Holding Back From God After Hours

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A decade 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 going to revisit a couple things from the previous show. We don't often do that, but we're going to do that where we left off with Danny. He was right in the middle of telling us a story where your grandfather had passed away, your daughter was kind of taken to another state and you hadn't seen her, and we kind of had to go.

So you want to pick up from there and tell us a little bit more about it? Yeah, well, all of that had happened and my life just began to spiral and I was blaming God for what was going on. And probably secretly on the inside, I was blaming myself because I must have done something terrible to make him mad and therefore, and that was my life for several years. But the perspective of it, you know, came clear later in life and that, you know, bad things we were talking about, bad things do happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. But it's our view of how we see our events that without, you know, we talk about it here all the time, you know, leaning into God and God, what's going on here because I can't see. And ironically, this week I had some eye trouble on Sunday and I couldn't see or very blurry in my right eye and went to the eye doctor.

And I've been dealing with like our spiritual senses, just kind of on a sideline thing. And so she was telling me that the cornea of your eye, my eye got damaged because my eye dried out and the eyelid and the cornea stuck together and kind of damaged it. And she said, it's healing. She said, your eye is the most miraculous organ in your body because it heals itself pretty quickly and it regenerates about every five days.

She said, so what scars will actually go away? And what I realized from that and dealing with this topic is that, you know, if our spiritual vision would clear up in five days or in a certain amount of time, then we would see clearly if we let God do the healing and give us the vision of what's really going on. We would have the peace you talked about, Sam, in the first show that, you know, it's okay because God's got this because the world is a chaotic place, but God's still in charge.

He's still on the throne and he hasn't turned his back. Yeah, it gets more chaotic, you know, every day it seems. It seems as though it's at a very high rate of getting more chaotic all the time. And that's whether it's personal, social, everything out there.

Chaos is the name of the game it seems like anymore. Well, we're going to revisit something else from the first show. We were talking to a friend of the show, Vinnie Menino. No, it's not our friend Vinnie that passed away. That would be amazing if we could talk to Vinnie right now.

It'd be a great blessing, but this is his grandson, Vinnie. And so he was telling us some about his journey. And if you want to listen to that, go back and listen to the show that we just got done recording and it'll be available right after this show or same time as the show.

It'll be posted on Saturday, so you should be able to listen to it then. And anyway, Vinnie, you want to tell us a little bit more about your story? Sure. Back when I was the victim of an assault, I was coming up on my tenth year with the company I was with. I was 39, so that was a job that I had for a quarter of my life. And because I was assaulted and because I was in the hospital, I was on a 90-day medical leave. And when my 90-day medical leave was over from a corporate perspective, they had my position still available for me, but I was still at least walking with a cane, if not actually walking with a walker at that point.

I had so much atrophy that I had to rebuild from scratch when I got out of the hospital. And the doctors didn't approve me to even go back to work part-time, so I had to be terminated. I was actually terminated in the eleventh month of what would have been the tenth year, which was a little frustrating, but everybody assured me whenever I'm fully recovered, I can go back to work. And then I did finally get to a point where I could at least go back to work part-time, but my company had reduced hours and reduced labor that they could spend. They actually were in an atrophy situation where people had to leave before they could even consider hiring new people. And at that point, I would have been a rehire, new hire. So I wasn't able to get my job back the way I was told I would be able to, the way I was looking forward to. It was a job I had for a quarter of my life.

It was a good company, and I really could have seen myself retiring with that company decades from now, but it didn't work out. And that is when the depression really started to hit, and things got really bad, but I've been just moving forward, moving according to God's plan, which He had definitely put into place. He knew me when I was in the womb.

I think there's a scripture about that. And I've been walking according to His plan, and I've had new job after new job after new job. And here recently, I was looking at changing from my current job to be in the same field but to a different place. I just wanted to make sure I had all of my—I updated my resume. I wanted to make sure I had all of my professional references up to date. So I reached out to the district manager of the old company I used to work for. He hired me at that store back in 2007, and he's now the district manager, and I wanted to use him as a professional reference.

I emailed him, and he called me back and essentially offered me back the same position that I had before the assault in the same store. And I actually had that interview today. So God works in mysterious ways, and His path for me ends up being kind of a circle, because I'm getting to go back to where I was, but I'm getting to do it now with a completely different perspective.

The perspective and belief system of a believer instead of a skeptic. And I am really thankful for that, and I'm really looking forward to the what's next, and I'm just putting one foot in front of the other and hoping I can bring glory to Him. I'm just really excited about that. It's really good, and I'm really happy about that.

Praise God. Yeah, that is amazing. But what's really cool, I was just realizing we've had all three of the Menino men on the show now. Yeah, because of course, your grandpa was on forever, and that was a joy. And then we were able to have Paul in studio with us, and now we've had you in here. And so what a blessing that is to have all three of you be here and share some time with us, and hopefully you'll be able to do it more often. We'd love to have you anytime you want to come. We're here every week, so just come join us and hang out with us.

Anyway, thank you, Vinnie. Jim, before we get to your clip, I want to go ahead and set up the topic again in case they just join the show. I could make them go back and listen to the other show, I guess, but I could just tell them. Maybe we should just take a second. But the topic this week... Well, tell them already. I wish you'd taken a second to tell us. Well, it's taken longer now, but I could wait. No, the topic this week, and I won't get into how we came about it.

You can go back and listen to the other show and hear that. But the topic for this week is what are the things that we hold back giving the reins to God, giving God control, right? That we kind of hold on, whether it's out of our own pride, whether it's out of our own skepticism, if it's doubt, whatever that might be, whatever word may fill that void for you. And what are those things that we just struggle to hand over? And I think it's something as a Christian, you get obviously better at it, right? But again, I don't know at what point do you fully arrive where you say absolutely everything God has in your hands.

I've yet to really meet a person that I know that's where they are. I wish you'd quit saying that. What's that? I'll tell you later. Okay, well, Jim, it's your turn now. So it's your clip that we're going to go with. So you want to talk about that?

I was actually pretty anxious about following Danny's and thinking that would be a great chew in and then yours may be even better. But first of all, suspend your memory of Men in Black and just listen to the discussion here. And this is the recruiting of Will Smith, Jay. Yeah, Will Smith will go that way.

JK cube. My mind's gone. But Will Smith is being recruited to join the Men of Black. And this is the discussion. And for me, it landed in that, you know, we've got a couple ways we could go and this covers both of them.

Okay, so it's him and Tommy Lee Jones, I think talking. Here we go. Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one either. They're happy. They think they have a good bead on things. But why write a big secret? People are smart.

They can handle it. The person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals. And you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet.

Imagine what you'll know tomorrow. This may be my shortest clip ever and it really said a lot if you insert God into this. I've had a, and this was the comparison, my life has been blessed. Last week, I had two of the greatest things that happened to me in recent history come down the pike. And then my sister took ill suddenly, seriously, and died on Sunday. So I've seen both ends of the roller coaster within a week of one another. And the head in the sand is a place I've lived and I've had very few things I would consider tragedies in my life. And even Sarah's passing was a blessing for her and for her son.

And it had a lot of opportunities that God had in that. And since then, one of them is talking to my cousin and we grew up together, best friends, but became as strange. I can't even talk. Separated.

For me, as strange didn't want to come out right. But it was, we had a wonderful conversation today that brought God into it. And in the discussion, he had several light bulbs go on. And now I, um, I never really thought that he would not come around, but we're getting old for both in our late sixties and he, the light bulbs came on today and he's a brilliant guy.

And you know, he's the, what I think smart, he's one of the first couple of people I think of, uh, he's got a better vocabulary and he's brighter than I am guys. So Frank is a very special person in my life, but, and what I was going to say in my life is I feel like I've gone through the good and the bad with a fairly even keel. Because as I've gotten older, I've realized that all I have to do is listen for God that can be tough and then be obedient when I hear from him. And that's been my experience through the last few weeks and it is getting easier as I get older. And while I certainly don't have everything together, when all you have to do is focus on him and follow him and respond correctly to him.

He's responsible for all the outcomes. So all the stress I used to feel about getting things done is pretty much gone now. That's good.

That's good. Well, thank you, Jim. Danny, is there anything that you would like to say that you still struggle to give over to God? You know, what would be one of those things? And you don't have to answer. I just, we've both talked and Jim just talked, but you know, is there anything that you'd throw on the list? For me, I'll go first.

I think I still struggle with asking God first. A lot. Just fill in the blank.

It doesn't matter what it is. On big decisions, I do a lot better. You know, but I just think I know better. You know, like I think I need rest so I just don't do anything and just hang out or chill or relax.

It may not be what I really need. And instead of asking God, I just kind of chart off. And when it's unfulfilling, I just go, oh, I wonder if I should ask God what I really needed to do here. We do have our similarities, Sam, and you're a sharp guy.

And I thought, well, God gave me a good brain. He expects me to use it. Yes, but not necessarily first.

Yeah. And mine is that I just, God is too many times still an afterthought in my planning and my decision making. I think I need, I know what I need to do more than he did, not more than he does. I just don't need to ask, you know, and sometimes that works out well and he's gracious and sometimes it doesn't work out so well, you know, and I probably should have asked. But, you know, and tied into that, and then we'll jump to you, Danny, tied into that is learning, God challenged me a long time ago to look to him for my comfort.

And I still don't really know what that means fully head. I'm still working on it. I'm still growing in it, you know, because I, I try to find my own comfort in things, you know, and instead of saying, okay, God, what's that really mean?

I need to lean into him a lot more as he's challenged me more to lean into him on that. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is Peter walking on water. And I think I know why is because I lived that over and over again, because I step out in faith, and it's all joyous for the first few steps. And then I began to pay attention to the waves in the wind, and forget who called me out of the boat anyway. And I began to sink.

And so that that's the whole, you know, faith movement, I think in my life, maybe I'm getting a little better, because I'm getting older. And then the other thing that would disturb me would be walking in on Jim and his cousin having a conversation. I wouldn't understand anything they said. Yeah. So that'd be a tough one. That would be a tough one. I would have to have Google up when I walked.

Yeah, I would need a thesaurus and a couple other things. Yeah, Andy, we're actually going to get to your clip next. So through through your ringer there, Rodney, I went to wake him up. I did.

I did. I want to see if he's paying attention. So Andy, we're gonna get to you in your clip.

So this past weekend, I went to Ohio and they with the team that we've talked about up there and they did a the becoming a king retreat that Wildheart does and really great time really enjoyed it really learned a lot and just God came after me. But one of the ways he came after me was as a was a clip from the horse whisper. Now, my clip is from that.

It's not the clip that I saw there at the camp, which was really powerful where he's actually trying, trying. He's doing his horse whispering stuff and trying to get the horse to obey or whatever. But going into that, you have Grace, a young girl here who was in a tragic accident with Pilgrim, the horse.

And both of them are kind of skittish PTSD. Yeah, exactly. And and he's trying to get the horse out of that, but he wants a buy in from Grace as well in doing so. And really, this is us to me to the topic being how do we hold back from God? Well, a lot of times we do hold back from God on those injured places, those wounds, those hurt places. That's what we try to protect. And we may give him access to a lot of our wounds, but then or whatever are the flesh wounds, flesh wounds, not the deep ones.

Or it could be character stuff that's a byproduct of those wounds or whatever. But he comes, he keeps coming after us. And that's kind of what you see with this horse whisperer going after it.

I think that's Tom Booker's his name. And he's just he's going after both of the horse. You'll hear a little bit with the horse and the interaction and that's a horse being spooked. But then you see him go after Grace as well. And before I play it, if they've never seen the horse whisperer.

But basically what that is, is somebody that's really, really good with horses that can come in and get them to kind of change how they do things as they whisper to the horse and the horse. Right. Exactly.

It's in the title. But in case they didn't understand, I'm just clarifying. Yeah. Yeah. It could have just been, hey, horsey.

I mean, it could have been that. Right. That's what we're talking about. So we're going to play the clip and come back and talk about it.

You're riding him. Well, we could play it at the beginning. That might be the better. That would be best. Whisper that there. Here's what's played at the beginning.

The clip whisper. Howdy, Lester. Howdy. You going to see that horse?

Yeah, I hope you got insurance. Well, you're the closest anyone's ever gotten. I have to be honest with you.

I still feel you've made a long trip or nothing. But before I even think about it, I need to know something right now. It's a question for Grace. You see, when I work with a horse, it's no good just me doing it. The owner's got to be involved, too. Well, that'll be a little complicated.

You can make it as complicated or as easy as you like. But she's the one that's going to be riding him. Am I right?

Who? Right? Now, here's the deal. I don't know that I can do anything. But I'm prepared to give it a go if you'll help. Will you have a problem with that?

Isn't it, like, obvious? Not to me. Either you want to or you don't. Look, I'll talk to Grace. Excuse me.

With all due respect, this is her decision, not yours. I don't want to waste anybody's time here. Most of mine. Well, nothing else to do around here. That's not good enough.

I can't help you. Yeah, you're just hearing her voice. You know, sometimes we can get that way with God, too, whenever he's coming after those places. Isn't it obvious what's going on here, God? You know, it's just that callous attitude sometimes even. You know, I've been hurt enough before. The whole Isaiah 61, how he comes after the brokenhearted, he knows how to woo us.

He's a romancer and he knows how to go after those things. But again, we hold out. And we hold out a lot of times after we've already had healing in many different areas. And we just won't give him that access to what he really wants to go after because he wants to see a complete us.

He wants to see us fully operating out of our true identity of who we are and become who all he created us to be. And it'll never happen as long as we hold on to those areas. Yeah, what I really liked about that clip, and you said it, I'm going to say it again a little differently, that a lot of times we'll turn it over to God and say, okay, God, you got this, which is great, but we don't want to do anything with it. Right? We don't want to have to do our part. And God's like, no, no, no, this is going to bring you in.

Right? And so we want to be hands off sometimes. And he doesn't allow us to be.

Which is really pretty cool that that's the way he chooses to do it. That, you know, he says, okay, no, I'm going to bring you through in it. And one of the things you were saying, Andy, that, you know, around the table, you know, with the guys in the band of brothers, we've all had breakthrough. But, you know, it just seems like when we get to that next one, boy, this one feels harder. You know, it's maybe been with me longer. It's been a part of me.

I don't even know how to be without this, you know, because it's been so much a part of my life. And it sounds silly. But, you know, I mean, if I'm a pig laying in mud, I at least know what this mud feels like. Yeah, it's my mud.

It's comfortable. It could go back to like what Danny was saying was, well, where were you that that was almost like that girl was like, isn't it obvious? You know, why can't you you're going to come after it now? Why didn't you come after it then? I mean, that's the real dialogue we have with him a lot of times when we don't know all that stuff.

Again, people have free will and people sin and people get us in situations and stuff. But he continues to come after it and continues to, you know, help us through those places where we don't want to give up access. Well, thank you, Rodney. I hope I left you enough time. But I really want to have you go last for this reason.

I want to see how many times we can use Aloe Josie Wales in different topics. Well, we have to use it one more time because it is the greatest movie ever told, right? Amen.

Maybe. Well, I know I love it. And it's all about me, right? That's what this clip was about that your clip went on.

Well, the clips about pride. And that's what I got out of the lyrics when you sent them because you're like, hey, there's got to be a topic in here somewhere. And then at the end, you actually said what your topic was. But by that time, I'm like, we're supposed to figure it out. Well, it wasn't like my text was as long as one of Jim's. No, it was like, Of course it does at most. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But yeah, so I would. But I just wanted to go as like, well, what's going in the song? I couldn't get anything out of. I went to the lyrics. I started parsing some things out and then she's like, whoa, Rodney, stop. It was like it was fun.

I actually enjoyed it because when you start looking at the lyrics and what it came down to, the basic base of everything for me was was pride. And that's where this clip from Josie Wales got the grandmother and she's traveling out west to go to her son's place. And she's a proud Kansas person. And when she hears that something's from Missouri in this first part of this clip, she doesn't want anything to do with it.

Nope, I won't take it because nothing good comes out of Missouri, Andy. And then we go down the path of she travels on and then she's overrun by Comancheros. All the men in the outfit are killed. There's just her and her daughter. And that's the second part of the clip when it picks up and they find him there. And Josie makes an observation. So go ahead and play in just one second.

I have to set it up here. I guess it's not it's not playing. It's not playing. Well, what happens is you've got grandma has a big pride issue and it comes out glaringly in the in the movie when she's like, hey, this is what I've got going on. And she goes, you know, she won't change her attitude because somebody tries to speak into her that's traveling with her, but she won't have anything to do with it.

And then next thing you know, God intervenes and has her completely overcome. All right, we're gonna try the clip one more time. We can do it.

Yeah, we're gonna try it. Let's see if it starts where I think it is. The weed is from Kansas and the molasses comes from Missouri. Well, sir, we'll do without molasses anything from Missouri. Has a taint about it.

Now, grandma, you've got to tread lightly. Now we're here in Texas. Lots of nice elements, Missouri coming west. Never heard of nice things from Missouri coming west and treading lightly is not my way.

We're from Kansas. J-Hulk is proud of it. Yeah, so a lot of what's going on here is the pride issue, right? So one of the things here, when you have a big view of me and I have a big view of others. So what I had is the pride of, well, I got a fear of man. I've got to go please everybody else. And that's what really kept me from turning to God. But now as God keeps growing and growing and growing in my life, others are becoming less and less influential and it's really helping me to turn to Him and trust in Him. Yeah, and the pride kind of fades away.

Yeah. Well, thank you for listening to the show. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp. It's a weekend before Thanksgiving. I think it's November 16th through 20th, something like that. This is the Truth Network.