How Is God Active In Your Life

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast. On Finishing Well, we help you make godly choices about Medicare, long-term care, and your money. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. But life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week, and we're excited about this show. David, do you want to tell us a little bit about the show?

Sure. So, you know, they gave me the opportunity, since I'm like the most frequented guest, to actually pick a topic this week. Surprisingly, you know, Sam let it ride. But the topic this week is kind of a spinoff from our show last week. It's about what is God doing with us in our walk in life.

And it really spoke to me because in the season I'm in right now, you know, He's really kind of, I don't want to say bring me back to the basics, but just kind of let me know that I never lost the tools that I learned at boot camp for my band of brothers and just through life in general with God. So, yeah, I'm really excited about this topic. Good. Good.

I'm excited to hear more about it as we go through. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I think there's four of us here, five of us.

There'll be a lot of talking about it, I'm sure. You have five fingers. You could have got to five eventually. At some point, that wasn't my strong subject, you know. Yeah, I could tell. Well, I mean, I know when you were going through math, y'all still used abacus, abacuses? Yeah.

Is that how you pronounce it? I would have to ask Harold. Yeah.

Yeah, true. All right. So do you want me to do my clip first? Is that what you want to do? Or what do you want to do first? Yeah, we'll start with your clip.

Okay. So my clip is actually two clips put together. And so if you were a kid in the 70s, I definitely know that you've seen this Disney movie at some point. But yeah, I know that if you were a kid in the 70s, you saw this movie at some point, it was The Jungle Book, right? It was the animated Jungle Book that they had on. And so it was that one.

And then I have another clip from Avengers Endgame. And I know you're wondering, how can those two go together? But it's on the topic of trust. And so where I've been with God over the last several years, as I look back, it's more clear. But where he's got me right now is constantly in the state of, do you trust me? You know, it started many, many years ago, but most recently, about a year and a half ago, a little bit more, two and a half years, I was looking at retirement and saying, okay, God, I don't know how I'm going to afford to retire, you know, after going through a divorce and some other things.

And I just don't know how that's going to happen. He said, well, do you trust me? And he said, so he put me on this thing paying off debt and doing some things and having to really trust him with my finances, because in the past, I've been trusting me.

And that's how I got into trouble, you know, thinking I knew better. And so, you know, he helped me work through my finances to where they're in a much better spot today. You know, most of my debts all paid off now. And getting closer to looking at retiring in six or seven years, you know, about the time frame I was hoping to retire.

And so, well, that's not true. I'd like to retire now. But I have to work another six to seven years. Yeah, just something along those, about your story there, too. And it wasn't all easy. All the problems didn't stop, I don't believe, whenever you started doing that. You had a couple things that come against you, like vehicles and different stuff. Oh, check engine light. Yeah, well, it's coming on again. Did you just unplug the fuse for that or something, though? No, I just got the thing where I can reset it. Yeah, that's the point, was just, you could have abandoned trust during all that.

Your point being, yeah, as soon as I said, okay, God, I'm in, gonna do it. Yeah, there's a, let's see, part of the furnace went out on my furnace. You know, the temptation is to use credit. Right, my car quit working altogether. I had to get a new car just out of nowhere. You know, and the new car I got didn't work very well. And your fridge went out, too, I think. Well, no, my stove, my fridge. Yeah, just, yeah, there was a list.

Dishwasher. Yeah, but the point I'm trying to make here, too, is you handled that well, but you handled, like you said, you would have went to credit before and stuff, and you still, it didn't really take you out of your plan that much. It didn't. And there was a lot of stuff that he did that you have fruit of the trust, I guess. I do, I do. And, you know, on the two clips that I have, the first one is the snake character, and I can't remember who plays the snake. It's the one that does Winnie the Pooh's voice, does the voice of the snake, and you can recognize that if you listen to much of Winnie the Pooh. But on this clip, what it is, he's telling him to trust in him. That's the whole thing of the song, trust in me.

And the snake represents the enemy in the world. Because when it comes down to it, this relationship with God comes down to trust. All relationships, honestly, at their core come down to trust. You know, I can't have a relationship with my band of brothers if I don't trust them. You know, it's hard to have a relationship that there's distrust in the middle of it, right? And so it is about trust. And so this comes down to who are you going to trust? Are you going to trust the world, or are you going to trust God? And so the first voice you hear is definitely the world saying, oh, I've got you, don't worry about it, just close your eyes, relax, go on autopilot, and I got you covered, right? And then the second part comes in in the Avengers, I'll talk about it after the clip.

It's where two people are talking and listen to their trust in their relationship, and then we'll talk about it after the clip. I'm not like those so-called fairweather friends of yours. You can believe in me. Trust in me.

Just in me. Shut your eyes. Trust in me.

Hold still, please. You can sleep safe and sound, knowing I am around. Slip into silent slumber, sail on a silver mist. Slowly and surely your senses will cease to resist.

You're snoring. Sorry. Trust in me. Just in me. Shut your eyes. Trust in me.

Here we go. So when you listen to that, you've got this alluring voice, you know, in the snake that's just trying to melodically put you to sleep. You know, and he's saying everything that's just right. All the things you want God to say, and God is saying those things to you, but not in that way, right? But the world screams it.

The world screams it loudly. You know, trust in, fill in the blank, the government, medicine, you know, fill in whatever you want to fill in. There's lots of things that they ask you to trust in.

But at the end of the day, if you're trusting in anything other than God, it's going to fall short, right? And so that second clip is you've got two friends, and they didn't start out friends, they end up being friends, or they're not friends at all at the beginning, but you've got Captain America and you've got Iron Man, and Iron Man's saying, hey, if we go do this thing, I think we'll be okay, but I don't know that we can return, and that's what Ant Man's trying to tell him. Look, if you guys go do this, there is no return on it, but they know if they don't go risk it, the whole world could be in jeopardy. But what I loved about that interchange is you had two people that have become close that trust in each other, and the one says, do you trust me? And he says, yeah.

And that wasn't enough. He just said, well, then it's your call. What are we going to go do?

And then, you know, you had Captain America go, okay, let's go. You know, we're in this. And that's what God's been with me. You know, God will ask me, do you trust me?

And when I answer, yeah, I do trust you, it doesn't stop there. He calls me still into action. Right, okay, well, what are we going to do? Your call. Right, you know, I want to get out of debt.

You know, I want to be able to retire. Well, there's a way you can do this, but do you trust me? Yes. Okay, so what are you going to do? It's your call.

You know, I still have to take action on it, right? And so where the enemy is that other voice saying, hey, just let it ride. Don't worry about it. Just bury your head in the sand, be an ostrich. Don't think about what's wrong. You know, we got this. You know, it'll all fade away. You know, and that's the way we want life to be because there's no confrontation in that life. It doesn't feel like there is.

There's a bunch of it, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like it's the cruise. It's the cruise control of life. You know, from the movie Click, it's the fast forward in Click, right?

It gets me out of situations until you realize you're fast forwarding through life. And the enemy's approach and the snake's approach from Jungle Book is just trust in me, and then I'm going to actually, you know, devour you, you know, while you're not really paying attention. And that's the enemy's intent as well. But, you know, God's saying, I got you, but you got to walk with me. This is a relational thing.

It's not just a transaction. It's not a, hey, just, you know, be obedient. Yes, we got to be obedient to God, but it's a relational, I don't want to say relationship. It's a relational venture, right? And he calls us into adventure, but not against our will mostly.

It's mostly in our own choice. It's the Peter walking on water story. It's, yeah, he said come, but Peter still had to get out of the boat. And he had to trust him to walk on water.

But, you know, my buddy Jake Parrish used to say all the time, I'd rather be a wet water walker than a dry boat talker any day. And that's the trust in God because he's going to take you places where, I mean, who had ever walked on water before? That kind of thing. So there were no self-help books and that kind of thing. So trust is a big deal.

And as your family gets older and expands, you have lots and lots more opportunities to trust in God. You know, in the current season of man, my grandson's been pretty sick and they don't know what's going on with him. He's six. You know, and the doctors really don't know what to do yet.

There's just lots of different things and they've got him at this specialist and they're waiting on this specialist and that kind of thing. And if I use the world's philosophy, you know, I could get really mad at God. God, why did you let this happen?

You know, I could get really mad at lots of things. But, you know, when I pray about it, God's like, do you trust me? And I don't know what the outcome's going to be and I don't know that my grandson's going to be okay because I don't know how the cards will play out. But I do know however it plays out, God's got me. And God's in the midst of it. And God's heart's breaking over this little boy being sick, you know. And so he's right there. He's with the family. He's with me. You know, he's with all of us.

But, you know, it keeps me from going into some really dark and bad places, you know, because I could really jump on that very easily. You know, there's a lot in life that you want to say this isn't fair. Well, you know what, people, let's be an adult. Life's not fair.

And it's never going to be fair and God never promised fair. What he promised is that he loves us and he trusts us and that he wants us to trust him. We're going to break now and we come back.

We're going to hear David's bump in, which will be cool, and we're going to talk more about this subject. We go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp coming up the 16th. What we have in our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God.

It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. Well, what kind of inspired you to come up this weekend? Oh, my goodness, just my faith in general. You know, my father, you know, has passed down that heritage of just that Christian life, that Christian faith, and just godly morals and principles, and he's instilled that in my life.

And, you know, I have children as well and I want to instill that in their life. So, you know, when I get an opportunity to do something like this, I jump on it. I just want to be here and I'm glad to be here.

It's a great opportunity. We're definitely glad to have you here as well. Any talk that stuck out to you this weekend that's really just kind of made your heart come alive, put that fire back in you?

Probably one thing that just stands out to me is John 15. It's just not being alone. Know that I have Christ on my side.

I can't do anything without him and I need him in my life. I'm a very private person. I like to do things on my own. I don't like to ask for help. So that's hard for me to know I've got to ask Jesus for something and then also just to rely on a band of brothers that I can look to and turn to and say, hey, guys, I need help.

I can't do this alone. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. And, David, that is John Ritter. Is that right? Riddick. Riddick?

Yeah, a guy turning it around. It was probably one of his hit songs last year, maybe even the year before that. But this song still speaks to me when I hear it all the time.

I still get goosebumps listening to it. It's really a reminder of if you are in a bad spot and you just pray, God, turn it around. He will, but you've got to be ready to, like Sam was saying, trust in Him, but how are you going to do it? You've got to be ready to put the work in because it's just like the old saying, nothing comes to you for free. And it's not saying that there's a financial cost at God, the things He's doing in your life and to be with you through it. But there is a cost to that. And we have to sacrifice things in our flesh world to be able to move on with that and go in the path that He wants us to go on.

Yeah, you were just talking about there's His role and our role. And faith without works is dead, no doubt about it. And I can't think of a story in the Bible where the person that God's working with didn't have to take action on getting a result.

And it's not about the results, but there's partnership that happens and relationship that happens, but there's really no fruit of that and no outcome. God didn't do the exodus by Himself, you know? And Jesus didn't, you know, He engaged with people. He is God, but He expected them to do something to receive their healing.

They had to put their faith out there. Yeah, as you were talking, I started thinking about plain wood derby. Okay, if you were in Boy Scouts, I don't know who all was in Boy Scouts, but plain wood derby was a block of wood that you carved into a car, right? And so you had the kids, and I think about this adventure with God as the way plain wood derby is supposed to be done, right? My experience with plain wood derby is my dad didn't do anything on my car.

And so I had a really ugly car that was really slow. But it was all up to me, and I never enjoyed doing it because there was no one there to guide me, to lead me, to help me get through it. Well, then I had friends whose dads did the whole thing, and you could tell by looking at the car. And they didn't enjoy it any more than I did. I may have actually enjoyed it a little bit more than they did because they had nothing in the game, right?

There was no shared adventure. It was just dad did it, and now we get to see the results. Now, the way it's meant to be done is father and son working together on the project to produce something that they both enjoyed building together. It's about that experience. And that's what God calls us to. He doesn't go do it for us.

There's a season he does certain things for us. But he calls us to be a part of that adventure to pull our own weight. Not that God can't pull the weight, but it's because it's about the relational adventure, you know, if that makes any sense. I heard the term today that God calls us he wants intimate allies. And I love that phrase.

I don't think I'd ever pay any attention to that when I listen to different talks. But the intimate allies, and that's what we were originally created to be, Adam and Eve. And now he's calling.

And the stories you were talking about, Andy, in Scripture, he was looking for intimate allies to combat the evil and to go on this great adventure. Well, you have a mic in front of you. I think David said that you're up next. And so if you want to tell us a little bit about your clip, and I may decide to play it, I'm not really sure.

Well, that's always iffy, I know. Even though we let you go first. He played my bump, so you at least definitely got a shot.

No, I figured that his niceness was up at that point. To be fair, Keith auto-loaded the bump. Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, Keith, our great producer. Anyway, my clip is from The Karate Kid. And it is the original Karate Kid. And it's a scene where Daniel's son is upset.

I like the name Daniel's son, you might think. But anyway. You're not biased or anything.

Not biased at all. Yeah, so never had a friend named Miyagi. But he's upset because he's had to do all this work around Mr. Miyagi's house. And he's upset because he wants to learn karate. And he doesn't understand what all this discipline and all this stuff is about. He just thinks Mr. Miyagi is getting free labor.

And he's pretty much, I cut most of it out because it wasn't very nice. And so he's unloading on him. And so Mr. Miyagi begins to explain to him and show him what he's actually doing. And in my season of life now, that's kind of what God is doing with me and for me.

There are things that I go, the disciplines of life that I've never been great at. And he's showing me the fruits of that. And so thus the clip.

So we can play the clip. I'll talk about it on the backside. Show me sand floor, sand floor, sand floor.

Big sucker, sand floor. Now show me wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Concentrate. Look at my eye.

Black hand, thumb inside. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off.

Show me paint the fence. Up, down. Up, down.

Up, down. Other side. Look eye. Always look eye. Show me paint the house. Side, side.

Not glist. Side, side. Side, side. Show me wax on, wax off. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Show me paint the fence. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Show me paint the fence.

Show me sign the faith. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Show me sand the floor. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

I loved that movie back in the day. I can remember my first mentor when I got sober in AA he would uh We were we were setting up meetings and making coffee and I got frustrated with him because it seemed like that's all we were doing We were supposed to be working on me. You know, it is all about me And so I confronted him a lot like Daniel did mr. Miyagi matter of fact What is all this stuff and he began to explain to me?

He says are you showing up and doing what you're supposed to be doing? How many times you do that in your active addiction and I went Not very often Isn't that what we're doing and and so the disciplines of it and that's kind of the season of life I'm in now is that you're doing things to maybe improve my health But the disciplines of it just get to be humdrum at times and you don't see results and that kind of thing and you know with finances Sam and and I think you go I just don't seem to be getting anywhere and and God has to hit the pause button and say Let's look at a couple of things and and here's where you were and here's where you are Yeah It's not what you thought it would be But it is something and it is it is where we're going and that kind of thing And that's just kind of what I thought about with this topic that you know there are things that you have to do that are kind of the undercurrent of what's really going on and you know like like Daniel talked about how sore his arms were because he's doing all this work and that kind of thing but yet all of a sudden now he's realizing and that This does have value that those are the kind of things and you know in second Peter Peter talks about God's given us everything we need for life and godliness, you know, he didn't hold out anything The original lie was God's holding out on you but he says to add to your faith these things and You know steadfastness and patience and those kind of things God usually gives you opportunities to be steadfast to be patient to be kind and that kind of thing. So Those are the disciplines that we learn with the opportunities that come along and then you realize you know what? Life isn't so bad after all That's kind of where I'm at. So You know, I think a lot of times whatever path we're walking on with God we think of Where we're going And it turns out we were going someplace totally different that because we're going where he wants us to go Not necessarily. We may think we want to go this way and we probably want to go that way too for sure But I know in my walks like currencies.

I'm in I thought Alright, this is you know, my career is about to take off, you know We moved into a house out of a small apartment out in the country. All these things are falling into place and I was like Okay, cool. I'm really walking the path out that I thought I was and stuff like that and then total 360 over the last 30 45 days made me realize that the path I'm actually on With God going the way that God wants me to is not the exact the same way I am it's about other people in my life versus myself and what I'm doing so It's good one of the things is we were talking about trust a little bit, you know One of the points I wanted to bring up was you know, we're going to trust in something Right, and you know, there's more than two choices. Well, honestly it gets down to there's only two choices We think there's more than two, but there's two Right.

I would tell you for the longest time. No, I don't think I really trusted in the enemy I mean I knew better than that, but I trusted in me Right. I wouldn't say I trusted in God I trusted in Sam and that got me in a lot of trouble because most of the time I was being influenced by the enemy Here by the world or by other things, right? And so it really gets down to the two choices and it gets back to the topic of being fathered Right.

Am I going to be father? You're gonna be fathered by somebody so you can either be fathered by God or be fathered by the world Right, and so, you know, you need to be able to walk in that relation relationship with God that's very trusting knowing that he does Have you you may not understand his ways and it tells us very clearly we won't understand his ways But we do need to trust the process and trust the outcome because it may not be the outcome we're expecting but it's the outcome God knows we need and So that's something I would leave you with this week It's the polar opposite. So if you look at the end of Jesus's ministry here He was pretty much all alone. Everybody had forsaken him Paul talks about everybody's left me except Luke and we cut the world looks at it as the more people you have around you to book bigger your church is a big thing, but God's journey seems to be almost a polar opposite of that And so coming up in the next couple weeks about three weeks out We have boot camp coming up masculine journey dot org register for boot camp It runs November 16th through 19th. If you're having trouble financially, let us know reach out to us We'll find a way to help you get there. Do not let that be a reason you don't come masculine journey dot org We'll talk to you next week This is the truth network. This is the truth network.