Disrupt, Dismantle, Healing And Restoring After Hours

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

Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours.

We're glad that you're joining us back. Hopefully you listened to the first episode when we were talking about our topic for the week. But Danny, you weren't here on the first show. And so you didn't listen yet.

No, I get that. But you guys did a great job last week on the radio show. It was a good show. And so some of this is a little bit of a continuation because you guys were talking about being stewards of pain. Right? But and we talked on the last show about how pain is present in our disruption, dismantling, healing and restoring.

Because what we're talking about is God's always doing those four things in our life. Right? But the good news is, peace is available in each one of those as well. There's peace that can be had during disruption. Right? There's peace that can be had during dismantling, and definitely during healing and restoring.

And so that's available to us as well if we lean into God and let him take us through it. Right? Instead of trying to white-knuckle it and do it ourselves and fight through it. Right? Which is my tendency. You know, and then when it fails, I go, okay, God, now you can help me.

You know, instead of turning to him first. Right? And so that painful process becomes a heck of a lot more painful when I try to continue to do it on my own. And honestly, trying to do it on my own is what we got into the most of those situations anyway. Right?

Of needing to be disrupted or dismantled. Definitely needing the healing and the restoration. And so we're going to actually start with a clip in this particular segment. And this is a clip from a movie called Two Hearts. Now I have to admit, I've not seen the movie. I know what it's about from reading the synopsis, you know, that says this is what the movie is about. But what the clip we're going to listen to is you have a boy that's getting ready to go off to college.

And he's put in for a college that his friend – What college is that? Well, I'll tell you in a minute. Right? Okay. Okay. They're just setting everybody up so they'll know that the name of this college is particularly troubling. No, I've got it. Okay.

I've got it. But he didn't – he got accepted in that other college. He did not get accepted in the one he wanted to go to.

Right? And so he's found out he didn't get accepted into the college he really wanted to go to, a college in which his buddy John was going to go to. And they had all these plans that they're going to, you know, do these things in college together.

John gets in. But this young man doesn't. And so his mom's walking into his room while the young man's playing guitar. And she's going to say, that's a tough one.

Right? And they start having a conversation. I want you to listen to their conversation. And something particular that he says, but the reason he says it is because she's told him it his whole life. It's something he quotes back to her. And that's a quote I want to get out of this. And we'll talk about it after we listen to the clip.

But you're not going to say what college you got? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're ready.

Is Loyola. There you go. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Well done.

Thank you. I had to practice. But here we go. But he got into Loyola.

I can't – Loyola. There we go. Alright. That's what we wanted. I know. I tried. I should have went twice. God, you said once.

I went twice. Here we go. Alright. Here's the clip. Hey. This one. Come here. Your mom needs some love.

Your mom needs some love. You know I can see what you're doing, right? This is kind of obvious. I just want you to remember that when things don't work out, there's always a reason. We just might not see it in the moment.

What's the reason? Well, I think John might actually crack a smile for once if I went to school with him. Maybe.

And maybe there's something for you at Loyola. Because life is happening for me, not to me, right? Oh, look at my smart son listening to his mom. Yeah. You know, when you say words, I actually hear them. It's weird.

That's very good to know. Now, I want you to call your brother Colin and tell him the good news. Yes, ma'am. Let's go listen over here. Hey, man. What's up?

Yeah. No, no, I'm good. I'm good.

I'm good. Look, I was just calling to let you know that you're a better looking, more talented, smarter little brothers coming to Loyola. So get ready. That's how you say it. Loyola.

Loyola. There we go. But no. Be intentional. Be intentional. But what she had said to him over and over was, life doesn't happen to you.

Life happens for you. Right? And she said it enough that he's repeating it back to her. And to me, that was the thing I really loved about that clip. Yeah, it's a mother loving on her son and he's loving back and it's great.

And I enjoy that. But it's that concept of I look at life way too many times like it's happening to me. Instead of having the attitude, okay, why is this happening?

Because it's got to be happening for me for some reason. Right? Again, perspective, as we talked about on the last show is perspective is the deal. It's a difference maker.

That's the real deal. When I have the right perspective, when I have God's perspective that he's giving to me going into it, I'm definitely going to see things a lot differently than I am if I've got the worlds or I've got my own or whatever other words I'm listening to from well meaning friends. Right? You know, because they're going to miss the point because they're seeing it through their eyes and not through God's. And so we need to have those eyes to see it through.

And so I really love the clip from that standpoint. And we've been talking about disruption, dismantling healing and restoring in one that there's been a lot of them in my life, I could go through job loss, I could go through things. But you know, for me, I, I have been married twice, never intended to be married more than once. And intended to stay married, you know, when I got married, but the second time I got married, I married my best friend, we'd known each other for years, she and I were really, really close. We were best friends and thought, wow, this is gonna obviously gonna work.

We're best friends. And, and we and we were married 23 years. And, and some of those are very good years.

And some of them not as good years. The end was not as good. But there was a disruption, you know, I thought we were going to be married forever.

I think she did as well. And it just didn't happen that way. And so there's a disruption. But really what needed to be dismantled, honestly, in my life, and it's been nine years now, is the way I looked at relationships versus my relationship with God. That's honestly what needed dismantled, because I look to my wife to give me answers that only God can give me.

I put her on a pedestal that God should have been on. Right. And I was asking her to answer questions, she was not capable of answering, she would try. Right.

And I think she was doing that back to me to some degree as well. But really, we didn't have God in the right place. Right?

If you don't have God in the right place, man, it's not going to work. And so for me, it was really getting the understanding of my validation has to come from him. That is the only lasting source, every other source is going to wane, it's going to feel good.

Right? When you get that validation, but it's not lasting. And so you're going to keep going back to that source. And so going to that source of God and really helping me understand what codependency was, and how it wasn't really very healthy. Codependency sounds healthy, but it's really not. You know, and saying, really, go ahead, codependent codependence.

Well, there, I hope I can make this make sense. There's different types of relationships. There's this thing called the AHM relationships, you have an A relationship, which is a codependency relationship. And if you think of the letter A, you have one side leaning into the other, and there's something in the middle, it joins it like a capital A, right?

But without one half of that A, the other half falls, right? You need each other pushing against each other to be your codependent to make it work. And there's something that connects you and often that's the kids or a ministry or something.

And when that's gone, you fall apart, right? Because you're codependent, and it's not a healthy long term relationship. You have what's called an H relationship, which is like the letter H. And you have two things, two independent people joined by something that they have common ground. That's where you see a lot of times where people are married for 40 years, and they get divorced when the kids go off to college, because they really had nothing in common other than the kids. They had no relationship in there, they just had kids that they shared. And so you have two independent people, but you don't have it's not a healthy situation as well. And then you have the M method, which is really two A's. You have two people that can function independently, meaning, you know, with God in the right location, but when they're put together, they make something greater, right?

Together, they make the M. With one side, you only get half of the M, right? And I don't think I made it make sense really well, but it's a healthy style of relationship. And actually, it was really cool, Sam, I've never heard that.

And I just thought, yeah, I'm really cool. I mean, I love the letters. It helps me because what my heart wants and what my heart was made for was an M relationship, right? But from the outside, it looks like the A relationship's the healthiest, because I really need that other person without them in my life. Oh, I can't make it. Well, yeah, it's good to feel that way.

But it's not terrible. It's not necessarily true, because we have to live without one another at some point. Unless you both perish together, right?

One of you is going to live without the other, and you're gonna have to learn how to do that, right? And so it can happen. Are there lopsided M's? There might be. I don't know. I haven't thought that far.

Well, I'm waiting for you to throw in the yud and the vuv over here. Yeah. I'm just thinking that, you know, you can see a situation where one person is independent and connected to God, but at the same time, leaning on the other person.

The other person is completely dependent on that other person. Yeah. And so you got sort of a lopsided M. I don't know. I'm just— Yeah, I'd have to think of another letter.

Maybe that's like a lowercase H. Maybe it's an N. Maybe it's an N. Yeah. But, you know, it helped me understand, really, what my heart was calling for. This nine years has really helped me do that, to say, I want a good, healthy relationship where I want to be with that other person. They want to be with me. And we're something better together.

But we could function independently if we had to, right? This isn't my end-all, be-all. My end-all, be-all is God.

You know, that's where my end-all, be-all's got to be. But God's given me this other person to enjoy my life with, you know, that makes me better when I'm with them because we're together. And that's really what my heart desires. You know, and I think that, for me, it was helping understand really what my heart needs to function well.

You know, and I find that, you know, it's been good for me. And then the healing and the restoration of really deepening my relationship with God, right? Because when I haven't had a spouse in my life for the last nine years, you know, and I've been a single parent for those times and having to do things on my own, you know, and I've talked very openly. And here, most of my prayers anymore is, God, I don't know how to fill in the blank. I need you to father me. That's exactly what my prayers are, right? I don't know how to be a single parent to a kid that's experiencing this.

I don't know how to be this. And it's caused me to be in a healing and a restorative relationship with the father. Right now, I want to take that in when I get married again, to take it into my marriage, right? And never get that lopsided again, but have it to be more full, right?

And it's been healthy. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in what you just said, because we've said a lot there. But like just starting with marriage, you got two people that if my goal is to get my spouse in a better relationship with God, and hers is to get me in a better relationship with God, we're going to be in a better relationship with each other.

That's where you're, I'd say, singly dependent upon God. And then back to like, you're talking about validation, affirmation. When we affirm and validate something, you're basically giving it more than what was there before.

You're trying to add value to it. And when you're doing that, if it's truth, like God, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. If you're into truth, and you're focused on truth, and you're doing those things, you're bringing even more and more out of that truth.

Deeper nuggets, you're going deeper with that. If you're doing that with lies, that's what you're doing with the lies, you're making it even worse. You're saying, yeah, I know you lie, but you're affirming those things.

And when we go off and we live a life of lies, and we're affirming that in people's lives, it's not helpful. It's not healing. It's not restorative at all.

You're not going to get any redemption in those. And all it's going to do is dismantle even more. And it's like completely the wrong direction. The only way you can even attempt to get back to there is in truth. Right. You know, to be honest, and Robby, I know you were around me when this was going on. And a lot of you guys have come in the picture after that. But I mean, there was a season that, you know, I was angry. I was frustrated with situations.

I was mad at God during that time, because I just wasn't seeing it for what was really going on. You know, and it's only through time and through healing and through restoration and walking through some painful stuff. Right. I mean, it involved counseling, it involved lots of different things, you know, to get there, and I'm still not fully there, but I'm much more fully than I've ever been. Right.

And that's what I hope for is that you're going to continue to move in that direction. That, you know, it's just a, for me, it was a time that I really needed God to disrupt. As much as I would say, I didn't want that to happen. And I don't really like that it happened. I hate that I let myself get into a place where the only, his only option was to disrupt everything. Darrell Bock Which is a perfect time for you to play what you got on your phone.

Right. You know, it's kind of exactly what he did to me too, in his own way. There just comes a time where, you know, it's got to happen. Chris I'm gonna play this clip.

I wish I could give credit to the person, but I can't find their name. But he's talking about a shepherd that has a sheep that keeps running away and having the right perspective. And so we'll go ahead and play it and then we'll talk about it. And when he's finally bandaged up and he's ready to go running around, the sheep learned through this process that I'm better with him around me than far away. Now, some people would be like, that's so aggressive. Why would you break its legs? Because from the perspective of the sheep, it's horrible. But the shepherd is taller, sees past the hill, or this very hungry wolves ready to devour that sheep. So would you not rather have your sheep have broken legs or be devoured? Sometimes God needs to break a man to show him stick.

There's wolves out there that will tear you to pieces without a blink of an eye and you're running away from your sword. Chris Wow. I like that. Chris Yeah.

I will try to look that up and get the credit posted on Facebook and on YouTube on who did that. But it was very game changer for me. I listened to that clip about a week or two ago. And I've initially I heard it and I'm like, I'm gonna shut this off as soon as it came on, because what shepherd's gonna break a sheep's legs? You know, there's obviously you're just gonna say something horrible about God. Right. And I'm judging the people by the way it starts.

And then it keeps playing and, and realizing what you wish the music wasn't playing at the end, it made it harder to hear. But he says sometimes God has to break a man to help him understand that he's better off with him. You know, next to the source, because there's wolves out there, they're going to devour him if he if he gets away from God. Chris Yeah, context, context, context. It means so much specifically when we're studying about God and the Bible and the stories of God, right?

What what is he doing in the midst of things like we talked before? Yeah, there's there's pain all the time. There's suffering, there's all kinds of other things. But in the midst of all that there's always opportunity as long as you're in fellowship with God for both joy and peace and contentment. You can have many things that sound like they're contradictory.

But in Christ, no, you can have all the joy in the midst of pain and suffering that you're going through. And I think we always, you know, we still always struggle with knowledge versus life. You know, we want to push into knowledge as hard head versus heart. And so, you know, we want to try to understand God when we're clearly told that his ways are not our ways. Yeah, right.

But we try to make them our ways. And I know that's just being human. And I get that.

But it's also honestly a distrust of just trust in the Father's heart. Amen. You know, that if we just say, Okay, I know your hearts above all else, above my circumstances that I'm currently in, above what I'm feeling right now, I know your heart is good towards me.

Right? If I can just stay there. My perspective is different. Because what does happen is eventually everything passes. I mean, eventually that may be me. You know, it will be at some point, right?

We are none of us live forever. Right? And eventually everything passes, even if it's a health concern. You're healed one way or the other.

Right? Whether you're healed after this life, or during this life. And so it's just having the right perspective as you go through it, because life's going to keep coming at us. That's where the dismantle comes from is starting to have that, that perspective.

I mean, in that one, it was the shepherd broke his legs to that. So for us, I mean, it's God breaking us down and saying, Hey, either you're going to listen to me or not. But one way or the other, you're going the way I want you to go. Yeah. So I mean, you can fight it all you want to, but God's just going to start disrupting and dismantling everything in your life until you're at the point where you're just like, it's just me and you, God. Yeah, I trust you.

Let's go. Yeah, a great thing that I'd love to do, and I need to sit down and do it. David, since we work a lot together, you can hold me accountable to it.

But I, I would like to start a little bit of a journal, you know, saying, God, help remind me of when you disrupted me in this situation in relationships, when you disrupted me in finances, when you disrupted me, and some of those will come very quickly. Right. But okay, what was the dismantling? What were you after there? Right? Or what are you after now?

Right? Help me dig into you more. All right, God, where did that go move into healing? You know, because a lot of times when you can get to perspective of what God's already done, it gives you the energy to face what you're going through today. But one of the big things the enemy does is he strips us of our memory. You know, he'll put a lot of things at us and, and rob us of the things God's done in our life, the things that you say, oh, I'll never forget that. Forgotten already. Forgotten already. Forget what? The next commercial comes on, and I don't even know what's going on.

You know, it's, it's like, oh, the game's back on. I got no idea here. Yeah.

Right. And so, you know, we're forgetful people. You know, that's why the Bible is full of people building monuments so that they didn't forget for generations, right?

Where's the monuments in your life that you're building? So you don't forget when you face that next obstacle, you can say, okay, God, I know I don't get it. I don't understand why I'm here. Yes, I'm frustrated, fill in the blank. But what I do know is your heart is good towards me.

And you're after something. So let me trust in that and walk with you through it. But also the pain that we were talking about earlier helps you remember some of those things. Yeah. I mean, as a kid growing up, how many times did we hurt ourselves and dad looked at his heart, didn't it? Yeah.

Well, you know, God does the same thing in this dismantling process. Yeah. How many times did you stick your hand over a candle? Once. Yeah. If you really got burnt, you only did it once. Yeah.

Right. At work, how many times have I asked the wrong question? A lot, but it hurts every time I do. Yeah, but I try to burden you every time you do it. That's a different scenario. You're welcome. You're welcome.

That's a giving of pain. Okay. So I've not made an instrument of God there. Okay. Maybe not. Maybe not.

Maybe not. Go ahead. He's only got two legs, but you can try it. I'll try.

I'm not carrying him. I'm just saying I will live stream that one. I will tune in for that. Yeah. So who else wants to share anything about the topic we're talking about?

What's on your heart? Disruption, dismantling Kenny. Well, I love that clip because the sheep had no idea it was in a predator's land or close to it. Right. You know, until we see in Christ, that's where we're protected. And Satan's always trying to pull us out of that, like you say. And sometimes he has to disrupt that false vision that Satan puts in our life. Like you talked about the marriage or whatever we put in these things that God meant to enrich our life. Sometimes we think that is our life. It's that our life is in Christ. And instead of seeing these things as blessings, we see them as a fulfillment. Yeah.

You get all distorted. That's what that little sheep is, having a good time, wandering and exploring and didn't realize, wait a minute, there's dangers around the corner, especially outside the shepherd's view. And we all should be thankful. That's one of the tough verses in James that talks about count it all joy when you enter into these things. That means God loves you enough to work on you. A true Father is going to spank you.

And that discipline is never pleasant for the moment. But that righteousness that comes out, like you're talking about the end game. We got to keep looking at what the end game is, what our Father's doing in our lives and our hearts. Yeah.

And for all of us that, all of us in here are fathers. Yes. Right?

How much does it break your heart when you had to discipline your child? Yes. Right. But you also had the perspective of knowing I'm doing it for their good. Yeah.

Well, my father used to say, yeah, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Yeah. It didn't seem like it at the time, but. Yeah.

It never felt like it. No. Yeah. I'm the one with welts. I'm not sure.

Not sure how that works. Danny, do you have something? Yeah. You know, when life is disrupted, it's like the quote, I've been quoting quite a bit lately with Mike Tyson says, everybody has a fight plan until you get punched in the face.

Right. And one of the things I think that maybe God gave it to me this weekend was that the battle becomes dismantling the lies. And, you know, because the world has gone chaos, whatever's happened, you know, relationship, financial stuff. And the battle becomes battling your way back to God's plan for your life. You know, because we by nature are methodical people. And, you know, we sit in Bible studies, we sit in different stuff at work, you know, sports or whatever, got a game plan, but the battle becomes getting back to the game plan.

You know, we watched it some in the Super Bowl that, you know, San Francisco had a great running game, but they got away from it because they were dismantled. Right. If you get back to the game plan. And that's kind of what I think God, the punishment is getting back to the game plan sometimes, because you know the truth and you know, there are those milestones in your life and you know those things, but it's, you said it well, your memory's wiped all of a sudden and you forget what God has done in the past. You forget the gifts that he's given you. You forget all that stuff.

And all of a sudden, if you can just battle your way back and go, wait a minute, God, I know you're going to get me through this. So that makes sense. It does.

It does. As you were talking, it makes me wonder, why is it that God can tell me something 20 times and the enemy attacks at once and I stagger? You know, I stumble a little bit uncertain. Why would I listen to his voice so much more than the Father when I know both their hearts? Well, if you look at, if you look at, you know, when Joshua took over from Moses, how many times did God tell him in just a short period of time, it seemed like, be strong and courageous.

I'm with you. Be strong and courageous. Because maybe he wasn't getting it. I don't know. Any final thoughts, anyone? I'm just thinking here, how many times my wife and I would be fighting and we're always fighting about things that are so small, the bigger picture and the stuff that's really important was really not that bad.

But we were fighting over something stupid and small and just how much that just disrupts, dismantles and which unfortunately, you know, led to a big disruption. But it's one of those things where if you're not looking for it, it'll sneak up on you and really get you easy. Yeah.

So some definite takeaways. God is always up to something in your life. He's not passive, right? He's always engaged, whether you can see it or have eyes to see it. And his heart is always good towards you. Even when you're going through some painful stuff, his heart is good. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.