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 the entrenched barricade. This is Andy with the masculine journey. Stops all the gophers, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we're real entrenched here, but yeah, welcome back. This is Andy. I am filling in for Sam this week, and we're talking. This is Jim's topic. I am going to let him set it up a little bit for us, but yeah, go ahead, Jim.
This is about. Giving grace and forgiveness. Who needs it? How you do it will be, I think, something we want to cover in this part of the evening or afternoon. And it is a matter of this came from the Lord's Prayer.
Yeah, Matthew six. Yes, we are forgiven as we forgive. And we talked about grace as well, and that was a big focus. the The bit major difference is somebody you can be ungracious towards people that you don't know. I mean, that's.
A very common thing, and we'll get to my prejudice shortly, especially in certain parts of the country. But the real issue is: how do we give, and who needs our forgiveness and our grace? Gotcha.
So we're going to play my clip going into that, and this is from Fireproof. You have Caleb and Catherine; they're married, and things aren't going well. They're really close to divorce. Caleb has had a problem with porn, but it's it's much bigger than that. He wants to.
He's very selfish. Really hasn't loved his life, his wife well. Spoken a lot of very hurtful things. Done a lot of hurtful things. And he's challenged by his dad to read this book called The Love Dare, and he's been working through that.
And this is an interaction. I believe Catherine gets sick, and he's kind of helping her. But then it leads into this conversation, and I'll talk about my story when we get back. Why are you doing this? I have learned.
You never leave your partner, especially in a fire, Caleb. What's happened to you? Dad asked me if there was anything in me that wanted to save our marriage, and then he gave me something. I could let you read it. Was it this?
How long have you known? I found it yesterday.
So, what day are you on? Forty-three. There's only forty. Who says I have to stop, Caleb? I don't know how to process this.
This is not normal for you. Welcome to the new normal. You didn't want to do this at first, did you? No. But halfway through, I realized that I did not understand what love was, and once I understood that, I wanted to do it.
Kaleb, I want to believe that this is real, but I am not ready to say that I trust you again. I understand that, but whether you ever reach that point or not, I need you to understand something. I am sorry. I have been so selfish. For the past seven years, I have.
Trampled on you with my words and with my actions. I have loved other things when I should have loved you. In the last few weeks, God has given me a love for you that I have never had before, and I have asked Him to forgive me, and I am hoping, I am praying. That somehow you would be able to forgive me, too.
So in that scene, he's he's definitely asking for that forgiveness, but he's actually led with grace. He's he's helping her through being sick. He's being there for. When he hadn't been there before, and it's much easier to receive forgivenesses if we sprinkle in grace as a part of that, and that's what he's done. And obviously, she responds to it, but he has, you know, even though he's asking for her forgiveness, he he's already had to forgive her because she her response to him, and he realizes he started it, but her response to him hasn't been good either.
So you have that perfect combination right there—an example of forgiveness and grace. At least, I mean, it doesn't. She's still working on the forgiveness part, but he's actually asking for that's, you know, that's a that's a step and a directive from the Bible. But I don't know; just a good example to me, and to me, this this is a lot of my story here. You know, I struggled with porn early in my marriage, and they got past all that.
And then later in life, I had, I was like him. If you watch this movie, he was very hard on her heart, like I was my wife's. And there were things I thought I was doing a lot of the right things, and I think I was in some ways. But there was a lot that was really jacked up. I didn't know who I was, and I didn't have my heart back.
And we've had conversations like that, and it hasn't led to full restoration. You know, we consider each other friends now, and but you know, it's hard for me to watch. I mean, it's because I haven't seen the full. I know how the movie turns out, but but with that being said, I know that I've taken a lot of the same actions that he did. And I know that God.
I mean, I didn't have a lot of grace for myself in the beginning. When I begin to see myself for who I was, and God has worked me through. If God can forgive you, surely you should be able to forgive yourself. But whenever you get a, you know, what you feel like is kind of a messed up life from it. That you're not where you would like to be, and that kind of thing.
There's a lot of regret, but it's His favor, His grace. That sees me through all that. God's have blessed my life in so many different other ways, but that to me is that hits home. That hits home when I tell somebody that asks, "How long have you been married?" It's fifty three years now. Say, oh, how did you do that?
And the real answer is, and sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I blither. But the answer is God. I mean, there were times in those fifty-three years we were little more than angry roommates. There were other times we were madly in love. But what really cinched it was during a period when, and actually, it's been two now that my wife was in a deep state of depression, and that's when God gave me the grace to help through that.
And the last time, oh, you are going to leave me! You are going to leave me! I am never going to leave you. Until God calls me home, but that's the caveat. But if we have grace and forgiveness, and that needs to be with family, with friends, with everyone, and that will mend the worst possible problems with relationships.
Yeah, that movie is kind of tough for me too because you know I'll never forget I went to see it with Tammy at the time I was struggling with porn, which I did for years and years and years and years. And we walk out of the theater and she says, "If I ever knew you did anything like that, this marriage would be over that minute." You know, and that was like alarms going off in my head. Whoop whoop whoop! You know, you better not. You better not come clean, slash.
You know, you better get clean, but struggle as I did, and that drove you. I'm sure that statement drove you to more secrecy, exactly. More, more shame. Yeah, more shame and more secrecy, and and don't let it out because you know the result. You're done, right?
But then you, then I know the second part of that. Yeah, and so you know, almost have survivor's guilt though. And as I as I talk to you, that eventually it came to go into a boot camp about understanding that Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted and to set the captives free.
Well, if I was captive, I was a hundred percent captive into an addiction that I had no clue. What I was doing or how to get out of it, and there was no working your way out of that one that I could find anyway. And it was through, you know, coming to these meetings with you guys Tuesday night that Sam got very vulnerable, not on the subject of pornography, but on the situation with his within his own family. And as I saw him get Actual answers from Jesus that were deep inside of a younger part of him. It gave me hope to say, "Oh, you mean this addiction might have something to do with a wound?
This addiction might have something to do with something that happened to me when I was younger, and set up what became a you know a session where Jesus brought me out and and healed me." Then. Coincidentally, not a week later, there is a marriage retreat, right? And imagine that! Imagine that! It's a masculine journey marriage retreat with Darren and Sam and all these guys.
And and the very last day, they have a the only time I've ever heard about it or seen it since before since a joint. Covenant of Silence.
Okay, you're supposed to go out there with your partner and share something. Here's the instructions that Sam gave. As I'm like, he says, "Now I want you to go out there and share something with your partner, like you would share it with God that you've never been able to share before." Well, the Holy Spirit is like, it is time. Don't don't don't. Like it is, and like.
You know the movie does not do justice to what that does to your wife's heart when she, when you have to come clean that, you know you're lusting after other women, doing looking at things you shouldn't be looking at and doing things you shouldn't be doing, and you know I had to sit there and watch that, but as I watched it. I got a taste of something I was not expecting, which was true love, which was true grace. Yeah, that, unlike your situation, my wife did forgive me, and she did. Um, trust me. Although the relationship changed, and she even said, "You know, I always had you up on a pedestal.
You would never do anything like that," and. For the first time in my life, when I felt love for my wife, which didn't happen, believe me, overnight. It was months when I felt that I she was loving me, right? And that wasn't the mask that she was loving anymore. She was loving, you know, the real sinner that needed the forgiveness, and so.
When I say all that, and I listen to what you're saying, Andy, I can't help but just think in my heart that God isn't so interested in our life being what we think it should be. No, of course not. He's way and and and this ministry is a perfect example of that. What I've seen this ministry never should have gone through that in my book, but in God's book, he was more way more interested in Darren's heart. He was more interested in Sam's heart.
He was more interested in Andy's heart. He was more interested in Robby's heart. He's more interested in Andy's heart in this marriage. Then everything working out the way that you may think it is. I just you know, and and I think he loves God is so good and he loves us so much.
If we could only get a glimpse of it, we could let go of trying to solve all our problems and and allow him to show us. You know, he's he's going about it the whole time. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Is even though it didn't, it's not so far, and I'm not saying that that's not going to happen, but it's been time and that. Time is like I look at my life during that time.
I feel His grace in my maturity, in my patience, which I used to never have. In a lot of things, still not perfect, still mess up a lot. But look at the people in the Bible that God did the most with—is the people that didn't get what they wanted for years. You know, Jacob worked fourteen years for two wives. You know, Joseph, who knows how long it was ten, fifteen years that he was in bondage, or what, or in in Potiphar's house, or whatever.
But not really where he he where he was. He wasn't Abraham. They weren't bowing down and worshiping him, you know, or whatever, like like the the the grain from the dream, or whatever. But you know, just. Things do you find God's grace in them, and not everybody's story is the same.
And I want to make that point. My my point, though, is is it you know it's hard to see any kind of time where brokenness is brokenness is revealed and the hurt that happens on multiple people. But that's all of our stories, and we're looking for God's grace into bring some kind of. Reconciliation and truth and and love, love and goodness in it, and he does again. We have an idea that it has to work out the way we expect it to, and it doesn't always do.
Doesn't always work that way. That's for sure. And you brought up a great example in the earlier show, Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, seventy years, right? God. Required that of them right before he brought them back.
True. That's another. That's a really long one, for sure. I had to stifle a laugh when you said that you were asked how long you'd been married, because I was asked the same question yesterday, and I said twelve years.
Well, you said that earlier. I didn't understand that they they knew us and they knew that wasn't true. It's actually sixty-two, but the twelve is what I really wanted it to be. I wanted people to realize that I want to treat her like we've been married twelve years instead of sixty-two. I cannot believe that we've been married sixty-two years.
I'm still excited about being married to her. We we met someone at dinner who was delighting in us as we delighted in her. Who was ninety two? And so, how long have you and your husband been married?
Well, was it six years? Six years, yeah. They met on they met on a mission trip to to Cuba. Both of them went there to Cuba. They they weren't they didn't meet.
They weren't on the same mission trip, but they wound up in the same Sally group.
Well, shout out to Sally. And that's right. We we're gonna. Yeah, embarrassed her by mentioning her name.
So there you go. The you know part of this whole thing about forgiveness and grace is when you receive it. And your Robby touched on it with his story there. And years ago, I was involved in you know, recovering twelve step programs, working through the amends process. And you, I'd made a list of people I'd harmed, and that kind of thing.
And you know, I had some people on the list, and then there was some that may have been on the list. But I left a meeting one night. I will never forget this. I left a meeting one night. I'm headed home.
It's about twenty minute drive home, and so I stopped at the store to get me a Pepsi. And so I just pulled in the store. You know, no thoughts. You had a good meeting, having a good time. Walk in the store, and go back to the drink counter.
And when I start back, no. When I walk in, I realize there's this girl behind the counter. Who's a girl that that I was I used during my addictions? I did, and I think we never had a a bona fide relationship, as they would say, an old brother, where aren't there? It wasn't bona fide, and you know I just did her wrong many different ways, and she had every right.
Next time she saw me, to shoot me, I mean, just just the way it was. And so when I walked in the store, I saw her, and the fear that came over me. And I thought, if I want this Pepsi, I'm gonna have to talk to her. I'm thinking I'm not that thirsty. Just drop it on the ground.
So I started to walk out, but I got the Pepsi. I went and I checked out. Didn't say a whole lot to her, and got in the car. And started pulled out of the parking lot and going up the road, and it was like God said, "Where do you think you're going?" I thought, "I'm going home." You think you're going to sleep? I said, "Go back, go back." This is the opportunity.
So I turn around. I'm thinking, "Well, you know, to be absent from the body, be present with the Lord." You know, hold on yards, and I go back in the store and I said, "Look." I said, I need to talk to you. I said I was a scoundrel, and I said if you don't even want to talk to me, it's okay. And so she and I had a conversation, and she was very graceful and very forgiving, and she showed me grace and mercy. She said, "Danny, I'm glad you've got your life straight." She said, "You're a good guy." And she said, "You know, just good to see you and that kind of thing." And I thought, you know what, I did not deserve not one word of that, and I knew that, but it allowed me to see going forward that there is grace and mercy.
No matter how bad you've been, no matter what, and and God will show it to you in some amazing and some awkward opportunities. Yep. Yeah. And every time I went and knocked on somebody's door, showed up, it amazed me the grace and mercy. That I was shown, and I didn't deserve much of any of it because you know I'd been a scoundrel, and and so but you know when you do that, you and then you learn a little bit, and one more quick story: when my son was about seven years old, you know we.
I'm going to church.
Well, he come in one night, or I was making him lunch in the morning. And when you know he got ready to go to school, he said, "You don't have to make me a lunch. I got one from yesterday or something." He said something, and we're busy in the morning. I didn't pay no attention to him, and out the door he goes, goes to school. That evening, he comes and Michelle and I are in in the bedroom, you know, doing different stuff and everything.
And here comes Cody, little man, seven years old. If you know Cody now, he's thirty one and he's a big dude. Yeah, he comes marching in there. Michelle says, "Son, what can I do for you?" He said, "I need to talk to Danny." I mean, just big as life. And he steps around her, has his lunchbox in his hand, and he says.
I lied to you, and I went really. And he told me the story of how he had lunch and he did something, and I don't remember exactly what it was because by this time I had tears in my eyes because here was a child showing me what it's like to come into the Father's grace and to do exactly what Scripture says to confess your sins, and and and he is faithful to forgive you. And he got done with his little spiel, and he went back to his room. Michelle said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to do exactly what Scripture says: forgiveness and grace." Because he manned up more than I've ever manned up sometimes, and you, I won't ever forget that that little seven year old man. Yeah, and I think so.
You, my son, taught me more about grace and mercy than.
Sounds like an episode of Danny Griffith. He did, yeah. There was a whistle playing in the background when he was doing this. Great story.
Well, I guess I'll jump in. Yeah, go ahead. My other one. This is a weird story, and it reveals a few of my prejudices. I am a Southern boy, may not always sound like it, but I always.
Even though I have some Yankee cousins that I used to fight literally with, we fought the Civil War. But I have generally been prejudiced against Yankees, and I kind of boiled that down to big city folks as I matured. Smoking has nothing to do with that. That's another one of my prejudices. And prejudice sounds—it's an evil word these days—and you can't be prejudiced, but we all are.
It's basically just prejudging on something that you haven't gotten to know the person. And we were on a a cruise, and that's where I do my most of my evangelism. And I had on my Life is tough. God is good. Shirt, which is one of my favorites, because it'll often start a conversation.
And I sat down with a guy and started talking to him. And first of all, is immediately obviously he's obvious. He was a New York City kind of Yankee, which is was in my mind the worst kind. And added to that. He says, "Well, I'm a lawyer, and you don't want to talk to me." I said, "Why not?" I said, "Well, I'm not going to listen to you.
I'm Jewish, and God gave me in that moment a bit of grace." I said, "Oh, it's wonderful to meet one of God's chosen people, and this is a New York City Jewish lawyer." Folks that don't tend to be at a loss for words, and I sort of stunned him to silence. He says, "I've never heard that before." Long story short, probably too late already, but we became close. He was trying to convert me to Judaism, and I said, "I'm I'm ready because." You know Jesus was Jewish and a Messianic Jew. I probably don't deserve that great a title. And and I was talking to him about God.
And one of the moments he said, "Well, I want to be believe in God, but I can't." Now here's a guy that led the Shabbat service, and I went to it with him. And the only reason they had a minion is because I was there. I was the twelfth guy as a A Gentile, but in that moment he said, "You know, both my wife and I lost parents and other special people in the Holocaust, and that sort of led him to give up on God. But he was still being a good Jew. Doing he knew the." Hebrew language better than any of the other ones there, and I knew in that.
And we became as good of friends as you can be. And I think that was actually a two-week cruise, so we had a while, and we spent a lot of time together. And that's a guy I learned to love, and had nothing but the grace of God that brought that about. And one of the things I did want to cover, and this was to illustrate that, we have to learn to, and love is the basis. Learn to forgive, and be gracious as God is, and we can only do that through showing His love to others.
Yeah. You got something? Oh, we were we're pointing to God and we're telling you there's one minute left. Whichever you prefer, Robby, Aaron. Are y'all gonna sing a duet here?
What's up here? Go ahead, speak.
Well. You know, it wasn't really my idea.
Some of y'all brought it up here, but at dinner tonight, Harold's wife, Jan, we were discussing the topic, and she said, "Well, you have to forgive yourself." And yeah, so that's what. Several of you have spoken about that, and you know, we're we hope as we go along in life, we We are running out of time, y'all. Come join us next week. Watch us. We're all running out.
Forgive and have grace for yourself this week. That's right.
