Gifts Or Surprises From Our Heavenly Father After Hours

Nakita Kolov, the Russian nightmare.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to 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 we are missing our friends that are not here with us. We talked about that on the last show, but I wanted to mention that the reason Harold wasn't with us is they have their 59th wedding anniversary. That's amazing. So, congratulations to Jan and Harold and, you know, how they've put up with each other for 59 years. It's kind of a, it's a miracle.

So, Jim, there's your miracle show you wanted from last time. It's a miracle that any of us put up with each other for 59 years, let alone being married. So, that's an amazing thing and they love each other dearly. And so, it's a really cool thing.

Fortunately, most of us are only in our first six or eight or 10 or 12 years. He literally still writes her poetry. And to know Harold is to know how much he loves his wife. Oh yeah.

I mean, it's incredible. And I know Jan equally well. And so, you know, she has the same, she calls him her man. Yeah. And it's all about her man, let me tell you.

Yeah. Harold confused me for a long time because he would call her Jan, he'd call her Susie. She's got about eight names.

I like anybody that you love. But interestingly, Jan is the reason that we have Harold because, you know, she had listened to me on the radio and found out that we had that Bible study in Mocksville. And so, she drug him, like literally drug him. You need to come to this Bible study because Harold don't get up early in the morning, you know? Yeah.

He's not a early riser. So, that time, that meeting was at seven o'clock in Mocksville. And so, she started dragging him and then I drug him to boot camp and, you know, the rest is history. And he's been with us now for a while. So, the topic we're talking about today is our Heavenly Father and the surprises and the gifts that he's given us. And so, we're continuing that in the after hours and we're going to talk in more depth about it.

But Robby, we have your clip that's up first. So, if you want to tell us a little bit about that and how you want to go with that. Oh, absolutely. But first, you know, obviously, you know, for us, you know, Harold's a gift. Oh, absolutely. You know, it's cool how those, you know, and you talked about it in the regular show, how, you know, God has these orchestrated steps that you go through. And, you know, for me, our word of the year, like one led to another which led to another which I finally found out, you know, last year, like, man, these follow the Hebrew alphabet. I know nobody wants to hear that, but it's true for me.

They just do. And so, you know, interestingly, I found out through the end of last year, the big, big, huge, gigantic gift I would be remiss if I didn't talk about was both my daughters got engaged at the end of last year, actually, both in the month of December, both to be married in 2023. And so, one of those weddings is right on the corner. And what a gift, number one, just both your daughters being married is because it's been the answer to prayer.

I mean, you know, you've been praying for the right maid and, you know, how that would fit into their relationship with Christ. And I have to say that I'm just—it blows me away, the men that God picked for my daughters. And although they are radically different daughters and radically different men, but very fun. I got to take them on a fishing trip to Ohio. It was my future son-in-law adventure.

So, that was certainly a gift. But the clip I want to play is from a big fat Greek wedding, obviously, as the father of the bride. You can hear, in this case, the father was, if you've ever watched a big fat Greek wedding, was very disappointed in Ian.

It was not who he would have picked for his daughter at all. But as he grows in that relationship and grows to know Ian, he finally, the night before they get married, he comes to these conclusions based on his understanding of Greek, which is very important to me, because I like the root of words, especially in Hebrew. If you know me well, you know I'm all about that. And so, I can relate to this father in so many different ways. He has a daughter getting married, and he now is going to make an illustration of how God puts this together. But before I say that, I do have to say that, like, my word of the year for 2023 was to be gathered in great faith. Well, to think about both your daughters being married in 2023, like, oh my gosh, how cool is that? And when you think about the basis of marriage, it's faith, right?

Trust you won't kill each other. That's the lifeblood of Harold and Jan, right, is they believe that, you know, that, that, that. So, here's a big fat Greek wedding with our friend that's going to share about Ian. Welcome the, the Miller family. I was thinking last night, the night before my, my daughter going to marry Ian Miller, that, you know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. And Miller come from the Greek word milo, which is mean apple.

So there you go. As many of you know, our name Portokalos is come from the Greek word portokali, which mean orange. So, okay, here tonight, we have apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.

You know, the, it's hilarious, but it's so true, right? And, and, and when you think about, like, oh, but father, like, there are so many things, you know, to me, I, the thing I really originally went to was, you know, the gift he gives me, honestly, is his presence every morning, right? And, and, you know, that just joy of entering into that adventure and where are you going to take me today, God? Or what, what are we going to go, where are we going today? And what are we going to do today? And, and what are you going to show me in your word? And, and, and, you know, how are you going to walk with me?

And, um, I have to say that this morning was just like, always, he takes me places. I have like, I can't believe you sent me here, but where he actually sent me was in Isaiah 63. And most of us in math con journey, you're going to say, we know Isaiah 61, right? That, you know, that, you know, that he was going to be, you know, set the captives free and all that stuff.

And of course, declare the year that Robby's his favorite. That's, you know, all in Isaiah 61. But, you know, I was thinking about it last night, actually, as I went to bed, like, why did Isaiah not stop at Isaiah 61? I mean, it doesn't get a lot better than that, right? But it doesn't, it goes on to Isaiah 62, which talks about, by the way, a wedding, right? But it doesn't stop there. It goes on to Isaiah 63, where actually he's going to talk about the judgment of Edom, which is really where he'd had me for, you know, and the judgment of Edom, as you may or may not know, the word Edom. I got no clue. We're about to know. Does it mean apple in Greek?

It really does. Here's how it works, that it's actually spelled exactly like Adam. And since Adam was made out of the dust, it's Adama, okay? And so Adam was named after dirt, right?

Butt dust, so to speak. And since it's red, the dirt was red that you like to make bricks. Adam in Hebrew means red, so to speak, in apples, interestingly. Okay, so Edom, of course, when Esau was born, he came out hairy and, you know, he switched his birthright for the hairy, I mean, for the little soup. And so you get the idea of Adam.

And here, Jesus, and John Eldridge actually quotes Isaiah 63, you know, in his talk on, you know, how God was gonna be a warrior, because it says, who is this covered in blood, you know, and coming out of Edom and the Basra? And so that's where God took me this morning. Like, what are we doing here? Like, you know, I got all this stuff.

Okay, that's where we're going. And I started to look at, you know, the whole thing with Adam, because he saw as Adam's kid in his own way, you know, we all are, Adam's kid. And if you ever really, really look at the curse, it's interesting that what Adam did, or what God said the first thing God said to Adam after, you know, the whole discussion of, you know, hiding and all that, he said, you know, because you listened to your wife, right? Darrell Bock Yeah, move on from that one. Darrell Bock No, no, that's exactly what he says. He says, because you listened to your wife and not hearken unto what I told you, right, then the ground, the Adama is cursed.

Okay? So the reason you got weeds and thistles and your work does all this stuff is right, because Adam listened to his wife instead of to God. Now, isn't that fascinating? I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Have you ever known a wife that thought her husband listened to her? I just say it. That, interestingly, when you think about the curse he put on Eve, he says your desire is going to be for your husband, but he ain't listening to you. I don't know if you ever, I just put that together this morning.

I went, oh, that's fascinating. Look, and Adam's curse, which was that the ground, right, which was what he essentially was, God was going to turn his back on that. That's what a curse means. It's that God is no longer, his face is not shining on the dirt anymore.

He's not shining anymore on your, on your butt dust. Okay? I was wondering if that was going to come out the after hours.

It was going to. It completely is. But you see, Jesus, because of Basra, because of Edom, when he took away the curse, right, that he actually, because he was covered in that blood, and he did, if you look at Isaiah 63, he did do that on his own. And because of all that, then God shines his face on us. And I had a friend tell me this, that you know how when you look at a baby, that you want to make them smile. That's the immediate thing that you do. If you look at a baby, there it is, just standing in line behind somebody in the grocery store and there's a baby in their arms, you try to make that baby smile. You will.

It's automatic. You absolutely want to do it. He said, when God shines his face on you, he's giving you like the sunshine smile in order to try to get you to smile. Like, and it's cool to think of God shining his face on you with the sunshine smile, you know, just, you know, that idea of, you can't see it on the radio, but, you know, it's, and so that's the result of what Jesus did in this unbelievable battle in Isaiah 63.

You end up with the reverse of the whole butt dust program. Thank you. And that shows up twice in the Aaronic blessing, pretty much. It really does. I wanted to make sure you didn't have any dead air.

No, you're feeling it quite well. Sometimes we'd like a little dead air. Yeah, I was kind of praying for something.

I skipped to the luke, oh, it makes sense. Yeah. We've got everything in this show.

Hairy and dust of sorts and just different things. But yes. Well, thank you, Robby. But your gift is the two weddings. Just to get back to that.

What was that? Yeah. Wow. The real gift is just the presence of God.

You know, who enlightens himself all, you know, you're enlightened all the time on stuff. Well, thank you. Now I don't know where to go with my clip. I'm just kind of wondering, kind of left with the whole dust thought in my head right now. But anyway, so my clip... Rodney, go ahead. Yeah, you got to get out the dust buster now. Yeah, I got to clear some dust.

Yeah, get that going. So my clip apparently I've used before and I didn't remember it, but Robby remembered it. So I must have liked the clip really.

So I'd played it twice now. But this is from a TV show that I tried to like. And it actually was a good show. But what I didn't like about the show is it messed with my emotions way too much. It made me want to cry like every week. And I'm like, there's enough of life that makes me want to cry.

So, you know, I want to be happy more than that. And so I just kind of quit watching it. But it was a very well done show. It's called This Is Us. And this is from the first season, I believe it was. And so you have, if you've never seen the show, what you have is a husband and wife. They go in the hospital and they have a set of twins that are born. And before they leave the hospital, there was a third baby that was just kind of dropped off there. The fireman brought it in, it was an abandoned baby, it was born the same day. And so they ended up adopting that baby and taking it home. And so his name's Randall.

And so they take him home with them, and they're raising all three of them, you know, siblings and, and through the show, they are very much siblings, although there's some challenges there with, you know, one knowing that he's not, you know, from that family originally. But here we have in this scene, you have a Randall that's probably about, I'm guessing about eight in here, and he's taking karate classes. And so the dad and mom are there at the karate classes, and the instructor calls the father up and says, I need you to come up here and get down into a push-up position, which you hear him say, and then he tells Randall to get on the dad's back. And so as he's talking to the dad through this, just keep in mind, I know you can't see it, the dad's doing push-ups.

And so let's go ahead and listen to it and we'll come back and talk about it. As Randall's father, you are his foundation. Come lie down as if you're going to do a push-up. Randall, climb on your father's back.

Jack, your back was built to carry your son through life. Are you willing to hold him up no matter what comes his way? Yes. Show me. Good.

Now keep going. Are you willing to raise this young boy into a strong man? Yes. Are you willing to push him to be the best man in the world he can be? Yes. Are you willing to lift him to greater heights even if it hurts? Yes. You can stop. All right.

I think that's enough. It was hard to hear that at the end, but the instructor tells him, you know, you can stop. And Jack, the dad, keeps going and says, I won't stop. And so when I saw this clip, again, I apparently for the second time, but when I saw this clip, it really made me think more of my heavenly father because he just doesn't stop. You know, I thought of the poem or the little story you read of footprints in the sand. You know, there are times that there's just one set of prints. Well, that's when Jesus was carrying me.

Right. And looking back, and it's only through, you know, the power of looking back into history and having God's lens and the Holy Spirit prompt you, you can see where God has been carrying you through lots of things, things you never thought you could get through, things that you thought would cripple you and probably would have if God wasn't involved. Not probably, it definitely would have if God wasn't involved. And so looking back with those Holy Spirit lenses, you get to see those things, you know, and I'm really grateful that God doesn't give up. Even when I'm a bonehead and I do stupid things and he looks at me and shakes his head and says, son, I love you, but that was really stupid. But come on, get on my back. You know, you may have some consequences to live out, but I'm never going to leave you or forsake you.

And for me, that was really cool. That may not be our story with our earthly dad, you know, and there's no such thing as a perfect earthly dad. You may have had an amazing earthly dad, and we're going to talk about earthly dads next week and give them the recognition that they should have. But now I want to just kind of point out, we know that none of us, even us in the room, we're all dads. None of us are perfect.

And we've all failed. But fortunately, we all have a dad we can point them to that is perfect, that can always be there for them and we'll never let them down. And it's really pretty cool for me to look back and have those memories and know, okay, God, that's really when you had me and I didn't know it. And you've carried me through these things.

And it gives me hope when I face the new obstacle that, okay, I can't really feel him in this at the moment sometimes, but I know based on history, he's here. And I don't know how it's going to turn out. But I know he's going to be with me and it's going to be okay, whatever that means.

It will be okay. My wife loves that show. And so I've been and any man that says I control the remote in the house is posing in my opinion. But she controls the TV. So does this mean you listen to your wife? He does. She, she loves the show.

I'm on my computer, so I'm half listening. But that was the only one of the three children I was drawn to. And I wonder if it was because he was different, but his father loved him just the same. Yeah, they do a really good job of loving all three kids well, you know, and treating them as individuals, but yet also treating them equally in a lot of ways.

And it is a good show. It's just, it messed with my emotions way too much. And I'm like, yeah, I got enough sadness at times.

I don't need more. And God does that with us. We're all different. He created us that way. And life would be truly boring if we were all similar or the same, but he loves Robby best, but the rest of us, he loves best too. So yeah. Yeah.

We're, when Robby's not around, he can love on us a little bit is what that is. So we've got, you know, probably another seven minutes or so. So what other stories do you guys want to share? I'll just start asking you questions, which I guess I just did. What other stories do you want to share? But what other things would you like to share about this topic of God's gifts, God's surprises for you?

Well, my mom threw out a surprise for me when I was with her, just to kind of a story back to her, you know, growing up and meeting my dad and getting married and having a car accident was basically rendered her where she was never going to have any more children and stuff like that. Cause I knew something about it, but I didn't know a lot more depth, but as you get to grow and mature and my relationship with my mom continues to grow, which, you know, I talked about my son, you know, earlier, and it's just interesting how things that God keeps working in your life to grow and know and just, I never would have, you know, even after becoming a Christian, never thought, well, my relationship with my mom was going to grow that much deeper. Like what else is there to know or to really talk through and grow in, but there's just so much depth yet that, you know, I still need to explore with her, probably, you know, share my story and her story, you know, together and just, it's been, it's been really, really wonderful because I, it was something that I, you know, you plan more with your kids on that than you do your, your parents. You kind of start looking at all the things that you're responsible for. And then you look at the one that was responsible for you and you're like, oh wow, yeah, there's, there's a lot to know yet, a lot to grow in and family conversations and talks. So that's, that's been a big gift I've loved recently.

Yeah. It reminds me, I didn't remember, you know, how much my relationship with my mom changed as we both, when I became an adult, you know, and she didn't become a Christian until I was probably in college, you know, and so growing up, she was always a good character person. It was never about that, but she wasn't a Christian and, and she had lots of great values and things, but, you know, her whole life changed.

I was not in the house, you know, when that was going on. And so when I got to know my mom as an adult and she was an adult, obviously this, the whole relationship dynamic was different because we had this to talk about. We had our faith to talk about. And then I shared a few weeks back when I got her Bible, when she passed away and how much deeper it even got after she's been gone. When I could go through and read her notes and read the things that she wrote in her Bible and gave me time to process and pray and, you know, kind of dig into some of those. It was just even a deepening of a relationship that you thought because she's been passed away for seven years, eight years on most that, um, that wouldn't be possible, but with God, things with God, all things are possible.

Right. And so even after she's been gone, our relationship got much deeper as I was going through her notes in her Bible. Danny, and I'm pretty sure you said it, but I wasn't really listening, but you talked about during the before show, how meaningful it was that your father told you he's really proud of you. And I had an outstanding father, but by the time I was 33 and I'd had 15 different jobs, and that was after getting out of college, I had disappointed my father over and over and over again with some of the choices I'd made. And I was 32, 33, and I'd just, uh, taken a job to become a professional scout.

And my father was talking to me. You mean Boy Scouts, not Lewis and Clark. Right. Okay.

Although I'd enjoy exploration too, and I never take the same way twice just so I can find new paths. But, uh, dad and I were sitting in the car at my old house, and this was, like I said, right after I'd moved away from Charlotte. But I had started going to divinity school and he basically, uh, said to me, just out of the blue said, you know, son, I'm very proud of you.

Very proud of you. And I had not felt that from either my father or my heavenly father. And in fact, I remember thinking I'm 33. When I was 33, I thought, well, you know, Jesus was through with his life by now, and I don't even know what I'm doing yet. And so my father said that, and it was based on my turning to God after some major struggles in life. And he has always been in my life, but it was, you know, God's the backup plan.

I got this. And that was one of the biggest gifts was that, but also God getting hold of me and letting me know that, you know, I could do it my way, but his way was so much better. And for my heavenly father, that's one of the biggest gifts I've received.

Thank you. What's been interesting is, you know, we lost mom almost two years ago. And so dad and I have been thrown into arenas that I never imagined us being in, you know, with his finances and stuff like that. But we've spent a whole lot of time together, especially over the past probably six months, because he likes to visit the hospital on a regular basis for whatever reason. And I thought we can just get you a hotel and be cheaper, I think, but lots of conversations with him and, and, you know, talking about the clip earlier that, you know, being able to unpack some of his words and his actions growing up, and it's been kind of a gift from God, if you will, that, you know, to understand my dad on a level that I never thought I would, because he was kind of a mystical creature that brought home money, you know, that kind of thing. But, but, you know, cause dad, I pick at him, I said, you play your cards close to your chest.

I said, that's just who you are. Not a bad thing, but you know, anything, but figuring you out. I said, I think I've figured some things out about you, but we, you know, we've spent a lot of time together.

We went on a trip, you know, a month or so ago and, you know, just getting to know him as a guy, you know, not as dad, not as just you just hanging out and talking about different things. And that's been really cool, really cool. So. Well, good. Anyone else got anything they'd like to add on the gifts?

Well, we get, there's the music. So we do have a great thing for a gift that you could give somebody father's day is coming up in a couple of weeks. So you could invite your dad to a bootcamp and you can, or give him a bootcamp for a present.

You can go to masculine journey.org to register for that. That's coming up in November. It's the weekend before Thanksgiving. I think it's the 14th through the 19th. That's not the right dates. 16th through the 19th. That was too many days. We're not there five days, but we are there the 16th to the 19th.

Yeah. Some of us are, but the 16th through the 19th, it's a great weekend right before you go to get to see all your family. So you can get ready for them. If that's going to be a challenge for you, or you can be celebrating, but masculine journey.org to register. And we'll talk with you next week. Enjoy your week. This is the truth network.