The Storms Of Life After Hours

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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. 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.

Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours and we are glad that you're with us this week. And Danny, this is your topic this week. Do you want to tell us a little bit about us?

I mean, it's not about us, about the topic. Well, Sam's kind of like, oh, yeah, the topic. When we're talking about storms, it's like being in a band of brothers and sisters. Sam's a really big storm.

Yeah, exactly. If you ever name a hurricane named Sam, you better buckle down. I'm just saying that surviving the storms of life is a topic. And, you know, we've been talking about on the previous show, you know, how to survive the storms. And obviously the, you know, the Sunday school answer, you know, is with Jesus. But, you know, a lot of times in life when you're in the middle of something, like we read the scripture, you know, where Jesus in the boat with them and, you know, they're panicking and we forget he's in the boat with us.

And so with people around you to remind you and remind you of the hope that is in life, that's kind of how we navigate storms. And hopefully we'll get into some personal stories and stuff like that. But I think we've got a few clips to go. All right. So you think you said that you wanted Kenny first? Yeah. Kenny, you want to tell us a little bit about your clip or you want us to play it?

What do you want to do? Well, this clip here, it just, it brings back a lot of memories. You know, it's going back several years into REO Speedwagon years. Y'all probably don't remember that, but there was actually a truck called REO Speedwagon and his band named it.

So, but he had one song he had always stuck out in me as one of their better ones is Riding Storm Out. Because it's not if you're going to have storms, it's when. They're coming. You know, the Bible, the scripture even told us, you know, don't be surprised. These fiery trials that's coming against you. The hard part is saying count it all joy. You know, that let it, let it do its testing.

And that's hard for us to keep the focus, you know, that, but that's one thing this song kind of encouraged me during my younger years. So I'll let you go ahead and play it and then we'll comment a little bit more on some of the lyrics. OK, here we go. You know, I did get the words riding the storm out. Yeah, that was pretty clear. Yeah.

Yeah. This song was actually written, you know, he's going toward moving out of the city, moving out of the hustle bustle. That was his storm because, you know, in the music industry, it can be very stormy and very challenging and very tempting. You know, but he's talking about that, you know, the last verse about him and his lady.

He's just getting away. I love his last line of the song. It says, it's a hard life out. It's a hard life to live, but it gives back what you give. And that's the same way, you know, Jesus tells us what we sow we're going to reap. We sow to the spirit. We're going to find life. We sow to the flesh. We're going to find corruption.

And that's the same thing we decide in every storm and challenges that come in. What are we going to sow to? We're going to go into the fear, depression. We're going to go into the faith and the prayers.

You know, it's a choice. How are we going to face this battle? Because everybody's going to have these battles.

And do we want to survive? Because we're more than conquerors in Christ. It's when I stepped out of Christ is when I really stumbled. And the storms took me way on down until I really surrendered and understand, you know, like we learned. Well, I had to learn the hard way because I'm hard-headed anyway. But I can't do it without God.

I tried. I couldn't do it until I came into that relationship to get me through these storms, these challenges, these heartbreaks of the families and just life in general. That's one reason. They brought back memories. You know, I forgot how much energy that song had. But when you're younger, energy flows a lot easier. As you get older, you get a little wiser in these things. And slower. Yes, yes. And slower.

I find that the energy flows much quicker as I get older. It's all out, but. Too fast, yes.

Real quick. I understand. And as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, the challenge really becomes not that we have storms, okay? It's what voice am I trying to hear in the midst of the storm? Because the world's voice, the enemy's voice, all those things, the old self, they're really loud, right? And they're screaming.

They're screaming at you. But can you find that still voice in the midst of it that's going to give you the peace and the calm that you need to get through it? That's right. Right? You know, are we going to wake him up and have him say, it'll be okay. You know, still, right?

Or are we going to just keep listening to all the other things around us? Yeah. Because to your point, we're all going to face him. So, Rodney next?

Yeah, Rodney's next. All right. We tried to get him last, but you made me go last.

Yeah, I made you go last. But your clip is so long, though. Well, it was. We couldn't have got it in that last segment.

Yeah, we had to do like- Why don't you just play a session and talk about it? We had to do an after, after, after hours for that clip. I'm telling you, it is.

Much after hours. It'd be a whole show to itself. It would be. It would be. Well, Rodney, it's your turn to talk about your clip.

Well, I might as well. Like Danny, our wonderful kind of, kind of host tonight, since it's his topic. Hostess. Yeah, hostess.

That would be hostess with the mostest. There you go, Sam. Oh, that's not the right term. See, that's what you get for making him last. Yeah. I would have got that whether he was last. Yeah, you would have got that. But a hostess cupcake, I would take any time. Yeah.

Well, we're a little Debbie family, so that's like, last of me. Ooh. I know. That's fight words. Yeah. My brother-in-law's not losing it.

All right. So, like Danny, I have not watched my movie either that I found a clip from. It's called Into the Wild, but then I found out, well, most people here had seen it. It's a true story, I guess, about Christopher McCandless. And he goes to college and he graduates successfully. And he and his sister find out that they're, I guess, the best term, just illegitimate. And he's angry, and he's frustrated, and he's mad, and he just takes off from his entire family. And that's what is what sends him into going out on his own.

Yeah. And he gives his bank account to his sister, and he goes basically with very little money. And he's going out traveling around really kind of wild, because he travels all over the Northwest. And then he actually gets down the Colorado River, goes clear down into Mexico, and has to walk back.

And just really a lot of struggles. He meets different people along the way. And as soon as things start to work out and they're starting to get attached, he breaks it off. And every time he gets attached to somebody, he breaks it off.

And somebody's just very confused. But this clip here specifically is a conversation between Christopher and his friend Ron, who's a former army veteran that lost his family in an auto accident. And then Ron, he's wanting to teach Christopher his trade, which is leatherworking.

And then after that, Christopher decides to head north into Alaska. And this is Ron really trying to talk him out of it. Ron is in this scene.

They're sitting in a truck, and they're having their last little conversation. And the whole reason they're even in the truck is because Ron could tell that Christopher is about to bolt when he heard him up at night and offers him a ride. One last thing he offers up in this clip is because there are two men that do not have a family.

At least Ron doesn't think Christopher does, because that's what he's told him. And he's offering him basically salvation through adoption, as I saw it. Well, my friend, I had an idea. My mother was an only child, and so was my father. And I was their only child. So, when I'm gone, I'm the end of the line. My family will be finished. What do you say you let me adopt you?

I could be, say, your grandfather. Ron, could we talk about this when I get back from Alaska? Would that be okay? Yeah, yeah. We can do that, yeah. All right, Ron.

Thank you. It's really sad just to see in this movie, which I kind of had to go try to get a little history on it, but you have somebody who's making bad decision after bad decision. And whatever Ron picks up on, he can just tell that you're not coming back from Alaska. And this Christopher McCandless ends up dying in Alaska due to some other poor decision. He didn't plan anything out, really, just kind of as he's going along trying to figure out how to survive.

Really not a really good plan here. And the whole time he's going through this, he's having regrets. He's having a little bit of flashbacks when he has tough times about, well, what would his life be like if he'd have done something different? But he's headstrong.

He's just doing it all on his own strength. They portray him as having some faith in God, but it's totally misplaced when it's just really all he's doing is relying on himself. So he's going through meeting people. And this one with Ron was one that really kind of touched on me, because you know that God's reaching out to us and offering adoption to be his son and to live with him forever. And so many just go, no, we'll talk about it later.

And it just never comes back up, and you've maybe missed your opportunity. That's one of the things that when we're trying to witness and trying to bring people to Christ and doing our evangelism is just trying to present as much as we can, because we know on this side of it how bad we were. And I can just see that whole story in Ron reaching out and trying to save Christopher and him just continually rejecting, rejecting, because every time he gets close to another family, other people, he speaks into people and he really helps some people on the way. But here he's just lost himself and can't help himself. He can't do anything for himself. And he won't accept anybody else's help. And especially the one that he needs to accept as Christ to help you out of those miseries.

But I kind of go back to where you guys were earlier with your headspace. It's not just the storm, the fact that he's got some of the outside force. It's really within him. And as he's trying to live throughout his life, he just keeps struggling and struggling. And you can see that when we see other people like that, we don't know what to do. It's just a big, hard thing for people to really help somebody out of someplace they don't want to get out of.

Thank you. That reminds me, Sam, of the thing about the last advanced boot camp we did. And you did a talk about suffering.

And the two columns were avoidable suffering and unavoidable suffering. Some things just come because they come. But it sounds like this movie was kind of my autobiography.

I may have to watch the movie. But there are storms that we bring on ourselves. And we head right into them. And everybody and every indicator is going, don't go that way. But we decide we're going to go anyway. And then we go, can't believe God did this to me. Well, he didn't. He tried to tell you to not go that way. If you do decide, get out of the bus before winter. I think that's how the movie ended. And don't just start eating berries and roots and whatever.

But you know what they are. Yeah, bad mushrooms. Well, taking a bus in Alaska doesn't sound like a good idea anyway. No, I think he found a bus. The bus doesn't move. Yeah, it was an abandoned bus. It's a broken down. And so he just lived there. Sign number two.

It's an abandoned bus. Exactly. So I guess we're down to one other clip. Yeah, that's yours.

Oh, my clip. Do we have time for that one? We have time. Let's see if we can squeeze it in.

We will. It's a long clip. It is a long, long clip.

Go ahead, Jim. I'm pretty sure your clip is a record for us. It is. It's got to be close. It's got to be close.

Even with it. Yeah, it's it's maybe four seconds in maybe four seconds. And that's stretching.

You can get any shorter than that. And then somebody just goes, Hey, well, you could you could say somebody say yes. Yes. I mean, that could be it.

But yeah. Anyway, this is from the movie Bagger Vance. And so in the scene, you have Bagger who plays the Holy Spirit character if you haven't seen the movie, and he's trying to help Juna come back out of the shadows and into life, you know, and come from a broken place into healing, which is really what the movie is all about, and that journey along there.

And so you have this scene where Juna is kind of packing some stuff up. He's contemplating not playing in the tournament, you know, and he's thinking about trying to take off running and, and so Bagger stay standing there in the hotel room with him and he's looking out the window and it's a gorgeous day out. And this you'll hear his comment in a minute and then we'll talk about it. But keep in mind, it's a gorgeous day out.

That's why you'll hear the birds singing at the end. But listen to what he says. We'll come back and talk about it. Show me some storm brewing. That's it.

Sure. So I'm storm brewing. And the reason, Jim, to be quite honest, my first clip I thought of was Forrest Gump, and then I quickly shoved it out of my mind painfully. And then, um, the second clip, that is a great clip from Forrest Gump.

The second clip I thought of was this. And the reason was when I watched the movie the first time, his comment came so far out of nowhere. You know, I mean, he's looking at a beautiful day and he said, there's some storm brewing, right? And he's not talking about the weather outside. He's talking about for Juna, you know, the stuff, stuff's going to hit the fan here pretty soon.

And the wheels are going to fall off the bus or whatever terminology you want to use. It's going to not be pretty, you know, and the storms are brewing. And it reminded me as Christians, you know, we're often surprised when the storm hits and we've talked about that in the past, you know, and I think we're called to live in the joy of the times that aren't full of storms, right? You know, not to live like when's the other shoe gonna drop, you know, living like, oh no, the glass half full. And I think that's not what I'm saying, but to not be surprised when the trials and tribulations occur, Jesus told us they're going to occur and they're going to happen. And who do you know in life that doesn't face them? That's being honest.

I'm not talking about their Christmas thing they post on Facebook or the old Christmas card. They would send out how everybody's doing great with a little letter, you know, and all that, you know, that everybody's doing fine. I'm talking about what really happens in people's lives. And I promise you, you don't know anyone that's not going through now, recently gone through, or getting ready to go through storms, because that's just called life in a broken world.

And that's where we find ourselves. But, you know, just to keep in mind that I need to enjoy the times when I'm not currently in a storm, because there is going to be another one right around the corner, right? And so just enjoying both of those in different ways and leaning into God in both of those times. It was easy to step away from God when there's not a storm going on for you right now. You know, it's easy to step away from God when there is a storm. Right? Because both times enemies trying to get you to step away.

Right? And so just staying anchored to him in the midst of it. And when the storms come, you're gonna be glad that you're anchored to him. And when they're not storming, you can just enjoy it. You gave me a new thought about those cards, which thankfully, we haven't gotten one for several years. But it's the Christmas card pose. Yeah. It's everything is wonderful here.

And if it is, you're not growing. I mean, if you're not going through storms, it's kind of sad, actually. And I know that none of us really welcome them, maybe like we should. But my wife was saying just yesterday when we were in one of our two groups that were part of a fellowship group with the church that, and it was a wonderful compliment, but when we were called to Alaska, we both know God was sending us there. There was never any question. There were battles with people who said, you know, you're crazy.

Don't do this. And we pretty much unloaded most of our stuff. But once we got there, it was nothing like we thought God was sending us into.

And it was one of the roughest times we've ever been through was after we arrived. And she pointed out that, you know, I've always been kind of easygoing and she got her way. Well, she wasn't, she was in a bad state of mind, but she knew we were there for a reason. We had to do it. But she basically said, that's when I had to step up and be the head of the family.

And she pretty much had been, she said many times in young earlier years that she had four kids in college at one time or she was raising four children. And to a lot extent that was, but that storm made a huge difference in both our relationship and our walk with God. Thank you, Jim. And we have a guest with us today, not our normal guest, David, who's a guest, you know, on a weekly basis, but a real guest on the show, which is Terry.

Terry, welcome. We've been on the show before. Yes. Yeah. And I actually did it from Ohio on the phone. Yeah, you did.

You called in and talked about a boot camp and stuff like that. But as far as this topic goes, what's God kind of laying on your heart? Oh, yeah. I've been through lots of storms over the last several years, just like everybody else. But God has always, in that still small voice, told me, I'm there. I got your back.

I love you. And it strengthens my faith. It's hard to go through at a time. You don't think you're going to make it through. But my strength, my faith has been strengthened over the last several years.

And I just really got a lot from the boot camps. Lord really, really speaks to me because you're taking the time. You're setting aside two hours to listen to nothing but God.

And He will speak to you. And this last one really brought me out of a bit of a depression. And yeah, I've been through plenty. Well, thank you. And from my perspective, it is a storm, but it's really more of a battle.

He's on the front line fighting for those He loves. And it's tiring when you have to go through that for a long period of time. I know in myself, I had to decide, is this storm going to wreck me? Refine me?

Remake me? And what does God really want to do with these storms in my life? What is He really – and it's really drawn to Him? Because I missed it for years, that invitation He gave to us. Come to me when you're weary and habulated. And I will give you rest. It's coming to Jesus.

It's not just going anywhere else. Church can be part of it. Theology, philosophy, that can be part of it. But really that intimate relationship, and that's one thing I loved about the masculine journey, is inviting us to come close to God.

Y'all wouldn't push us towards a denomination or anything like that. Y'all was pointing us – you need to get with God because He's the one who's going to ultimately help you in all these things. So you do know wreck starts with a W. It's still kind of working there. Give me those again.

Wreck, refine, restore. There you go. Okay. Okay. I was just checking. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Just, you know.

No, that's fine. You're humored. We know you think outside the box. It's like reading, writing. Yeah.

Robby's curiosity. Yeah. It's like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Yeah. It's one of those things. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought he was trying to put together that in Hebrew now. Oh. He probably is. Yeah. It's a bet somewhere in there.

I bet there is. Yeah. And a yud. Your favorite is the yud. Yud.

You're not kidding? When you – you really need, in this case, to use the proper way of pronouncing it. You're taking the bait on the bet. I don't know how to say it.

I'm just trying to remember. Me neither. Okay. So, Danny, this is your topic.

Anything you want to ask the group – not me, but the rest of the group – anything you want to bring up or any more pontificating you want to do? Pontificating. I'm going to have to look that word up, too, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a yud. It is.

I say a gym word. Yeah. I appreciate Terry driving all the way down here just to engage in this topic. It's heartwarming. It is heartwarming.

Yeah. A good topic and a good show, I think. Because I think when you look at the grand scheme of things, that I love the thought that nothing's wasted in God's economy. You know, there's no tragedy or nothing that he can't make something, you know, speak to you if you listen. Like you said, the still small voice that comes and says, it's going to be okay, and this is what I'm trying to teach you. I think part of being able to lean into God is understanding how the enemy attacks you right in the storm.

So we have a couple minutes left. So what are some of the things the enemy tries to do to not get you to lean into God? You know, one of the first things is he tries to isolate you by saying, you're the only one going through this. You're the only one that's faced this.

Because then Sandy's not here, orphan spirit. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. You're the only one that's had to deal with this, and so no one else can relate to you. So you need to just be quiet and, you know, suck it up. There was a time in my life that, you know, I thought after two failed marriages, I thought, you know, it was over and I was just going to die a lonely man. And he sent Michelle into my life. And we were talking about this the other day and how we tried to push each other away because we felt like, you know, we were damaged goods. But, you know, December will be 21 years we've been married and, you know, so and there's been some storms, but, you know, God is such a redeemer. And I think we forget that he redeems those tragedies, those things and, you know, makes you a stronger person.

Anyone else got anything they want to add? We got a little bit of time left. Yeah, I just add, yeah, on the same thing, marriage. It's it's a life of storms. We've all talked about ours together. We've talked about them in the boot camps. They're they're a part of the fabric that makes us. And that's one of the things that God does so well is that he makes you stronger through that adversity. Then one of the things I always think about when we're going through something like this is like trees out in the wild, you know, in the normal nature, they got wind and all kinds of storms and they stand up really strong and that's what makes them stronger. And then they tried to grow trees and like perfect utopia under some glass top, you know, big canopy and nothing has any strength.

And if they start to grow and they just die, they, they fall right over because they have no root system. They don't have the proper strength and they, you know, they can't survive. It's like you have to have something that's pounding against you to make you learn from that and understand, okay, I need to fight against that. I need to fight for the right things. You're not going to do that if God just said, okay, you just have it all nice and easy.

You're not going to grow. You said marriage, but I think really the words relationships, relationships, all relationships take you into that. Oh yeah. You know, when you're married or not married.

Yeah. And ultimately all relationships are like a marriage. If we're not loving on all the people we're dealing with, we're in trouble. I mean, you guys talked about big divorce and that's not necessarily a sin.

We're all in sin, but I've been married almost 50 years and with one woman all my life. Oh, that's so great. Yeah, it is. But we wanted to kill each other for probably a third of that time or wish the other one to go away. So it's always a battle and it's one you can win.

Kenny, you got anything else you want to add real quick? Oh, I was just going to add where God sees the refining of our faith as a precious thing. He says it's more precious than gold because he wants us closer to him. So let the storms refine you. That's right. And take you closer to God.

Yes. Well, thank you for joining us this week. We do have a boot camp coming up the weekend before November before Thanksgiving in November. And then we also have the event with the Wild at Heart group this summer. Talk to you next week.