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. From an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure.
The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. It's called Have a Good Time. Now, how would we be talking about that?
But if you go and you listen to the song, which we're not going to play it, we played it in the last, played the clip from it in the last show. So is he a, didn't he play for the Panthers, Darius Rucker? No. He was a hootie? He was a hootie, yeah. He might have been one of the Blowfishes, but I think he was Hootie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was Hootie. You might know Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish. That was his band from college, from Clemson, I think. They went to Clemson or University of South Carolina. I think it was Clemson.
Yeah, I think his group of friends all got together and formed that group, and then he split off later after they disbanded. Did they play football? They did not play football. They probably played at some football games.
That's what you're thinking, probably. They played Wagon Wheel, isn't that the name? Yeah, Wagon Wheel is what they play at football games, and that's a Darius Rucker song. Wasn't there a Rucker that played for the Panthers? That's right, none of you guys are Panther fans. Maybe there was somebody from Rutgers.
All I know is I had to look at Sam, but Sam doesn't know, I know I don't. But there's a Rucker that played football somewhere, I thought. Well, it's the Panthers, I don't really know.
I'm a Panthers fan, but nobody there has played football lately. The truth comes out. Well played, Danny.
The Danny Cam is alive and well on after hours. So back to the topic at hand. Well, it was joy. We were having some fun. Yeah, well, we are. We're having some fun. We're having seasons in the sun.
I know might. We've got a lot going on here. I'm just waiting. We're good. I'm good. Yeah, I know. We're just carrying on. Carry on. Just waiting for us to finish, I know. Oh, yeah, we're done. Okay. So back to what we're talking about.
We're not talking about this. We're talking about having a good time, right? But the song, when you listen to it, at the beginning, it talks about all the things that the enemy throws at. That's the way I interpreted it.
The things the enemy throws at you. Busyness and worries and things that you can't really, you can control busyness to some degree. But then he also says, I'm going to switch my focus, is what he's saying. I'm going to switch it to the things that having a good time and hearing from God and having some hallelujahs and some things that make me say, oh, yeah, that's awesome. You know, some really good things and having good times with the Father. And so that's what our topic is, is good times with the Father. And so as anything else, we throw a topic out there and then God takes it in whatever directions with each person to make it more personal.
And now we're with Rodney with his interpretation of this topic. Yeah, so it came out like on Sunday, and I thought about it a few different times on Sunday and then mostly didn't think about it on Monday. And then all of a sudden God reminded me today, hey, dude, you've got to get your clip in. Because it was, I had thought about it a few different times. I prayed and I was like, oh, what do I want to do? And then all of a sudden, you know, it was afternoon. And I'm like, because we've kind of set our arbitrary timeline.
Hey, get the clips in by noon so Keith can get them in and he can review them and do all this stuff. So I had to send that, you know, shameful text to him. Also, hey, dude, I'm late, just in case you've already done your work. I didn't know that God spoke turtle. You didn't? No, but now I know. Now I know, dude. Oh, dude, okay. Dude, yeah. Dude.
Cowabunga. So I was like, but it was one of those things where, and again, finding time with the Father, I usually just leave him out. I just go off and do my thing and then usually later I'm like, oh, I should have been doing that with you. Robby talks about his fishing and hunting and wanting to do that with God in the midst of whatever he's doing. And those are really good things. I just typically just do my thing and then later go, oh, thank you. It's just wonderful when just simple things, if I'm headed in one direction, I go into the kitchen, I get that, why am I here? And he'll remind me. Or if I'm doing clips, where do I want to go?
How do I want to get there? And he will just prompt things. Or I'll be completely going off in another direction like I was today.
I was just working, doing some things. He's like, hey, you got to get your clip. You just hear that real quick. Oh, my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord. And I'll go do those things. Those are times when I'm actually with him. I know that I'm not just there alone doing something, even if it's fun or not. We're supposed to be joyful in the midst of trials and things.
That's one of the things that I'm always trying to do is find more and more ways. So what I've learned is that if I'm pouring into God, if I'm pouring into God's people, spending time with him, whether it's a Bible study or whether it's joking and having fun, going to boot camps, going to other events, just being with men and women of the Lord, it's so much more joyful. There's things that you go through with family that can be very, very trying. You've got loved ones that aren't with the Lord. You've got loved ones that love the Lord but then still do other things, and you've got all the midst of stuff that's going on, and yet you can find joy in all that.
And that's the fun is when you bring God in and you remember, oh, you counted all joy. Okay, well, that's what he says to do. It's not really easy, but when you remember that, okay, well, that's what he says, like you were talking before, trust more. You trust more, and you grow in that trust.
You're like, so this is what it's like to trust in you. I don't feel anxious. I feel more content. I feel like the feelings get to follow what you're learning and knowing about God.
And those things are wonderful things. So I just realized it's prayer time. That's the time that I really know that, whether it's a quick help me or it's, Lord, I don't know where to go with this topic right now. I don't know, like if I'm in with something at work and something hits me, and it's like I didn't expect to go there.
How am I going to handle this? Just a quick little something reminds you and pray for God, and it's like, Lord, I don't know where to go. Help me just be truthful.
If I need to just say I don't know, I just say I don't know. But answer and just trust that he's got you back in those things. It's so much more refreshing to go through life that way than it is, well, what do I have to do? How do I have to perform?
What are they going to think of me? And all those kinds of things. I just found a lot of rest in that. So I found this prayer montage as I was doing searches for prayers inside of movies.
I couldn't find them, but this prayer montage has several different movies, and I thought some of them are funny, some of them are serious, but we'll go ahead and play it. Oh, dear Lord, three things we pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for all the many blessings on this family.
We thank you for bringing us a new friend, and we ask that you look after us on this holiday season that we may never forget how very fortunate we are. Amen. Please, Lord, I just want to see my daughters again. I've been separated from my family for so long. I know I've been guilty of pride and sharp dealing. I know I'm a sinner and a once in a while woman, but I'm your servant? Since I was a little boy, you brought me back from the dead. I'm your servant? What should I do?
Tell me. I've always called you Jesus. You always called me Sonny. What should I do, Jesus? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation. It'll deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom.
The power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. There are times when you have very serious prayer with God.
Things are either going off the rails or they're going really well, but it doesn't matter. You have a serious time. But there are so many times that we get very playful with God and we have those conversations with Him where we're just like, I just had one. I wish I could remember the circumstance.
I just had one today or yesterday and I was just laughing so hard because I'm like, oh, if I could say this, Lord, that would be so funny to say that. And it's like, oh, yeah, I know you wouldn't approve. You know, one of those things like I know I shouldn't, but, boy, I'd really like to go say that sarcastic little comment or something to somebody. And I was just like, yeah, it wouldn't be really the right thing to do. But one of the things I've really tried hard and... That's a filter I don't think I have.
Yeah. Well, I have the thought. I'm able to not... Because usually I don't think about it when I'm in front of somebody. I think about it when I'm somewhere else. But in my contentedness, as I've learned over the years, I'm like when I looked back about five years after being converted, I was just like, oh, man, I'm more content. Well, one of the things I really then started being more intentional on is, you know, like for Philippians 4, 6, be anxious for nothing. That's impossible to do for me, but there are times when I can really say, I can feel it coming on and I can squelch it by remembering God's word and going back and remembering what he has. But in everything, by prayer, that's where I was going to go.
By prayer, so I pray and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And what that actually has done is brought more fruit of the Spirit, which part of that is joy. So anxiousness and joy, you can have one, but you can't have both at the same time. It's hard to be anxious and joyful. And then where I really love, like in 1 John, for these things are written, right? This is the reason we wrote this canon of Scripture, why God gave us his word so that our joy may be made complete in him. And that's what I just, I find so much rest in that.
And there are times when it gets shaken up. This weekend was actually probably one of the few times in a long, long while that I just kind of had that little bit of, I don't want to do anything. I just want to lay here. I just want to get lazy.
I don't want anybody around. I just want to be by myself. I just had that little lull. And I remember, Lord, I know this isn't the right feeling, but let me just have this little day this afternoon and I'll just lay here and I'll just veg out.
I did a few small things, but that was it. And I was like, okay, then tomorrow, Lord, we're back on track. We're going to do things.
We're going to be active. We're not going to just feel sorry for ourselves or whatever I was doing, because it's just weird. So it's like, let's get by that. But it was like, pray with that. And I didn't feel anxious. I just felt blah, and I just haven't felt that way in a long time.
So it's like, okay, let's shake that, Lord. Let's go on. And then yesterday I was fine.
Today I'm fine. It's just, okay. But it was just one of those weird things that I think we all get. Yeah. Thank you.
Danny, we're over to you. Yeah. I love this topic, and it took me in many different directions, and I wasn't sure which way to go. But I got to thinking about how probably the last year of my life has been really interesting.
My outdoorsman has come out a lot. But what I'm learning with things is that we talk about it a lot around here, about God fathered me in this. And then the word discipline, which in our culture people don't like a whole lot, but the root word, disciple. So you're going to learn to do stuff. You have to be taught. I was fortunate to have a dad that taught me to do a lot of different stuff, mechanical stuff. Dad's always got a project.
I mean, he's 81, and he's still got projects. But God puts people in your life to father you and stuff. So the clip I chose was from Shawshank Redemption, and it's where Andy is going to teach Tommy. Tommy wants to get his equivalent to his high school diploma so he can get out and go back to his family and that kind of thing.
Andy kind of gives him a hard time, but kind of the point of it is that one guy is helping another, and we can play it and we'll talk about it on the other side. As it turned out, Tommy had himself a young wife and a new baby girl. Maybe it was the thought of them on the streets or his child growing up not knowing her daddy. Whatever it was, something lit a fire under that boy. Maybe trying for my high school equivalency here, you helped a couple of fellows with that. I don't waste time with losers, Tommy.
I ain't no loser. You mean that? Yeah. You really mean that?
Yes, sir, I do. Good, because if we do this, we do it all the way, 100%. The thing is, see, you don't read so good. Well, you don't read so well. We'll get to that.
R-R-S-T. So Andy took Tommy under his wing, started walking him through his ABCs. Tommy took to it pretty well, too.
Boy found brains he never knew he had. Yeah, and that's life to me because, you know, to get a little more specific, as we were talking about earlier, or as Barney Fife would say, Pacific, get more Pacific, then, you know, I've tried fly fishing and actually this year, first time in 40 years, I went deer hunting. And those two things have taught me so much about myself and about God that it's been really cool, it's been fun, but it's been challenging, too, because, you know, my idea of life sometimes is just you just go get the stuff you need and you just go do it. Well, if you go, my wife has bought me about everything that I have fly fishing wise, and she bought me a set of waders for Christmas, so I couldn't wait. I thought, I've heard Robby and them talk about putting on their waders, and I think, so what do I do? This spring, I went out and took my waders and went up to Mitchell River and put the waders on. There's a whole lot more to wading out of the river and fly fishing than just, because you get out in the middle of it and usually, you know, fishing on the bank, you can set your pole down.
You're standing out in the middle of the river, you can't set anything down. You pretty much learn independence in that sense. But the art of getting the fly in the right position and, you know, where the fish and what they're eating and the whole study and the discipline of it is something that I've always struggled with. I just wanted to be good at it immediately.
But what I'm finding is that piece of walking through a process. You know, when the hunting thing started, you know, I went with Rodney and David, and we're sitting down there on a gator's place, and I've known hunters all my life, and I've hunted some. But to tell you I knew how to hunt would be a stretch.
It would be a huge pose. I can talk deer hunting all day long. But it's that, you know, the scripture, don't be just hearers of the word, be doers.
When you actually start doing something, you know, if you shoot at a deer and you think you hit him, you got to go track him. Well, I'm not a hound dog. So we've had that experience. But what I have found is when I begin to talk to people and ask questions, people are more than willing.
They're not as condescending as in my mind I think they're going to be. Well, you're 50 years old. You should know this stuff.
I've not got any of that. What I've got is some of the deepest support and people pouring in and are excited. And I mentioned to a couple of them that, you know, I want to learn to dress a deer.
You know, I want to know the process. And my gosh, I've got three or four volunteers. Well, the next one you get, you call me. I'm like, we'll see if you're really up to that.
But it's fascinating to me, God puts things in your life and people in your life just simply because he can. And, you know, to wrap that up is I love blackberries. I'll go to the grocery store and buy one of those containers of blackberries and I'll eat them. Well, God has planted blackberries at the end of my driveway. We went and picked blackberries yesterday and just right at the end of the driveway. I mean, don't even have to go out in the woods to get them, just right.
I can stop my truck and load it up. But, you know, that's who God is. And so often in Christianity in our church circles, I have a lot of them. You can only find God in the sanctuary and underneath a sermon or Bible teaching, but there's so much more to God and there's so much more to, you know, we talk about the adventures and those kind of things.
But God wants to be in all parts of our life at all times. You know, Rodney mentioned, you know, family troubles. Been there too. And I've just simply had to stop and say, I love what Terry said, you know, God pause and go, God, father me in this. Show me what to do. And, you know, there have been times when he said, just be still. That's all you really need to do is just be still. I'm like, yeah, but I could do this, this, this, this, this.
Just be still. Well, thank you. As you were talking, it reminded me of something that happened to me over the last few weeks, and I talked to Andy a little bit about it. I haven't had a chance to tell some of you guys. And to you guys it won't sound like a big deal.
To me it was a huge deal. I bought a mower from a good friend of mine a few years back from Andy. He gave me a great deal on a mower. And I wouldn't winterize it properly.
I always thought I was. But for the first few years I had it, each spring the mower was gummed up and I would have to take it to a guy and let him fix it because I don't know anything about motors or anything. So he would do it. So he had it. I'd just have him check the oil, change the oil, whatever.
It's there. Just do it right. And I was afraid to try stuff. Even though I can build houses, I'm not motor driven. The parts are so small and I have really fat fingers. And so it's hard for me to hold really small screws and stuff.
And I find it very frustrating. Well, I was out mowing this spring. And so when I was mowing, all of a sudden the mower didn't sound right. And so I brought it in. I'm like, okay, something's not right. Because it was struggling. And I checked the oil.
All sales are fine. I know. And when I checked the oil, it was like there was no oil in it. And I'm like, oh, no, I've blown up the motor.
Right? And so, okay, well, I went to check to see if I had some more oil. And of course, I didn't have the oil anywhere in the house.
Right? And to go in the mower. I didn't have any oil anywhere. Cooking oil won't work. No, no, exactly.
You know? And so I'm like, okay, well, I could run to the store. I could just order some on Amazon. It'll be here tomorrow.
I'll just order some on Amazon. I need to go in anyway. And I stressed about it. And I called people and I'm like, what do you think it is? I didn't know.
People know about motors. Well, the next day, the oil comes and I go outside and I check the oil and the oil's full. Like, completely full. I can't put any in it.
It's not even low at all. And I'm like, okay, this makes no sense. And I'm like, well, I could just try to take it to the guy, but the trailer that my friend Andy loans me was still in my house.
It was full of mulch. And so I had no option to load up the trailer or to load up the mower. And I can't push it to five miles to the guy's house. It's just, you know, I can't drive it. I'm like, I got to do something. And so I thought, well, I know some guys that know motors.
And so I was able to call some people I work with that are good with motors. My friend Carrick. You guys know Carrick. And my friend Roger.
You guys met Roger at boot camps. Just said, look, I need some help here. I don't know what I'm dealing with. And both of them said, it's your oil filter. It's just plugged up. That's all it is. I'm pretty sure that's all it is, right? And I'm like, well, okay.
So I ordered – and sorry, this is a long story. But I ordered an oil change kit that had everything you needed. It came with a spark plugs. It came with a tune-up kit.
It came with spark plugs, fuel filter, air filter, you know, oil filter, the oil and everything. And I'm like, conceptually I know how to do all of these. I mean, I've been around it enough. I know how they work. You take the spark plugs out.
You put new ones in. But I think you got to check the gap and you got to do this stuff, right? But I found on YouTube a guy that has the exact same mower I have. And it walked me through step by step doing every one of those things.
And it sounds so simple. But it felt like such an accomplishment. And I didn't get it all done in one night because I would go to change the spark plug. I didn't have the right socket. So I'd have to get another one. And I went to change the – when I went to change the oil, I didn't have the right filter wrench.
It was too big for that particular type of filter. And so it was over about a three-day period that I had to do it. But each time I went out, I'm like, all right, God, let's do it. You got me, you know, on YouTube. Because you gave this guy on YouTube for me to father me.
But I let some friends that I had father me in a different way. I let somebody know I didn't. And so now I've ordered everything I need to do it moving forward. I've got the ramps I need to pull the mower up on it. I've got the oil filter wrench I need. I've got everything. And each year I'm just going to do the maintenance. And I'm excited about it.
But it was really cool for me to say that's something I would have stressed and worried about. And I don't know what am I going to do. And it's like, God, I have no choice.
I got to just figure it out. And I just got to walk with you. And so I heard him say, call Carrick, call Roger. Right?
I didn't really hear him say, look on YouTube. But I did. And there was a guy there. Right? And so it was just great to let God father me through that and have a good time and something that would have stressed me out. And now I'm excited about doing it in future years.
You know, I learned my lessons of what I did wrong and how simple it really was and why was I so fearful. But that's the thing. Your fear doesn't always make sense. What may sound silly to you guys or to the listeners out there, like, really, you were worried about that?
I promise you, there's things in your life that you're worried about that other people would look at it and go, that seems silly. Anything that we don't master. Right. You know, you're going to look for that. And it's a lot of our stories. And, you know, I think we in this society, we weren't always fathered well, industrial age, father leaves home. We've talked about it many times. And you just – it sounds like something, like you said, so simple. It's like – and then you feel kind of exposed that you don't know how to do something like that. But God in His grace fills in that, allows you to be fathered by other men and other, you know, YouTube or whatever. But that is a reflection of the same thing that you'll do in the spiritual. You'll avoid spiritual things that you don't feel like you have a mastery or a competency in. If you've never done it, you've never experienced, you won't step into those things until you get some wins.
That so much goes back to those stages of our masculine journey as well. But I definitely hear you. And I mean to your point, I want to get out there more in the outdoors.
Hiking is easy. It doesn't take a lot of skill set to do that or whatever. I want to do more of some of those things, but I feel like he's got me right now. And catching up, getting some things that I've let go for some time due to my busyness and stuff like that. Same thing, I mean there's things like I've told you about washer and dryer and fixing those things. Those things didn't come natural. But one of the things is that humility to go ask somebody else.
You'll be stuck with no help for a long time unless you trust God leading you into that. The story I think in the beginning of Becoming a King by Morgan Snyder. He tells a story about when he moved out there to Colorado. And him and John went hunting and he said for the first couple of times they went it was just armed hiking.
Armed hiking, absolutely. And as you were talking Andy, God reminded me of a wounding in my life. And I've shared it before, but when I had an alternator go out in an old car I had and I had no idea how to change it. My dad had had a stroke at that point and it was a real wounding time for me.
And so this is just God still going after a wound from years and years ago when I was 16 or 17. And so it's really cool to walk that with him. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp November 21st through 24th. Masculinejourney.org. Focus this week on having some good times with God and love somebody well this week. Be somebody's heart lover this week. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.
