God's Greatest Hits After Hours

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. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and we are in the middle of what I think is just a great topic. And no, it's not just because it's my topic.

No, it's because it's God's topic. It's God's greatest hits, and we're talking about the things that God's done in each of our lives to just make the most significant impact. The things that's brought us closer to him, that's brought us more freedom, however you want to fill that in, however you want to define that impact. And so we were talking about it on the last show, so if you missed that, you missed Danny sharing, and missed me sharing, and Grant sharing, and Harold sharing. And so if you want to go back and listen to that, you can go to masculinejourney.org and listen to it there, or at any podcast outlet, which is where you're listening to this show now, so you should know how to get there already.

And so Robby, you actually have the first clip of the After Hours, so if you want to tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, God's greatest hits, right? So, you know, I don't know if you've ever read Pilgrim's Progress, I hope you have, but you might remember that the hero of the show, or that particular one, you know, his name was Christian. And after he came to Christ, he had his testimony, which is essentially your story. And we're all part of a larger story, but Christian had his testimony, and he kept it down in his bosom, was what he said in the book.

But a lot of times when he would start to slip or falter or whatever, he would pull that out, like that's the anti-venom. It really is. And so, you know, from my perspective, you know, God's greatest hit, it was a particular testimony that I had. I'd been in Christ probably, I don't know, 10, 11 years.

And this is so, I'm going to get to the clip, but the clip will make a lot more sense after you hear what I want to share. But I was praying about a lot of things that really had nothing to do with why he showed up. You know, I have a whole laundry list of like, God, what about this?

And God, what about that? And I was really struggling with some things that, you know, when I look at it now, like none of that stuff meant nothing. It was so important to me at the time, but now I know it.

It meant absolutely nothing. And I was praying very, very earnestly. And of all the times I've ever heard God's voice, this one was so dramatic, it became part of my story that I'll never forget. Like he showed up and absolutely terrified me. I mean, it wasn't like, Robby, what do you want?

It was like his, just his very presence before he said a word terrified me and I could tell he was there. And then he said, Robby, what do you want? You know, like you praying, what do you want? You know, and it's interesting, you know, after you've lived this story, you see how many times in the scripture he asked people, what do you want? You know, it's a pretty defining thing, but the way he said it, I was just terrified.

Like, you know, if you're all of a sudden find yourself in front of the president of the United States and he asks you, what do you want? Bah, bah, bah, bah. You know, and I was like, bah, bah. And I said, just glibly. And I know it was glibly. I said, I just want to serve you. And then he said this, but it's really hard for me to get the inflection the way that I would like to because he said it so deliberately, but there was no shame involved in it. And that's how I knew it was him.

There was no shame in it. He just said, do you? And it was almost like a broken hearted, do you? And when he did, you may have heard that your whole life will flash before.

Yes, there is a book. And yes, every last I'll never ever, and this is why I can keep it so close to me. I know God knows every single moment when you're playing that song from Lorne Daigle. But yeah, he knows every last detail. He hears every thought.

He knows every whisper, no doubt. And so all this stuff just flashed. And there was no time.

And that's kind of how you know you're in God's presence, too, is because there was no time. And all this stuff just flashed. And it was just boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I realized there were all these situations that he had asked me to do something and I hadn't done it. And each one of them were things that were really easy. I mean, it was nothing like you got to go to Africa. It was nothing hard. It was nothing.

It was all like you were supposed to call Ray Frick. You were supposed to, you know, go have lunch with your buddy. You were supposed to, you know, and they were all, every single one of them was interpersonal. They were all things that were just simply loving on people that I already had a relationship with.

It wasn't reaching out to somebody I didn't know or anything like that. And I was so excited. The more I watched all these things in front of me, the more I realized that, yeah, those were things I kind of wanted to do, but I just didn't realize that was really from you. So I was in bed praying at the time. I'd jump out of bed. I'd go in the bathroom and get a legal pad, man. I'm writing this stuff down.

Because there were so many of them and I didn't want any of these opportunities to go by because I was like, man, here we go. This is exactly what God wants me to do. I can do this.

I am so excited, man. I can do this. This is something I can do. And so I'm writing it all down and then I'm just, after I get that done, I go back and I lay down. I'm just repenting and I'm like, God, thank you, man. You're giving me another chance.

I'm going to do this. I look so forward to making these calls, going out to lunch with these people, et cetera, et cetera. And as I am just getting more excited about that, all of a sudden, the room fills with this unbelievable, it's just the glory of God. I don't know what else to call it. It was just this bright, bright golden light. And it was becoming more and more concentrated as it became more concentrated. I realized that it was beginning to form a face. And then something welled up inside of me that I had no idea was there.

And it really defines me to a great extent always in prayer now because I'm always looking for that again. And I began to say, you're going to see his face. It's his face. It's right there.

It's happening. It's God's face. It's Jesus' face that's going to come. You're going to see his face. And it just screamed. Every cell of my body was screaming it. You're going to see his face. And I got so excited. My wife was, Tammy was asleep next to me. I reached over and grabbed her. Tammy, we're going to see his face.

We're going to see his face when I did. You know, she was like, what? And she looked at me like I was absolutely nuts and it totally killed the moment. I mean, it just did as if it weren't a moment. And it was like the glow went away and I felt embarrassed and stupid. But I had my legal pad. And I had written it down and I knew what had happened. But nonetheless, I laid my head back down on the turn lights out.

She went back to sleep and I'm laying there just kind of dejected. And then Jesus' infinite sense of humor. I mean, just wonderful sense of humor. He kind of just winks at me. It wasn't the same scary to death Jesus that had showed up there. It was the Jesus I'm used to talk to. And he says to me, so Robby, now do you know what you want? And see, it was so defining for me to realize as we push into these things that he gives us whatever opportunity to do because we are his children. That in a fact, in doing those things, you're connecting with him in his face. And what I really, really, really want is obviously that relationship with him.

That close, like if you can't see somebody's face, it's a little hard to have a really close relationship. You know, I don't know how that works, but that's kind of how it is. So we have here a scene from the movie Bruce Almighty, which was absolute genius. And clearly whoever wrote this part of the script had some similar experience. And so Bruce has been talking on and on about God and he's fixed a medium. And you know, God's going to explain a few things to him. And he's going to show him a file cabinet.

And it's a very visual clip, unfortunately, but still, I don't want you to miss it. You'll hear him begin to scream when they see the file cabinet. And when he's screaming, what you're not seeing is the file cabinet opens, but it opens about, you know, 200 feet. And it goes screaming across this warehouse and he has a hold of it and it's dragging him like he had no idea that this file cabinet that has every detail of his life is that long. But believe me, you got one. And then when God wants to read this one entry, he shuts it and he comes flying back across the warehouse.

It's such a scene. But here's kind of what Bruce Almighty came up with. All right, what is this? How do you know my father and how do you get my pager number? Oh, I know quite a lot about you, Bruce.

Just about everything there is to know. Everything you've ever said or done or thought about doing. Right there in that file cabinet. Wow, a whole drawer just for me.

Mind if I take a look? It's your line. That's not going to be good. This last entry was a little disturbing. The gloves are off, God. God has taken my bird and my bush. God is a mean kid with a magnifying glass. Smite me, almighty smiter. Now, I'm not much for blaspheming, but that last one made me laugh.

Yes, it does. And the part about that clip that actually just countering home even more for me is my middle name is Bruce. And when I was born, because my father's name was Robert, they all called me Bruce as to not confuse. And I went by Bruce from, you know, until I was like 10 years old. And so, you know, when I hear him speaking to, you know, I know quite a bit about you, Bruce. Pretty personal there. It's home, but the point still is, is that any time you had a really significant interaction with God, it becomes part of your story. And I can't tell you the times where I feel like, you know, this, this, this.

But wait a minute. You know, God showed up for me that night, that's for sure. There's no ever taking that away from me.

There's no taking that experience away from me. Thank you, Robby. David, nice to have you back. We've missed you. You've been gone forever. Yeah, more than half, two months, I think, maybe. Yeah, it seems less and longer both.

I don't know how to explain it. Yeah, well, that's because you still see me every day for the most part. Yeah, I do. Well, yeah, yeah, I've been gone for a little bit. And that actually, you know, with the topic tonight, you know, God's greatest hits, I could go probably anywhere in my life and look at something and find it. But even more so in just, you know, the last two months that I've been out and kind of give you a little back story. Last 10 months have been pretty much a whirlwind for me. You know, God blessed me with a great new job, learning all that, you know, with the world's best trainer.

And, you know, he's blessed my wife with a new job that she starts in two weeks. And then some other things happen around life. And so I just started noticing about two months ago that, you know, I'd pretty much given up on my margins.

You know, trying to do everything I needed to do for work, trying to do everything I needed to do at home. You know, somebody asked me to go do this with them. Yeah, I'll go do that. Somebody asked me at church to help them with this. Yeah, I'll go do that at my margins and just kept shrinking. So, you know, I was praying about it and God told me to take a step back, kind of to reset and reground myself. And whereas this was different than any other time, if we went back to my word of the year of warrior, he told me not to ask for any help. Like I didn't reach out to any of my band of brothers and say, hey, I need prayers for this. You know, this is what I'm going through and everything like that.

He said, you need to do it with just me. And so for the last two months, I mean, that's what I've been doing, trying to shrink in my margin. But what I didn't realize is when my margin was so small that I didn't leave anything for anything, that that left a big back door open for the enemy to come in and say, hey, you're not enough.

Look at you, you're overcommitting and underperforming, you know. So, yeah, that's where I've been for the last two months. And trying to just kind of reacclimate and get grounded. And I think me and God are doing the thing together. So it's going pretty good so far.

Amen. And so word of the year was warrior, right? Yeah. And then you're doing the – what's your topic at boot camp you're talking about? Warfare.

Oh, warfare. Oh, hmm. Yeah.

That's kind of interesting how that works out. Well, we didn't have a topic for patience, you know, last year or so. Yeah.

Or letting it go the year before that. Yeah, we probably do. Somewhere in there. Yeah.

Anybody want to add something? Yeah. We have a leader that tries our patience, so we don't need to talk. Well, yeah, we do. Yeah.

Try working with him. All righty. On to the next person. Andy, you want to tell us a little bit about – I'm going to skip you for a minute. I'm going to go over to Terry.

Terry, you want to share a little bit about your story and God's great impact in your life? Yeah. Thanks a lot. And, yeah, I'm thinking about it. And when you text that, I got excited.

I'm like, wow. I read it through. And this one thing stuck out is when God taught me how to be effective for what he called me to do. And he used a situation where it was me and my brother, we were away on a retreat, men's retreat weekend. That weekend he didn't take his wife, you know. And so it was just he was in his room, I'm in mine. But that Saturday we all took breaks, you know, they took a break during the retreat time.

And you could kind of go hang out with guys you met or whatnot. So I went over to my brother's room. I said, hey, look, you want to get something to eat?

And he goes, no. You know, it's been a long week. I'm just going to lay here and get some rest.

His wife didn't go with me. He's just going to chill out. So I said, what do you want? You know, I'll bring you something back. He says, anything. So I left with that, you know, okay, anything, cool. So I started walking out and getting to my car and I realized, you know, I hadn't lived with this guy now in maybe 20 years. I have no idea what this guy eats, you know, no idea.

So I called my assistant and she tells me something. So then I go to a Walmart or Kmart or whatever it was, go to their frozen food, get something, you know, little thing. And this weird thing was I felt just like, you know, if, if you were a quarter dime being deposit on a bank, you would hit a chingling. I felt the chingling.

Wow. I didn't know any idea what was it about. Kept traveling. I realized on the way back to the hotel, well, we had no utensils. So there was a KFC and I stopped, you know, there was a guy who was being trained on the counter. The reason I know that, there was somebody beside him, kind of helped him through the keys. So I'm the last guy in line. He gets up there. I mean, I walk up there and it's just me and him and he goes, yes, sir. And I said, man, this is the easiest order in the world.

He go, what? He said, okay. I said, you ready? He goes, yeah.

I said, man, all I need is some plastic ware, you know, some forks and whatnot. The kid threw his arms up in there and said, oh, I got this one. I got it.

I got it. He said, sir, right over there, get as many as you want. So I bumped him, fist bumped him, moved on, you know, I felt this chingling, felt good.

I don't know why it was. So I'm traveling, get to the hotel and I get to my brother's room and he owns a door for me. He's still lying down. He goes back on the bed. So I said, look, you want this stuff now?

You know, I'll go ahead and do it. He goes, no. He said, just set it over there. You know, you sure? Yeah.

He said, no. I'm going to get some water and whatnot. And we sat over there.

I walked out of his room, going back to my room, and there it is again, chingling. I have no idea, but it felt good. Some pondering, what is this, God?

I know it's from him. Well, what is it? And I could not get enough stuff together to realize what God was doing. That Monday we had a home going.

I'm a mutual friend of ours, me and my brother. And I'm sitting out at the graveyard, you know. And we're sitting there waiting. And all of a sudden, God tells me, you know, and he takes me through this line. And God says, you know, to be effective for what I call you to do, you must treat every man as if he is your brother. You know, do your best to get his needs.

You know, make sure he gets it, serve it to him, and enjoy doing it. And the crazy thing is, I can't leave it. It's like, not only did he show me how, you know, to deal with every man as if he's my brother, you know, he took that same little thing and says, every kid is your son or your daughter, you know, every older guy, maybe your father, but it didn't stop.

I've got grandkids that I didn't have, but I'm grandpa. And that's the impact. And it's guided me and it's led me and maybe the reason I'm here, but I must treat every man and everybody else as if, and I can't walk away from it. That's awesome. Thank you. Yes, Grant.

Between that and Robby's story, it reminds me, being close to the Lord, remember when I was dead. Yeah. Yeah.

That would be a greatest hit. Yeah. Yeah.

The bounce back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do you have the next clip, the final clip of the show? Final clip. The finale.

Yeah. So, I'm going to play the clip first, just real briefly, I'll kind of break the clip down when we come back from it, but it's from Robin Hood, the 2010 version of Russell Crowe. And you know, some people like the movie, some don't.

The trailer is awesome and there's a lot in the trailer, but to me, there's a lot in the movie and it really speaks to identity, sonship, battle and freedom, which all I feel like those are probably the top, well, those are the top four that I consider the greatest hits. And I'll talk a little bit more about the process, but let's hear the clip now. Okay. The clip that you like. The clip that I like. That you don't.

No, I like the clip. Well, I know. Yeah, just look at the movie. Here we go. Well, I think I have much to tell you about history, about your history. Your father was a visionary.

What did he see? That kings have a need of their subjects, a dangerous idea. Rise and rise again until lambs become lions. My father died for this. What does it mean?

It means never give up. A king does not bargain for the loyalty that every subject owes him. In the name of King John, pay or burn. The laws of this land enslave people to its king. A king who offers nothing in return. Robin Longstride, also known as Robin of the Hood.

For the crimes of incitement to cause unrest, I declare him to be an outlaw. Robin, your father was a great man. You are your father's son. Are you ready to be who you are? Yes. What we ask for is liberty.

Liberty by law. Rise and rise again until lambs become lions. So there's just so many quotes in there that really went through, helped me go, well, this movie's trailer is used for the Sonship set up, and that, as the guys know, and I hesitate to tell all this stuff because I've told it so many times, but what I can do here is kind of break it down and how the process, how it was truly the greatest hits.

It wasn't a one-hit wonder. God did a lot over that time because I was a broken man when I came, started coming to the boot camps, and I don't have the understanding of my wound and the healing of the wound, but that obviously gets things started. That may have actually been after I got my new name, but identity was so huge in that. When you hear in this clip, are you ready to become who you are, I mean, that's the essence of what getting the gospel from the fall in the Garden of Eden are, is to get back to who we were, the restoration, the rescue that we've been talking about. But then the Sonship, I mean, what really gets restored, not only your identity but who you are as a son. And then you become, after you get that kind of down, then you begin, okay, what am I created to do?

What am I here for? And you become interested in battle and fighting back, which we all know, I use the quote all the time, open wars upon you whether you would risk it or not. But you learn to become a warrior, and all this is through this process. A lot of it has to do, you really deepen it as you do the talks when we're doing the boot camp, but just listening to the talks, hearing the other guys, their stories. And then it talks about laws of the land, enslaved men to a king who offers nothing. And that's a big part of where all this started.

We were enslaved to Satan, and you get that freedom, you get that touch of freedom, and you want it for everybody. And that's why I stay engaged on continuing in the boot camp message and sharing what I've learned, what I've experienced, and participating with the Band of Brothers. So hopefully all that is not necessarily a result of anything other than the outcome of how it's changed my life through a heart change. I was thinking the other day, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think I went in loads and said some stupid comment, and I came out and I was like, that was stupid. But I didn't say you're stupid.

And I'm like, Sam would be so proud, because that ties right to agreements, right? And it's a different way you look at yourself. So the identity has changed in that. And then I just think about the different things, like this weekend, moved my daughter very tired, on a different diet, was getting weak, I was doing stupid stuff, I was not being really careful. And I did something, she said something, I got aggravated and left, didn't say anything.

And shortly thereafter, we talked again, I went and got something to eat, that helped out some, but it would have been a big blow up before. And there's a change in heart, there's a change in weight, I feel strength, that was my identity, the new name that I got from God was, my given name means strength, manly, and I never had felt that way. But you know, the Bible says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. I think a lot of this is, this is what it is, it's recovering who you were and understanding. I mean, I've told a lot of people about this process in The Masculine Journey, is first thing, I know God more of who he is, and learned him properly. But I found out who I am through the process.

And it's through the band of brothers and hearing the stories and you see stuff in yourself that others are going through and how they respond. So that's a long list of stuff, but that's pretty much it. Darrell Bock Well, there's more, but that was good. There's always more. Darrell Bock That was my opening statement.

Darrell Bock Yeah, I'll be back for closing comments here in a minute. There's lots we could share. And what's been cool for me as a dad, having had my two boys at boot camp, is watching dad's work and me impact them. I remember one camp I was doing the wound talk yet again, you know, because I did it a lot of times. And I really just, I feel grateful to be able to do the talks.

It's not that. But sometimes you just feel like, you know, I've said this, I'm retreading some stuff and you know, it's new. And I wasn't really looking too forward to it. But I did the talk and I thought it went okay. But what was really good about it was we got back to the cabin. And because of that talk, Eli had breakthrough in a wound that he had that I had caused. And he felt comfortable enough, having heard me give that talk so many times, and be vulnerable, that he felt like he could be vulnerable when I was the offender, right? You know, which was very hard to hear as a dad.

I mean, I knew I had plenty of things I'd messed up on. But just to be able to be there and listen to him share his heart, and to be able just to love on him through that as God loved on me through that, because I needed to lean into him to say, God, you know, I need you here. You know, and to hear Caleb get up and respond on a talk, and hear how God's working in his life and just the fruit that just continues to multiply. And so I would encourage you to consider coming to boot camp first and foremost for your heart, absolutely for your heart and your relationship with God, but also for those other people in your life, because you can't fail to be impacted and not impact others, right? When you're impacted by God, it will change others' lives down the road as well. And that's the promise, that those seeds that are planted will be harvested, and God's got a lot of harvesting to do, and you may just be the catalyst to get to those other people you love so much. I'd encourage you to go to masculinejourney.org to register for the boot camp. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody really, really well this week. This is the Truth Network.