Invitation and Identity After Hours

This is the Truth Network. Coming to you 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 I'm going to do something a little different.

I know it's really kind of hard for you guys most of the time because we have so many people in the room. You know, I'm just going to have people kind of introduce themselves, and so I'll start with Grant. Grant, can you say hello? Hello.

That's Grant. Andy? Hello.

And I'm Sam. Hello. That's the whole room.

Hello. That's the whole room today. Normally we have anywhere from seven to fourteen. And we don't even bother to itemize them then because there's just too many of them. Yeah, and so we'd be halfway through the show doing introductions.

They could not say hello. Not too many mics. Yeah, we'd have to hand the mic around, but there's three of us today. So you have three of us going through a very, very cool topic that was Grant's idea based on last week's topic. Last week's topic was lures and labels and the things the enemy throws at you to try to get you to chomp on and to step away from your calling, your identity, and to chase the things he wants you to chase instead of the things God is calling you to. And so Grant said, hey, what about God's version of this?

That came to mind because there's so many times that I believe the Lord gave me these things to make people look at me. Absolutely. And so it was a great suggestion. So back to our lack of folks here, I guess you call this a skeleton crew since it's Halloween week. Yeah, it's not even the A-Team. Well, it is. It's the available team. It's still the A-Team, yeah. But a skeleton crew for sure.

It is a skeleton crew for sure. And so we are talking about God's invitations in our life and the identity he's bestowing on us. And so we're going to continue to talk about that.

And so Andy, you actually have the first clip in both segments, like last show and this show. Well, I thought you were going to go first on the... No, you were going to do Field of Dreams. Yeah, I thought you were. Okay, you're going to do. Yeah, that's right. Mine comes first.

Yeah, and since I'm running the show, you're going first. Thank you. Duh. Oops.

I'll just tease it with you. Yeah, well, I was going to say something about identity, but I've already forgot about it. Well, I threw you a loop and I'm sorry.

You did, but I, well, I deserved it because I was off base. Anyway, so this next clip is from Field of Dreams and Ray is this guy that's being called in to understand more about his father. His father had passed before he was born and his father was a baseball player. And there's these mystical characters that come along in the way and you have, what is it, Mann, Gerald Mann? Terrence Mann. Terrence Mann, sorry, who he meets up.

He's this writer and he had a love for baseball and he kind of plays into the story, but they go to a baseball game together. And Ray is getting these leadings, these voices, the Holy Spirit that wants him to do stuff, to go along the way, to go to the next step of the journey. But ultimately they're having this conversation and Ray's trying to get Terrence to believe what he is seeing about this road trip, this path of figuring out what's going on. And Terrence initially acts like he doesn't know what he's talking about and you'll hear that. But really the point is this initiation, I mean, this invitation is to go on this road trip, this discovery, this journey to eventually get to the end of the story.

And I think Sam will tell a little bit more about that because his clip relates, but it's just a really cool way. And then I'll talk about how God called me into an invitation on a road trip. All right, here we go. So what do you want? I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader.

I want them to start thinking for themselves and want my privacy. No, I meant, what do you want? Oh, a dog and a beer. Two.

Seven bucks. Okay, I understand. You should be entitled to as much privacy as you want, but why stop writing? I haven't published a word in 17 years and still I have to endure lunatics like you.

What do you think would happen if I suddenly came out with a new book and it made me dry? Go the distance. Go the distance. What's the matter? You didn't see that? See what? I'm sorry, I guess you didn't have to be here.

What? Whenever you want to go, we can go. Fine, let's go. What is it you're not telling me? I've already taken up too much of your time. I wish I had your passion, Ray.

Misdirected though it might be, it is still a passion. I used to feel that way about things, but you got another message, didn't you? You think I'm crazy.

I already think you're crazy. What did it say? It said the man's done enough.

Leave him alone. Moonlight Graham. You saw it. Saw what? You saw it.

New York Giants, 1922. You played one game, never got to bat. You saw it. What did I see, Ray?

Chisholm, Minnesota. We were the only ones who saw it. Did you hear the voice too?

It's all right to admit it. It's what told me to find you. Did you hear it? Go the distance. Yes. Do you know what it means? Yes.

What? It means we're going to Minnesota to find Moonlight Graham. So, yeah, that's a great scene where, you know, you see both of them begin to get the vision for what this journey is going to be like, and it's revealed to them both.

Terrence plays a little bit harder to get, for whatever reason. I think he is really being invited into this thing, this journey or this story with Ray, and he's kind of hesitant about it, but yet it's intriguing to him because I think he's had kind of a dull life. He's pushed all of society away, but yet he's got to pull to see what's going on, what this mysterious journey is going to lead to, and so they end up going on a road trip to Minnesota. But anyway, so back right after, probably two or three months after I got hired in this new job that I was failing out and struggling, I went to this, and I was still at this very time. I was very, I was doing like proof of concepts of data security solutions for this place in Idaho, but it opened a door to where I could go fish on the Snake River, and I could go to Yellowstone and go to Grand Teton. And when I did, I began to realize, because as a kid, I did love the nature, I did love getting out, and I needed some healing from my heart about the broken relationship and a lot of stuff that was going on in my life.

I mean, I remember camping right alongside Grand Teton and all this stuff, and during that time was when I first started listening to the Wild at Heart podcast. I'd already been through the Masculine Journey stuff, but on that trip I had like 88 podcasts or something like that, and I listened to them the whole trip. And my heart just came alive, and a lot of, that's when God began to foster some of this idea of sonship. It was shortly thereafter that I really received God as Father. I asked to do the sonship talk and boot camps, and it just, again, this is just like breadcrumbs along the trail. You begin to look back and see what God was doing there. I got invited.

I had to accept that invitation. You don't always do that, but didn't do things perfectly, still struggling in a lot of different ways then, but I became a son. And I've told this story before, but I'll try to tell it real quick here, but really dig into it. As a son, my dad, when he left, and I felt like I, this led to years of feeling kind of abandoned because my dad left the family.

He had moved out of state. Him and mom got divorced, and I didn't have a good father figure in my life, and I knew my dad loved me, but he wasn't present, and I lived that way for so much time. But one thing my dad did was take the time to take me on a vacation.

We hit these three major spots through North Carolina. I loved it. But then he was gone, and it was like he had abandoned me. My dad tried to do the right thing.

I think it was a way of saying, Son, I know I'm not going to be here for you for a while. We stayed connected through the phone, and I'd see him occasionally, but that really hurt, and in retrospect, how God began to take me on. A trip started to happen, and I took another one to Yosemite a couple years later, and there was like three events that kind of mapped and kind of correlated to the three places that went to North Carolina. Just signs that God gave me along the way that I just knew it was him, and it was a healing for that. I began to see how he really came after me because that was the point that I recognized when my dad was gone and that he knew the heartbreak had happened there, and he could have come in a lot of different ways and done this, but he went back to a road trip, and road trips are precious to me.

That scene from the movie was at Fenway Park recently. I mean, I've done a lot of stuff by myself, but I don't do it by myself. I do it with God, and I went to Massachusetts and saw a lot of different stuff there the whole time. I mean, I always try to, it may sound weird, but it's me, and it's what I believe God gave me is that he's present there with me, and I appreciate the beauty and the history and the things that I've seen, but at times I experience with my father. Yeah, but look at every one of those invitations God's given you something. More than just the view, more than just the, that's enough to go for, but then there's breakthrough that comes, and there's identity that comes, and all those things on the backside of it. And you don't have to have, I don't want to say, well, you've got to go on a trip or whatever. That was my thing and what's become important to me, but if I stay home and never go another place, God is still there, and I still appreciate the beauty in my backyard, whatever it is.

But with that being said, I'm ecstatic about what I've experienced, and if I don't receive anything else from him, what he's given me in so many different ways, just a sense of I'm his son, you know, it's all came from invitation and identity. Yeah, absolutely. Did you realize it? Yeah. Well, I'm going to play a clip from Field of Dreams as well, and so what's happened, the first initial thing that Ray hears is if you build it, he will come.

Yeah, right. Right, and so you have that, then you have go the distance, and so he brings in Terrence Mann, and Terrence is now along, he's committed to the ride, not only does he go to Minnesota with him, he goes back to Iowa, and he's staying with him in Iowa. They build the baseball field, it's there, and the ghosts, the former baseball players start coming out of the corn, and so what you have is this character played by Ray Laota that is there, and he's invited Terrence to go back with him into the corn field to see where they go at night, because no one knows where they go at night to come and play baseball during the day, and Ray's not real happy about it, and so I want to listen to this and talk about why I chose this clip.

Wait a second, wait a second, why him? I built this field, you wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. Ray, I'm on a test, you have a family.

I know, but I want to know what's out there, I want to see it. But you're not invited. Not invited? What do you mean I'm not invited?

That's my corn out there, you guys are guests in my corn. Ray? No, wait, I have done everything I've been asked to do, I didn't understand it, but I've done it, and I haven't once asked what's in it for me. What are you saying, Ray? I'm saying what's in it for me. Is that why you did this?

For you? I think you better stay here, Ray. Why? So the reason I want to play that is I think a lot of times we don't understand God's invitation, right?

We think it's something different. I talked earlier in the first show about going to my first boot camp and really having a desire to do boot camps. I tried to recruit a team of people around Indiana when I lived there. I had one person that came alongside me and he was a great friend for many years in this message, but the two of us couldn't do a boot camp. And then I had other people.

It would have been like this radio station. Yeah, I had other people that went to the same boot camp I did that just went out and they started doing boot camps. And I was very envious, you know, and I got invited to help on one of them and really be like a table leader or whatever. But I knew that I really wasn't on the team, and so I was just really frustrated about not getting the invitation that I wanted. I'm stirring my corn.

Any tips? That's great. You know, they were in my corn, right?

But God, you don't understand. Well, fast forward, you know, years later, my company I'm with transfers me down to North Carolina. I had no intent to come here initially, come to visit it, knew that it was a place to come.

Right after that company closed, within a few days, I get a call from somebody that said, Hey, I saw your information online. Would you like to start doing some boot camps with me? You know, I mean, this is 2009, right, seven years after I originally wanted to go after lots of frustration. And God laid that passion on my heart, but he didn't tell me a timeline, right? And back to Ray's story in the clip and the reason I chose it, Ray wanted what he thought was to go out to the corn, but the first thing he heard was if you build it, he will come, not knowing that the he that he was talking about was his father. That he didn't know that, you know, growing up, his dad was gone. And his dad, through the magic of the movies and through, you know, God's provision, if you believe that in this movie, right, his dad was able to come back and be there as a young man and he gets to know his dad and play catch with his dad. And had he went off into the corn with these other people, he would have missed the opportunity to be with his dad. You know, and so sometimes we misunderstand God's invitation and think that the enemy will start spinning at God's holding out on you or you really didn't hear right or any of that. No, you just got to trust that God's got you. And in his time, it will come to fruition, right?

I think a lot of things to do for him. We don't get immediate good things happening, but at the end we will. Yeah, in God's time for sure.

And so I'm going to actually switch to another clip, right, and I have the next clip. And so this is from a TV show called Rings of Power. And so it's based on the Lord of the Rings series, the Hobbit series. One of the, J.R. Tolkien was the writer of all that and he was a Christian man and it's all Christian based. Even though it seems like it's way out there, it is all just… You can see the gospel in it. The gospel is all through it.

He and C.S. Lewis were good friends who wrote Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the Chronicles of Narnia. That's all more streamlined into Christianity, but so was Lord of the Rings. And so one of the writers on this is one of the descendants of J.R. Tolkien and they keep pretty true to a lot of the stuff.

And so in the scene you have a character that appears in the first episode. There's a bunch of hobbits, which if you don't know what hobbits are, they're really little people. And so a bunch of hobbits and they're not supposed to mix with the taller people, kind of like Harold, you know, and us. You know, when he comes in, he's not really supposed to mix with us, but he does.

But that's for you, Harold. Are they all male? No, they're female. Two of the characters, Nori and her friend Poppy, discover this person that crashes with this meteor. They don't know how he gets there. They walk out to where this meteor landed and there's somebody laying there. And they get to know him, but he doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know how he got there. He just knows he's there, doesn't know his name, so they call him the Stranger. And so for a good portion, you know, going in and out of storylines, he's trying to figure out who he is and realizes that he has to go on an adventure to find out who he is. And he's being called to a place he doesn't even know where he's being called, but he knows he needs to go.

And so they agree to go with him as friends to help him try to find out who he is. So where we pick up this scene is they're walking along and Nori and Poppy keep suggesting names to him. You know, what about this name? What about this name?

It's been going on for a while now, but I want you to listen to this interchange and how he answers how you get your name. What about Dardaric? Dardaric. All right, all right.

And why's? It is a fine name. Nevertheless, it is not going to be mine. I know. Fredegar.

But don't you see? No one can give you a name. It is yours already. It is who you are. And when you hear it spoken, you feel your heart glow. You'll hear it one day. I'm sure of it.

We'll find out who you are. So one of the talks we do at boot camp is called the new name talk. And so, you know, the whole concept behind it is just as God has many names, just as Jesus has many names, we all have many names.

And in Revelation, it talks about that there's a white stone that God will give each one of us that has a name written on it that only us and God know. And so where this comes is God has names. And if you're a parent, you probably have nicknames for your kids. Sometimes those are great nicknames, sometimes they're not so great nicknames, but you have things that you call them. My daughter, Sydney, we always called her Squid.

She didn't really like it so much, but it arrived with her name. You know, Caleb was Sea Dog. And Eli was E. And Rachel was Rue. And they were just names, and they're still their nicknames that they go by. Even now, Rachel's son, my grandson, calls Sydney Aunt Squid.

You just can't get away from them. There's names that parents bestow on you that become a part of your identity and who you are. You can call me Grunt. Okay, we can call you that. We can call you Grunt instead of Grant.

But a couple stories on that. My first boot camp, and I've shared these on the air, so you've probably heard them before. But my first boot camp, I'm out there and I'm listening, and God gives me the name Teacher. And everybody else is getting cool names like Maximus, and you know, from Gladiator, and you know, something from Braveheart, or you know, William Wallace. And I get Teacher, you know. And I am bummed about this for years.

Like, okay God, everybody else gets a name, I get a vocation. Thank you, I appreciate it. You know, and this goes on for, until last year. Sometime last year.

From 2002 to 2023. Your mentality slowed? Well, I was not very, I was very clueless.

Let's just put it that way. And so I'm at a boot camp, and I'm kind of complaining about this name that God gives me. And I hear Jesus say, well you know, they called me Teacher. And my whole perspective changed. I realized, man, that was such an honor you bestowed on me way back here. That I didn't have ears to hear until now. And I will never ever complain about that name again.

It was such an honor. And another thing, and if you know some of my story, I won't get into all of it, but I grew up with an older sister who is 28 years older than me. Incredibly mean to me. All she ever said to me was, shut up motor mouth, you have nothing to say.

You know, why are you still talking? Those kinds of things. And so I grew up with this, I have nothing to say agreement that the enemy got me to buy into. And I lived with it most of my life. And it affected me much of my adult life. And so one of my boot camps, when I'm asking about my new name, because you continue to go out and ask, because God has many names for you.

And it's about, it helps you have keys to your identity, and your calling, and to your invitation, to your purpose, to all the stuff we're talking about. And so, you know, he says, one time I'm out there and he said, I said, God, what's my name? He said, I already told you. I said, yeah, yeah, I know. He's like, well, what's my name?

He said, you already have it. I said, yeah, I know, God, why are you being so cryptic? You know, and so he shared that, you know, Sam, you know, I call you Sam.

And I'm like, well, that's weird, right? And so I find out from one of the guys at boot camp that the name in Hebrew for Sam means God hears. That's literally what that means is that even though people don't hear me, it doesn't matter, God hears me. There's not a greater compliment than God hears me, right? And so he'd already given me that name, and it went right after my wound from my sister. It went right after the lie that the enemy tried to tell me that you have nothing to say. It went right after, you know, the calling that God's placed on my life to speak up and to do a radio show with my friends or to do boot camps with my friends and stuff like that. None of that would have been available if I lived under that old identity of someone that has nothing to say. Yeah, you've been both a voice that I listen to and a teacher, so I definitely see that as you're living out your name, your identity.

Well, thank you, and it's been a part of that. All these topics that we talk about, I know sometimes it seems like we go round and round, but if you really think about the Scriptures, they go round and round. They do. They keep coming back to the same tenets. Right, the same points, the same things. And part of that is, as humans, we're just slow. We don't get it.

We have an enemy constantly telling us the opposite of that as well, too, so who are you going to believe? I will start talking more. There you go. There you go.

Andy, I don't know that we have time to get your clip in. All right, well, I'll tell you about it real quick. So as far as invitation, God, after this, you learn at boot camp all this stuff, this identity, this invitation to be with God, you have to fight for anything within the kingdom. You have to fight for it.

We are in a war. And a lot of times I just didn't want to. And God, one of my early names, before I got my name that I feel like really resonated with me, he called me Mighty Warrior. And I hear a lot of guys get this, and I wonder why.

Why is that so much? You do have a battle environment at boot camp because we are truly in a battle, and that is taught. With that being said, God calls us all into battle. I think he gives every one of his sons the name Mighty Warrior.

I believe that with all my heart because it's a necessity for all of us. And so this clip was from Kingdom of Heaven where Balian is this wayward kid who hasn't been raised without his father. His father comes back into his life, and his father is a great warrior, and his father begins to train him in battle.

And even though his father dies, Balian goes in and becomes the hero of the story and shows great character. Not just a warrior, but a warrior with great character. And that's where I feel like God showed me, first of all, open wars upon you whether you would risk it or not. From like Lord of the Rings, you have to step into that battle. But in doing so, I begin to learn to fight, and that fighting can be different. It could be standing in truth, which is very important, but it also could be doing, you know, you can do war with love, and there's ways that you do that. The biggest thing he's taught me in being a warrior is wait.

Wait and ask. Don't take an action like you used to. You may engage in the wrong battle, but God teaches you that skill of how to war. People think you can just be a warrior just because somebody gives you a name.

You have to step into that, but be taught in it and trained in it, and he'll do it for you. Yeah, God's yet to give me the name warrior, and I think the reason for that is I just fought at everything. I never had a problem fighting.

You didn't need any encouragement there. No, I need the name wise warrior, you know, because what he's really taught me over the years is to wait. Like you said, wait and listen and ask. Because there is a time to fight, but there's the right time to fight. Go back and look at how David would approach God on every battle and God would give him different advice. We're called as warriors to go fight for things, but to fight with God, not with God, but alongside God against the enemy and against those things. We'll talk with you next week. Go to masculinejourney.org.