The Father's Core Desires

Hello, this is Will Hardy with Man Talk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Network Podcast.

This is the Truth 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 today. And we have a really cool topic, at least I'm excited about it.

You ought to be. Yeah, it's my topic. I was about to say, that's because it's your topic. It's actually not my topic. Ultimately, I would say it's God's topic, but he didn't give it to me. He gave it to Todd, our friend from the show, Todd Clark, that was speaking at a boot camp a couple weeks ago that we went to.

We promoted it on the air. It was a Dangerous Heart boot camp, and he was speaking at it. And he made a comment that I wrote down in my journal that really had me thinking. He was talking about the core desires of God's heart. Now, when you're at a boot camp, and we've done shows on this, we talk about the core desire of man's heart, which is a battle to fight. Everybody wants to fight against a good cause, with a good cause, I mean, for a good cause. Everybody has that desire in their heart.

You have to determine what that cause is, but everybody has that passion. Another one is to rescue others. We call it rescuing the beauty. We are men. We are men, but it could be just rescuing others as a desire. We talk about that a lot, yeah.

We do. And then, oh, adventure. Adventure to live, that we want to be on an adventure.

It's not limited to men, but since this is Masculine Journey, we're going to talk about men, because it's a men's show. But as we talk about that, he was talking, and we know God has those same desires, right, because we get those from him. They're bestowed upon us from him. That's where they come from, and so the good desires do come from him, but what are some of the things that are also in God's heart?

And so that's what Todd mentioned, that comment. He made a point of something, and it caused me to think, God, what is really on your heart? If we could just sit down and talk about it, which we can at any point, but what kind of things would I hear from you that's on your heart? And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be a little bit all over the place with it, because we all have different thoughts on it. But I'm sure there's going to be commonality through it. Anything you guys would like to add before we get to the first clip?

Anyone want to say anything? Well, it's good we're talking about men's stuff, since our Carolina girl's on another cruise. Yeah, yeah, we'll see them in, what, three weeks? Yeah, sometime in the future. Yeah, we'll see them in March or April. By boot camp.

We'll see them by boot camp. Just before the other cruise. Yeah, just before the next cruise. He fits us in his schedule a little bit. I just don't know why he has a house.

Just a repack? Yeah, just a place to store his stuff when he's on a cruise. Well, we do miss you, Jim, and we miss all of our friends that haven't been able to be with us for a little while. Jim's been hit and miss.

He was here for a couple weeks, and he's been gone. But we miss Chuck. We miss Wayne. Kenny's out tonight.

Kenny's out tonight. Anyone we haven't mentioned, we do miss you, too, just because we haven't missed most of you. We do miss you all. Yeah, we do.

But, Danny, you have the first clip tonight, so you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, when I saw this topic, we talk about it at boot camp a lot about the question of a man's heart is, do you have what it takes? And where I went with this was, you know, the Father wants you to know that you do have what it takes. And that's God's desire for us.

He designed us, created us in his image, and he wants you to know he's there for you, and you have what it takes. And we were watching TV not long ago, and my wife told me she had watched this show prior to us viewing it together. And she says, a clip from Young Sheldon, she says, this is a great masculine journey clip, because my wife finds great clips. And she says, I don't know what you'll use it for, but it's a good father-son thing. So the clip is from Young Sheldon, and to set it up, Young Sheldon wants to go to hear Stephen Hawking's talk, because he's a young science prodigy child, if you haven't seen the show, and he's in college at age 12, and he wants to go see this talk, and they live in Texas, and it's in California, so they would have to fly out there. And so he's bargaining with his dad, who's a football coach, and most of the time has very little idea how to deal with Sheldon. So they negotiated, and finally his dad agrees, so they book a flight, and where we'll pick up is they're on the plane, and they're getting ready for takeoff.

And I won't spoil the clip, but you'll hear the exchange between a father and son, who don't really communicate very well, but you'll hear the father's heart toward his son, so here we go. I don't like this at all. I can't do this. Let him come out of there. No!

At least open the door. Tell them I need to get off. Sir, you both need to return to your seats.

Just one second. Sir. If you want to see Stephen Hawking, we have to sit down right now. It's too dangerous. I can't. It's okay to be scared. Sir?

That's when you got to dig deep and be brave. What do you say? No, I'm your terrified little boy. Okay. Sir, please, they're going to call security.

Just one more second. Mr. Spock, he flies around all the time in that spaceship. Are you not afraid, is he? I'm not, Mr. Spock. No, but I've seen you pretend to be him. Could you do that right now? You be Spock, I'll be Kirk.

Maybe. Okay, Mr. Spock. Your first order is to return to your seat. Aye, Captain.

Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff. You okay, Mr. Spock? Doing my best, sir. Captain and Mr. Spock don't hold hands.

Sorry? Okay, maybe just this once. Yeah, it's so cool to hear his dad go after his heart because young Sheldon loves Star Trek and he always is dressing up as Spock and so his father goes after his heart that way to bring out the courage that he knows in his son. But his son doesn't know it's in him. And that's just kind of where I went with it. I thought about Joshua chapter 1 where Joshua takes over as leader for Moses.

Moses is dead and God comes after his heart and says, you know, that I'll be with you. Don't fear and be strong and courageous. And that's basically what Sheldon's dad was telling him. Be strong, I need you to be strong here. We can do this. And he sat there with him and you hear the exchange where Sheldon says Spock and Captain Kirk don't hold hands and then when the plane gets ready to take off, he goes, well, maybe just once. Maybe one time we'll be okay. Yeah, maybe just once, it's okay. And so many times I think God has come after my own heart like that and just being strong and courageous because I got this and you've got this.

You can do this in many transitions and there's tons of stories with that. But that's God's heart for us. He wants us to know, number one, he's there and number two, that we've got what it takes because he put it in us. You can't really say I don't have the faith because he gave you a measure of faith. There are so many things that he's given us that we just don't exercise sometimes. Yeah, as you were talking, Danny, it reminded me of a scripture we've often used and we use it at boot camp a lot. It's Psalm 37.4. Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Now, think about that for a minute. He's going to give you, think of that as place in you, the desires of your heart. Obviously, he wants you to know you have what it takes, so maybe where does that come from? We might get to a clip that talks about that later, right, Robby?

I think we will. Yeah, those desires in your heart are placed there from God. Now, we're talking about the good desires. The enemy also tries to give you horrible desires.

I think it doesn't really, you don't have to have a really advanced degree to realize which is which. If it's coming from the world, probably the enemy's desires. Well, that scripture is misquoted because people say, oh, if I just go to church, then God will give me my new truck. And that's not what that is.

Your desires become the desires of the Father. Right. He's not the cosmic vending machine. Right. I ran out of quarters.

Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, I've seen some movies along those lines. If I just pray the right thing, you know, I'll get everything I ask for. Well, no, you'll get everything you need, but it may not be anything you ask for.

But God will place the desires in your heart. Anyone have any thoughts? Harold, would you like to share a little bit about your thought on the topic?

Would you like to let us know about that? Yeah, I don't have a clip, but what I do have is I have a song by Ray Charles that I used to play this all the time for my sweetheart because, in essence, it's the story of our relationship. And here's the words. If you were mine, I'd never let you leave me. If you were mine, I'd never let you go because you are just what I've always wanted, and I think that you ought to know from the moment I first saw you, girl, you went straight to my brain.

In my heart, I got a feeling that I could never explain. If you were mine, you'd never know no sorrow. If you were mine, I'd marry you tomorrow.

Yes, I would. Believe me, girl, what the occasion. If you call me, I'll come with no persuasion. You just call, and I'll come running. Oh, yes, I will, baby. Come rain or storm, hail or snow, because the way I feel about you, no place is too remote to go.

I used to play that for her all the time because it expresses completely how I feel about her, and it dawned on me recently that's how God feels about me, that he wants me like that song expresses, and he'll go with me wherever, like Danny was talking about. So you just didn't do that because it's Valentine's week, right? No.

Okay. I knew that. I knew that was your heart, Harold.

Yeah, back years ago when she was not working, and I would wake her up in the morning with that song playing. So anyway, when it dawned on me that I'm expressing a relationship to her that he expresses to me, then I felt like that fit this topic very well. Oh, absolutely.

It fits her very well. Thank you, Harold. We do have a couple things coming up for you to be aware of as we're getting ready to head into break. We have an entrenchment coming up February 23rd and 24th. That is next weekend, everybody. That's next weekend, next Friday, all day Saturday. It is free, and it's in Asheboro at the, what's the church probably? West Asheboro Baptist Church. It is free.

Go to masculinejourney.org. We also have a boot camp coming up in April. We'll talk about it when we come back. 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. I've been coming regularly, and it's just such a blessing. When you guys invited me, I was at the worst time of my Christian walk. I was going through some things. The first time I came, I don't know if you remember, I couldn't even walk.

I couldn't even stand up straight, and I'm walking now. I ain't running around a lake yet, but you know. The greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the Lord and sharing His kindness and His love. All of you guys, I done sat and talked with all of you guys, different occasions, different conversations, and it's all been unique and refreshing. You guys gave me a whole different perspective in life, and you can't hide the true, genuine love of God.

You can't hide it. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That is Train, and the song is Hello.

For me, it's you. Sorry, got the wrong title there. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Masculine Journey.

That's what I meant to say. Okay. That's from the group Train, and if you couldn't hear the lyrics, and the reason I picked this bump to come back in, the lyrics are this. Take my hand in the meantime, or it's a chorus, rather.

Let's walk into the sunshine. Everybody has something they want to sing about, laugh about, cry about. It's true. For me, it's you. And I know that he's singing that song to a female, somebody he's in love with, right? But those exact words relate exactly to my relationship with God, right?

And that's how I see it. There's something I want to talk about, sing about, laugh about, cry about, yep, done that, done that, done that. Now, the crying has been good.

Typically, when he's given me a breakthrough, sometimes the crying hasn't been good. You know, I've lost my brother at Christmas. There was a lot of crying, right? But without God to get through that, you know, who else am I going to cry to?

Yeah, my family, right? But crying to the Father, saying, Father, I know you know what's going on, and I just need you right now, you know? And there's plenty of times I could talk about laughing about, or not as many singing about. I don't sing in public, but I do sing privately a lot. Thank you. Yeah, I listen to the requests out there, which are usually just David saying, hey, don't sing.

But no, that's why I picked that bump in coming back in. And so we're continuing the topic on the Father's desires, our Heavenly Father's desires. What's the desires of his heart? And in the last segment, Danny was talking about that one of his desires is to make sure all of his children know that they have what it takes, right? And so then we also talked about the Scripture, in Psalm, where it talks about God will give you the desires of your heart. So where do we get that desire to have what it takes?

And, Robby, we kind of come to your clip, right? Yeah, you know, I came at it from a different angle, but I think God wants us to feel like he has what it takes. Exactly. And it relates, Jesus said it a number of times, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. And when you get it, why would you obey that? Because you have faith, right, that he has the right idea of what you need in your life or what you don't need in many cases in your life, you know, whatever that may be. And as I really thought about that in my own children, like when they trusted in me enough to obey me, when it didn't make sense to them, that meant they had faith in their dad over what it was that they saw around them, right? And that kind of faith, you know, means the world to a dad. So I can imagine that obviously it makes all kinds of sense about God.

So I have an interesting clip. It's a Danny special. It's from the Andy Griffith Show. And here we have Opie learning about the golden rule and how to not cheat somebody and that kind of stuff. And you'll note that he believes throughout this that he is obeying his dad when in fact he's not really believing in obeying what he said. He obeyed what he saw his dad do.

In other words, he thought his dad had what it took, but his dad was not the example perhaps that he should have been. And, you know, I personally would love to buy some licorice seeds because I would like to grow some licorice sticks. But go ahead and play it. Okay, here we go. Jerry and me are making a trade. His rollerskates for my licorice seeds.

Your what? His licorice seeds. What are licorice seeds?

Where'd you get them? On another trade with Tommy Farrell. I gave him my cat pistol.

Your new one? It would have been worth it to grow my own licorice sticks. You were going to grow licorice sticks? Yeah, but it was a fake.

I planted them and nothing came up. You know, Paul, I think Tommy cheated me. Yeah, I'd say that sums it up pretty good. And so now you're going to pawn them off on the next fella? And on a better trade, too.

Rollerskates are twice as good as a cat pistol. You know that you've been taught the golden rule. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Yes, Paul. You think you've been following that rule? Sure, Tommy did it unto me and now I'm doing it unto Jerry.

I believe you're bending that rule just a little bit. Now you take them skates off as fast as you know how. Why, Paul? Because you return them, that's why. But, Paul.

And the money for the cone. Now come on, get them off. What's the matter, Paul? The matter is that I got an idea about the idea Jerry got about that cuff link being a button off of General Washington's uniform and the idea I got is that it's just barely possible that the idea Jerry got could have come from you.

How about it? Well... Now come on, tell me the truth. I don't want you lying to me on top of everything else.

Okay, it's barely possible. Do you know what you've done? You've just broken the golden rule and thrown it right out the window and cheated. Oh no, Paul, I didn't cheat at all. Well, what do you call it then?

By being smart, just like you. What? Sure. When I saw how you dickered with that fella for the cannon, I knew how important it is to make up a good story to go with whatever it is you're trading. So it just seems like in this season of my life here recently, I've been in a lot of situations that I know God called me into the situation, but they didn't go well. I crashed and burned, people poking their finger at me and all sorts of stuff that was really fairly humiliating. Yet I knew I was doing exactly what I felt like God was telling me to do and I kept feeling him saying, Robby, don't you think I have what it takes?

Robby, don't you think I've got you doing what I want you to do? You did it because I was losing faith. That's literally what I was doing and I was really sensing that I was hurting his heart in spite of the fact that I was really struggling with what was going on and what I saw around me was not necessarily what I should have been having faith in. And so unlike Opie, I didn't have the kind of faith in my paw that I should have had.

I understand. God calls us to do things that on the human level doesn't seem to make sense. And sometimes we get answers to why and sometimes we never get them. And that's where the faith does step in.

And you have a great relationship with the Father and you walk with him and you obey him, but it does still make it hard, especially when it doesn't turn out the way that you think it possibly could have or should have or wished it would have, any of those things. Andy, I can't switch my line up here, so I'll put you in the after hours. The clip I'm going to play next is actually a clip that I chose on it and it doesn't seem like it goes with the topic on the surface, but let me explain why. It'll make sense. It'll make sense.

Only now does it make sense. But no, it's from the movie, the original movie, Big Fat Greek Wedding. And in the scene you've got Tallulah, who I think her name is, and I can't remember his name, but she's out on a date with the guy that becomes her husband later on. And she's not supposed to go out with anybody that's not Greek because she's Greek. And so she decides to go out with him and we pick up a scene where they've been out on a date and she's making all these excuses on why they can't really date.

And I want you to listen to what he says, and I'll come back and tell you why I picked that clip in relationship to God. So let's go ahead and play it. I'm Greek, right? So what happens is my dad and my uncles, they fight over who gets to eat the lamb brain, and then my Aunt Lula forks the eyeball and chases me around with it, trying to get me to eat it because it's going to make me smart. I have 27 first cousins, just 27 first cousins alone, and my whole family is big and loud and everybody's in each other's lives and business all the time.

Like, you never just have a minute alone, just a thing, because we're always together, just eating, eating, eating. The only other people we know are Greeks, because Greeks marry Greeks to breed more Greeks, to be loud-breeding Greek eaters. Wow. I'm serious. No one in my family has ever gone out with a non-Greek before.

No one. But I just don't see how this is going to work out. So... Work out?

What's to work out? We're not a different species. Yes, we come from different backgrounds, and hey, here's some news about my life to this point. It's boring that I met you and you're interesting and you're beautiful and fun and you've got a weird family.

Who doesn't? I just want to spend some time with you. I just want to spend a little time with you.

Did you say I'm beautiful? So as we wrap up this particular episode, I want to talk about why I chose that clip a little bit. For the beginning and the end.

Not much in the middle, but for the beginning and the end. And in the beginning, you have her sharing all these excuses why this relationship's not going to work out. And you say, wait a minute, I would never do that with God. Oh, really? Well, God, I have my sin. I have brokenness. You know what I've done. And God looks at that and says, yeah, who doesn't have sin?

Who doesn't have these things? That's everybody's story. And he looks at us and he tells us the most true thing about us, where she responded to him saying, you're beautiful?

Because she's hurt her whole life, she's not. And how many things have people told you that you are or you're not that isn't true? And God looks at you and he tells you the truth. And he says, you know what, my son?

You are beautiful for who you are and how I made you. And all I really want to do is to spend some time with you. Yeah, I know you got some brokenness.

Yeah, I know you got this stuff. And we're working on it. And we'll get there together. But at the end of the day, I just want to spend a little time with you. And I think that's his greatest desire. All these other desires are absolutely on target. But for me, his greatest desire is I just want to spend time with you.

I mean, here I am, you know, I'm human, right, mostly. But I don't want to, I don't really care what I do with my kids. I just want to spend time with my kids. We can be putting out mulch in their yard, my yard. We could be going on an adventure.

We can be doing this. And all those are good for different reasons. But what makes it good is spending a little bit of time with the kids, right? And that's what God says, spending a little bit of time with the kids.

It makes my heart come alive. At least that's what I feel and that's what I see. And that's what he's saying to you today. I love you.

I love you for who you are. Yes, you have some stuff. We all have some stuff, right? You don't live in a perfect world.

You live in a broken world. You have an enemy that's attacking you all the time. Of course you're going to battle some things. But I don't see that when I look at you. I see you for how I made you to be. And even with all that other stuff, I just want to spend some time with you.

Great time to spend some time with him is in an entrenchment. We have one coming up next weekend at West Aspero Church, Baptist Church. West Aspero Baptist Church, and it's F-R-E-E. It is free. It is free. And we have an advanced boot camp coming up sometime April 4th through 7th. Go to massgunjourney.org to register for that.

But you have to have gone to a boot camp or an entrenchment first. So if you haven't been, go next weekend. Join us there and then you can go to the advanced boot camp. We'll talk with you next week.

Go to massgunjourney.org to register to reach out to any of us. We love you. God loves you. Love somebody well this week. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.