Latest / truthunedited / God’s Call to Men in Midlife (Night Devotional)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This video is for the man who wonders if his
- 0:02best days are behind him. It's for the one who's
- 0:05still standing but no longer sure why, and it promises
- 0:10to help you recover what time, disappointment, and silence have
- 0:15buried your holy calling. There comes a point in every
- 0:19man's life when momentum slows. The adrenaline that once carried
- 0:23you through career ladders, raising kids, surviving battles both public
- 0:28and private, thins into something quieter. At first, it feels
- 0:32like rest, but eventually it starts to feel like absence.
- 0:36The fire that used to burn so easily, vision calling, energy,
- 0:41desire now flickers low, and you begin to ask silent questions,
- 0:47what am I still here for? Did I miss the window?
- 0:50Am I just meant to finish out these years? Quietly? Safe, solid,
- 0:56but not significant. Men rarely voice this out loud, but
- 1:01they carry it deep, the unsettling feeling that they're still
- 1:05breathing but no longer burning. If that's you, you're not
- 1:09alone and you're not finished. In the Scriptures, there's a
- 1:12man named Caleb, buried deep in the Old Testament, whose
- 1:15silences every lie the enemy tries to whisper to men
- 1:19in the second half of life. You may remember him
- 1:22only as one of the twelve spies sent into the
- 1:25Promised Land, but what's often overlooked is the long pause
- 1:30between his faith and his fulfillment. Caleb was forty years
- 1:35old when he stood against the tide and said we
- 1:38can take the land. He saw what others feared. He
- 1:42spoke with conviction while the rest cowered. But because of
- 1:46their unbelief, the conquest was delayed for forty five years.
- 1:51Caleb waited, wandering through deserts, watching men die, watching years pass,
- 1:57watching his youth slip away by the tide. The land
- 2:00was finally within reach again he was eighty five. But
- 2:04here's the twist. Caleb was not diminished. He was dangerous.
- 2:09In Joshua fourteen, he stands before the new generation and
- 2:13says something that should light a fire in every man.
- 2:16Over forty five, I am still as strong to day
- 2:20as I was in the day that Moses sent me.
- 2:23Now give me this mountain. He didn't ask for comfort,
- 2:26He asked for challenge. He didn't say let me retire
- 2:30in peace. He said, let me conquer again. And that's
- 2:34what meant. Today are missing not activity, but assignment, not business,
- 2:39but fire. Real life mirrors this. Mark, a factory worker
- 2:43from Ohio, spent thirty years punching a clock and doing
- 2:47the best he could for his family. He served at
- 2:50church here and there, coach little League, paid his bills
- 2:52on time. But when his kids left home and his
- 2:56knees started to ache, he began to drift. Week Ends
- 3:01were quiet, his prayers slowed, his sense of purpose thinned. Then,
- 3:07at fifty one, his church announced they were opening a
- 3:11mentorship program for teenage boys from broken homes. Mark resisted,
- 3:17What do I have to offer? He thought, I'm just
- 3:20a tired, ordinary man. But something pulled at him. He
- 3:24signed up. That was seven years ago. To day. He
- 3:28meets weekly with a group of five young men, all
- 3:30of whom call him Pops. One of them, now in college, said,
- 3:36if it wasn't for you, I'd be in prison. Mark
- 3:40didn't just find purpose again. He became a burning torch
- 3:44passed into the hands of the next generation. Men over
- 3:48forty five are uniquely positioned for powerful impact. Why because
- 3:54they've been broken and survived. They've bled in silence, They've
- 3:59learned which battle's matter and which ones don't, And most importantly,
- 4:04they finally begun to see through the lie that life
- 4:07is all about success. What the world calls burn out,
- 4:12God calls repositioning. You haven't been disqualified, You've been refined.
- 4:17The fire may look different now it's not wild, it's
- 4:20not flashy, but it's steady, controlled, dangerous to darkness. Think
- 4:27about Jehoiada, hardly a household name, but his story in
- 4:31two chronicles twenty two to twenty four is a blueprint
- 4:35for late life purpose. He was a priest during one
- 4:38of Israel's darkest periods. The royal family had been slaughtered
- 4:42by a failure, and a single air Joash was hidden
- 4:46away as an infant. For six long years, Jehoyada waited.
- 4:51He nurtured the boy in secret, trained him in wisdom,
- 4:54prepared him for the throne. When the time came, Jehoiada
- 4:59didn't just annoy point joe Ash king. He led a
- 5:02national revival. At an age when most men think of retiring,
- 5:07Jehoiada was shaping a king and rebuilding a nation. The
- 5:11kingdom never forgot him. Scripture says when he died, they
- 5:16buried him among the kings, not because he was royalty,
- 5:19but because he had lived like it. That's what you're
- 5:22calling still holds. You may not stand on a stage
- 5:26or raise a flag, but there is still a mountain
- 5:29with your name on it. There are suns, biological or spiritual,
- 5:34waiting for your voice. There is wisdom that only your
- 5:37pain can unlock. There is a fire that doesn't roar anymore,
- 5:42but it refines. And this fire doesn't need applause. It
- 5:47needs fuel, It needs surrender. It needs you to believe
- 5:51that your story isn't peaking, it's just entering its deepest chapter.
- 5:56You see younger men burn bright, but older men burn true. Ooh,
- 6:00and truth is what this world is starving for. Dan,
- 6:05a once successful entrepreneur from Atlanta, lost everything in his
- 6:09mid forties, his company, his reputation, even his health. For
- 6:14a year, he disappeared into depression, hiding behind shame and
- 6:19self pity. But one night, lying awake at three a m.
- 6:23He opened his Bible and landed on John twenty one,
- 6:26where Peter, ashamed and confused after denying Christ, is met
- 6:31not with rebuke but breakfast. Jesus doesn't say why did
- 6:35you fail? He says, do you love me? Feed my sheep?
- 6:42Dan wept. He realized that God wasn't looking for a resume.
- 6:47He was looking for a Yes. Dan began volunteering at
- 6:50a half way house for recovering addicts. Slowly, quietly, his
- 6:54fire returned. He now runs a nonprofit helping men rebuild
- 6:58their lives post recus recovery. And when someone asked him
- 7:02last year, do you miss your old life? He smiled
- 7:06and said, this is my life. The old one was
- 7:10just preparation. You don't need to start over, You need
- 7:15to start again. Still standing doesn't mean you're stuck. It
- 7:19means God preserved you for such a time as this.
- 7:22There are battles ahead, yes, but they are battles fit
- 7:25for seasoned hands. They require endurance, wisdom, the kind of
- 7:29courage that doesn't panic but praise, the kind of leadership
- 7:33that doesn't demand the spotlight, but casts a long shadow
- 7:36in which others find safety. And the twist. The very
- 7:40fire you thought you lost might not return the way
- 7:42it once was. But what's coming is stronger, deeper, and
- 7:46forged for impact, not hype, holy heat, not adrenaline anointing.
- 7:52So if you are still standing, you are still called
- 7:56not to fade, not to drift, but to rise again.
- 8:01Your mountain is waiting, ask for it, then climb. There's
- 8:04a weight men carry that no one ever talks about.
- 8:07It doesn't show up on m r eyes, but it
- 8:10tightens in the chest late at night. It won't register
- 8:14on a scale, but it can make a man feel
- 8:16too heavy to move. This weight doesn't always come with
- 8:20a crisis. It often creeps in quietly, a father's regret,
- 8:25a failed promise, a dwindling purpose. It might be the
- 8:29pressure to keep the business afloat, or the gnawing guilt
- 8:32of missing too many dinners, or the grief over a
- 8:36marriage that still exists on paper but died somewhere along
- 8:40the way. These are not loud burdens. They're invisible ones,
- 8:45but they bend the spine just the same. A man
- 8:48over forty five doesn't always show pain like he used to.
- 8:51He's learned to mask it in meetings, smile through it
- 8:54in church pews, and laugh over it at barbecue's. But
- 8:58the weight it follows him home. It sits next to
- 9:03him when he drives alone. It climbs into bed beside
- 9:06him when the lights go out, and it whispers, you're behind,
- 9:11you've failed, You should be more by now you're disappointing.
- 9:16Someone may be everyone. It's not weakness, it's where and
- 9:20eventually even the strongest frame buckles without rest. Scripture speaks
- 9:25into this silence. There's a man named Elcanna, a husband
- 9:30in First Samuel one. His wife Hannah was barren and broken.
- 9:36She wept year after year under the shame of her
- 9:40infertility and the cruelty of her rival. But behind that
- 9:44story there's el Cana, a man watching the woman he
- 9:48loves unravel. While holding a pain he can't fix, he
- 9:51says to her in tenderness, am I not better to
- 9:55you than ten sons. It's a heart breaking attempt. He
- 9:59wants to come comfort, to heal, to be enough, but
- 10:04he isn't because he can't be, And therein lies the
- 10:08invisible weight. So many men know the pressure to be
- 10:12everything when you were never made to be. This pressure
- 10:17isn't always external. It's internalized from years of expectations, spoken
- 10:23or unspoken. Be the provider, be the protector, be the fixer,
- 10:28Be strong, be silent, be okay. But the truth is
- 10:33even Samson eventually stumbled. Even Moses needed help holding up
- 10:37his arms. Even Jesus, perfect and sinless, fell under the
- 10:42weight of the cross and required another man to carry
- 10:45it for a stretch. That's the part we forget. Even Jesus,
- 10:50God in flesh, allowed himself to need help. In Matthew
- 10:54twenty seven, Simon of Syrene is pulled from the crowd
- 10:59to carry the cross behind Christ. We don't know Simon's story,
- 11:03We don't know if he volunteered or resisted. But in
- 11:06that moment, Jesus surrendered the weight, not his mission, but
- 11:10the burden of carrying it alone. And if the Son
- 11:13of God can let someone else shoulder the weight for
- 11:16a time, so can you. Men are taught that surrender
- 11:19is failure, But in the Kingdom of God, surrender is strength.
- 11:23It's not letting go of responsibility. It's letting go of
- 11:26what was never yours to carry in the first place,
- 11:30the outcome, the timing, the impossible expectations, the redemption of
- 11:35someone else's heart. You can't fix everything you were never
- 11:40asked to larry. A retired firefighter tells the story of
- 11:45how he used to carry it all. He saved lives
- 11:48for a living, but when his own son fell into addiction,
- 11:52none of his tools could save him. For years, he
- 11:56paid for rehabs, made excuses, and tried to show it silently.
- 12:01At fifty seven, sitting alone in his truck after yet
- 12:04another relapse, he finally broke. I told God I can't
- 12:09do it. I've tried, I've failed. I surrender. That prayer
- 12:15didn't fix his son overnight, but it fixed something in Larry.
- 12:18He started attending all Anon. He began talking honestly with
- 12:22other fathers, and he says, for the first time in years,
- 12:25I wasn't carrying it alone. God carried me. That's the twist.
- 12:31What looks like collapse is often the first step toward freedom.
- 12:35The greatest strength a man can show in his second
- 12:37half of life is not stoic endurance, but holly surrender.
- 12:43The moment you drop to your knees not because you've lost,
- 12:46but because you know who wins, everything shifts. There's something
- 12:51else buried in Two Kings four, an oft an overlooked man.
- 12:55In the background of a miracle, a widow comes to
- 12:59the prophet I Alaisha, saying her husband has died and
- 13:02creditors are coming to take her sons. All she has
- 13:05is a small jar of oil. Elisha tells her to
- 13:09borrow empty vessels and begin pouring. The oil doesn't stop
- 13:14flowing until every vessel is filled. What's not told in detail,
- 13:19but implied is the weight that man carried before he died.
- 13:24He was a servant of God, faithful, but left behind debt, fear,
- 13:29and desperation. That invisible burden outlived him. But God didn't
- 13:34ignore it. He answered it not through strength but surrender.
- 13:40The miracle came when the woman emptied herself, and the
- 13:42oil only flowed when she obeyed in weakness, not in power.
- 13:47You may be the man who's still paying for someone
- 13:50else's bad decisions, or maybe you're the one who made them.
- 13:54You may be quietly holding together a marriage with duct
- 13:57tape and prayer, or sitting in sightance next to a
- 14:00grown child you barely recognize. You may be leading a business,
- 14:04a church, or a family where everyone looks to you
- 14:08and no one sees what you're carrying. But God does,
- 14:12and he doesn't just offer help, He offers himself. And
- 14:17this kind of help isn't always flashy. It may come
- 14:20through a phone call to a brother you haven't opened
- 14:22up to in years. It may look like sitting in
- 14:25a counselor's chair and telling the truth. It may mean
- 14:28admitting to your wife that you're tired, not from work,
- 14:31but from holding everything inside. And you'll be surprised to
- 14:35find that the people around you aren't disappointed. They're relieved
- 14:40because they don't need a perfect man, they need a
- 14:44real one. So what are you carrying? And what if
- 14:47it's time to set it down, not all at once,
- 14:50not in defeat, but in trust. The God who invites
- 14:53you to lay your burden down isn't asking you to
- 14:56walk away from your life. He's inviting you to live
- 14:59it light, freer, truer, because the weight no one sees
- 15:04he does, and he's ready to carry it with you.
- 15:08You just have to let him. There's a quiet shift
- 15:11that happens to every man as the decades go on.
- 15:14The body starts saying not to day to the same
- 15:18feats that once came without effort, joints ache, recovery takes longer,
- 15:25weight sticks, and where once there was urgency and muscle
- 15:29and drive, now there's reflection, and, if we're honest, sometimes resignation.
- 15:35The calendar reminds you that you're not twenty five anymore,
- 15:39And suddenly the man in the mirror is a stranger,
- 15:42with gray at the temples and stories behind the eyes.
- 15:45But what if that shift isn't a loss but a transfer.
- 15:49What if what the body releases the spirit receives. What
- 15:53if this is not the end of strength, but the
- 15:55beginning of its true form. In the first half of life,
- 16:00strength is loud, it's visible. It builds businesses, careers, houses, reputations.
- 16:06But in the second half, real strength becomes quiet, invisible, deeper.
- 16:12It stops proving and starts prevailing. In the world's eyes,
- 16:16you may be slowing down, but in Heaven's eyes you're
- 16:18being positioned. Because while the world idolizes youthful energy, the
- 16:22kingdom honors seasoned authority. And there's a man in scripture
- 16:26who lived this exchange in silence, one whose name most
- 16:31people miss. His name was Bazilli. You'll find him in
- 16:35Second Samuel seventeen and nineteen. David, on the run from
- 16:38his son Absalom, was weary and out of resources. And
- 16:42in the middle of that chaos, Basili shows up, an
- 16:45old man by then eighty years old, but full of wisdom, loyalty,
- 16:49and provision. He brings bedding, bowls, barley, and bread. He
- 16:53doesn't fight on the front lines, he doesn't shout commands.
- 16:58He serves, and when day David's kingdom is restored. Barsilai
- 17:02is offered a seat in the palace as reward. But
- 17:06listen to his response, why should I go up with
- 17:09the king? I am this day eighty years old. Your
- 17:14servant will go a little way across the Jordan with
- 17:17the king. Why should the king repay me with such
- 17:20a reward? Second Samuel nineteen thirty four to thirty six.
- 17:25It's not humility from weakness, its clarity from strength. Basili
- 17:30knew his role, He knew his time. He knew that
- 17:34his greatest impact was not in grabbing glory, but in
- 17:37passing the torch. That his second half strength is not
- 17:41desperate to be seen. It's determined to give. It doesn't
- 17:45chase a legacy, it lives it. Frank, a former state trooper,
- 17:50lived like this in real life. In his twenties and thirties,
- 17:54he was a walking force, chiseled, commanding, always in controls,
- 18:00the guy you called when things went wrong. But in
- 18:03his late forties, his wife was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.
- 18:08For fifteen years, he bathed her, fed her, dressed her.
- 18:13Most people didn't even know. He never posted about it.
- 18:17He simply showed up every day. One night after her passing,
- 18:23a younger man from his church pulled him aside with
- 18:26tears in his eyes. I want to be strong like
- 18:30you one day, he said. Frank laughed. I used to
- 18:34think strength was about who could take a punch. Turns
- 18:38out it's about who can love quietly for fifteen years
- 18:43without applause. Strength, in its truest form is deeply spiritual.
- 18:49It's the refusal to quit when no one's watching. Its
- 18:53choosing integrity when compromise would be easier. It's letting go
- 18:57of old idols, pride, control youth, and letting God do
- 19:02more with less. It's Moses standing on Mount Nebo at
- 19:06the end of his life, knowing he won't enter the
- 19:08Promised Land, but blessing the people anyway. It's Paul writing
- 19:13letters from a prison cell with chained wrists and an
- 19:16unchained spirit. It's Joseph, not in the technicolor coat of youth,
- 19:21but in the robes of Pharaoh's court, for giving the
- 19:24very brothers who sold him out. And it's you, you,
- 19:29who may not be able to run like you used to,
- 19:31but can pray with authority. Hell has learned to fear you,
- 19:36who may not lift weights like before, but can lift
- 19:39the next generation with wisdom. You who may feel outpaced
- 19:43by technology but are still carrying the unshakable word of
- 19:47God in your bones. This is not your decline. This
- 19:53is your assent into strength that doesn't wither. The twist
- 19:58is the world won't always recognize this kind of power.
- 20:01It won't trend, it won't fill stadiums, but it will
- 20:05be felt in how your children stand taller because they
- 20:09saw you kneel, In how your wife breathes easier because
- 20:14you've become softer, not weaker, In how younger men lean
- 20:17in when you speak, not because you're loud, but because
- 20:21your silence carries weight. There's a sacred exchange available now.
- 20:26The chase for relevance is replaced with the call to wisdom.
- 20:29The hunger to build is refined into the hunger to bless,
- 20:33and your life, once spent proving something, becomes a vessel
- 20:37for God to prove himself through you, if you'll let
- 20:41him so. Yes, the body may slow, the bones may ache,
- 20:45but inside you, the spirit is roaring. There is still
- 20:49more to be done, but not by muscle, by maturity,
- 20:55not by strength as the world knows it, but by
- 20:58the strength that only comes when a man walks with
- 21:01God long enough to stop running from himself. This is
- 21:05your season, not to compete, but to complete, not to perform,
- 21:09but to transform. You've lived long enough to know what
- 21:13doesn't matter. Now step fully into what does. Because when
- 21:18physical vigor fades, spiritual power doesn't flicker out. It ignites.
- 21:24There is a myth that echoes through the minds of
- 21:27aging fathers, the belief that once the house is built,
- 21:30the job is done. Once the children are grown, the
- 21:34calls become rare, and the bedrooms stay empty. Many men
- 21:38begin to withdraw. They watch the kids they raised build
- 21:41families of their own, navigate adulthood, stumble through their own mistakes,
- 21:47and they silently wonder, am I still needed? The tools
- 21:52have been laid down, The advice once eagerly sought now
- 21:56feels outdated or ignored, and a quiet age sets in.
- 22:01What's left for a father when no one calls him
- 22:03dad every day anymore? But fatherhood never retires. It never
- 22:08times out, It never becomes obsolete. Fatherhood doesn't end. It
- 22:15evolves because what a child needs at five is different
- 22:18from what they need at fifteen and what they need
- 22:21at thirty five is something only a father who has lived, lost, forgiven, failed, endured,
- 22:28and risen again can offer legacy, not information, but impartation,
- 22:34not lectures, but presents. Not perfection, but faithful presence over time.
- 22:40And here's the truth. Most men don't realize until much later.
- 22:43Some of the most powerful things a father will ever
- 22:46build happen long after the roof is raised and the
- 22:49children leave. Scripture gives us a story rarely preached but
- 22:54desperately needed. In First Kings six through eight, Solomon builds
- 22:59the Temple of the Lord. Its grand, legendary, breathtaking, and
- 23:05the world gives Solomon the credit. But buried in the
- 23:08details is this line. Now. The temple was built in stone,
- 23:13finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel
- 23:16or any iron tool was heard in the temple while
- 23:19it was being built. First Kings six'. Seven that, stone that,
- 23:25design that, Wisdom it Was. David's solomon executed the, Plan
- 23:32But david laid the foundation not in, brick but in.
- 23:35Tears he wanted to build it. Himself he had the,
- 23:38heart But god told him no because he had been
- 23:41a man of. War, Instead david spent his final years
- 23:45gathering the, materials writing the, plans commissioning the, levites storing up,
- 23:51treasure and pouring vision into his. Son the father still,
- 23:56Built it just looked. Different in the silence Of Solomon's,
- 24:01temple you can hear the echo of a father's. Preparation
- 24:07real fatherhood doesn't always hold the. Hammer sometimes it writes the.
- 24:12Blueprint sometimes it watches from a, distance cheering a son
- 24:16who doesn't always call. Back sometimes it weeps behind closed
- 24:21doors for a daughter who's drifted. Far sometimes it blesses
- 24:24the child who's making a different, choice living a different,
- 24:27life walking a different. Path but true fathers never stop.
- 24:32Building they just start building deeper into, hearts into, memories into. Legacies,
- 24:38carlos a man in his, sixties tells the story of his,
- 24:42daughter who hadn't spoken to him in over eight. Years
- 24:45the fallout had been bitter words spoken in, pride wounds
- 24:50left untreated for a. While he told himself it wasn't
- 24:54his job to fix. It she's, grown she made her,
- 24:58choice but the The Holy spirit wouldn't leave him. Alone
- 25:03one day he wrote her a, letter not to defend,
- 25:06himself not to, explain just to. Apologize two months, later
- 25:11he got a phone. Call she was, crying thank. You she,
- 25:15SAID i didn't KNOW i needed to hear that from.
- 25:17You they met for, lunch then Another today they talk.
- 25:22Weakly she calls Him dad. Again carlos didn't rebuild their
- 25:27relationship with. Force he rebuilt it with, humility with a,
- 25:31letter with love laid down like. Stone and that's what
- 25:36legacy really. Is it's not about what you leave in your.
- 25:40Will it's what you leave in your, words in your wounds,
- 25:44healed in your consistent. Pursuit it's the way your grandchild
- 25:49mimics your patience because they saw you hold your tongue
- 25:52when you could have. Snapped it's the way your son
- 25:54apologizes to his wife because he remembers the moment you
- 25:58bent down and did the same after a long. Fight
- 26:02it's the way your daughter leads with fire and tenderness
- 26:06because she saw both in you when the world told
- 26:09her men couldn't carry. Both In genesis forty, Nine, jacob
- 26:14an old man lying on his, deathbed gathers his twelve
- 26:18sons and speaks blessings over, them each one, tailored, honest sometimes.
- 26:23Raw he doesn't sugarcoat. It he speaks, truth and in
- 26:27those final, words he shapes, destinies because a father's, voice
- 26:32even a, trembling dying, one has. Power and what's astonishing
- 26:38is That jacob had been a, deceiver a, struggler a.
- 26:41Limper his journey was not, clean but he finished as
- 26:45a father who, blessed and that blessing outlived. Him this
- 26:48is the. Twist the chapter you thought was closing may
- 26:52actually be the beginning of your most important. Work your
- 26:55influence doesn't diminish with, Age it deepens if you let.
- 27:00It and your, children even the ones who act, indifferent
- 27:04are still. Watching they don't need you to have all the.
- 27:07Answers they need you to stay, available to stay, human
- 27:12to stay in the. Story, john a quiet, widower began
- 27:18writing letters to his sons after his wife. Passed nothing,
- 27:21long just, reflections, regrets scripture. Stories he mailed one every.
- 27:27Month sometimes he didn't hear, back but he kept. Writing
- 27:32after his, death his oldest son read one of those
- 27:36letters at his father's. Funeral dad didn't say much when
- 27:40we were, younger he, said but in the last few
- 27:43years he said everything that. Mattered the father still built
- 27:49even in, silence even in. Absence so don't believe the
- 27:55lie that your time is up that the best years
- 27:58are behind, you that your mistakes disqualify, you that if they're,
- 28:02grown it's too. Late it's not if you still have,
- 28:05breath you still have. Bricks you can still build peace
- 28:09where there was. Tension you can still offer wisdom where
- 28:12there was. Silence you can still lay spiritual foundations for
- 28:17the children of your. Children the world doesn't need more.
- 28:20Influences it needs more, fathers not just in, title but in.
- 28:25Truth fathers who don't just tell but. Show fathers who, finish,
- 28:31strong fathers who build when no one's, watching and whose
- 28:35legacy lives not in plaques or, praises but in the
- 28:39quiet revolution of a heart turned back to. Love the
- 28:44house may be, built but the foundation of, legacy that
- 28:48work is just. Beginning pick up the blueprint. Again the
- 28:52father still. Builds some men walk into rooms with. Presents
- 28:56others walk in with. Silence but the ones you. Remember
- 29:01those men often walk in with, Scars not the kind
- 29:05they brag, about not the kind earned in a gym
- 29:08or in, business the kind of scars that speak of, failure, regret,
- 29:13heartbreak and somehow. Redemption most men over forty five have
- 29:18collected at least a few a shattered, marriage a broken,
- 29:22friendship a moral, collapse a dream that died and never came.
- 29:28Back the world teaches men to hide these, scars to
- 29:32pretend they never, happened to polish the surface and avoid the.
- 29:36Questions But heaven sees scars, differently not as blemishes but
- 29:42as battle, marks not as, shame but as, story because
- 29:47in The kingdom Of, god the places where you've bled
- 29:50can become the very places where others begin to. Heal
- 29:55failure is something every man, faces but few are honest
- 30:00enough to speak, about especially when it comes in, public
- 30:04especially when it feels self. Inflicted there's a deep shame
- 30:10that settles over a man who knows he didn't just,
- 30:13fall but fell while others were. Watching maybe it was the,
- 30:17Affair maybe it was the. Bottle maybe it was the
- 30:21temper that finally drove someone. Away you thought you could control,
- 30:25it and then it controlled. You and now the enemy
- 30:28whispers every. Day you're, disqualified you'll never lead, again you'll
- 30:34never be. Trusted you're, done and the worst part part
- 30:40of you believes. Him But god does something surprising with broken.
- 30:44Men he doesn't discard. Them he reshapes, them and not,
- 30:49quietly he turns their lowest moments into altars of authority
- 30:54if they'll surrender. Them that surrender doesn't just take, Humility
- 30:59it takes. Trust and one of the clearest examples in
- 31:04all Of scripture Isn't peter Or, paul but a man Named.
- 31:09Manassa you'll find him In Second chronicles thirty. Three he
- 31:13was a, king son Of, hezekiah but a spiritual. Disaster
- 31:19he reversed every good thing his father. Did he built
- 31:23altars to, idols practiced, witchcraft even sacrificed his own sons
- 31:28in the. Fire he Filled jerusalem with innocent. Blood this
- 31:34wasn't a slip, up this was generational. Destruction but Then
- 31:38god broke. Him The assyrians captured him with hooks and
- 31:42bronze shackles and took him To. Babylon and in that
- 31:45prison cell something. Happened manassa humbled. Himself he cried out To,
- 31:52god And god astonishingly heard, him restored, him gave him
- 31:58back the, throne And, nasseau forever scarred by his, failure
- 32:03didn't waste his second. Chance he tore down the, idols
- 32:07he restored the. Temple he changed the course of a
- 32:10nation from butcher to, builder from shame to shepherd from
- 32:15disgrace to, legacy not because he deserved, it but because he.
- 32:19Surrendered that's what scars can do when handed back To.
- 32:23God they, teach they, Lead they opened doors that polish
- 32:28strength never. COULD a perfect life. Intimidates a healed life.
- 32:33Invites Take, dean a business man From. Chicago he built
- 32:37his company from, scratch early, success good, money church On,
- 32:42Sundays but in his mid, forties the pressure cracked. Him
- 32:47he had an. Affair the secret lasted. Months when it came,
- 32:51out his wife, left his, children distanced, themselves his name
- 32:55was blacklisted from leadership in his. Church for a, year
- 32:58he drifted, alone, hated, Broken but then he joined a recovery,
- 33:05group not as a leader but as a desperate. Man
- 33:10he didn't speak for the first three, meetings but in the,
- 33:13fourth someone else confessed an, affair And dean finally opened his.
- 33:17Mouth no, excuses no self, defense just raw confession and
- 33:23the ache of a man who had watched himself burn
- 33:26down his own. House that moment changed, everything not because
- 33:30it fixed his, life but because it began to fix his.
- 33:34Soul dean now leads that same. Group he tells men every,
- 33:39week your sin isn't your, story but your surrender can.
- 33:43Be and this is the. Twist the very things that
- 33:47should have buried you if, surrendered become the platform where
- 33:51others find. Resurrection the enemy wants to use your scars
- 33:55to accuse, you But god wants to use them to authorize.
- 33:58You In john, twenty after The, Resurrection jesus appears to the.
- 34:04Disciples you'd think he'd come with, glory blinding light and jelly.
- 34:09Chorus but do you know how he proves it's really.
- 34:12Him he shows them his. Scars he holds out his
- 34:15hands and his, side the holes where nails once ripped through,
- 34:19flesh proof not just that he, died but that he.
- 34:23Overcame And thomas the doubter doesn't believe until he touches,
- 34:28them until he feels the very, wounds until he places
- 34:33his hand into the place where death tried to. Win
- 34:36men are surrounded By thomas's to day, sons, friends younger,
- 34:40men skeptical of, faith hardened by. Life i'm sure if
- 34:45redemption is, real they don't need. Sermons they need. Scars
- 34:49they need to touch the places where you've bled and
- 34:52lived to tell about. It they need to hear you
- 34:55say this is WHERE i. Fell this is WHAT i
- 35:00this is WHAT i THOUGHT i could never recover. From
- 35:04and this is How jesus met me. There and suddenly
- 35:08what you thought disqualified you becomes your. Credibility you don't
- 35:12need to pretend any. More you don't need to hide
- 35:15what happened in your thirties or forties or last. Week
- 35:19you need to bring it to the, surface not for,
- 35:22pity but for. Purpose you're not called to be. Impressive
- 35:26you're called to be, faithful and that means owning every
- 35:29chapter of the. Story god is writing through, you Like,
- 35:33dan a pastor who lost his ministry and, scandal but
- 35:37found his calling again ten years, later not behind a,
- 35:40pulpit but sitting across from fallen men with shaking hands
- 35:44and crushed. HEARTS i used to think ministry was, preaching he,
- 35:49Says NOW i know it's bleeding and still pointing people
- 35:52to the. Cross so, yes you. Failed so Did moses
- 35:57when he killed The. Egyptian so Did jonah when he,
- 36:00ran so Did peter when he Denied jesus three times
- 36:04and cursed his. Name but that didn't end their. Story
- 36:09it transformed, it and it can transform. Yours scars that
- 36:14are hidden, fester but scars that are revealed can guide others.
- 36:18Home your failure is not the. End it's the invitation to,
- 36:23lead not in spite of, it but through. It you've,
- 36:27bled now. Lead there's a war most men fight that
- 36:31no one, sees not because it isn't, real but because
- 36:35they've been taught not to speak about. It you won't
- 36:38see the, blood you won't hear the. Groans but, inside
- 36:43in the quiet places between, meetings behind the smile at,
- 36:47church under the nightly, scroll through an endless, screen something is. Raging, doubt, shame, temptation, regret, depression, fatigue.
- 36:55Fear these don't knock. Loudly they, Whisper they, wake and
- 37:01they make their home in men who were never given
- 37:03permission to cry, out because somewhere along the, way men
- 37:07were told that real strength is. Silent so they suffer in,
- 37:12silence praying with dry, eyes hoping someone, sees but not
- 37:16knowing how to ask for. Help but here's the sacred.
- 37:19Truth god sees what you don't. Say he does not
- 37:23wait for words to notice the. War he does not
- 37:26need a break down to begin. Rebuilding in, fact some
- 37:30of the most powerful men in, scripture the ones who
- 37:33changed generations were not the loud. Ones they were the
- 37:36ones who fought in, silence but sought in. Secret Take,
- 37:40joseph the husband Of. Mary we forget him far too.
- 37:44Easily we Celebrate mary's, yes but rarely Honor joseph's. Restraint
- 37:51imagine finding out the woman you love is pregnant and
- 37:54you know the child is not. Yours imagine the, shame the,
- 37:58betrayal the, confers. Fusion and Yet matthew one nineteen tells
- 38:03us That, joseph being a just man and unwilling to
- 38:07put her to, shame resolved to divorce her quietly before
- 38:12the angel, appeared before the miracle was, Explained joseph was
- 38:16already choosing mercy in the middle of. Heartbreak no, screaming no,
- 38:21vengeance no, performance just pain and. Honor that is the
- 38:26power of a silent, battle and that is the kind
- 38:30of Man god chose to raise his son in The
- 38:33kingdom Of. God restraint is not, weakness its. Refinement that
- 38:38kind of quiet strength forges something that loud declarations. Cannot
- 38:42because any one can worship when they feel, Seen but
- 38:46can you worship when you are? Unnoticed can you pray
- 38:50with no? Response can you serve without. Applause can you
- 38:55fight for, purity, joy clarity or peace when no one is?
- 38:58Watching and keep fighting when the silence. Continues, adam a
- 39:04forty nine year old man From, colorado spent most of
- 39:07his life doing what was, expected, marriage, career, Kids but
- 39:14beneath the, surface he struggled with a pornography. Addiction he
- 39:18had never, confessed not because he didn't hate it he,
- 39:21did but because he was terrified that if he spoke it,
- 39:24aloud everything he built would. Collapse so he carried the
- 39:30weight alone for. Decades he, prayed he, Fasted he cried
- 39:37silently in the garage at. Night one, day while walking
- 39:40through his, neighborhood he felt the nudge to stop, pretending
- 39:44not to, everyone but to someone he called an old.
- 39:48Mentor they, Met he, confessed and instead of, condemnation he
- 39:53heard me. Too that was the beginning of, healing not
- 39:58because the battle was, over but because he had finally
- 40:01invited someone into. It adam is now ten years sober
- 40:05and leads a small group for men just like. Him
- 40:09his silence once shackled. Him now his story sets others.
- 40:16Free god does holy work in quiet. Places think Of
- 40:20hagar In genesis sixteen, abused, rejected, pregnant and alone in the.
- 40:27Wilderness no one was, coming no one was. Listening But
- 40:31god saw, her and in her, lowest loneliest, moment she
- 40:35Gave god a name no one had ever spoken, Before,
- 40:38elroy The god who sees. Me that name was not
- 40:43born in. Victory it was born in. Solitude it was
- 40:47born in a woman's silent battle that the world had.
- 40:49Ignored there is something sacred about the man who Seeks
- 40:54god in, silence not as, performance but as. Pursuit think
- 41:00of the paralytic In john, five the man lying by
- 41:04the pool Of. Bethesda for thirty eight, years he sat
- 41:07there watching others be, healed wondering if his turn would ever.
- 41:11Come he had no one to carry him, in no
- 41:15voice loud enough to. Compete But jesus walks into that
- 41:19silent suffering and asks one simple, question do you want
- 41:23to be? Healed not why didn't you speak? Up not
- 41:27why didn't you try? Harder just do you still want?
- 41:31This and the, man despite all those years of, waiting says,
- 41:35yes that, yes changed. Everything your silent battle doesn't disqualify.
- 41:40You it is the place where your dependence is being.
- 41:43Forged it is the forge of deeper, character and it's
- 41:47where spiritual authority is, born not in the, spotlight but in.
- 41:51Surrender many men assume that if their struggle doesn't make a,
- 41:56sound it doesn't. Matter But heaven hears the grown of
- 42:00your spirit before your lips ever. Move romans eight twenty
- 42:06six says the spirit helps us in our weakness with
- 42:10groanings too deep for. Words that means even your wordless
- 42:15prayers are sermons in. Heaven your tears are, testimony your
- 42:20restraint is. Worship there's humor in this, too because men
- 42:24will often fight dragons at work and barely survive dinner at.
- 42:27Home they'll tackle million dollar deals and then stare helplessly
- 42:32at a leaking. Forcet the silent battles aren't always. Epic
- 42:35sometimes they're just the slow bleed of, discouragement the ache
- 42:40of not knowing how to connect with a, teenager the
- 42:43sting of being misunderstood. Again But god meets you even.
- 42:47There and here's the. Twist the very silence that felt
- 42:51like abandonment may be Where god is drawing you to deeper,
- 42:55intimacy because when the noise, stops you finally hear his.
- 43:00Voice isaiah thirty fifteen, says in quietness and trust shall
- 43:05be your, strength not in, strategy not in, Shouting in.
- 43:10Quietness that's not a, rebuke that's a. Promise you don't
- 43:15need to be louder to be. Stronger you need to be.
- 43:19Anchored and the anchor is found in the secret place
- 43:23where your battles are still, real but no longer. Alone
- 43:28so if you're in a fight that no one, sees know,
- 43:30This god sees, it and he is not disappointed in your.
- 43:34Silence he is present in. It he is strengthening you through.
- 43:38It he is preparing you to, lead not just with your,
- 43:41voice but with your. Life and when you come through,
- 43:45this because you, will you'll carry something more valuable than.
- 43:48Charisma you'll carry, credibility not because you shouted from, rooftops
- 43:54but because you stood in the shadows and still sought his.
- 43:58Face that's the power of silent. Battles they don't make you,
- 44:01famous they make you, faithful and in the, end that's
- 44:06the kind of strength that hell can't fake And heaven
- 44:09will never. Forget there is a strange ache that comes
- 44:13when you're no longer where you, were but not yet
- 44:15where you're. Going that in between space, unmapped, uncertain feels
- 44:20like the ground beneath you shifts with every. Step it's the,
- 44:24wilderness not always, literal but always. Transformative it shows up
- 44:30when the career that once gave you identity no longer.
- 44:33Fits but retirement feels like, exile when your role as
- 44:38a father shifts from leader to, observer but you're still
- 44:42aching to pour out what. Remains when your body begins slowing,
- 44:47down but your spirit still stirs with. Vision the wilderness
- 44:52doesn't come with a warning. Label it comes with, silence
- 44:56and that silence has a voice of its. Own most
- 45:00men aren't taught how to navigate. Transition they're taught to, chase, build,
- 45:05conquer and then. Maintain but what do you do when
- 45:09the thing you built starts falling? Away when the title,
- 45:13fades the phone stops, ringing and the applause becomes a?
- 45:17Memory what do you do when what once defined you
- 45:20no longer. Applies this is the, wilderness And god doesn't waste.
- 45:26It he never. Has look At, moses not The prince
- 45:30Of egypt, version but the version no one talks about,
- 45:34enough the fugitive, shepherd the man who once walked royal,
- 45:38halls now tending sheep in obscurity for forty. Years he
- 45:43didn't plan, it he didn't want, it and for four
- 45:45decades the wilderness was his. World but What moses didn't,
- 45:49realize what most of us, don't was That god was
- 45:52using the wilderness to deconstruct the man of ego so
- 45:56he could raise up the man of. Purpose the one
- 45:59who once acted in impulse was being taught to walk in.
- 46:02Patience the one who once killed with his hands would
- 46:06later deliver with his. Staff the wilderness was not, punishment
- 46:11it was. Preparation many men to day are on the
- 46:15edge of that same. Wilderness they've Left, egypt Whatever egypt
- 46:20was for, them the, climb the, striving the name on the,
- 46:23door the admiration of. Others but they haven't yet arrived
- 46:27at the promised land of, peace, identity and lasting. Impact
- 46:32so they stand in, between, restless not sure what to,
- 46:36do wondering If god has moved. On but the wilderness
- 46:41is not Where god forgets, You it's Where he forges.
- 46:45You tom a former real estate, developer knows this to rain.
- 46:49Well at fifty, two after years of late, nights big,
- 46:53deals and bigger, stress he burned, out not just physically but,
- 46:57spiritually he walked away from from his, company not in,
- 47:01scandal but in. Silence for a, year he did nothing
- 47:05but hike journal and wonder If god was done with.
- 47:09Him he stopped being, needed and with that came. Grief one,
- 47:15day sitting by a mountain, stream he felt the Phrase
- 47:19i'm not through with, You i'm just beginning to use.
- 47:23You that moment broke, him not because it was, loud
- 47:28but because it was. Real tom now mentors young, entrepreneurs
- 47:32not in how to build, empires but how to build
- 47:35lives that. Last the wilderness didn't ruin, him it redefined.
- 47:40Him the danger in transition is not the, waiting it's the,
- 47:44wandering because wandering breeds, doubt and, doubt if left, unchecked
- 47:50hardens into. Apathy that's what happened to The. Israelites they
- 47:54Left egypt with fire but ended up circling sand for
- 47:58forty years because they couldn't trust the. Silence they wanted
- 48:03what was familiar more than they wanted what was. Promised
- 48:06But god doesn't lead us in circles for. Cruelty he
- 48:10does it to clear out what can't come with us
- 48:12into the next. Place the wilderness removes, Idles it strips
- 48:17away the applause. Addiction it reveals the shallow. Motives it
- 48:21exposes how much of your identity was built on activity
- 48:25instead of. Intimacy and once all that is, gone you
- 48:29realize What god wanted all along was. You and here
- 48:33lies the. Twist the edge of the wilderness is also
- 48:37the edge of. Revelation jesus began his ministry only after
- 48:43forty days in the, wilderness not because he needed to prove,
- 48:46something but because he needed to model. Something that silence,
- 48:51clarifies that hunger, sharpens that isolation. Transforms The spirit led
- 48:58him there not to weak, him but to strengthen what
- 49:01would not be. Seen some of your most powerful anointing
- 49:05is waiting beyond your most painful. Unmaking, dan a once
- 49:11prominent church, leader found himself at that edge after a
- 49:15moral failure that cost him his pulpit and nearly his.
- 49:18Family he spent three years out of the public, eye, grieving,
- 49:23repenting relearning how to walk With god without the. Crowd
- 49:28it was in that wilderness that he met the Real jesus,
- 49:31again not the one he, preached but the one who
- 49:34stayed when everything else left to. Day dan doesn't pastor a.
- 49:39Megachurch he sits with broken men in coffee. Shops he
- 49:44doesn't shout from, Platforms he whispers hope into, ashes and
- 49:48he'll tell you the wilderness didn't just change, me it saved.
- 49:53Me so if you're in that in, between that dry
- 49:57and dusty place where the map no longer, applied take.
- 50:01Heart you are not. Lost you are being led not
- 50:04backwards but, deeper not into, irrelevance but into. Refinement god
- 50:10doesn't use men who haven't walked through the. Wilderness he
- 50:14may love you In, egypt but he anoints you in the.
- 50:17Desert don't rush through, this don't despise. It walk it.
- 50:21Slowly let the silence teach, You let the stillness confront,
- 50:25You let the dryness make you thirst, again not for,
- 50:29status but for the living. Water and know that just
- 50:33beyond this stretch of sand is a burning bush with
- 50:36your name on, it a new, assignment a deeper, authority
- 50:41a call not built on charisma but on. Character the
- 50:46edge of the wilderness feels like the, end but it's
- 50:49the beginning of everything that. Matters so take off your.
- 50:53Shoes the ground you're, on even, now is. Holy there
- 50:57is a moment in many men's lives usually somewhere between
- 51:01forty and fifty, five where the fuse gets shorter and
- 51:05the silence grows. Louder it's not the young man's rage
- 51:09of flailing fists or public. Explosions, no midlife rage is more,
- 51:14calculated more. Private it shows up in clenched, jaws quiet,
- 51:19contempt and words sharper than. Fists it's felt in the
- 51:23slamming of a cabinet door at midnight when no one is,
- 51:27watching in the, long, passive aggressive silences between husband and,
- 51:32wife in the self loathing glance in the mirror that
- 51:36you quickly turn away. From it's not that you're angry
- 51:39all the. Time it's that the fire never seems to
- 51:43go out. Completely and beneath that, fire something far more
- 51:48fragile is trembling. Disappointment disappointment that you thought you'd be further,
- 51:53along that your kids don't listen any, more that your
- 51:57wife doesn't look at you the way she used, to
- 52:00that your boss doesn't see your, worth that you keep
- 52:03getting passed, over that the younger men you train now
- 52:07walk by with swagger while you sit quietly remembering when
- 52:10you had that fire. Too it's the rage that comes
- 52:14from realizing that time no longer seems on your, side
- 52:18and you don't know how to fight an. Enemy you can't,
- 52:20punch the world won't let you. Scream your house can't
- 52:24handle your, weight so the only safe place to bleed is.
- 52:27Inward But god sees the fire even when you hide the,
- 52:32smoke and he's not here to condemn you for. It
- 52:35he's here to convert. It there's a man in scripture
- 52:38we don't talk about in this way, often but who
- 52:41knew this? Rage Intimately, Jonah not The Sunday school cartoon
- 52:47version with the wail and a second, chance the Real,
- 52:50jonah the man who ran From, god not because he feared,
- 52:54failure but because he feared. Forgiveness jonah wasn't scared Of.
- 52:59Nineveh he was disgusted by the idea That god would
- 53:02show mercy to people he. Hated and when the revival actually,
- 53:07happened when thousands repented and turned To, God jonah didn't.
- 53:11Celebrate he sat under a withering, vine, sulking, fuming. RAGING
- 53:18i knew you were, gracious he Told, god, bitterly slow to,
- 53:22anger abounding in. Love that's WHY i. Ran mid life
- 53:27rage often hides behind the disguise of. Righteousness it SAYS
- 53:32i deserve more than. This i've done too much to
- 53:35be this. Unseen i've paid too high a price to
- 53:38feel this. Forgotten but the rage isn't really about other.
- 53:43People it's about a god we feel has betrayed our,
- 53:46timeline a plan that hasn't unfolded the way we, imagined
- 53:52and a self we no longer. Recognize, jason a fifty
- 53:57three year old former, firefighter was known for his strength
- 54:00and calm under. Pressure he'd carried children out of burning,
- 54:03homes led teams through, chaos and received medals for. Valor
- 54:08but after, retirement he found himself constantly. Irritated loud noises
- 54:13would set him, off long conversations felt. Unbearable his marriage was.
- 54:18Strained one, night after yelling at his grown son for
- 54:22a minor, Offense jason locked himself in his truck and sobbed,
- 54:26uncontrollably not because of what his son, did but because
- 54:30of what he had. Become that, night he reached out
- 54:34to a. Counselor in that, process he unearthed years of,
- 54:39grief of unprocessed, trauma of silently bearing everyone else's burden
- 54:44while ignoring his. Own rage had been his, armor but
- 54:49underneath was a boy who never learned how to be.
- 54:52Held the transformation didn't happen, overnight but As jason leaned
- 54:58into the, healing he found something he'd never. Expected, peace
- 55:03not the kind that comes from everything going your, way
- 55:06but the kind that comes when you stop needing. It to,
- 55:11midlife rage is, real but it's not, permanent not if
- 55:15you're willing to trace it to its, source because rage
- 55:18is never the. Root it's always the, fruit and the
- 55:21root is often, pain, fear, shame sometimes grief over a
- 55:27version of yourself that never, existed or a dream that
- 55:30died too. Quietly and here's the twist that most men.
- 55:33Miss the way through rage is not through. Dominance it's through.
- 55:37Surrender look again At, jesus not the Crucified, christ but
- 55:41the carpenter in the. Temple when he overturned tables and
- 55:45drove out. Merchants he did it with, purpose but he
- 55:49didn't stay. Angry he didn't burn the temple. Down he
- 55:52restored it to what it was meant to. Be that's
- 55:56the divine model for masculine, anger not uncontrolled, explosion but
- 56:00righteous disruption that leads to. Restoration you are still a
- 56:05Builder but, now instead of building with, ego you're called
- 56:08to build with. Wisdom instead of proving your, power you're
- 56:13called to prove your. Peace and that piece isn't. Passive it's,
- 56:16Forged forged in, Forgiveness forged in the conversations you, Avoided
- 56:21forged in the therapy session you were scared to, Schedule
- 56:25forged in the confession to your, Wife forged in the
- 56:28apology to your, Child forged in the prayers you didn't,
- 56:32feel but prayed, Anyway forged in the fire you didn't,
- 56:35start but chose not to. Spread peace is not the
- 56:39absence of. Rage it's the presence of. Restraint and that
- 56:42kind of peace Terrifies, hell because a man who can feel,
- 56:47deeply confess, honestly and still lead humbly is a dangerous. Man,
- 56:52david after his catastrophic failure With bathsheba and the murder
- 56:56of her, husband lived for a time in. Torment The
- 57:00psalms echo with his. Anguish but over, time that, rage that,
- 57:05guilt that grief was, transformed and we see an Older david,
- 57:10writing create in me a clean, HEART O, god and
- 57:13renew a right spirit within. Me that's the cry of
- 57:16a man who had learned the hard, way that rage
- 57:19might win, battles but only peace wind's. Souls so if
- 57:24you're in that middle, place the one where your fuse feels,
- 57:27short your temper, flares your, Chest titans, pause don't, perform don't,
- 57:32pretend don't push it down. Again Invite god in not
- 57:36to take it all away in one, instant but to
- 57:38walk with you through the, fire not to shame you
- 57:42for the, emotion but to shepherd you into something more.
- 57:45Eternal you don't have to stay, angry you don't have
- 57:48to hide. It you can hand it over and what
- 57:50will be returned is not weakness but, wisdom not submission but,
- 57:56stature not, defeat but divine in. Rest this is not
- 58:01the end of your. Story this is the taming of
- 58:04the mid life, rage and in its place a man
- 58:07of peace will. Rise there's a hidden oath stitched into
- 58:11the soul of almost every MAN i will. Provide it's
- 58:15not always spoken, aloud but it drives, decisions steals, sleep titans.
- 58:20Shoulders it defines worth in dollars and value in. Outcomes
- 58:25somewhere around adolescence it gets, cemented often passed down like
- 58:30sacred duty from a father who himself bore it. Silently
- 58:35it can feel, noble it often, is but it can
- 58:38also become a quiet, tyrant one that tells a man
- 58:42you are only as good as what you. Produce you
- 58:46are only as secure as your last. Paycheck you're only
- 58:49respected if you're needed financially. Provision once a calling becomes an,
- 58:54idol and idols don't just demand, sacrifice they devour the
- 58:59man off. It this is where many men in mid
- 59:02life find. Themselves they've built, careers raised, families paid, mortgages bought,
- 59:08gifts checked, boxes and somewhere along the, way they stopped.
- 59:12Being they just started. Producing the joy of fatherhood blurred into.
- 59:18Obligation the passion of purpose became a grind of. Pressure
- 59:23they don't always hate their, lives but they can no
- 59:26longer hear. Them they walk through rooms full of people
- 59:30they love and feel nothing but, Weight and behind it
- 59:34all is the silent Fear IF i stop, performing will
- 59:40they still need? Me IF i don't? Provide AM i still?
- 59:44Enough the story Of usiah is one of scriptures forgotten,
- 59:48warnings found In Second chronicles twenty. Six usiah was a
- 59:53king who began his reign with humility and the favor Of.
- 59:57God he invented, weapons strengthened the, army and Fortified. Jerusalem
- 1:00:03his fame spread far and. Wide scripture, says as long
- 1:00:07as he sought The Lord god gave him. Success but
- 1:00:11then something. Changed After usiah became, powerful his pride led
- 1:00:17to his. Downfall he marched into the temple burning, incense
- 1:00:22an act reserved for, priests because he believed his success
- 1:00:25made him. Untouchable god struck him with. Leprosy he lived
- 1:00:31the rest of his days in, isolation his legacy scarred
- 1:00:35not by his failure to, provide but by his inability
- 1:00:38to see that success wasn't the. Point usiah didn't lose
- 1:00:43because he didn't provide. Enough he lost because he forgot
- 1:00:47who provided for. Him this isn't just ancient. History it's
- 1:00:52to day's. Caution greg a fifty six year old regional
- 1:00:56manager for a national logistics, company had what most men would.
- 1:01:00Envy the six figure, income the lake, house the golf club.
- 1:01:05Membership his two kids were in, college debt, free he
- 1:01:09paid for family. Vacations but he also hadn't prayed with
- 1:01:13his wife in five, years he hadn't gone to church in,
- 1:01:16three and he couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed
- 1:01:19without checking his. Phone when his daughter home For christmas gently, Asked,
- 1:01:26dad when did work become Your? God he laughed it,
- 1:01:31off but something broke. Inside later that, night alone in his,
- 1:01:36office he, wept not because he was, guilty but because
- 1:01:40he was. Empty he'd spent decades giving his family everything but.
- 1:01:46Himself provision had become his, altar, success his. Sacrifice and
- 1:01:53yet this is Where god loves to meet, men not
- 1:01:56in their, prosperity but in the pause after, it with a,
- 1:02:00rebuke but with a. Reframe provision is biblical, honoring, sacred
- 1:02:06but it was never meant to replace. Presents scripture says
- 1:02:11if anyone does not provide for his, relatives he has
- 1:02:14denied the Faith Verse timothy five. Eight but it also,
- 1:02:18says what good is it for someone to gain the
- 1:02:21whole world yet forfeit their Soul mark eight thirty. Six
- 1:02:26the tension is not between success and. Failure the tension
- 1:02:30is between provision and. Idolatry real provision isn't just about.
- 1:02:35Money it's about modeling, peace, integrity. Joy it's about providing a,
- 1:02:41safe emotional and spiritual, home not just a stocked. REFRIGERATOR
- 1:02:47a man who provides Without idolatry is one who knows
- 1:02:50the weight of responsibility but refuses to carry it. Alone
- 1:02:55he wakes up early to, pray not just to. Perform
- 1:02:58he works, hard but remembers his worth isn't in his net.
- 1:03:02Worth he teaches his kids to tithe and. Trust he
- 1:03:06shows his wife love that isn't dependent on his stress.
- 1:03:09Level he leads his family not by, domination but by. Devotion,
- 1:03:14isaac the son Of, abraham lived in the shadow of
- 1:03:17a father famous for, faith and yet In genesis twenty
- 1:03:22six it says there was a famine in the. Land,
- 1:03:24Still isaac Obeyed, god stayed In jerrh and planted. Crops that.
- 1:03:31Year scripture says he reaped a hundredfold because The lord blessed.
- 1:03:36Him he built, wells but the locals kept taking. Them he,
- 1:03:40moved dug another and was pushed away. Again, finally after
- 1:03:44persistence and, humility he dug a well and named It.
- 1:03:48Rehobath now The lord has given us, room and we will.
- 1:03:54Flourish isaac's provision came not from stubborn, grip but from surrendered.
- 1:03:59Trust sometimes the most spiritual thing a man can do
- 1:04:03is take his hands off what he, built and Ask,
- 1:04:06god is this still? Yours or DID i start calling it?
- 1:04:10Mine the twist in all of this is that the
- 1:04:13men who fear not having enough are often the ones
- 1:04:16who never Let god show them how much he wants to.
- 1:04:19Give because as long as you believe you are the,
- 1:04:21source you will live like a slave to the very
- 1:04:25Thing god meant as a. Tool you are not the,
- 1:04:28provider you are the. Steward there is freedom in that.
- 1:04:31Shift provision without idolatry means you can lose a job
- 1:04:36without losing your. Peace it means you can say no
- 1:04:40to overtime if it means saying yes to dinner with your.
- 1:04:43Son it means you can downsize your life to upgrade your.
- 1:04:48Soul it means you can walk through the valley of
- 1:04:50career transition and still lead your family with joy because
- 1:04:54your foundation isn't your, position it's your. Provider fred a
- 1:04:59Retired navy, officer had lived a life of, medals, deployments,
- 1:05:04discipline but retirement came like a. Thief without his, uniform
- 1:05:08he felt like a. Ghost for six, Months he, spiraled, overspending,
- 1:05:14overdrinking and eventually. Overdosing he survived. Barely it was in
- 1:05:18a recovery group that someone told him you spent thirty
- 1:05:22years providing, Security now Let god provide. Identity that line
- 1:05:28rewrote his. Story Today fred speaks to veterans not about,
- 1:05:33tactics but about, trust about how real provision starts when
- 1:05:38you stop pretending to Be. God, so if you're a man,
- 1:05:42working grinding, building, pause ask, yourself AM i still doing
- 1:05:47this from? Calling or AM i now driven by? Fear
- 1:05:51AM i offering provision to my family or sacrificing them
- 1:05:54on the altar of my need to be? Needed provision
- 1:05:58without idolatry isn't about doing. Less it's about loving more.
- 1:06:02Wisely and when you get that, right your legacy won't
- 1:06:06just be what you left. Behind it'll be who you
- 1:06:09became while you were still. HERE a man who, provides
- 1:06:14a man who, prays a man who protects not just
- 1:06:17with dollars but with his, SPIRIT a man not consumed by,
- 1:06:20success but consumed by the one who provides it. All
- 1:06:25there's a silent epidemic among men over forty, five and
- 1:06:29it has nothing to do with, cholesterol knees that creak
- 1:06:32in the, morning or the thinning hairline they won't admit.
- 1:06:35To it's something, deeper. Lonelier it's, isolation not the kind
- 1:06:42where you live alone or work, remotely but the kind
- 1:06:46that happens even when you sleep in the same bed every,
- 1:06:49night eat dinner with your, family nod politely at co,
- 1:06:53workers wave at, neighbors and shake hands at. Church it's
- 1:06:59the kind of ice that settles in when you're still
- 1:07:02surrounded but, unseen when the only conversations that go deeper
- 1:07:07than the weather are the ones you have in your,
- 1:07:09head when you realize you know more about your favorite
- 1:07:13sports team than the emotional state of your own. Soul
- 1:07:17for too many, men brotherhood ended somewhere around age twenty.
- 1:07:21Eight after, that life became about, bills, promotions lawn, care
- 1:07:27and surviving the occasional group text. Thread but that primal
- 1:07:32need for another man's, shoulder another man's, wisdom another man's,
- 1:07:36presence never went. Away it just got buried under responsibility
- 1:07:40and a cultural script that, said real men don't need,
- 1:07:44Help real men don't talk, feelings real men carry it.
- 1:07:49Alone But god never intended for men to walk. Alone.
- 1:07:54Never in, fact some of the fiercest failures in scripture
- 1:07:57were not born out of. Weakness BUT i take Ri,
- 1:08:01herboam son Of, solomon a young king handed a kingdom
- 1:08:06surrounded by, elders men who had served his, father walked
- 1:08:10With god seen both glory and. Collapse but rih Her
- 1:08:15boam refused their counsel and instead listen to the, loud
- 1:08:19untested voices of his younger. Friends he chose ego over,
- 1:08:23wisdom independence over. Brotherhood the result, division, rebellion, collapse ten
- 1:08:32tribes ripped from his. Hands why because he surrounded himself
- 1:08:37with men who told him what he wanted to, hear
- 1:08:40not what he needed to. Hear you'd think we'd, learn
- 1:08:44but men today repeat this pattern. Daily we suffer, Silently
- 1:08:49we hide our sin in pixels and, Pride we handle
- 1:08:52heartbreak like it's a private, task and in the name
- 1:08:56of being, strong we live. Lonely but The bible, does
- 1:09:00and just diagnose. This it offers a. Cure ecclesiastes four
- 1:09:04nine to ten says two are better than. One if
- 1:09:08either of them falls, down one can help the other,
- 1:09:11up but pity any one who falls and has no
- 1:09:14one to help them. Up that verse doesn't lose its
- 1:09:17power with, age it gains, weight because when you're, young
- 1:09:22falling is. Expected when you're, older it's, terrifying and when
- 1:09:26you have no one to help you, up it's. Tragic,
- 1:09:31john a sixty one year old business, man came to
- 1:09:34understand this the hard way after his wife passed away.
- 1:09:38Unexpectedly he found himself not only, grieving but completely. Alone
- 1:09:43he had, colleagues, yes, acquaintances but no. Brothers no one
- 1:09:47he could call at two a. M without rehearsing what to,
- 1:09:50say no one who could handle the rawness of his.
- 1:09:53Ache he tried, church but it felt too. Performative he
- 1:09:58tried online, groups but nothing. Stuck one, night after a
- 1:10:03particularly dark episode of, grief he sat on his porch
- 1:10:07and simply, Whispered, GOD i need one, man just. One
- 1:10:13three days, later an old friend from college texted him
- 1:10:16out of the, Blue you've been on my. Heart you?
- 1:10:19Okay that one text turned into weekly, calls then monthly.
- 1:10:26Visits that man sat With john through the, storm didn't fix,
- 1:10:31it didn't, preach just. Stayed sometimes what saves a man's
- 1:10:36soul is simply another man who refuses to walk. Away
- 1:10:40there's a Reason jesus didn't just call. Followers he formed
- 1:10:43a band of. Brothers twelve, men, flawed, volatile, competitive, insecure
- 1:10:49but bound by something greater than. Themselves and even within
- 1:10:53the twelve there were Three, Peter, james And, john a smaller,
- 1:10:59circle closer. Trusted If, jesus The son Of god walked
- 1:11:05with a, brotherhood why do we think we can walk.
- 1:11:08Alone there's power in male, friendship especially in the second
- 1:11:12half of, life not just power to, reminisce but to,
- 1:11:16rebuild not just to, laugh but to, confess not just
- 1:11:21to hang, out but to call. Out and yet many
- 1:11:25men fear this level of vulnerability because it requires two
- 1:11:29things they've spent decades, avoiding humility and. Intentionality you have
- 1:11:35to be willing to go first to, say, hey, Man
- 1:11:39i'm not doing. Great can we? Talk that one sentence
- 1:11:43has saved, marriages pulled men out of, addiction and rewired.
- 1:11:47Legacies you also have to pursue the brotherhood you. Want
- 1:11:51it won't show up in your, inbox it won't magically
- 1:11:54appear during half. Time you'll have to risk, awkwardness, rejection.
- 1:12:00Silence but what's waiting on the other side is worth.
- 1:12:04It caleb one of the few men in scripture who
- 1:12:08made it through the wilderness and still had fire in
- 1:12:11his belly at eighty, five wasn't a lone. Wolf he
- 1:12:15was one of twelve, spies and while ten, faltered Only
- 1:12:19joshua stood with. Him that kind of loyalty doesn't happen by.
- 1:12:23Accident it happens when two men believe the same thing
- 1:12:27About god and refuse to give up on each. Other
- 1:12:31joshua And caleb were not, perfect but they were faithful
- 1:12:35and faithful. Men when link arm in arm can cross into,
- 1:12:39territories the isolated man never. Will the twist in this
- 1:12:45whole thing is that your most powerful ministry in this
- 1:12:48season of life may not be to a, crowd but
- 1:12:51to one, man one, friend one, brother that neighbor who
- 1:12:57always nods but never, talks that co worker who just
- 1:13:01went through, divorce that son in law who doesn't know
- 1:13:03how to lead his. Family you don't need to. Preach
- 1:13:06you just need to show, up, call, sit, listen text,
- 1:13:10first ask, twice pray out. Loud you don't have to fix,
- 1:13:14him just remind him he's not. Alone because when men
- 1:13:19begin to rebuild, brotherhood revival. Follows not the tent revival,
- 1:13:23kind but the kind that changes how you show up
- 1:13:26for your, family how you, pray how you, lead how
- 1:13:29you fight for, purity, patience. PERSEVERANCE a man alone is a,
- 1:13:34target but a man in brotherhood that's an. Army you're
- 1:13:38not too old to need, friends you're not too broken
- 1:13:41to be, one and you're not too far gone to
- 1:13:43rebuild what matters. Most so reach, out be the friend
- 1:13:47you wish you, had and Let god turn your lonely
- 1:13:50corners into sacred circles where iron sharpens, iron hearts, heal
- 1:13:54and legacies are forged. Together there comes a moment in
- 1:13:58a man's, life often around the edges of forty five and,
- 1:14:02onward when the loud tools of leadership start to fail.
- 1:14:06Him the voice that once commanded attention now barely stirs
- 1:14:11his own. Children the titles on his resume no longer
- 1:14:15impress the. Mirror the money in the account can't buy back.
- 1:14:18Intimacy he's still, standing still, working still, providing but something
- 1:14:23in the foundation is, cracked and if he's, honest he
- 1:14:27feels like a stranger in his own. House he no
- 1:14:29longer knows how to, lead not because he's, lazy but
- 1:14:33because the old ways aren't. Working the things that built
- 1:14:37his world can no longer hold it. Up and into
- 1:14:41that quiet, Ache god whispers a dangerous, invitation come talk to.
- 1:14:47Me prayer isn't the emergency. Break it isn't the last
- 1:14:52minute Hail mary tossed Into heaven when everything else falls.
- 1:14:55Apart prayer is the. Strategy prayer is the. Source prayer
- 1:15:02is the moment when a man who feels bankrupt finally
- 1:15:05finds out That heaven has been holding his inheritance all.
- 1:15:09Along but most men don't learn to pray until life
- 1:15:13brings them to their, knees and, that oddly, enough is
- 1:15:18where leadership. Begins mark had spent thirty years as an
- 1:15:23executive vice president for a regional, bank, meetings, metrics. Mergers
- 1:15:29he lived in bullet points and bottom. Lines he went to,
- 1:15:33church gave, faithfully even volunteered once a. Month but prayer
- 1:15:37that was his wife's. Territory she prayed with the kids over.
- 1:15:40Meals during. Bedtime he nodded, respectfully but stayed. Silent then cancer,
- 1:15:46came his, wife not. Him in one brutal, diagnosis his
- 1:15:51world split. Open doctors gave, numbers his faith gave, silence And,
- 1:15:56mark the man who always had the, answer had nothing
- 1:15:59left to. Say so one night in a hospital, chapel
- 1:16:03surrounded by flickering l e ed candles and the smell of.
- 1:16:06Sanitizer he knelt no, script no fancy, words just five cracked. Syllables,
- 1:16:16god please help. Me and in that, moment something ancient broke.
- 1:16:21OPEN a man who hadn't prayed in decades was suddenly
- 1:16:24praying like his soul depended on. It because it. Did
- 1:16:28you don't become a man of prayer in. Peace you
- 1:16:30become a man of prayer in. Pressure but once you
- 1:16:34cross that threshold you find something. Extraordinary prayer is not
- 1:16:39about mastering. Words it's about surrendering. Control it's not an.
- 1:16:43Obligation it's. Oxygen it's not what you do to impress.
- 1:16:47Others it's what you do to stay. Alive Consider, hezekiah a,
- 1:16:52king a, leader a man under siege by an enemy
- 1:16:56army and death. Itself In Two kings nineteen and again
- 1:17:00In Two kings, twenty we find him doing something almost
- 1:17:03no king would do in a. Crisis he didn't summon his,
- 1:17:06generals he didn't draft a counter. Attack he didn't retreat into.
- 1:17:10Isolation he took a letter from the, enemy spread it
- 1:17:14before The lord in the, temple and. Prayed he poured
- 1:17:17out his. Fear he named the threat and he Asked,
- 1:17:21god not with flowery religious, talk but with, raw desperate,
- 1:17:25honesty to. Move And god. Did that, night one hundred
- 1:17:30eighty five thousand enemy soldiers died without a single sword
- 1:17:35drawn By zekiah's. Hand that's what prayer. Does it doesn't
- 1:17:39make you, weak it makes you dangerous to. Hell somewhere
- 1:17:42along the, way men started believing that prayer was, passive
- 1:17:47that it was, soft that it was best left to,
- 1:17:50women pastors or desperate. People but when a man, prays kingdoms.
- 1:17:55Shift when a man, prays strongholds. Tremble when a man,
- 1:18:00prays generations are. Protected because prayer isn't a retreat from,
- 1:18:04Leadership it is. Leadership it is the summit of spiritual.
- 1:18:08Authority daniel prayed three times a, day not out of,
- 1:18:13habit but out of. Hunger he was in, exile under,
- 1:18:17threat surrounded by. Compromise yet he didn't lead from. Policy
- 1:18:22he led from his. Knees even the lions couldn't stop.
- 1:18:25Him because when you live in the presence Of, god
- 1:18:29fear loses its. Teeth in our, world where men are
- 1:18:33measured by power and, productivity it feels almost foolish to
- 1:18:37shut the, laptop silence the phone and kneel beside a.
- 1:18:41Bed but that's where revival. Starts not in a, stadium
- 1:18:45but in a. Study not with a, mike but with a.
- 1:18:48Whisper not with a, plan but with. Surrender the twist is,
- 1:18:53This the most powerful thing a man can do for
- 1:18:56his family is not bring home more. Money it's bring
- 1:18:59home the press presence Of. God to pray out, loud
- 1:19:02to speak life over his, wife to ask his, kids
- 1:19:05how CAN i pray for you to, day to intercede
- 1:19:08in the quiet hours of the morning when no one
- 1:19:11sees but. Heaven, jake a forty seven year old, contractor
- 1:19:16never thought of himself as spiritual tools were his, language blue,
- 1:19:20prints His, Bible but after a painful season of bankruptcy
- 1:19:24and estrangement from his teenage, son he started praying before each. Job.
- 1:19:30Sight one, day a young apprentice asked. Why jake simply,
- 1:19:35SAID i don't trust myself to build what Only god can.
- 1:19:39Bless that apprentice is now a pastor because one man
- 1:19:44decided that prayer wasn't a fallback, plan it was the blue.
- 1:19:49Print and maybe that's the final. Truth men don't fail
- 1:19:53for lack of. Resources they fail for lack of, revelation
- 1:19:57and revelation only comes through. Communion you cannot lead what
- 1:20:01you don't listen, for you cannot cover what you won't
- 1:20:04carry in, prayer and you cannot call yourself a spiritual
- 1:20:07leader if you're not first a spiritual. Listener you're still
- 1:20:11the man for your, family still the leader in your,
- 1:20:14home still the voice they look, to even if it's grown.
- 1:20:18Quiet but the strength you need for this next season
- 1:20:22will not come from. Effort it will come from, encounter
- 1:20:26and encounter requires. Presents so. Pray pray like your children's
- 1:20:31faith depends on. It pray like your marriage needs a.
- 1:20:34Miracle pray like you've just now realized you're Not. God
- 1:20:38and that's the best news of, all because the man
- 1:20:41who prays doesn't just change. Things he becomes the, change
- 1:20:46not louder but, deeper not harder but. HOLIER a man Of,
- 1:20:49god a man who, listens a man who, leads a
- 1:20:53man who. Prays there is a peculiar kind of silence
- 1:20:57that settles in around a man's soul once he crosses
- 1:21:00the invisible line of mid. Life not just the silence
- 1:21:04of a quieter house or grown, children but the kind
- 1:21:07that follows the clamor of career, climes broken, dreams aging,
- 1:21:12parents and a body that no longer bounces back like
- 1:21:15it used. To it is the silence of what, Now
- 1:21:19because no matter how well your first chapters were, written
- 1:21:22whether full of victory or marked by, stumbling there comes
- 1:21:25a moment when a man must, decide WILL i coast
- 1:21:29to the end or WILL i finish. Strong culture sells
- 1:21:34retirement like a. Reward you earned, This you've done your.
- 1:21:38Time now it's, golf grand kids and guiltless. Indulgence but
- 1:21:44scripture dares to tell a different, story one where the
- 1:21:48latter chapters are not softer but, sharper where the twilight
- 1:21:52years burn brighter than the, dawn where the last leg
- 1:21:56of the race is not a slow, stroll but a
- 1:21:59final sprint of, purpose marked by scars that shine and
- 1:22:04faith that won't. Quit Because heaven never called you to fade.
- 1:22:08Out you were made to go out in. Fire caleb
- 1:22:11was eighty five when he stood Before joshua and, SAID
- 1:22:14i am still as strong to day as the Day
- 1:22:17moses sent me. Out now give me this. Mountain let
- 1:22:22that sink. IN a man who could have, coasted a
- 1:22:25man who'd survived forty years of wandering because of someone else's,
- 1:22:30doubt a man whose body had surely, weakened yet his
- 1:22:34faith had grown. Stronger caleb wasn't looking for a. Hammock
- 1:22:38he was looking for a hill to. Conquer. Why because
- 1:22:43purpose doesn't, age calling doesn't, expire and strength in The
- 1:22:49kingdom has never been measured in muscle but in. Fire,
- 1:22:54doug a retired school, principal had always been the guy
- 1:22:58with the clipboard and the. Plan but at sixty, six
- 1:23:02after his wife died unexpectedly and his grown kids lived states,
- 1:23:06away he found himself waking up with no, schedule no
- 1:23:11voice calling his, name and no reason to put on real.
- 1:23:14Pants he WATCHED, tv worked in the, yard and quietly
- 1:23:19slipped into the shadow of his former self until one
- 1:23:23day at, church a young couple's toddler threw a tantrum
- 1:23:26in the pew beside. Him doug helped pick up the
- 1:23:30cheerios and soothe the child with a teacher's familiar. Warmth
- 1:23:35that simple interaction sparked. Something he started volunteering in the children's.
- 1:23:40Ministry that led to, mentoring that led to coffee with
- 1:23:46young fathers trying to figure it, out and Somewhere in those,
- 1:23:50Conversations doug rediscovered, himself not because he found a, platform
- 1:23:55but because he found a person to pour. Into now
- 1:23:58he wakes up every morning with one, Prayer, lord don't
- 1:24:02let me waste the STRENGTH i have. Left men don't
- 1:24:05finish strong by preserving what they've. Built they finish strong
- 1:24:09by pouring it. Out, paul in his final letter To,
- 1:24:13timothy didn't boast about his tent making business or list his.
- 1:24:16Accolades he said, SIMPLY i have fought the good. FIGHT
- 1:24:21i have finished the. RACE i have kept the. Faith
- 1:24:24that's not a, resume that's a. Revelation paul had been, beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned,
- 1:24:31betrayed but he didn't. Wither he worshiped because he understood
- 1:24:36That god measures success not in applause but in. Faithfulness
- 1:24:42and faithfulness is never. Flashy it's forged in prisons and
- 1:24:46letters and prayers when no one is. Watching this season of,
- 1:24:50life your, fifties, sixties seventies is not a slow. Death
- 1:24:55it is a second. Wind and wind in scripture is
- 1:24:59always tied to the, spirit the same spirit who breathed
- 1:25:03on dry bones and raised dead men to. Life now
- 1:25:06whispers get back in the. Fight because your wisdom is.
- 1:25:10Needed your perspective is. Rare your prayers can break curses
- 1:25:15off of. Families your hands may, tremble but your authority is.
- 1:25:19Steady you have what the next generation is desperate, for
- 1:25:24not just, answers but, anchoredness men who've weathered the storm
- 1:25:27and still. Believe but finishing strong requires a shift not
- 1:25:31into striving but, surrender not into retirement but re. Firement
- 1:25:37it's no longer about proving. Yourself it's about pouring yourself
- 1:25:42into your, grandchildren into that young man at work who
- 1:25:46reminds you of, Yourself into your wife who doesn't need
- 1:25:49you to fix, her but to, listen to, pray to
- 1:25:53bless into the church which has too many programs and
- 1:25:57not enough, Fathers into the, broken the, bruised the ones
- 1:26:01who need someone who knows how to limp with. Grace
- 1:26:04one of the most overlooked stories In scripture is that
- 1:26:07Of basilai The. Gileadite at eighty years, old he provided
- 1:26:13For King david during one of the most fragile times
- 1:26:16in his. Reign When david tried to honor him by
- 1:26:19bringing him into the, Palace barsili, declined not out of,
- 1:26:23pride but out of. Wisdom, instead he blessed another in his.
- 1:26:28Place Barsil i understood. Legacy he knew that honor isn't
- 1:26:33always about being, seen but about seeing others. Rise he
- 1:26:38finished strong by knowing when to step aside and when
- 1:26:42to speak. Up so what will your final chapters? Say
- 1:26:46that you faded quietly into, irrelevance or that you fired
- 1:26:50up the next generation with your, presence that you guarded
- 1:26:54what was, yours or that you gave what was, needed
- 1:26:57that you left buildings and bank, accounts or or that
- 1:27:00you left. Blessing there is still. Time time to, Reconcile
- 1:27:04time to call that child you haven't spoken, To time
- 1:27:06to Say i'm. Sorry time to write letters to your
- 1:27:10grandchildren that tell them not just what you, did but
- 1:27:13Who god was to. You time to pray with your
- 1:27:16wife like it's your first year of. Marriage time to
- 1:27:19tell your story so some one else doesn't repeat your.
- 1:27:23Fall time to mentor to, teach to, sing to, write to.
- 1:27:27Run you are not a. Relic you are not, done
- 1:27:30and if breath is still in your lung's purpose is
- 1:27:33still on your. Life finish, strong not because you want
- 1:27:36to be, remember'd finish strong because you were redeemed not
- 1:27:41because you deserve a, crown but because the one who
- 1:27:44wore thorns already called you. Faithful finish, strong my, brother
- 1:27:49and Let heaven find, you not seated in, ease but
- 1:27:52sprinting toward, glory, scarred smiling and still. Singing h