This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.
So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to Mascoing Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week, and we're talking about a topic that I think everybody faces. I know everybody faces, you know, and you either face it on a positive side or a negative side.
It just depends on what you do with the topic we're talking about, and that's all I'm going to leave it at. We're just going to set it right there.
Now we're we're talking about the topic of what do I need to leave behind? You know, what are those things that I need to leave behind in my life? Is it old identities that keep trying to? Work its way back in, habits, shame, bitterness, guilt—those things that keep dragging us down, keep weighing us down. You know, what are those things that we are really called to leave behind?
And also, maybe we'll share some stories of when God has helped us leave some things behind. And that's what we're talking about today. And and I think it's something that we continue to do throughout our our whole time here on earth, right? Because we're never fully there, and so the the list may get. Shorter, you know, and maybe you know less drastic of things, but it's still always a good question to ask yourself.
I was talking to guys before the show, and I remember somebody telling me, "I don't do New Year's resolutions anymore, you know, because I just break them anyway." But if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it whether it's New Year's or not New Year's, and that's what I realize. But just talking about one of the things you should do towards the end of the year is ask yourself very. Honestly, are there relationships that I need to leave behind? You know, because they're not healthy for me, and that's something that God may call you to. But that's something you also be careful.
God's calling you, not the enemy, right? But there's all sorts of things that God may say, "Hey, it's time to leave this behind." Right, but it's important that we walk with him in it. You guys are shaking your head, which I can't really hear anything. But you guys, anything you want to add? Yes.
Okay. Yeah, we're just agreeing with. Amen.
Okay. All right. Amen.
All right. You have something? No, I actually. Oh, okay. Yes.
Yes.
No. Wow. Never mind. You're supposed to ask questions that can't be answered in yes or no. Yeah.
Do you take your medication today? Over here. They anyway. Robby, you have the first clip. There we go.
Yes.
So yes, no doubt. I have a clip from the movie *Le Miserable*. And if you, long-time listener, undoubtedly, we we use. The one clip from this movie quite often, if you ever come to boot camp, I can just you can count on the fact that you're going to see it because I don't know of a better picture of Grace. But I'm not actually using that clip as the example today because you have the main character of La Miserable is a man by the name of Jean Valjean, and he was unfortunately caught stealing bread.
And did nineteen years hard labor for that, and we're going to hear a mashup.
So we're going to hear the beginning. He's talking to a bishop that's led him in to the house to sleep, and this bishop later will give him tremendous grace. But in this particular scene, he's still carrying his entire identity. In fact, pays particular attention to what he calls himself. I'm a thief.
He calls himself that, and then he says, "I've got this yellow passport." A definitely big part of his identity in the beginning of the movie. And we've often thought that it was yellow because he's on his way to Jean, Jean, because you know the mustard. His mustard passport, absolutely. Their mustard is more brown.
Well, I get it, but nonetheless. We've joked about that for years, but it's such a powerful scene of him explaining his identity. But then you're going to pick it up right to the end of the movie. At this point in time, you'll see he's managed through his life to lay down that identity and actually becoming a phenomenally good man, help out a lot of people, to some beautiful scenes. But this particular scene, the inspector who has followed him his entire life, who is the legalist, right?
Just like Satan is a legalist, he knows he has you on the point of the law, and so he has chased him throughout that. But there was a scene right before this scene, and you are going to hear. Javier, which is his, you know, the inspector's name. You're going to hear him say. You'll hear the transition when he says, "I'm glad I had some time to think about this." The reason he had to think about it was Jean Valjean literally had a chance to kill him and did not.
Right, in spite of the fact that here's a man that's hunted you down like a dog, treated you horribly your entire life, and now you've got this moment, and he chooses to save him, which makes it a very hard problem for the inspector. And the inspector will ask some questions, and you're going to see that Jean Valjean is actually turned his chains loose. He broke them long before. The inspector breaks his chains, but the thing that because he can't see it, when he takes the chains off of Jean Valjean, he's got a gun at his head. By the way, when he takes the chains off of Jean Valjean, he puts them on himself, and then falls back in the river to kill himself.
And we'll talk about that more. But it's it takes a lot of setup because of of that. But go ahead and play it. How do you know I'm not going to murder you? How do you know I'm not going to murder you?
What's that? A joke? I suppose we'll have to trust each other. I didn't kill anyone. I'm a thief.
I stole food. I stole, but I paid for it. Nineteen years in chains.
So they let me out, and they give me a yellow passport. What can I do with a yellow passport? I have to go to my parole officer in Dijon, and then what? Starve to death? Nineteen years, and now the real punishment begins.
I'm glad I have time to myself. I needed to think about what you deserve. You're a difficult problem. Move to the edge. Why aren't you taking me in?
You're my prisoner. Do what I tell you. You don't understand the importance of the law. I've given you an order. Obey it.
Why didn't you kill me? I don't have the right to kill you. But you hate me. I don't hate you. I don't feel anything.
You don't want to go back to the quarries, do you? Then for once we agree. I'm going to spare you from a life in prison, Jean Valjean. It's a pity the rules don't allow me to be merciful. I've tried to live my life without breaking a single rule.
You're free.
So you hear the splash. As again, unlike Jean Valjean, the legalist who thinks he has to earn, right? He has to make sure all the dots of the law have been fulfilled.
So somebody had to pay the price for Jean Valjean going free, and he chose his own life to do that. It's it's a fascinating example of the punishment for those who decide to keep the chains on, right, or put the chains on themselves.
However, you want to go about doing that. And so, as I you would ask it, you know, we think about you know what, where is God showing us a way that we could be turned free of something, and. Little would I know if you'd met me in 2006 that I would, you know, when I started the Christian Car Guy show, most people have thought of me as a car dealer my entire life, and that was very much my identity, and the car business was my life, and very much integral in who I was. God knew better. Talk about somebody helping you.
I never had. I didn't have nothing. I didn't have much to do with it at all, other than choosing not to go back into it after I extracted out of it, due to the fact that you know we lost everything—the dealership, etc., etc.—due to some horrible errors on my part and some thieving on some other people's part. But nonetheless, the fascinating part of this that that that still I see is such a rescue was. That literally for years and years I had nightmares.
Of I had to sell because Chrysler does things where you have to sell so many cars to hit an objective. If you don't, it could be twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars difference in a month in a dealership selling forty or fifty cars, like we were. If you didn't sell that extra two or three cars, and the pressure was, you know, talk about carrying the load that you should have been given to Jesus, but I wasn't back then, and he knew I wasn't, and as a result, it got in my soul. In horrible ways. That, like I said, for years, and it's not like it's totally gone.
Every once in a while, I'll still have the nightmare. But the beautiful part is that, oh my goodness, he knows what you don't know. I mean, that's how much we get to trust him. Like, what? I would have never ever played played that move, but he did, and what a rescue!
What do you think keeps people from letting go, guys? What do you think stops them from doing that? The illusion that we're in control. I mean, why should I let go of something? Because I'm pretty good at controlling things, and obviously God is not controlling this right now the way I want it to go, and so somebody has to, and so that's usually going to be me.
And I mean that's that's why it's hard for me. Let me tell you, Andy, you got something, Dad? I think sometimes other people they continue to remind it and it takes you back there. And if it's something that you're over and you feel like God's healed healed you from it, or giving you perspective or giving you interpretation of what really happened and giving you some peace, but You can't get away from it from what people remember and how you were. That identity they keep you back in that identity, instead of being free.
And and you know a lot of times you get frustrated with that because why can't they see? I mean, like God sees me, even how I see myself. But that's that's the regret I say I carry sometimes is the trauma that I actually caused, and it's some there's consequences that go with it. There are things out of our control. Your point that you know it as much as we would like people to see a different view of it, sometimes they just can't.
I think. What we have to do is continually walk in that way to where they begin to see. But that's just that's just one example of of how we stay there. I think. Yeah, I think another thing that plays into it is the enemy gets you to believe.
Well, if I give myself grace on this, if I let this go, then I'm going to repeat it. Yeah, so I'm going to do that again.
Well, you're not going to, right? You can say I'm grateful. I'm no longer that man. I'm grateful. I no longer have this problem.
But we hold on to those things sometimes because, or we we don't feel like we've earned grace, right? And that's the whole thing. You don't earn grace. It's given. Yep.
Well, we're do it. It's human nature to want to pay for stuff, you know. Yeah, for most people. Yeah, there there is the other side of that equation that we see sometimes. The side, I guess.
Jean Jean Balzac. Yeah, want to pay for that bread? That's right. He did not want to. He probably couldn't.
Anyway, we are very close to getting a boot camp for the spring, so we'll have more to talk about that in the next few weeks. 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 sure you have all the tools you need, and the good father comes through for you when you need him, and you just feel less alone. Register today at MasculineJourney. dot org.
Welcome back. That's Zach Williams, and apparently I have heard him before. I told the guys earlier. I don't think I've ever heard his stuff, and then they reminded me. Apparently, we played him at boot camp.
But I'm not really sure what songs those are, so I have to go back and look at it. But I listened to a couple of his songs, and it's just pretty amazing. How would you feel if you could actually do that, let go of the pain, right, and believe what God's telling you, what God's already done for you, and just let it be truth in your life? There's another song he had, and I was thinking about playing it. I had a snippet from it.
I was going to use it as a clip, but he was talking about the desire to be washed clean. And there's nothing wrong with the song. It was, yes, I remember being before my acceptance of Christ. Yeah, you get this point where you want to be washed clean, but you're washed clean through His blood. Right.
I think the harder thing is just accepting it. And saying, "Oh no! The truth is, I'm already washed clean." Doesn't mean my behavior was okay, right? And I got to repent from it, and I got to move past it, whatever that might be, or the situation, or that old identity, or things we talked about. But the truth is, it's already washed clean, right?
It's just hard to live like that. We're talking before the show about. You know, you look in the mirror, and you often see. I think Darren said you often see who you used to be staring back at you. You know, and the question I'd ask the guys is, you know, why do you think it's so hard to believe what God has to say?
I think some of it comes back to that thing you talked about with control, Darren. Right? I know how to be that other guy. I don't know how to be this new guy. Right?
I just got to do it by faith. That it's kind of a keyword, isn't that? Right. Anyway, I'm just talking. You guys are shaking your head.
So, anything you guys want to add before I go to the next clip? No, we got it. All right. Well, the next clip, I was actually not going to play my clip during this first segment, the first show, but you know, Jim talked me into it. I was going to bow out to the second one, partly not because I didn't think it was a good clip.
It's just we've used it. A fair amount, and it's from a movie called Butterfly Circus. And where we pick up, you have a guy named Will, who the real actor was born without any arms. He has a very small little foot on one leg, but he doesn't have legs either, and he's been in a circus sideshow. And he's been rescued from that sideshow by a different master of ceremonies that is very gracious, is very loving.
And when you pick up this part, Will is setting off at a distance, watching the other people perform, and then we pick up this conversation between him and his new master of ceremonies that he's walking in his circus, and so we'll go from there. Full of strength, color, and grace, astounding. But you, cursed from birth, a man—if you can call him that—who got himself turned his back upon. Stop it! Why would you say that?
Because you believe it, but if you could only see the beauty that can come from ashes, but they're different from me. Yes, you do have an advantage. The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph. Before I talk about the clip, Robby reminded me it's not master ceremonies; it's ringmaster.
So I had one of those words correct, so I kept saying it wrong. And now it might make more sense to you when we're talking about a circus. The reason I chose that clip for me, the hardest thing to leave behind most of time is the memory of how I've not been the man I've wanted to be at times in my life. Right? The things that I've done, the decisions I've made, the things that I've said.
You know, it it's still there. You know, and it's either shame, which is what that is. You know, that it's just hard to let go of the shame. You know, and I live hard to not be that person, right? But I keep letting the enemy pull me back into it.
Not the behavior, but they're saying this is who you really are at your core. You know, and it may have been who I really was, but it's not who I really am. Right, and learning to to walk in that, and I'd say the other thing that I struggle with, and someone else may talk about it, is the other one that's close to it is guilt. You know, I'm approaching my brother's third year having passed away, and every year I deal with guilt of not going to see him when he went in the hospital, thinking he would be okay, right? And he never came out.
You know, so each year I'm still battling that guilt of why didn't I just drop what I was doing and go go see him. Right, and so that's something I got to just continue to turn over to God and ask Him. You know, what is it that I am believing that's holding me back? You know, what do you need to say to me, Father? It's because you believe it, and there is probably a lot of those things.
Anyway, Jim, you had something on there.
Well, I ask you to play this in this segment. Because I'm feeling guilty about even coming tonight, but mine is a three-step process. And early in my life, I was loaded with shame. I was the most self-deprecating person you'll find. You know, I'd pick on myself before somebody else had the chance.
And as I developed in Christianity, I realized. Pretty early, shame is from the enemy, and I don't want to buy into that.
So I slid on down to guilt, and guilt is often something God does give us to convict us. But if you're feeling guilty and not feeling convicted, you're either missing the point, or you're sliding back towards shame. And I realized today when I was thinking about well, Carolyn May. Be okay with me coming tonight, and we're going through some things that are very difficult. And I feel like I said I feel a little guilty coming and leaving her alone.
But my biggest issue now is regret, and it goes back to the things I could have done differently. And there are so many, and when I wander that direction again, that's. Negative, and that's not where God wants me.
So I need to lay those things down. And Robby, something you said really hooked me because so many men identify themselves in the work they do.
Well, I've had so many different works. I've never really had that problem. You get a split personality. You know, I've gone from cop, cop to pastor, and pretty much everything in between. But in that process, I grew in my relationship with God.
So I've never had trouble. Accepting, I am a beloved son of God, and that was one of the names He's given me. And He's also made it easy for me to love others.
Now, sometimes, as you pointed out, people need to be left behind, and that can be self-destructive. Yeah, but if we're loving correctly, the way Jesus does, that will always work out. And what I need to leave behind is the fact I, messed around for seventy-two years, and it's time to focus on ending well. And I feel like I'm sort of coasting to a stop instead of that.
So that's that's my current guilt trip. Yeah, one of the things you're talking about, Jim, I know in our head we make shame, guilt, regret, different things. But a lot of times it's the enemy taking those same things and just putting a different label on it. Label we can accept, right? You may think that I beat this part of it, right?
Well, I'm just going to call it something different and repackage it. I mean, he's the best advertiser there is out there, right? Because he can just repackage the same old stuff in our life and make us see it in ways that take us back into that bondage.
Now there are there are things, and and the regret. Is the way I can accept it, and that may not be good, but that's something else to lay down because there's nothing I can undo that's been done. Right, or if there is, you know, God will point it out to me, and that will be the guilt that leads to correction. Absolutely, Harold. You have something you want to add on this topic?
I've got something that I left behind that changed. At most of my life, I thought that what ought to be behind was every other driver on the road. Amen.
And if they weren't in my rearview mirror, they were in the wrong place. But that's no longer true. It took a long time. My sweetheart put up with me for years and years, but the Holy Spirit finally helped me. To not be that same person, so I no longer fight when I get on the road.
The way I expressed it was, "We are not fellow travelers; you are obstacles to overcome." But we can leave stuff behind with help, yeah. And we need to know the source of that help. God and His Holy Spirit, and remembering what Jesus did for us, will help us get through these things that we do need to leave behind. Thank you, Harold. Appreciate that.
Art, I'd ask you something, but we don't have enough time. You'd be partially through your topic, and then we'd have to cut it off. Yeah, we never let you talk. the The question I have for you, if you don't listen to our after hours podcast, maybe just listen to us on the radio. First question I have is why?
No, it's not that. We're going to continue this topic going on, but if you don't join us for that, just ask yourself this week, God, what is it you're calling me to leave behind? What is it that I thought I've left behind and I keep picking it up? Those types of things, and just spend time with Him. Sin, Father, help rip that off.
Rip that bandage off so I can really see the infection underneath, and get that taken care of once and for all through your wash washing me of your blood, and just spend some time in that. I know that's something I've been thinking about a lot this week, and it's it's healthy. It is really healthy. Most days I take a walk, and most days that goes into a cemetery. And most days, I'll look down at some of those headstones and I go, "What you carrying?" And just it's a fascinating little process of going, "Gee, I bet you don't have to worry about that anymore, you know." So why am I?
It's a wonderful little exercise to take a walk in a cemetery and see all the burdens they're carrying. They're light as a feather. I bet there's some stories out there about this weird guy that walks in the cemetery every day, talking to the headstones. It wouldn't be the only weird story about Robby. Does that sound like you, Robby?
Yes.
Yes.
No, it doesn't. Anyway, again this week, just spend some time with the father. He's the only one that can really help you on this topic. That's not true. He's the one that can help you heal from that topic.
Ask those around you. What is it I keep cycling through? If they are truly friends, or if they're truly people that love you, they see it every day, even when you don't. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody well, and let God love you.
