What Boot Camp Is

Everyman life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates wide roads masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart trying to find a way life feels more like a losing battle and something worth dying for, grab your gear, request your band of brothers will serve as the guides recall masculine journey masculine journey starts here now is the way through January of believe it or not.

2000. That doesn't blow your mind a little, but it surely blows mine but yet you know the winners always little bit darker and then the spring starts to come in the beauty of that here unmask the journey is like King David.

It's a time where kings go out to war and for us. That would mean book coming March 21. Of the 24th the last week we did a show on what boot camp is not secular.

That's a lot of fun to go back and listen to that podcast and enjoy some of those clips that we chose to have fun with that but as you might guess we coming back this week and I am just thrilled to death that have in the studio with me. My old friend in the original boot camp or who took me on the original journey with Sam, Stan, Karen is with me as well as Rodney. He was in the very last boot camp is very first one and then another dear old friend, the oldest here as he told us you miscarried more than 41 so you know Harold welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm still walking so I want to start off with a cliff that really apparently was instrumental in a lot of ways that we even have these boot camps because Darren you'd gone off to John Eldridge's boot camp and then you saw this movie defines it. I don't remember whether I went to II guess I had been to at least one Eldridge boot camp at this point I think I had maybe been to the second one the advanced boot camp, but Sheila and I had gotten married year or so before that and we literally were considering moving to Zimbabwe and get this out to find out the exam, and we were and so we were literally trying to decide do we go to Zimbabwe with her being a nurse you know practitioner and in all of this stuff and me having construction background and preaching background. All of these things and we had some friends really trying to talk us into doing that and we were planning a trip to Zimbabwe and that trip got canceled. Oddly enough, and at the same time I was you know we were really wrestling with.

Well, you know, I've got a really cunning I thought it was unique story. What I found out was, it wasn't all that unique.

It was pretty much the same as everybody else's story as far as men getting terribly wounded in the battle and you know fallen out and divorce and so forth and so on and an addiction and recovery. In all those different things and so I also knew that you know there was that portion of it and God had been pulling me towards starting dangerous heart ministries dangerous are boot camps masculine journey radio boot camps. Now all of those things and I didn't really realize it at the time but Sheila and I went to movie one night and it happened to be the movie defiance and when I came out of that movie. It's a true story number one it's true story of four brothers.

The Bielski brothers from Belarus and their whole lives got turned upside down. Their families get killed, murdered their friends get murdered by the Nazis.

The Russians are treating them really well either. And so they're kind of betwixt and between end, they go out into the forest and live that way for a few years and save the lives of literally thousands upon thousands of Jews during the midst of World War II and I was very convicted. When I walked out of that because most of my arguments were.

I don't have what it takes. You know I don't have a team around me. I don't know who's going to be a part of the team that all this different stuff in that whole movie in the whole life. True story is dated neither one of them went out into the woods and another one out into the woods and God started bringing the right people out into the woods and they built a community of people that saved a lot of lives.

Tenant can according to code rate that would be any connect that baby Lieut. that is probably not that is that I am not trailer the unit start which is highly this little hint of what might become little since is the one who is with the life.

What if we think will will seek out so we we will protect you forest realize you lost, you will most you was.

I probably heard that trailer. Maybe 100 times seriously that we have used it at boot camp considered center. There are so many unbelievably powerful statements in that minute and 50 seconds it blows my mind. And you know if I go to my own story and in you know how many of us are really weak, you know, when you look at life and it's year in the woods and in people are dying. I mean really they're getting shot up in all that horror is it's all really there.

Unfortunately, a lot of us don't realize that were being shot. Now that were dying know I wouldn't and so I came in my first boot camp for thinking it was a Christian retreat like the show we did last week.

You know that this is what boot camp is not in the show. This movie in Ontario was to show the movie the first night you know I'm Samaritan initialing this movie had a Christian event will do they not hear these words may not see the sexual you know the amount of light really there showing this movie. Another religious spirit was alive and well. As I walked in, but man all night long. It just came after my heart like is this real is this what real know is this reality of its kind like I've been in the matrix. Well, it's funny I've been reading a book called define Hitler and it's not about Hitler at all. It's it's up it's one man story just an average everyday guy who was born and he's like seven years old at the end of the first world war and he grows up in Germany and he's a very patriotic German and a good guy with a with a good heart and a good soul and he walks you through through his personal story of how a good man, a righteous man who just walks through life can end up becoming, in essence, a Nazi, and it's all because of the choices we don't think instead of the choices that we do make and it's a fascinating book and and it was written in 1939 and it it it only covers his life up there about 1934 and as I'm reading this I have to keep reminding myself he's writing and night teen 39. Most of what we know of World War II hasn't even happened yet and he is so insightful about how the average person just goes through life just trying to make life work just trying to make it go. Just make it easy make it calm and and and just you know get through high school get through graduate school.

Get the job. Get the wife get the kids the whole 9 yards and never expecting to walk down this road that you end up walking down when you just put 1 foot in front of the other and and you don't have the ability or the, the community of people around you that are brave enough to stand up and say what wait what if what if there's a freedom out there that you've not experienced yet. Would it take took to get a bite of that freedom. And so when I when I think about that and then Rodney sent this clip in on you can't handle the truth and working for the Truth Network. I may have heard this clip a few times myself but I want to listen to it with fresh ears, perhaps of what the religious spirit in you feels like I'm talking about you personally like Robby Gilmore. I did not realize an enzyme hates Disneyland right you know, here, here is Jack Nicholson and and think about how a Pharisee might've felt. He knows he is confronted with Jesus as he was being confronted with the truth. Tenant can according to code rate to told Kendrick to do that question I'll answer the question you want answers entitled you the truth, son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns going to do it.

You you Lieut. Weinberg I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom you wait for Santiago and you curse the Marines you have that luxury.

You have the luxury of not knowing what I know that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives in my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about it parties you want me on that wall you need me on that wall. We use words like honor code loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something you use them as a punchline. I have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide the manner in which I provided.

I would rather you just said thank you and when on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand opposed either way, I did job I talk about ways you can help support Lily smiled as he was on the information that Facebook.com where you can click the donate button waking into masculine day mail something to PO Box 552 7285 what God does radio closed off each person is kind of chipped away at this feeling I was having to wait this mask. I was hiding behind the master and running radio.org is standing but the point is that truth is marching and in the irony of the Jack Nicholson story there is. He's the one who actually at that point did not handle the truth in his own story. You see, you know there was a lot of truth that he had not really faced and a lot of things that he was, you know, essentially judging everybody else because that's what the religious spirit does Rodney that's that's the sense of it in you know the beauty of it is that we all have this you know Tom Cruise characters come after us yet oppose here for Jack Nicholson, Col. Jessup, is that a I know better than all you guys know and just listen to me do what I say to be fine. Don't read the book yourself just come with me.

I will lead you there. You will know you need me there just admitted and is going after what his version of the truth is, and what Tom Cruise is going after, then, is what's the real truth behind everything that is going to hold us altogether that we have to cold is a higher honor. He says all the right words. He's the seven steps to being whatever kind of man or woman you want to be instead of being me.

Real truth is going to come after your heart and take you away on a much much bigger adventure and journey.

I love that yeah and I mean edit at a boot camp.

This show is about what a big camp is right so at a boot camp were not that guy, the people standing up in front of you talking are not giving you as Rodney just laid out seven steps to make in your marriage work. Here's eight steps to get over pornography. Here's, you know, 23 steps to to to get out of legalism or were you know were not have a note of first quoting session either where you know, can you quote this version can you quote that person.

I've been to so many different men's things. Most of the time invited by somebody because they heard what I was doing and thought man here going to love this and I would go in my skin would be crawling by the time I would be done and you know when I went to the first boot camp I went as a skeptic, I knew I needed something. I knew there were some answers that I couldn't figure out and and I was looking for something I was looking for some deeper truth and I had been up the pastor of churches for the better part of 20 years. At that time and went as a skeptic and you know wrote down everything that Eldridge said or that McConnell said her part.

Hansen's letter, Morgan Schneider said or any of those guys in and you know furiously wrote down all the Scriptures that they quoted and kept looking through my Bible and checking everything in and I grow up in the same tradition that Harold grows up in where were really good at checking the facts and I and I did that just copiously and I really struggled to to find things to refute the things that I was being told. And the reason was exquisite was all Scripture that might've been Scripture that I hadn't heard before that I hadn't read in that particular way. Before that I hadn't preached in that particular way before but it was Scripture. And so as I went through it and started asking will.

So what what if me what what if this freedom is really out there because I think that's what most men are looking for.

Most men are looking for freedom yeah and I think it's going to come politically or it's gonna come economically or it's going to come sexually or through diligence and hard worker, or whatever, but they're looking for freedom that they might not even realize that and the freedom that were looking for is is only going to come from one place and that's for me pretty intimate relationship with Jesus and that doesn't happen overnight, which leads to my next trip.

As you might be shocked to know I it one point my life started writing screenplays and studied how to do that and I found out that one of the fascinating parts of doing that. What made it really fun was understand the concept of a character arc out a grill at a really great story starts out with a character like Ebenezer Scrooge that's hard and didn't ease these obviously been wounded greatly and he obviously has all kinds of titles he's dealing with in all kinds of addictions is dealing with the maintenance guys broke and so we know whether we want to face that fact that Scott, who were becoming without the help of the Spirit without the help of Christ. And so in in Dickinson's genius, the character arc of Ebenezer Scrooge takes him on a journey, and in that journey he goes and revisits his identity is passed to see where the wounds took place and kind of what went on there so that he could come into the present to begin to see you know what to present the present would be if he had made different choices. Those kind of things and things that he wanted to work on so the fascinating thing for me in the in the thing for boot camp that makes it so different from anything else is is clearly the times that you take these things out from the talks and you go with God, and it eventually is the ghost of Christmas past the ghost of Christmas present in the ghost of Christmas future that actually changes things in your life because you know God's the one who is going to bring this stuff up and heal. He's the one is gonna bring the stuff up and restore identity. He's going to be the one who brings this stuff up and gets that so for a minute you when you would think about character arc on the list.

Ebenezer Scrooge is played by George C.

Scott is one of the greatest actors of all time and listen to the joy listen to how people that would have annoyed him before now are the most favorite thing he could have his life a lot in common. Philip, that's not it was his hands and got that was a quiet day you missed five.

Do you know the address of the next treatment.

One on the corner to do nothing so the prized tracking it was as big as you.

Going by God by bring the rounds that I might deliver it come back with a man I give you come back in less than five minutes is is a stop on the leaves. The time for those around me to express what it was like to actually have an encounter with God or almost as much fun to watch the boys, and a listening prayer encounter God and actually hear his voice and see that joy as they actually you know began an experience with the real God will for me unite. I grew up in the Acapella church Christ, and love.

Love that group and and am thankful for that. However, I had never been told that God talks to me directly other than through Scripture and in fact I had been told that he doesn't and so I believe that, and I walked in that because you know the general had told me that's what I'm supposed to believe and that's what I believe and when God did finally come to me and speak very directly to me. It was really, really, really hard for me to to grasp. It was comical. It was tearful.

It was happy it was a whole range of emotions and while that was really cool.

And that was a a story that began to repeat itself over and over and ultimately the first time when I speak of the first time God did that. I'm really speaking of probably the thousandth time that God did that. It's that I had totally completely dismissed all the other times and I can't tell you how many people have been to a boot camp who we've sent out into a covenant of silence time and all that means is you go be silent. Let God do the talking. That's really all it means. And so, don't you here covenant of silence and freak out about that and hear them come back after they had written down what it is that God had talked to them about and how incredibly insightful that had been or when we have a time of prayer and we don't know a guy from Adam literally don't know a guy from Adam and we began to pray over that guy.

And God begins to speak to us about how to pray for that person. And when we have the guts to do it. The testicular fortitude I will say to go ahead and do what it is that God is asking us to do and pray what God is asking us to pray over that man. The breakthrough that that man finds and you know many that Josh Corey is here every week and many many others.

When we begin to pray the things that God told us to pray, they often will turn around and say wait a minute.

How do you know my story, I don't. I don't know your story. I was just feeling God say pray this over Josh and when that happens it's very very enlightening. It's it's like I mean, I've seen it happen with €12 voice for boot camp. I've seen it happen with a room they hear from God, it changes every so like God showed up in the wilderness for the Israelites is can show up. March 21 of the 24th. It will be a life changer game changer Cody Masten turning radio.org and you could come on the show next time you know after the camp and you could be one of those and share what camp is and I would be willing to test that it will be like change because God shows up. Thank you for listening