This is the Truth Network Podcast. Next Week We're revisiting that and sharing some of the adventures that individually has us on and collectively in some cases. And so that's what we'll be talking about today.
Wow, that sounds great. I'm excited, I can tell you are, right? Danny, what about you? Are you excited?
I'm excited, I'm overwhelmed. Are you? Yeah.
Sorry to hear that. Try to take it easy on you. Yeah, but the thing that I want to say is, well, I'm gonna play my first clip and our first clip, but it's my clip, that's why I said my first clip.
We have a little running joke here, if you guys haven't heard. We always have competition to see who has the first clip, and since I'm running the board, I picked me. We don't have competition. We really don't, but there's competition amongst you all to see who has it. But no, I asked the group who wants to have the first clip this week.
True, did that happen? You asked and the silence was deafening. And so I picked me. Yeah, so if in doubt, I'm gonna pick me. Kind of sounds like my whole selfish behavior that God's tried to get me past. Maybe that's my adventure for this year. This clip is from Lord of the Rings, the first movie, Fellowship of the Ring. If you haven't seen it, boy, it's really hard to explain, but let me just tell you what's kind of going on. You have this bad guy that they're trying to defeat. In order to defeat the bad guy, they gotta take this ring that controls everybody and throw it into the pit of fire from which it was made. Mount Doom, right? And so they have a council of different groups of people from different tribes, so to speak, from different walks of life that are there, and they're all trying to decide who's gonna go take this to Mount Doom. And so one of the smallest ones there, Frodo, he's a hobbit, which is pretty small. Harold, I'm not gonna say anything.
And the, and. He would be tall for a hobbit. He would be the tallest hobbit.
He'd be like Wilt Chamberlain Hobbit is who he would be, or Kareem Abdul-Hobbit, something like that. Yeah, but, and so what we do is the smallest one speaks up and says, I will take the ring, and I want you to listen to that, and then we'll talk about why we played this clip. I will take the ring to Mordor.
Though, I do not know the way. I will help you bear this burden, Frodo Baggins, as long as it is yours to bear. By my life or death, I can protect you.
I will. You have my sword. And you have my bow. And my axe. You carry the face of us all, little one. If this is indeed the will of the council, then Gondor will see it done. Here! Mr. Frodo's not going anywhere without me.
No, I need it as hardly possible to separate you, even when he is summoned to a secret council. And you are not. Oi, we're coming, too.
We'll have to send this old tide off in a sack to stop it. Anyway, you need people of intelligence on this sort of mission, quest, thing. Well, that rules you out.
I'm... Well, that rules you out. I am companions. So be it. You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring.
Right. Where are we going? Well, there's a couple reasons I chose that. First of all, I chose it collectively for the group, and I'll tell you about that, and then I'll tell you about why I chose it individually for me to represent some things about me and my adventures with the Father. But we are a very, your term, Jim, unique group of people that come from all different backgrounds, just different denominations, different churches, all sorts of things. For the longest time, none of us went to church together, and now there's a couple of us that kind of go to church together, a couple sets of people go to church together. And anyway, we are a fellowship of the Lord, right? And we're going to do this boot camp, and we have a new boot camp coming up.
It's March 13th through 16th. It's in a different place. We're stepping out. We're stepping out of our comfort zone. We're going even out of the state. We're going to Royston?
Royston. Thank you. Two states away. Two states away. We've got to go all the way through South Carolina to get to this one. So we're going to Royston, Georgia, to Camp Little Light. And so we're going to be heading down there. We're going to be there March 13th through 16th. We are able to keep our pricing as of right now, the same price, $1.99. This will probably be about the last boot camp we'll be able to do that.
There's a lot of, just as in your own homes, you know, as prices have gone up, they've gone up for everybody, and we're holding down the prices as long as we can. So if you're not sure if you can afford more than $1.99, this would be a great boot camp to come to because we know we can keep the price there. And if finances are a problem, please reach out to us, and we'll find a way to help get you there.
You know, don't let finances be the issue. We're excited about it. We're also sad about it because not all of our team can go, you know, on this particular trip. But we are excited that God's taken us on a new adventure. And so we're looking forward to what he has in store there.
Danny, you want to add something? To be clear, they didn't run us out of state. We're going freewheel, right? It remains to be seen. Oh, yeah. Define run us out.
No, they didn't. I'd rather not. Yeah, no. So back to the clip from Fellowship of the Ring. I would love to say that most of the time I'm Frodo.
You know, hey, I'll take the ring, you know, and have this real confidence. And even though I don't know the way, which is usually the case, I don't know the way, I'm more an often like Pippin that you hear at the end. You know, I need somebody smart to go on this quest thing, you know. You want to know where the second breakfast is, too.
I do, yeah. I want to know where the second breakfast is. And my adventures with God, you know, I've learned to be quite honest when I first thought about asking God what he wanted me to do with my life, I was one of those people that you hear about that I was afraid he'd make me be a missionary to another country, you know. And I'm like, God, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to be a missionary to another country. He's never asked me to do that yet, so I'm grateful for it. But I am grateful that the adventures he's taken me on have been so life-changing that I do sign up for him. I'm like, yeah, God, I'm in. I don't know where we're going, and most of the time I am like Pippin.
I have no clue. Where are we going? Even if I think I know where we're going, I have no idea where we're going.
That's kind of like the word of the year we've been talking about. Go ahead, Jim. I'll be talking about Alaska later, but you were talking about not wanting to do it. When we got back from our mission to Alaska, my wife and I, we were at a church where the pastor must have said two or three times in the first four weeks we were there, now it doesn't mean God's going to call you to Alaska, or it does if that's where you're going.
He may. I say that God doesn't call me on those things, but he's had me go on one mission trip so far. I'm really pondering another mission trip this summer. I'm just praying through that. I really feel God laying it on my heart to go do that down to Honduras. I'm just praying about if that's really what he wants me to do or not, but I have a feeling I'll be stepping out of my comfort zone going into a different country later this year, but hopefully he'll let me leave there, not make me stay. We don't have time for another clip, but guys, what are you excited about on your adventures with God or things that you'd like to share?
Rodney, do you have anything you want to share? Well, I'm just trying to think through. There's so many things that happen in your life.
It's like, well, which one is coming out the most? And for me, it's just been this whole ordeal with my health, which really I didn't even know what was going on until my boss tries to grab me and says, it wasn't even my boss, it was the manager of health there, and he came by and grabbed me and said, oh, I need you to come with, follow me, I need you to come talk to somebody or something. Oh, okay, I just kind of went. Next thing you know, I'm sitting in the health office and somebody's, they're checking me, oh, he's got this or that, he's not responding. The next thing you know, they're calling the ambulance and the ambulance is there and I'm like, what is going on?
I mean, it happens so fast. I've got one thing on my mind and they've got another and I'm like, okay, I just end up going. They do all these tests and then they, oh, well, they're telling me about all this, just you need to relax and all this stuff. I'm like, can you tell me what's going on? I go through all these things and end up, at least now I know how healthy I am. I'm like, everything they've checked, I've been fine, fine, fine. They're still checking some things, so they did close up a little hole in my heart or something, but it's one of those things where I don't think any of it was needed, but maybe it was because at least it made me stop, slow down and think about, okay, well, where am I? What am I doing?
Why am I doing these things? And at least makes me be responsible to God in understanding who I am and where I'm going. It was just a big, long monthly ordeal and it's over except for some few checks and... Checks you got to write or checks they got to do? Well, I know.
They're still went too. Yeah, they're still checking on me. Okay. But there are checks which, again, that's the whole thing that you got to understand is you're going through this whole ordeal and what do you get from everybody else? Oh, you got this much time. You got to be paying. You got to be paying. It's like I've paid my whole amount for my deductibles and all that stuff.
I've paid everything. Why are you still pressuring me? And you just got to keep going through that saying, just back off. It's going to be okay.
You just got to live with that. Yeah, it's not all adventures are fun. Right. But the cool thing is God's in the middle of all of them.
Right? The ones that aren't fun, the ones that are fun, if you invite him in, he's right there and he's there anyway. It's just you don't really notice he's there unless you're saying, God, I'm here with you.
And that's what I was doing. Just trying to be with him as much as I could. We'll go to masculinejourney.org to register for the boot camp coming up March 13th through 16th in Royston, Georgia. We'll talk to you after the break. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I think sometimes as men, we feel like we're on our own and we've got to do everything ourselves and the weight of the world is on our shoulders and it's our job to fix everything and make everything right and have all the answers. And I think when you come here, you just get really honed back in and reminded that God really is for us, that a good father helps you and a good father makes you have all the tools you need and a good father comes through for you when you need him and you just feel less alone.
Register today at masculinejourney.org Welcome back. Yes, I know we used that a couple weeks ago as a clip, but it's such a perfect bump for adventure. Doesn't it just get your motor running? Absolutely. Yeah? Anyone remember who sings that? Steppenwolf. That's right. That is Steppenwolf. And we cut it off too soon. He was about to say, yeah, Lord.
In some versions. He's going to make it happen. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I dabbled some with the lyrics. Yeah. He's next. Yeah. Well, Danny, you are next on this topic of Adventures with a Father.
So what do you want to do? Well, first we'll give a shout out to our producer, Keith, because we've had an adventure with some technology around here and our great producer has pulled us through week to week. So shout out to Keith. Well, Keith's the real star of the program anyway.
We just kind of hang out. But my clip is from a little movie. It's a 20-minute movie, I think. You can find it on YouTube called Butterfly Circus.
And we always recommend when we use the clip, go look it up. It's worth the 20 minutes to watch. Great movie. And the star, obviously, is a guy named Will, and he has no arms or legs. And he's had a tough time in life, obviously, with different challenges with circuses and stuff. But in this clip, they stopped when they were traveling or whatever. They were in this swimming hole, this river or anything.
And he doesn't have any arms or legs. And he's asking them for help to get to where they are because they walked across a log. But what Will discovers in this adventure is some cool things about him that will change his life.
And that's the reason I chose it was the adventure in not knowing. And so you can play the clip when we talk about it. I can't find my caterpillar. Where is he? He's right there in the cocoon, see? He'll be fine.
You won't even recognize him when he comes out. Oh, wow. Hey! Hey, George!
Puppy! I need help to cross. Can anyone help me? Hey, George!
Can you help me? Hey, where are you going? What's the matter with you? Are you just going to leave me here? I think you'll manage.
What? I guess I'll just magically get up, huh? Hey, George!
Puppy! How's the water? It's time for a swim. Hey! Hey, Will, you coming in?
Hey, I think you're coming in! Will! Will!
Will! I can swim! Well, Will falls in and he learns he can swim. And what ultimately happens after that is he becomes an act in the circus. A high dive act.
And, you know, transforms some lives and a lot of different things with that. And he didn't know what he was getting into. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, Sam, that a lot of times we don't know what we're getting into. I would say I don't think we ever know truly what we're getting into with an adventure we've got. Because he's going to take you further than you really thought you could go.
And that's what happened to Will. And, you know, we've been on kind of an adventure with Michelle and I lately. And thought we were relocating and now that's changed. And so we're staying in King for lots of different reasons. But the adventure is still going on. That there are lots of things that are still up in the air and we're okay with them being up in the air. And because what we're discovering is that we're learning, this is a season, we're really learning to lean in on God. On everything.
And, you know, with job situations, with church situations and all sorts of different things. And this adventure has really been cool because it has increased our faith immensely. So that's the, I don't know what that was. Yeah, I got nothing. That's been the adventure now is knowing that I don't know. Yeah.
And it's really cool. Yeah, and I think you said things obviously a lot better than I did. You know, I made the statement that I look forward to the adventures with God. That's true. I look forward to the outcome a lot of times. Because sometimes adventures that God allows you to go on aren't pleasant.
They're not fun. Right, but it's to grow us and to learn us or maybe it's a consequence of a choice we made. You know, that we're living out.
And God lets us continue to live in that. But we can get learning from it if we lean into him. You know, I guess what I say is I'm excited about even the things that I don't find very pleasurable or I don't really want to go do. I'm wanting more and more to lean into God and say, okay, God, what's the learning? What's the takeaway? I don't want to be here again. I don't want to be in this version of Groundhog Day and end up back in this place again.
So, you know, what do I need to do to learn to move past this? It's interesting because Scripture says that word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. And, you know, the visual of that is that you just see right what's in front of you.
Because most of us, if you saw the light on down the path, you'd probably turn around and go back anyway. Yeah, there's only a few people in Scripture that God really kind of tells them how it's going to turn out. He tells David he's going to be king. He doesn't tell him when, you know. Anyways, you have to three to get there.
You know, because if had he told him all that, he might have went, hey, I'm not so sure about this. Just think about Noah. It's going to rain.
What's rain? Yeah. Water's going to fall from the sky. Exactly. Really?
And it's going to blow up from the bottom. Yeah. Yeah.
He gave Hezekiah 15 years. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I mean, there are times that we're given information like that in Scripture. Harold, we've got a couple minutes left. Is there anything on an adventure you'd like to share with us? Well, the big adventure that I'm on right now is being the guy that used to claim to be the best driver on the highway. To being somebody that doesn't get to drive so much anymore.
The guy that once said very confidently, they'll prize my keys out of my cold, dead hand. And yet here I am now that I'm here tonight because Art let my wife volunteer him to drive me over. And so, yeah, there's a lot of changes that he's putting me through.
I think I'm beginning to have some of the symptoms of Parkinson's. So that's a new adventure, too. And I'm guessing he's trying to see how I'm going to deal with that. You know, am I going to be a man about it or am I going to be a brat?
I'm trying to be a man. Yeah. And so there are a lot of things that we might not think of as adventures and not want to do them. But we don't have a choice. That's a good point. So taking a look at it as, you know, God get me through this.
Because apparently it's not something I can throw out the window. Yeah. That's good. Thank you, Harold. I appreciate you sharing that. So Danny, do we have to call you King Danny this time?
No, just Danny King. Okay. Okay. Just Sir. That works?
Sir will work. Yeah, it just sort of works. Do you want to go on an adventure before we wrap up the show? I just know that when you go on an adventure, you always think, oh, adventure, that sounds great. But many, many, many times God is going to take you through something to show you something that you have to learn from. And I've only been in Christ ten years. But there are many things where at different times you're like, oh, this is what I'm meant to learn out of this and grow from.
And it's really good because you're like, okay, but I've at least set my mind to, okay, I'm prepared for what he has for my future. And recently I was just driving home and it was cold outside. It was, it just snowed, but I was fine. I was driving and next thing I go to turn, take a left and my car goes right off the road, goes under a tree, broke my windshield. It's all tore up and stuff. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I was like, oh, I think I still have insurance on this car because I knew I took it off the truck because it's even older. And I like, nope, don't have any insurance on this.
I'm like trying to figure out, can I get that fixed and for how much and all that kind of stuff. But it just took me through something. I'm like, okay.
And I just put three thousand dollars into this about two or three weeks before I did that. I'm like, oh man, am I going to be able to get this back out or use any of this? It's just one of those things that just happens. And you're like, hmm, what do I need to learn from all of this? So you just kind of live with it and go on and say, thank you, Lord.
You just go. Absolutely. And Harold, you don't have any threat to you being the best driver on the road from Rodney. Well, he wasn't awesome. He didn't stay on the road.
According to the story. I was good on the road, not in the ditch. The road can be ugly sometimes. Harold, you reminded me of my mom there.
Not anything physical. But we're through with that stuff. But she made it to 96 and she outlived my father by about 14 years. And she kept asking me every time I'd visit, why am I still here?
Because she thought she was going first. And we're all here for as long as God wants us here. And there's going to be adventure to the very end.
And I'm not going to pray for your complete healing. Because for me, that means you've graduated to heaven. So we want you to hang around a little longer. Yeah, definitely the adventures God has us on. And I think they only become clear. And they don't all become clear.
But they become clearer when you look back. When you're in the midst of those adventures. When you're in the midst of those trials.
If it's a trial-type adventure. You have no clarity to see anyway. Right? You're so fogged with what's going on. And it's when you can get some distance from it. You can look back and say, okay God, I see what you were doing there. You know, I know that you had me there.
I just didn't know you had me there. Yep. Life, what is it? Life is understood backward but has to be lived forward. Absolutely. That's true.
Absolutely. Well, the adventure we'd love to have you join us on is the adventure to the next boot camp. It's March 13th through 16th. Where is it, Andy? Royston, Georgia.
Yeah, I still can't say that. Camp Little Light. Yeah, Camp Little Light. It's going to be a great place to go. We're learning more about it. Our friend Nikita has his camps there.
Speaks very highly of it. But we'd love to have you join us. If you have any questions, just reach out to any of us. First name at masculinejourney.org. Let yourself be loved by the Father this week.
Go on an adventure with him and love somebody else well. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.
