Situational Calling After Hours

Hi, I'm Joanne Dickner, Memaw with It's Storytime Memaw, an answered prayer for stories that point children to God on the Truth Network for kids. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

A 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. We're glad to have you with us today. We are in a new studio, so we're learning some of the buttons and stuff, so we're having some fun just kind of pushing things.

No, we're not doing that. Sam likes to push buttons. Usually Andy's. 99% of the time it's Andy's. Once in a while it's Robby's. It's usually just those two. Occasionally one of you other guys, but yeah. Anyway, so we are talking today.

Jim, do you know what we're talking about today? Not really. Okay. Situational awareness. Close. Situational.

Anyone? Calling. We're talking about calling.

Situational calling. Yes. And so if you don't know what that is, it's another word for saying grow where you planted. And why I was thinking about that is I'm thinking that Harold probably got uprooted a little early because he hadn't grown fully. Are you going to take that, Harold? Do you want the mic?

There you go. And Jim was left in a little too long. I've got lots of fertilizer, and I'm still full of it.

Harold, any comment? Well, God made some people tall, and he made some small, and I happen to be one of the small, but it's okay. I just have to be aware of when he calls me to do something that I know I'm not too small to do it. That's a good point. That's a good point.

Thank you. This might be a good time to announce he whooped my butt at pickleball. Can I say that? And he does fit into certain doors that Jim and I just can't walk through. Well, and speaking of those doors, we have a Hobbit clip going on. Harold, I'm so sorry. I love you, Harold. Those who have been to the Hobbit, it's not for tall people. Just saying. I love the Hobbit. See, he just keeps pushing buttons. Yeah, I just keep pushing.

So maybe I push more than just Andes, but it's primarily Andes. Well, I think it's kind of appropriate that the most important Hobbit in this clip is Sam, and Samwise is actually... Frodo is defeated. They're having a rough day, and Samwise gives him a little pep talk, and honestly, he's one of the noblest characters in the whole thing, because he's the only one that touched the ring and wasn't affected by it.

Yeah, wasn't consumed by its power. Yeah, exactly. You ready? I'm ready. Okay. I can't do this, Sam. I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here.

But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing. This shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come.

And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.

I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn't. They kept going.

Because they were holding on to something. What are we holding on to, Sam? That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.

This is a clip that really moved me. It is a pep talk, but it speaks to some real important truths. We're in a terrible world. They're in a terrible place.

We're going to have all kinds of opposition. But it's those that keep going that struggle through the difficult times and keep moving forward are the ones that have the story written about them. And that's the story each of us has. I love Harold to death. You joked about him being a hobbit, but he does have that stick to it.

He's going to get it done spirit. I love that in him. And you wanted our stories. I have a kind of odd one. And this was 93 or so. I was working at Microsoft, one of my several thousand jobs. I was only there three years.

That was actually one of my longest ones at that point in my life. We had a free trip to go to the Science Museum in Charlotte and my wife and kids were going to come down and they couldn't. And as I was walking up to the door by myself, I saw three kids on the street and I clearly heard God say, take them in.

And I immediately rejected that said they will know that they're not my children and you can take that wherever you want to take it. But it was a missed opportunity. It was just one word from God. I still think about that. In fact, I told that story Monday night. I still think about and it's not anything they missed.

They didn't get to see all the cool science stuff in there. Yeah. But God still had them in his heart.

He's going to take care of them. But I missed an opportunity to have an impact on somebody just because I was uncomfortable with the situation. Jim, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that. It's those times that I think when we're honest with ourselves, there's times that we all kind of do that. You know, and you wonder what you do miss, you know, and potentially what do they miss in the exchange?

Yeah, we do have several men around this table that I see doing a real good job of not missing many opportunities. And that's I appreciate being allowed into that. Let's say what did you call it?

Community community. Yeah, I invented that word earlier today. Yes. Andy, were you going to say something? Well, yeah, just to Jim's point.

I mean, Jim, please. We've all we've all missed those opportunities. I mean, I had one this past week where I was able to help this family.

I was driving through in Charlotte and really needed money. I felt like I almost got shook down. But these are one of these people that not everybody I have my heart goes out to when I see him asking for help or whatever. But, you know, they did they needed and I had the need and I met the need. But there's plenty I can tell you so many other times that I did what you did there. So don't no shame there. We all do it.

I mean, we strive not to do that to miss us because those are opportunities not only for them to receive a blessing, but obviously us to partner with God. And that's what we're talking about. But, you know, I think it's we've all been there. Don't carry any shame.

Just repent and move on. And I'm sure you have. Well, Andy, thank you for redeeming that. I thought we're going to start calling the show spiritual non calling where we didn't step into what we were supposed to do. But appreciate you bringing that back around. It was obviously a learning learning. But to your point, we all have been there, Jim. Exactly. No shame in that. Thank you for admitting that, because it reminds us to maybe dig into some of those times that we didn't didn't enter in and ask out. Why didn't we?

Why didn't we move there? So, Wayne, you have a clip. Oh, yeah. You have a clip. You actually found the folder to put it in. Yeah.

What's this folder ish. It's just like the second video I've submitted. And it's audio because it's not we can't see it. That's the problem.

That was the problem. Oh, it always start explaining something. Yeah, this one is from a movie called Collateral Beauty has Will Smith in it. I don't remember the character's name. He plays. But it's a really, really good movie.

It's Walter. Oh, my goodness. Or before. Anyway. And you really messed me up there.

Appreciate it. That's awesome. So his character wrote some letters.

Yes, his character wrote some letters. There you go. To to to love death and time.

Right. This one particular incident really messed with his mind. And so he had some choice words for them. And in this one, you know, three actors are hired to play the roles of love, death and time. And this is where he gets to meet death. They grieve dogs.

They grieve and they fully understand death. You called me a paper tiger and the letter you wrote me, you said I was pathetic. You don't remember you went on about middle management, making a deal. Paper tiger. Oh, how it wasn't that long ago. Where did you get that? Who are you? Who did you write the letter to? I wrote the letter to death. Nice to meet you. Charmed, I'm sure. No, I don't know.

I know people write letters to the universe all the time. Most don't get a personal response, but you are because I just wanted to tell you that you're wrong. I'm not some powerless middle management following orders. You see, I didn't want to make the trade. It was my call. I don't want this. I don't want this. No, I don't tell you how to do your job.

So I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell me how to do mine. Who's that man talked to? He looks kind of weird. Don't worry about that. Sometimes people are silly. You see, they don't see me till it's their time. Oh, it's OK, Howard. It's not your time yet.

I just wanted to return this and clear things up between us. I really am death, Howard. Yeah, so really the thing that struck me there and I keep saying situational awareness, but like these three actors, whenever they were approached for this particular gig, right, they were thinking their greatest moment would be on the stage in front of thousands. And instead, one of their greatest moments in their acting career is a time when nobody's ever going to know anything they did or said.

And they gave their all to it. And you actually find out later on in the movie that the lady that played death, her story went all the way back to the wife when the original tragedy happened, which, again, just shows that you don't know when God's going to use you in someone's life. Everyone around us, you know, there's an opportunity.

The other day I was in Wal-Mart and just standing in line because I refused to go through the aisle that doesn't have folks working, don't like putting people out of work, right. So standing in the aisle and something we don't do anymore is talk, right. So I started talking with this lady in front of me. It got a little awkward at one point. And then I just felt like God said, ask her about her sons. And I got this lady talking about her sons and she came alive. I mean, it was it was mama there. Just she was she was proud of her sons and she had every right to be. And where we got done down towards the where we're checking out, I just stopped.

I just prayed over her and her sons. And she was about to walk away and she's like, no, no, I got to come over and give you a hug. So I have no idea how her day was going or whatever was going, but whatever in that moment.

And it's just the little things just loving on each other. Yeah. And it's following God's lead when he brings that something up in you to take that action.

Right. Because you don't know you may never get anything out of it. It's not about you at that point. You probably will get something out of it because God doesn't usually not give you something out of it. As far as like, I'm sure that helped make your day.

Yeah. And originally I thought I had missed it because right before that I passed someone else and I really wanted to go and pray with that person. Felt like God was saying, hey. But then all of a sudden I was like that moment was missed. And I was like, OK, well, all right, well, I missed that one.

And no, God had something else written directly after that. So it was really cool. That's very cool.

Andy, so we are to your clip. Yeah. On that note, I really want to get to the point to where I'm doing more of that. I've done that in the past a bit more.

But me more sensitive to the Lord and the daily of wherever you're going when you're going to a convenience store or, you know, whatever, looking for those opportunities for people in need, because there are so many people in need. Well, since you encouraged, you know, saying I'd go encourage you, don't don't beat yourself up. It's OK. That's right. This is what the community does. We help each other heal our wounds. I'm still going to self-checkout. It's your fault.

God's got to work. I'll be some more, apparently. So my clip is from secondhand lines. There's a theme that's running through it. Robby had one on the first show and Danny just watched the movie the first time.

I don't know where he's been. Yeah, but I think it was watched at boot camp. I missed it there.

But, you know, there is so much truth in that movie. And I got the what we're listening to here is the classic barbecue joint scene. Yeah. Yeah.

Restaurant. Yeah. They're having barbecue hub. And Garth, the brothers have Walter, their nephew, that they're kind of getting used to.

What's that? Well, yeah. Robby nicknamed me Will. Yeah.

Early in the other show. A.K.A. Will. So I think according to Robby, everybody's name.

Will. But they're at this barbecue joint and they're kind of taken on this Walter to father him. And there's his eyes are wide open of these crazy uncles he's gotten. And there's some, you know, rowdies that come around, start in trouble with people and they kind of take care of the situation.

And you'll hear, you know, hub's life in the calling that he had and how it plays into what he actually does in this thing. Yeah. And they were reluctant.

Yeah. Everybody in the thing was reluctant. Walter didn't want to be there. Rob didn't want him there. You know, the other guy, whatever his name is, you just said it. Yeah.

The brother Garth Garth didn't want him there either. So we'll go ahead and play this clip and then we'll come back and talk about it. Brother, someday you're going to have to start acting your age.

Let me. All your life, you've never been frightened about anything. So what's eating at your neck? Getting old? Dying? What?

Being useless. When we were young, there's always a reason. There's a point. Things made sense.

Now there's no point to anything. So what do we do? We garden. We outlived our time. Brother. Hey, old man.

How's that barbecue? Give me some. We're busy before we get lost. All right. What did you say? Here's a perfect example of what I've been talking about. Since this boy was suckling on his mama, she's been giving everything but discipline. And now his idea of courage and manhood is to get together with a bunch of punk friends and ride around irritating folks. Too good-natured to put a stop to it. Hey, who do you think you are, huh? Just dumb kid. Don't kill him.

Hub McCann. I fought in two world wars and countless smaller ones on three continents. I led thousands of men into battle with everything with horses and swords to artillery and tanks. I've seen the headwaters of the Nile and tribes and natives no white man had ever seen before. I've won and lost a dozen fortunes, killed many men and loved only one woman with a passion.

A flea like you could never begin to understand. That's why I am. Yes. So it's really cool. So he just gave his resume.

Right. All this adventure, battle, beauty, all those things that are in the core desires he's he's done with. But, you know, it talks about how what he fears is being useless. So he thinks his his days are over. He's a secondhand lion. He's out to pasture. But really, he he has a situational calling to father this young boy.

And that's what we saw in Robby's clip. So it's it's really cool. There is a lot of times we feel like, OK, that part of my life is over. That season's over that where I was entering in with God and having a purpose is over. Maybe you raise your kids.

You're like, what do I do now? There's always something God has for you to do. And I believe that the way it's designed and this is what came out kind of on the talk. I really believe God showed me something as I was doing the adventure talk at boot camp was that, you know, all these things that you do are preparing you for what you're in right now and what you're doing right now. It's part of the journey.

You'll be using that for the next step. So it just all kind of works together. Yeah.

When you look back in scripture, you do have some people that are given what they're calling is. Yeah. Right.

David's told he's going to be king. Yeah. But it's not the next day.

No. Abraham is going to be the father of nations. But it's not the next day. There's a lot of adventures along the way that that they're being prepared. Right. David would not have been the same kind of king had he not gone through all the trials that he had with Saul. Absolutely. Right. And having to rely on God to get through those. And so there was this reliance that was built over time. That helped him be the king that he was. Yeah. Look at Joseph and what he did sitting on the sideline for as long as he did.

And then what he did with his brothers and how he was really a savior to the nation of Israel. Right. Yeah. So and I was thinking that about Jesus, too, in our callings.

It's situational. So each one of these things that were called into, I believe, require something different of us. So just think of Jesus would have taken the zeal that he had for cleansing the temple and took it out on the lady at the well at John 4. You know, he didn't do that. He used his compassion for that purpose and that calling at that moment.

And that's being aware of the situation where awareness like what you're talking about, being aware of the situation you're in and using the gifting you have for that calling at the time. You know, when you go back to Joseph, you know, he was originally the original whack-a-mole. Yeah. You know, every time he tried to rise up, you know, and follow what he thought God had him to do whack his back down.

You know, he was lied about, thrown in prison, all these different things that happened to him. But he kept just trusting and following God. And and he needed all that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Looking back, you see what all you needed to get through where you are today. Yeah. And Moses's life almost more. Yeah. Yeah. He was, you know, went out there, killed the Egyptian, ended up. And there's lots of stuff that the Jews teach about Moses and what he went through actually with his father-in-law and stuff like it was whack-a-mole big time for Moses as well until he was ready to for that part of his calling.

But there's a lot of situational stuff that came along the way. I mean, it's really absurd. Now that period, the Hebrew words would have been ram-a-lam-a-lam-a-kad-ing-i-kad-ing-i-dong or something like that during that whole. I don't know. It's a bet.

Ram-a-ram-a-zeez. I bet it's a bet. Easy pushing buttons on old, holy Egyptian dudes.

That was most definitely not Greece. Yeah. Hey, I learned from 23andMe, I've got like 0.02 percent Jewish. So I've got some, I've got some Hebrew in my background.

You could run for Senate. I might be able to. I might be able to. So we've played all the clips. So we're at the point in the show where we have to come up with more content.

So as I'm looking around the room and not really sure how much time we have left, so I'm just going to kind of point to people, but I'll start with one. As I was sitting here, God reminded me of a time that I was going to be hiring somebody down in an area where we were building houses when I was part of an owner of a company. And I went down to cold interview this guy. And so I started interviewing him. And he had always worked for himself. He'd never had an interview. And our interviews were really, really tough.

You know, tell me about a time kind of things, you know, where you had to come up with these scenarios and all that. And oh my gosh, he was just visibly shaken. And I knew from the story that he was a Christian. I'm just like, dude, let's just pray. You know, I think he's the only person I've ever prayed with during an interview. And we prayed.

He calmed down. We had a great conversation. He ended up, you know, coming to work for us. He came to work for the next company that I'm with.

He comes to our boot camps. He's, you know, one of my best friends in life. But that all, I think, came down to following God, saying, just pray with him. Because I think it would have been a different outcome potentially had God not calmed his heart down, had he not caused me to back up a little bit and not ask the questions in such a difficult way. I still ask him.

You know, I still ask all the questions. But, you know, I look back at that and say, wow, God, you know, I have a great friend out of this whole thing that I probably wouldn't have had. So, Wayne, I know you got a bunch of stories. I just know you're like full of stories. I thought you were going to say full of something else. Yeah, I went with stories. Yeah, I was being kind.

Full of situational awareness. We'll get to that. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

That's the problem. I've got too many. All right.

Well, I'll let you work on one. Jim, do you have another one? You were looking at the mic.

I was looking at the mic so that he would put it in front of his face. But no, I actually, unless you're ready. No, no, no, no. Okay. One of the things I was thinking about in that, and you just said it, that you got a good friend of it. God doesn't waste anything. We talked about you may get something out of it.

You may not. I think you'll always get something out of, if nothing else, the satisfaction of knowing you responded to what God told you to do. And it often will end up totally different than what you expect.

Usually different from what you want, but ultimately it will be better. Harold, did you want to say something? I think one of the mistakes that we make when we start thinking about calling, we think it's got to be something big.

It's not. If we are dedicated to doing God's will, there are going to be a lot more opportunities to do small things that count. And if we refuse to do the small things because they're not big, that's a mistake. And that's a great illustration of a lot of things that really rattled my cage when I was in seminary. We were talking about missionaries, and the professor was talking about how many people go to the mission field, and they're thinking, okay, my mission is just on the other side of the next hill.

And they never get to where they do what they went there to do because they're looking too far ahead rather than looking where they are. Yeah, I think we have called the adventure talk, different things, your place in the story. And I think part of that is geared, as you talk about Harold and Jim, that we're looking for that eventual place in the story. But really what God's asked us to do is live in the place that we're in right now, and what's our story that we need to play out where we're at.

And let Him lead us down to that next step, that next adventure, that next story, so it can build on and build on and build on. It gives you a redhead. It gives you a redhead, exactly.

If you don't know that movie reference, it's City Slickers. What I think of that, you can't help but think of that because that's the clip right before he says one thing. He's asking that question, which leads into a personal, in-depth conversation. It does.

It leads into some intimacy in their community. We have a boot camp coming up. It's November 17th through the 20th. Yes, we do know the date.

It is the weekend before Thanksgiving, but it's November 17th through 20th. Go register for the boot camp. We'd love to see you there. We had an amazing time this last time. We know God's going to do great stuff for you, for us. Please join us. We'll talk to you next week.