere something about six days and a day rest. Yeah. Yeah.

Football, something like that. Yeah. I remember during a really stressful time in my work, years and years ago, when I was married, Heidi had a great idea. She's like, take your Bible and then just take some time, even though you don't have time and read your Bible for 10 minutes, you know, and for probably six, eight months, I did that. And when I came back, you know, from that 10 minute break, you know, I was eating a sandwich, trying to, you know, I didn't have time, didn't have time, but my perspective was always so different. You know, I had enough energy to get through the rest of the day.

I had a regroup or recalibration or whatever you want to call it. And, you know, sometimes I forget that it can be something as little as a few minutes of doing something different. I know Ransom Heart for a long time, or Wild Heart for a long time had the pause app, you know, where it would cause you to, they still have it still do so where, you know, it prompts you throughout the day to pause. Right.

And so if that's something that sounds good to you, it's a free app, you can go on the App Store, regardless of what type of phone you have, they have it, it's called pause. And it gives you the opportunity just to kind of do that during, because sometimes war doesn't give you a long break. And you have to manufacture the time to do it.

That was a trigger for me in that and probably because I'm on the opposite end of the scale. But the world often will say, you know, don't just stand there, do something. And if you're in fast food, it translates into time to lean is time to clean. But I think God often does, as you pointed out there, Danny, say, don't just do something, stand there, listen to me have the relationship. Because that's really the key to motivation boils down to following God, listening to him more than telling him what you need.

I mean, if we do pause and listen that we will be motivated. Sounds like the show a couple weeks ago, right, Rodney? Mm hmm. Yeah, be still and know.

Yeah. Jimmy, you were floating around, you were being well, I was moving all the time, mostly in bed. That is so important to, you know, before anything you do, if you can actually go to God with it in prayer, that's great. I just know even even today, I happen to think about that before both meetings. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to pray before I went in there. And then also, then, when I knew there's going to be some things that could be confrontational, I guess is a good word to use. And I'm like, Okay, in those moments, when those topics started hitting, I'm like, Okay, God, here we go. And I remember to do it. I was like, kind of like you and fishing, Robby was one of those things like, I wanted to do this with God. And like, it was so much calmer for me. I could sit there and be relaxed and say, Okay, Lord, whatever I have to say, I know what's coming from you instead of just being for me and say, Okay, you're in this with me, I feel you here and we're going to do this.

And that is great motivation when you just can remember to bring him with you instead of just leaving him in the train station. Yeah, it's kind of neat. As I was listening to David, I was listening to all you guys, I was thinking about all those same ideas, because, you know, like James says, faith without works is dead.

Right? And I had this revelation, I guess would be this morning that your soul, your soul is a believing machine, right? That you believe stuff.

And that's really really important to whether or not you're going to act. But your spirit, right? It is a uniting machine. In other words, you your spirit always wants to unite with something. And so when you eat something, you're being united with it. Like when you take communion, you're in union with something. So the pausing idea is has to do with your spirit. But interestingly, the doing aspect has to do with your soul.

And so if you're going to be obedient to God, as Jim was saying, you can't be obedient without doing. Okay. Because if you don't do, then faith with your body's dead.

Okay. So it's an interesting balance. It really, really is of soul and spirit. Like my soul needs to do my spirit needs to unite with God. And but interestingly, as you all were pointing out, the union, you know, he wants to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. And so the union is really, it's like when you think about the clip from Hacksaw Ridge, where he says, I need to hear from you. I need to hear from you. Well, here's this guy screaming out there like, Medic!

Right? Okay. Oh, yeah, that's why I'm here.

I'm a medic, you know? So it was time to do because he knew exactly what God wanted. And it becomes very clear. So if you know what God wants, it's time to do.

Right? But if you don't, it's time to pause. Chris Good stuff. So Rodney, you have a microphone in front of you, and it's actually your time for a clip. Rodney All right, let's let it roll then. This I used this clip before when we talked about fear. And it came back to my mind when I was like, okay, because for me getting over certain fears, I need the motivation to do it because it's one of those things that when you have these core, let's say, fears or whatever you have that's keeping you from the will of God, you know that these things should not be controlling your life, but they are.

Sometimes you need a little bit different motivation to go forward with. So this is Talladega Nights. And you've got Ricky Bobby, you know, he's it's a spoof on NASCAR. So he became a NASCAR driver from from nobody, you know, he was just some pit guy. And the next thing, you know, he's this rock star, you know, wonderful driver.

If you ain't first, you're last. And the next thing, you know, he has this big accident. And the next after that, he's running around on the track, you know, in his diaper, basically. And he's like, I'm on fire, I'm on fire. So it's like, okay, he has a big nervous breakdown, and he can't drive race cars anymore. So for the first time in his long, long time, his father's back in his life. And this, this is the motivation that his father has for him to get back in the race car.

All right, Professor, what's the plan? Basically, what happened to you is that you saw the fear. So before you can even think about any real driving, you got to make friends with that fear. So get in the car. There's a cougar in the car. Oh, there's a cougar in the car. I put it in there. You got to learn to drive with the fear.

And there ain't nothing more frightening than driving with a live cougar in the car. Where'd you get that thing? I trapped it.

Been keeping it in my bathroom at the motel feeding it old pizza. Now back in that car. You hear me?

No, I'm not getting in that car. Hey, listen to me. If you're calm, that wondrous big cat will be calm too. But if you're scared, that beautiful death machine will do what God made it to do. Namely, eat you with a smile on its face. God, he's just following me wherever I go.

Well, he's just looking at you. So you're saying if I just calm down, a cougar will be okay? You got it. Okay. Go on, son.

You can do it. Come on. Come on.

That's it. No sudden moves. Like, is this too fast? No, man. See, that's a little quick.

You see what he did? Yeah, you got to be a little more deliberate in your movement. I'm just gonna get in there. I'm just gonna grab the handle.

I'm just gonna get in there and drive that car. But I'm gonna do it calm. Calm.

Piece of cake. I'm just trying to stay calm. Oh, man.

Sometime today, son. Okay, here we go. Okay, control your heart rate. That's all you got to do is just control your heart rate. Control your heart rate while Cougars mauling you.

Oh, man. That's the motivation right there. So for me, when I look at it, because there you've had the whole aspect of fear for me, one of the horribly motivating things I've had in my life is the fear of man. So it's like, well, what does everybody else think of me drives so much of how I think, how I act, what I do, what I say. If that's my motivating fear, it leads to death. But now that I've come to Christ, it's like, wow, the fear of the Lord trumps the fear of man, and I can actually walk in life.

And that walk is something that, for Christians, like we were talking about earlier, it's hard for unbelievers to even under comprehend what we understand and go forth in our walk and have confidence in Christ and have trust in Him. But I can easily, you know, lapse back into the fear of man if I'm not keeping my eyes on Christ. So it's one of those things where the motivation, when I can sense and know that I've got the fear of man, it's like, okay, I know I've got to change my fear to the fear of God, and then I can walk out of that fear of man. So it's motivation of both sides. And when I see, you know, Christ, if I'm seeing it in somebody else, if I'm hearing it from somebody else, if I'm reading the Word, if I'm doing those things, that's more motivation to keep on that same path, to take that narrow path rather than the broad road.

And that's one of those things where I can see myself bouncing between those states. And it's always motivation, whichever one I see myself in, to know that either I'm going to move away from the fear of man or towards the fear of God and constantly walk in that fear is that motivation. But learn to live with that and walk in it rather than just trying to beat myself up every time I'm failing. It's like, okay, I just all I know is I just need to have a course correction here. It's not always easy, and it's not always well done. But I know that there's a much better side than when I'm in the ditch.

I know I can get out. So help me with when you say fear of God, if someone's out there listening and they don't understand, I thought God is love, you know, why should I fear God? Well, because he controls everything. He is sovereign and he is in control. I mean, he is the one that controls our destiny, whether it's going to be in heaven eternally with him or in hell eternally with the devil. So you can, you know, take your choice.

A lot of people make a very bad choice in this world. But that's what the fear of man really, or fear of God really is. It's just knowing that who he is, and he actually does control your destiny in your life.

And he is all sovereign and all powerful. That's really where the fear of God comes in. It's really an amazing word in Hebrew, you know, just to say.

Was there somebody here that would know some Hebrew? And so there's lots of aspects to it. And maybe I like the word awe better, like, and believe me, there's every reason to be terrified because yeah, okay. But, you know, the closer you get to him, or the more you begin to understand some piece of Scripture, you realize how far from it, like, this is so above my pay grade here. This is so beyond anything I ever thought.

The wisdom of this just blows my mind. So as you study something or you get to know God, the more you're just overwhelmed at how awesome. I mean, and so it's kind of a neat thing that as you grow in it, you actually, in my experience, become more terrified. But at the same time, you're more in love with it.

It becomes joy, right? Because you're like, man, this is like, he's got it beyond anything I could possibly imagine. And he's more cool and more loving and all this. But by the same token, oh my goodness, you do not want to hurt one of his people.

If you think Clint Eastwood puts it on somebody, I'm telling you, you ain't saying nothing. Yeah. Reverence is a great word. Yeah.

Right. I think fear in some, you know, is not a bad form of motivation for me. The fear that I had when, you know, I always go back to it the day I walked into Jim's office was what drove me to really start to strengthen, you know, my relationship with God being like, oh yeah, I mean, I went to church and, you know, I was what you call watered down Christian. And, you know, I said my pendants at church and everything like that.

But really, you know, now where I'm at versus then, like, fear is what started me on that path. And then, you know, like I'll say, God showed me the joy with that. You know, I think of like holy respect. And, you know, if you think about again, God is much more than our earthly fathers. But if you look at our fathers, we feared them as growing up, we feared them. But we also loved them. And we also appreciated their love. And that's, I wouldn't say it's exactly like that relationship, but very similar in the fact that, you know, God does, just like our earthly fathers, has an aspect of not control, but just guidance and presence in our life. There's that word again.

But, you know, just that, just that, you know, he is the one that created all this stuff. We do need to have respect, but not that trembling fear, unless, of course, we're on the other side and having got things right. The ones that should fear don't.

Right. When I was a kid, my father did switch me and I did not like that. So there was a level of fear there. But I knew he had unconditional love for me. And the biggest fear I had was disappointing him. And that's, to me, a significant part of my fear of God.

It's not the punishment that might be there because that Jesus took care of that. But it is the, you know, I don't want to disappoint him. Darrell Bock I think we have a quick second to get one more clip in. This is my clip.

We saved you for last. Thank you, David. All right. So I'm going to go ahead and play it and then I'm going to come back. David Jones I could have cut it off. Darrell Bock No, you can't. I'm running the board.

So I'm going to play it and then we'll come back and talk about it if we have time. Darrell Bock Okay, so that was my clip. And I did kind of double dip from back when we, you know, had the show on, you know, our gift of Jesus. And so I played You've Got a Friend from James Taylor, right? And that was the song that I played. But as you said, what's the motivation, David? This song came to mind, you know, and it's from Toy Story. And it's probably because I watched every Toy Story multiple, multiple times.

And I've heard it countless times. But for me, the motivation in my walk with Jesus is that growing, deepening relationship. Because life continues to come at me.

That's not going to change. David Jones To infinity and beyond. Darrell Bock To infinity and beyond. That's right. You know, life continues to come at all of us. Right? And so I know that there's something coming around the corner because it's always around the corner. But the only thing that gives me peace in the midst of it is in that relationship. So I don't know what's going to, you know, what train's going to derail or what's going to hit the, I can't say that, you know, fan. Yeah, it's gonna hit the fan next. But I do know that if I've got him, then I can get through it and I can find peace in the midst of it.

And so for me, just focusing on the deepening relationship is what keeps me motivated at this point. And so we do have a boot camp coming up. That's coming up. It's an advanced camp.

And it's March 30, through April 2. If you'd like to register for that, go to masculinejourney.org. If you'd like to ask any of us a question, just pick our first name, put at masculine journey. No, at masculinejourney.org is the email and you can email any one of us.

So just pick the name, send it to us, and we'd be happy to answer your questions. But anyway, we're glad that you joined us on the show. And David, any last parting thoughts you have on motivation? David Jones Yeah, this week, as you're going through, just really pray on it and ask God, you know, what is he motivating you to do in your daily walk, whether that's your calling, or maybe that's just speaking to a friend about it. Chris Good, it's good challenge. Anyone else got any last thoughts?

We got about 30 seconds, maybe. David No, not really. I just, I just love the fact that we've, we kind of came into this topic, kind of wide open with all kinds of different places to go.

And it's just kind of really, I think, solidified as we were kind of talking more about it. Chris I personally want to know what pendant is. You did your pendant? David Oh, thanks for pointing that out. Chris I thought nobody else would have called that.

Chris That's something you were wearing around your neck. David All right. Chris So to be fair, I called this thing about halfway through when he was talking.

So I didn't hear that. David I was going to say, normally, that's what motivates me, guys, is my real motivation is to get Sam to listen to me talk. Chris I'm sorry, what was that? David Yeah, exactly. Chris All right. So go to masculinejourney.org to register the upcoming boot camp. We'll talk with you next week.