Truth Or Snare

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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We are very glad you're with us this week. We have an amazing topic. It's one that I'm sure that all of us can relate to. You don't know it yet, because you don't know what it is. But Danny's about ready to tell us the topic. So, Danny, this is your topic this week. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

We're calling it Truth or Snare. Well, you are. Well, I am. I don't think you are fully committed to this topic. I really don't know. But maybe you got ensnared in it or something.

I don't know. But it kind of come out of something we were talking about last week. We were talking about words in the nursery rhyme. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Well, words are the most hurtful thing there are. You take a little bit of truth mixed with some deception, and you end up ensnared in all sorts of different things.

That's kind of where that was birthed out of. I was reading where Abraham had a promise that God promised him. With a little deception, he got into this whole ordeal with his wife to save his own skin. Just kind of a lack of faith, because God had promised him they were going somewhere.

Obviously, he had to be alive to do that. But sometimes our lack of faith can deceive us. Even though we know there's truth in our life, that we can end up ensnared in different things. That's kind of what we were talking about. And we don't have to look back too far, I don't, to see scenarios where I've either created a deception or created a pose or something that misled me down the wrong path. There's various ways we could go with this topic.

Sounds good. We have the first clip, right? Yeah, I do, because it just makes sense.

It does make sense. Yeah, so as somebody says around here a lot, the clip is from the Andy Griffith show, which I know is a big shocker. I don't remember the name of the episode, but Floyd the barber has engaged in this Lonely Hearts Club letter writing to this lady. And he has built himself up to be something that he's not. A millionaire instead of just a local barber with all this entrepreneur stuff. And he dyed his hair and took a picture and he's done all this. And they've been corresponding and she's telling him all this stuff.

She's got a couple of houses and all this kind of stuff. And where we pick up the scene is where he has gotten a letter from her that she's coming to town and he is in panic mode because she's going to discover that he's has deceived her. And Andy's trying to walk him through the thing and Floyd's trying to pack and go to Tennessee.

So he's getting out of Dodge, but that's the exchange. And you just kind of see how it has progressed. Well, here we go. Who's Madeline Grayson?

What's that got to do with Floyd Lawson Enterprises? Well, it's a story that just makes me want to blush. All right, here it is. I might as well tell you. I belong to a Lonely Hearts Correspondence Club. Now, for some time now, I've been corresponding with a Mrs. Madeline Grayson.

Well, it's only natural, isn't it? A lonely widow and lonely widower getting together in letters. Sure, Floyd, it sounds fine.

Sounds fine? Floyd! But anyway, this Mrs. Grayson is a wealthy widow.

She's got a home in Baltimore and Palm Beach. And now here it comes. In order to measure up and look good to her, I lied to her about myself. I lied about who I am and what I am. How'd you do that?

Well, I wrote to her that I was a rich millionaire, a wealthy businessman. Oh, and that's how come Floyd Lawson Enterprises? My company.

Run by that. Floyd Lawson. Floyd Lawson, you're nothing but a liar and a cheat and a scoundrel. I hate you. How could I have done?

How could I do it for this lovely, sweet, trusting man? Is that her? Yep. She's pretty. Oh, she's a doll. This is the picture I sent her. Oh, that's me.

That's you? Where's the gray hair? Oh, touch up, touch up. Oh, now Floyd.

Who would have thought that she'd be coming here? Oh, the deception of it all, the vanity of it. Floyd Lawson, I'm ashamed of you. You're nothing but a liar and deceitful. Floyd, why?

That's pretty good. We talked before the show. Most of her heard Floyd talk. I mean, most of the time on the show, he didn't say much. Well, later years, he'd had a stroke, right? Yeah, he'd had a stroke. And you would see, you would never see him standing up later on in the show. But yeah, he was very active in this episode.

But he was a funny guy anyway. But, you know, so often, we try to make things sound better than they are. And it gets us into trouble. You know, I was thinking about, you know, doing the job that I do with tech support. Doesn't take long to figure out the guy on the other end doesn't know what he's doing, but he wants you to think he does.

But when you're playing with electricity, doesn't take long. He's got himself in a snare and go, Okay, no, I didn't do that. And you know, I've done that too many times in my life.

And I was thinking about I took a job years ago as a plumbers helper and in a town like a plunger. It was the funniest hat I ever had to wear. That was not okay.

Where was that? Oh, you're, I'll see y'all next week. Plumbers helper plumbers helper, but it's a beautiful shade of red.

Almost closure colored. Oh, good. But he asked me to go to the hardware store and I pretended like I knew where I was going. And I thought I did. And go back about an hour later, I couldn't find it.

It was like five minutes down the road. I really don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know where I'm at.

But you know, just just little stuff like that. And because out of a lack of faith or lack of just, you know, being honest, no, I don't know where that is. Because what will you think of me if I don't know where the hardware story is?

It doesn't matter. If you don't know where's that? You don't know where's that? Yeah, but fear of man, fear of man. Yeah. And that kind of thing. So just those little things that you can get into that, that that get us into trouble, you know, and not believe in, you know, what God says or, you know, even what people say. And I think you said before the show, talk about, you can think, you know, somebody's motives and something and you don't even have a clue.

So those those are the kind of things we're kind of going to unpack a little bit. So yeah, as you were playing this clip, no, you know, we listened to him before the show and stuff. And we actually do a little bit of prep. No, we prep a lot throughout the week.

But we do combined prepped right before the show. But as you're playing that clip, and honestly, I'm kind of don't really even want to share it on the air, but I guess I will, because God's kind of prompted me. But there was a season of my life when I was doing online dating, you know, and I can't say that I was ever honestly I could say I don't think I was ever untruthful. You know, but I always had the best part of me for face forward, you know, it it to the point where, you know, I had a few dates, I mean, kind of went out with whoever wanted to at the time, I don't mean that arrogantly, it's just, I had a way of communicating that I knew worked.

Right. And everything I said, or did was me, but it was the best part of me that I can't be all the time. You know, and that's what I was thrown out there. This is who I am all the time, if that makes sense. And couldn't figure out why people would get their heart broke or get disappointed when the real me would show up, you know, and, and it became this, this part of God that that is me, and I want to be able to be that person. But I want to be that person for the right person. Right. And only the right person is I want to be that for. And I want them to be able to see all sides of me.

Because if they don't love me for all sides of me, what's it really matter if they love me for this side or for this side, because eventually, if we're together, they're gonna see all sides of me. Right. And it really changed my online dating the point, I just didn't do it anymore. You know, it's just like, I don't because that's all it is, is you're putting your best, the best version of me out there. I started making you put pictures on the profile. Yeah, I had to use my picture.

Yeah. It was a change. And, but, you know, and I was at the time I was, when it comes down to is misleading. Because that's not who I am all the time.

Yeah, I am that that way sometimes. But but I've made it out to kind of be and I don't know if that's making sense as we're talking, but it was very much a deceptive kind of thing. It wasn't intentional. But it felt like it was a good idea at the time.

And it was a horrible idea, because I left some some carnage in the wake. I think maybe you and I are the only ones that have ever online dated in that time that our profiles matched each other. That was that was a little bit embarrassed.

We had a good day. Yeah. Anyway, I was wondering how y'all met.

Seriously, that that makes 100% sense, right? Because you are trying to put your best foot forward. Your mom can help you with that, though. In my case, when I was online dating and stuff, I was on eHarmony. And I ended up in Colorado with my mom and my sisters in a hotel room because my dad was sick. And, you know, when three girls in your family get together, and they know you're online dating, they want to see who are you, you know, meeting. And so they they said, you know, can we look at your profile? You know, can we can we see the ladies that you've been matched up with?

Yeah. And so, you know, my mom like, Yeah, go ahead, Mom. And so my sisters are, you know, moving through the laptop. And my mom's like, Oh, she's beautiful. Oh, she's lovely, Darren. Oh, what does she do? Oh, she's a lawyer. Oh, a nurse.

Oh, she's gorgeous. And then after about six or seven, she said, Have they seen a picture of you? It's like, Well, yes, mom, but I'm a communicator. That counts for something. Yeah. So you said you knew how to communicate well in I mean, unfortunately, unfortunately, or fortunately, when you walk in this message very long, you do learn how to be a better communicator, right?

Especially with people that may be more vulnerable to you than others. Yeah. And being, you know, in the boot camps, and being in the message and, and talking about the heart of a woman a lot, you know, you tend to understand it differently. Right. And it does help you communicate a little better.

Right. But then I realized that what I was doing was manipulation. It was not intentional when I started out, but at the end of the day, it became that, you know, and God convicted me of that, you know, and I actually spoke about it when the boot camps, you know, that, okay, this, this is, it was an ugly look in the mirror, you know, at the time of this is not the guy I want to be. Yeah, this is the poser talk. Yeah, this is deception. This is manipulation. This is what it is, when you finally get down to the brass tacks of things. It's like, well, that's what you're doing, whether you really intended it or not, you're harming. And you have to really look yourself in the mirror and say, okay, where am I going to start walking back out of this and being honest?

Yeah, walking the full truth. Well, we do have a boot camp coming up, but we have several things to talk about after the break. We have our boot camp, which we know now, whether it's an advanced or basic, but you're gonna have to wait to know. We have an entrenchment coming up and we have another boot camp Darren's going to tell us about.

Talk to you after the break. What we have at 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. What brings you here this weekend? So I met Robby and he invited me to come to the boot camp and there was just so many doors that were closed before I was able to come here, but God allowed these things to happen. And I said, you know, God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ultimately acknowledge what's going on for all these doors to be open for me to come to this camp.

I just want to see you. So throughout that time, since I've been here, you know, just the illumination of God speaking to me through my heart and through my mind and through my soul is just, it's went to a whole other level since I've been here at the boot camp. The covenant of silence after the talks and being able to go out and just submit myself to being able to hear from God and what we've been working on. And it's just been transparent in my life.

The level of the sanctification process, the discipleship process, and coming here, I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Danny, you can sing it though. Go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, no.

Every episode could be our last. Just would almost guarantee it. Yeah. Yeah. So we did have a bump from Fleetwood Mac.

Fleetwood Mac, sweet little lies. And just, just cause that's what the enemy whispers in your ear sometimes sweet little lies. And I liked that song. So yeah. Yeah. Actually that fit really well.

So Danny, tell me sweet little lies. Okay. We'll move on. Yeah.

Yeah. There's the last show. It was a fun ride. It was a fun ride.

Thank you guys. Well, I'll go ahead and go next with my clip. I know it's not Christmas time, but we actually do have a couple Christmas clips on this particular show. And this one, when Danny sent the topic out on Friday and we agreed to it, I couldn't think of, well, most of us agreed to it, Robby, the, uh, the, I couldn't think of a single instance. I mean, I thought of general instances, but I couldn't think of a single instance that I could think of a clip for that it just tied in really well to that instance or one that I could share on the air. You know, there were plenty of clips.

Well, yeah, I probably couldn't have played on the air, but there there's plenty of situations I couldn't talk about on the air because it wouldn't be fair to that other person. You know, it wouldn't be appropriate, whatever, but this is one and it's not even like one of my favorite Christmas movies. It's from the movie elf, but this clip came to mind when we're talking about this topic, especially of the enemy. And so when we listen to this clip, you've got, if you've never seen elf, Will Ferrell plays a huge elf, right? And he's come down from the North pole and he's working at a department store and he hears that Santa's coming to town. Well, he thinks it's a Santa.

He knows from the North pole. Well, it's a department store, Santa who's sitting in a chair when he comes in and he's getting ready to talk to a little boy. Right. And so you hear the interchange of the little boy and the department store, Santa, and the interchange of him and Will Ferrell, who's elf. Right. And we're going to hear that, but at the end, uh, Will Ferrell right before the kids scream, rips off the beard of Santa.

And so let's listen to this interchange and then we're gonna come back and talk about it. Who the heck are you? What are you talking about? I'm Santa Claus. No, you're not. Why of course I am. You're Santa. What song did I sing for you on your birthday this year?

Happy birthday. Of course. So, uh, how old are you son?

You're a big boy. What's your name? And what can I get you for Christmas? Don't tell him what you want. He's a liar.

Let the kid talk. You disgust me. How can you live with yourself?

Just cool it Zippy. You sit on a throne of lies. Look, I'm not kidding. You're a fake. I'm a fake. Yes.

How'd you like to be dead? Huh? He's kidding. You stink. I think you're going to have a good Christmas.

All right. Like beef and cheese. You don't smell like Santa.

So the fight ensues between elf and Santa and kids are never the same again. But, uh, when I was, the reason this, this clip came to mind is the statement he makes in there. No, it's not the one about beef and cheese. It's not that statement.

Um, what's up? So it was beef and cheddar. It's the cheese, isn't it? It is. Okay.

Anyway, uh, you're right. It's beef and cheddar, but, uh, it was the, you said on a throne of lies because that's who our enemy is. He literally sets on a throne of lies. I mean, scripture calls him the accuser of the brother and the father of lies.

Right? I mean, he's the originator of lies. Okay.

And so he's good at it, you know? And so that, that's the one that came to mind because what came to mind for me, even though I thought of several situations where I didn't handle it well, or I chased after the half truth or even a full truth that I didn't fully understand. Right. Cause we don't always see all sides of that truth. Okay. You only see your version of the truth, you know?

And so where he, he had trapped me in these and then the lies came pouring on top of it. Right. You're really going to let this happen to you again. Are you going to fall for that? Are you going to be the idiot? Are you going to this? Are you going to be that?

Just fill in the blank. And then my emotions get the best of me. And, and, uh, it's not pretty, you know, at the end of the day.

And some of you in here have experienced that it's, it's not a pretty thing when, when I do get to the point where I lose my temper, you know, cause things are said that, uh, I often regret or always regret and, uh, uh, carnage is, is in the path. And, and so, you know, for me, it's a matter of saying, I got to understand that he's always whispering into my ear. Right. Even though I don't know, it's his voice. I don't, he's good at disguising it.

I don't know. He's recognize it as his voice. It may sound like it's Rodney, or it may sound like my son, or it may sound like this other person. Right. But it's his voice. And I'm interpreting through his lens.

If I let him continue to tell me those things and I practice them and adopt him as truth, if that's making sense. Right. And so I'm really, really good at something. And that one thing I'm really good at is assigning people's motives to, to make an assessment of why they do what they do.

Right. I have no idea why people do what they do, but I think I do, you know, and David will probably hear it. We work together now and he probably hears it at work. Oh, that guy did that because of this. I have no idea why he did it. You know, I'm just thinking, you know, if I'm a betting man, that's probably the right way to bet, but no, but I do that in my personal life and I sign, you know, motives to their actions when I really don't know what those are. And then I feed into those motives, which just becomes this big avalanche rolling down the hill and it's going to take every out everything in its path, you know? And for me, it's, it's remembering that statement from a movie.

I don't really care for that much. It's okay. It's a good movie.

It's the best Wolf arrow movie out there in my opinion. But that particular thing helps me keep things in check where I can say, okay, what am I hearing? And can I trust what I'm hearing? Because if I go any further than that, without at least getting a stop gap and saying, God, I need you to intervene. I need to hear from you. I'm going to end up in some really bad places, you know, physically, emotionally, spiritually, everything right financially. And I've done that one and I've done that one and I've done that one and I've done that one. I'd like to say I've only done it one time, but I've done it again and I've done it again and I've done it again. I just don't want to live it again, you know?

And I know I will to some degree, but man, if I don't walk it with God, I'm stuck because the enemy is after to seek, kill and destroy. That's what he's for. Right. Anyway, the, uh, I was thinking of several scenarios on different jobs where the boss sends an email or a note or something, and I didn't know his motives behind it. And by the time I got through thinking it through, I was about to get axed. So I figured I might resign before the ax came in. It had absolutely nothing to do with any of that, but how you can take those thoughts and just run with them and explode them.

And there's not even close to reality. And you know, I've done that in relationships. Well, she's going to say this and it's going to end up this way.

So may as well do this and this. And by the time you plot it all out, you have no context of what's really going on, but yet you've self-imploded right there. Yeah.

Maybe I'm the only one, but it's a flow chart of lies. Yeah. Yeah.

Assumptions and lies. Uh, before we run out of time on this, this, the show, I want to ask Darren a little bit about, you got a boot camp coming up, right? We do. Um, it's one that, uh, my son and I are kind of heading up and which is a really cool thing to be able to do a boot camp with your son. And, uh, this is the second one that he and I have done together with, with the help of some other guys, Mark Varner is actually going to come into town and, uh, hang out with us for a day or two.

And, you know, I mean, I've asked you and Robby, if y'all would do anything, neither one of you committed to Jack yet, but anyway, no, that's right. So anyway, yes, it's coming up, uh, February 1st through the third at Carolina Bible camp, same place where you guys go for guys in the triad in Mocksville. Um, it's going to be a really cool deal, probably, I don't know, 20, 25, maybe 30 guys.

And, uh, um, it's, it's building from kind of three areas of the triangle. And, you know, one of our major goals is to try to get people to walk out with obviously the basics that they need to know at a boot camp so that they can go to an advanced boot camp. But the second thing is to build a band of brothers, to encourage them to start some of the wild at heart fires, things like that.

I've got one going on at my house now, Robby's got like seven going on in his house and, or in his neighborhood. So, um, and I'll probably have a couple more going before too long, but anyway, we're trying to do that so that when guys walk out, they've kind of got a band of brothers to walk with. You guys know how important that is. Well, it's vital. It really is.

Yeah. And I would really encourage our guys, you know, if you're listening, you've been to several of our boot camps, like if you haven't heard Darren and Mark and again, Darren's son is also off the hook in a lot of cool different ways. Like what a way to round out, you know, your boot camp experience is, is to go with these guys. And I couldn't recommend it higher, you know, and I am going to try to get there except I may have something with my own son then, then Darren knows that. And if I do that, that kind of takes precedence this time.

But other than that, man, I would be there because it, again, it just rounds out, um, another angle on the, you know, a lot of these same concepts and the way that they see Christ, it's going to be beautiful. Well, ever since Derek talked, I can't think look at baby sharks the same, you know, I mean, I'd always be in my brain. And so if you don't know what that is, go to the boot camp, ask Derek, which is his son about the baby shark story. Oh, I'm not sure about it.

Robby, well, you got a microphone, we have an entrenchment coming up, correct? And it's F-R-E-E free. Is it?

It is. It's coming up February 23rd through the 24th. So the other announcement we have is we have an advanced boot camp coming in April. Yeah, April 4th through 7th. And in order to come to that, you need to either have attended Darren's boot camp, one of our boot camps, or the entrenchment.

And so we wanted to get this entrenchment in for people that want to come to the advanced boot camp in April. And so this one's coming up February 23rd through 24th. It's in Ashboro.

So if you're in Randolph County, listen up. This is for you guys. And this is coming up again, February 23rd and 24th. So it's a Friday night. You don't have to miss any work and come in Friday night and all day Saturday. And again, get you the basic stuff and it'll be the whole team, Sam and Andy and Danny and the whole group.

I'm really looking forward to it. Darren, how does somebody register for yours? They can go to foothillschristianchurch.com.

Okay. They can go to foothillschristianchurch.com. I guess I could put a link on your website if you wanted to, something like that. Yeah, we got to get our website updated because the other thing I was going to say is you can't register right now for the boot camp because we don't have it up and ready, but we will hopefully within this next week. For the entrenchment, just email one of us.

We'll get that posted as well for it. But if you want any more information, our first name at masculinejourney.org is our email. We'll talk with you next week. Go love somebody well this week. We love you. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.