The Six Stages of Masculinity with JOHN ELDREDGE

Hey Brave Coleman, this podcast episode is from our 2021 BraveCo Conference. This is John Eldridge. I hope you enjoy.

We live in a time where masculinity is shamed, and men don't know what it means to be a man. As a pastor and counselor, I've spent the better part of my life equipping and training others. My goal with this show is to translate my hard-earned experience into tools and tactics to help you become stronger as a man. This is a BraveCo podcast. I'm your host, Jason Valentine.

Jesus's sense of humor. I'm actually a pretty monastic person. [Laughter] Stuff like this. Oh my gosh, I love you, God. I love you. I love you, God. Um, Easter morning. Jesus Christ has just come back from hell where he took the keys away from the most horrifying creature in the universe, let a bunch of people free. Um, and, um, what he does next is so unbelievable. If it wasn't in the text, you wouldn't believe the story I'm about to tell you.

So, you got to go back to, you know, nothing about the next two thousand years of Christian history. You know nothing about the church. In that moment, all you know is Jesus is dead. They killed him. They executed him. Okay? You're two of his closest friends. You are devastated. You are grieving. You are in the initial stages of concussive grief. Okay? You got that. This is the Emmaus Road, seven miles, Jerusalem to Emmaus. These two guys are walking along, absolutely devastated. Jesus is alive, and he comes walking up next to him and he says, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" You're like, "What? Like, wouldn't you go, 'Okay, look, it's me. I'm alive. Hugs, you know, kind of thing?'" He walked like this. This is right in the text. You go, "Look this up when we're done. It comes right up." A long time. And he says, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" And they look at him. They go, "What? Do you not know about Jesus of Nazareth?" And he, "Oh, no." They say, "You haven't heard the things, the things that have been going on these days?" And Jesus goes, "Uh, what things?" These are his things, right? These are like the most important things ever, ever, right? And he's walking along with them. And he, it says, "They were kept from recognizing him." Right? So he's walking along. "So, what are you talking about?" "Well, really, what things? About Jesus of Nazareth. He was powerful in word and deed." And we thought, you know, we thought, wouldn't you in that moment, like to your dear friends who are grieving, trick and say, "It's good. It's all good. I'm back. We win. Guess what?" You know? He doesn't. Seven miles. He goes along with these guys like this. I'm telling you, Jesus has a personality. And when you get his personality, it is not hard to fall in love with him. Okay? So he's going along seven miles. And he gets, it says, they got to the crossroads there, and he says, "Jesus acted as if he had to go further." He says, "Ah, man, I am so sorry for your loss. That must be devastating. But I, I, I actually got to get going." Right? "I, I was like, 'What's in heaven's name?'" Right? And it says, "But they begged him to come in and sup with him." He's like, "Oh, okay. Okay." So he goes in, sits down. And you know what happens, right? He breaks the bread, and they realize. What? What? And poof, he disappears. You guys, this stuff, this stuff is unbelievable. Okay? Would you spend your Resurrection morning playing tricks on your closest friends? I am not making this up. This isn't like a cute little sermon thing. You know, you just go read it and you go, "Wow." That is so. It is either some like bizarre spiritual lesson that gets like super creepy religious, or you go, "This man is so happy. He is so happy. He's running around playing jokes on his friends." Okay? Because, because you think that's a stretch of the text. Here's what goes on next. They go, "Wow." Jump up. Now it's dark. They huff the seven miles back. The rest of the gang is is in the upper room. And these guys are scared to death, right? I mean, the cops are going to come. This is like the Gestapo, you know? And they're in there locked up. And they're like, "You know, there's been rumors, you know, kind of thing." These guys come busting in the room to tell the story, okay? And they're like, "You guys wouldn't believe it. We saw Jesus." And they're like, "Really? What happened?" And they're like, "Well, we were leaving town and he came up next to us." And they're like, "Really? Did you recognize him?" And like, "No, actually not really." They're like, "Well, how long did, what did you see?" "Well, um, he actually walked along with us for like seven miles. And and then he acted like he had to go someplace else." And now you can see the raised eyebrows. You feel like, "Oh, you guys are like seriously hammered. Like, what?" Okay? Like the story is so unbelievable. Now you understand that the issue for comedy is timing. Okay? Comedic timing is everything. Okay? It is that. And then they go, "Yeah, it's unbelievable." And they're like, "Well, we didn't really see him. And he acted like he had to go. And then he broke bread and we saw him. And then he disappeared." You know, this is really pushing their friendship to like, like credulity here. It's like, "Wow, you want us to believe this?" Comic timing. It is at that moment Jesus walks in the room as if to say, "Yeah, that was me. Yep. I did it. Just like that." And he walks in. And all he says is, "Do you have something to eat?" It's in the Bible. Go read the Emmaus story. And look, this is exactly how it goes down. And you're like, "You are kidding me, right?" And then there's John 21, where he shows up on the beach and he's like, "Hey, you know, how's the fishing? Right? Try the other side." Hi. I, I, I'm just telling you, he's beautiful. He is beautiful. Why did I do that? I, that moment was not in my, um, notes. That, why did I do that? Because I just need to have mercy on you. This is a lot to take in. Okay? Like, even the human body to just sit and stand and worship and listen and pray and like, like I'm just in the back going, "Mercy, mercy, God have mercy on these men. Just mercy." I, I, I have some things that I think would be helpful for you tonight. I'm going to offer them very gently. I mean, mercy for heaven's sakes. And one of the general things I want to do right now. There was, there was those two beautiful testimonies. And one was the, the man who was struggling to trust God because of his experience of his father and of men in his life. I got some really great news for you guys. Not just for him. This actually, it isn't about your level of trust. It's not, right? Because then it's back on you, right? It's not. Fellas, there's like this pin drop thing in here. Um, you are a son. You are deeply and profoundly loved. Okay? This isn't about your, your like level of trust. It's just not. I, I, the whole thing was going up. I think it was Nathan, was that his name? Beautiful. And I, I heard Jesus saying to Nathan, "That's okay. I can work with that. Yeah, that you're good. That's okay. You don't need to like trust me a whole bunch right now. We're good. I can work with that. I adore you. We're fine." Right? Do you hear how that lifts the pressure off? "Get your act together." Right? Because that's the law. And Paul says, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." Okay? The letter kills, man. So if it feels like pressure, run. God's just not in it. He's not in it. So Nathan, you're good, pal. You know, whatever. That's fine. Of course, you don't trust God. That's fine. He's, he's okay with that. He can handle that, right? It doesn't throw him. He's not going to retreat from you. He's not going to withhold from you because of that. Okay? And the reason I say that is because now we're going to go into some more material. And it can feel like, "Oh boy, here we go." Okay. Okay. All right. So mercy, mercy, Jesus. Um, we need some kind of gracious, loving provision to just get through to our beds tonight. Okay? Just some gracious, loving provision. Okay? All right. So where, where I was walking us, uh, through this morning, we started with, "You have a masculine heart. You have a masculine soul." It is given to you by God. You, you are a chip off the old block. You have a heart like his. And one of the things that's really going to increase your intimacy with God is that the things you love, he loves them too. It's so cool. Like all that quirky little stuff, the model airplane things, the tracking, like the space station, or, you know, all your little weird stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. God loves that too. He's like in that with you. God is in the things you love. Because the other thing I found myself wondering is, as we were sitting on just mercy, mercy, um, is, yeah, but what do you do with the rest of your life? Like, you got the worship thing down, right? I mean, you know that. Okay, check that box. And, and you got the prophetic thing down. You know, so check that box. But then there's just the rest of your life. Just your day-to-day life. God is in that. He is in the things you love. Look for him there. You love stamp collecting? So does Jeff. So does God. You're like, "What?" Yeah, that's where you got the love for these things. Dog, you know, walking and kite flying and whatever your deal is. Well, that, all those little quirky things about you, right? God is in the things you love. We are all so, I was, we are given this masculine heart and soul by our Father. And we are on a journey to wholeheartedness. Okay? That's where we've been. You have a masculine heart and soul. We're on a journey to wholeheartedness. Jesus, I want my whole heart back. And, um, one step at a time. One step at a time. God is not going to overwhelm you. It's not going to ask you to completely change. It's like, just one thing at a time. One step at a time. Okay? We are unfinished men. So as I was praying about this tonight's session, what I want to give, I want to give you two things. Um, a new framework, a way of looking at the rest of your life, your daily life. A new, a new framework. And then the key to it. Okay? In the new framework, um, because we are all unfinished men, what God is primarily up to in your life is your initiation into masculine wholeheartedness. We are unfinished men. There's uncompleted things in us. And, um, some of us, it, it's just, we are wild horses. Just wild. Some of us, established saying that the other night, last night, which feels like seven nights ago, um, it is, we're actually really too domesticated. Unfinished men. And, and a journey now is initiation. Let me give you some understanding of that. So David and Goliath, right? Super famous Bible story. And David is 15, around there. Um, and he shows up. He comes, he brings some food to his brothers who are in the army. And Goliath is this giant guy. Um, and this is like full-on demonic stuff too. Like, you know, why he's giant and how did he get Iron Age weapons and all that? It's like, that is a whole another story. But this guy, this guy is full tilt deadly. Okay? It's not like a cute little Bible story. He is a, he is a trained assassin. Okay? He's a terrorist. The, you know, Goliath is like no one to mess with. Okay? And David says, "I'll fight him." They're like, "Hey, thank you very much. We love your enthusiasm. You know, he's going to kill you. Like, this is three seconds. You are instantly dead. This is not, you know." And, and here's what David says. He says, "Well, actually," we're going to put this verse up on the screen. He says, "I have been in the field. I was in the field taking care of my father's flocks. And when a lion or a bear came against the flock, I, I took them by the jaw and I struck them down and I killed them. I have killed the lion and the bear. I can handle this." Because you're like, "Wow, that, that's like one of Danny's stories." You know, that's, that's like Alaska. You know, that is a story of initiation. God took David through experiences, not just content. Experiences that got into his being. The, "I have what it takes. I, I handle this. I have what it takes." Right? "I walk in this arena with this horse. No problem. No problem. I got this." Okay? That settledness. And David wasn't just like dropped on him in the moment. He didn't just get, you know, zapped, struck by lightning, and given sudden courage. God took him through experiences that prepared him for the next stage of his life. That is the masculine journey. It is a journey of initiation. It's a journey of initiation, okay? Where God takes us through stages of masculine development. And if you look at the life of David, if you look at Moses, it's, it's really fascinating. Look at famous characters down through history, real people, Teddy Roosevelt, guys like that, Lincoln. And, and the life of Jesus, of Jesus, you will see the same exact patterns of initiation. God bestowing things into you, giving you things in love, taking you through experiences of love and validation so that your masculine being, it is made whole and grounded and centered in a strength to handle the next thing that's coming to you. Okay? So you are hungry for God. I love that. I love that about you. Like you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here subjecting yourself to this fire hose. You wouldn't be here. You're hungry for God. You want more. You want in. You want more of the kingdom. You want to experience more of the fullness of the kingdom. Guys, let me, let me tell you something. If you're going to go out in a lightning storm and hold up a lightning rod, you better be grounded. You had better be grounded. In order to experience more of God, you actually have to have emotional maturity. You do, or it'll blow you up, right? And you see these really gifted people and they're like, "Well," and they're doing all this one kind of thing, and then like next week they're blown up. They blew up their marriage. They blew up their sexuality. They, you know, and you're like, "What the what the?" Like, they were amazing. They go, "Yeah, um, they just stuck the lightning rod up into the storm, but they are not a grounded man. They are not grounded in wholeness and wholeheartedness." God wants to give you a kingdom. That is what you were just, that's what you were destined for, right? And in the parallel, sheep and the goats, when you step into the rest of reality, right? You are given a kingdom. "Come, you who are blessed of my Father, take the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation." Because Adam, you're made to rule. Okay? And in the meantime, what God, before he can give you that, he doesn't want you to just blow up. Before he can entrust us with more of himself, with more of the kingdom, with more power, influence, knowledge, all that, he, he has to do things in us so that we can handle it, right? You, yeah. It's kind. It's just pure kindness. You would not give your car keys to your four-year-old, right? Not because you don't love him, but because you're like, "You'll kill yourself and everybody else." I can't let you have this car. That's madness, okay? Right? You, you're going to train him and grow him up and get him settled. And then, you know, when you're trembling when he's 16, and you hand him the car keys anyway, but at least he's been prepared for it. Okay? So that is the journey of masculine initiation, okay? And it doesn't just come by zap. David says, "Oh, I was out in the field. I've been out there for years. And, and stuff happened. Lions attacked the flock. Bears attacked the flock. And God helped me." It's about his life. And God, absolutely. But, but he took him through experiences that prepared him and enabled him to be the kind of man that can be entrusted with more. Does that make sense? Yeah. Sure. Right? You wouldn't give your, your 16-year-old, you know, five hundred thousand dollars. You just wouldn't do that. So, um, the, the framework is initiation. I'm going to put up a slide, guys. There's the slide that goes, "Beloved Son, Cowboy, Warrior, Lover, King." Let's, let's find that slide and put that up. So these are the stages of the masculine journey. And one stage builds upon the next. And, and we've passed through these, where we were meant to pass through these. Let me tell you that say this was the design. And then, and then, you know, then comes your life story. But, um, you go from beloved son to cowboy to warrior to lover to king to sage. You see it in Moses, you see it in David, you see it in the life of Jesus. It's, it's really extraordinary because these things have to be settled in our hearts. The king who's been given a kingdom, he's a head of a corporation, he's the coach of a team, he has a classroom, he's a teacher, he's got money, he's got influence, he's a pastor. King who has not been the beloved son cannot handle criticism. He can't take it, right? And, and he cannot give up the pulpit, right? He just, you know, nobody like control and domineering and that sort of thing because he is an unfinished man. He is mostly boy in a king's role. So the, the, the ache of the earth is that what we have are kings running people, men entrusted with power who do not have the emotional maturity to handle it, even the power of God. Okay? So to get these things, um, so I'm going to walk you through the stages. And, and then, um, we'll do a little, we'll do a little bit of work here. Beloved Son. So I talked about the whiskers, ice cream, bicycle rides, story time, snuggling. The stage of the beloved Son is, is when it is deposited into your being through experience that you are profoundly loved. You're good. That's why I can say to Nathan, "Man, it doesn't matter about your trust level. Like, you are so loved. You're good, man. He'll get through to you. It's okay." Right? Because you're the beloved Son. And, and I realized that that is where we went back this afternoon into some pretty profound wounding. Like, we didn't get that. A lot of us were robbed of it. You had it, then you lost it. Leo's stories. That was a prize fighter who's ranked fifth in the world. Uh, you know, just an amazing guy. And he had him for a while. He had these beautiful stories. And then it was taken away. He lost belovedness. Lost belovedness. And he would tell you that the, that the next 20 years of his life is a search for belovedness. And so guys that desperately need to be liked, "I just need to be liked." That's okay. That's okay. You're looking for belovedness. And, and you know where the approval was in your family? If it was grades, success, degrees, and you've been pursuing that PhD, and you're just desperate to just hear, "Belovedness, love you. We love you. We really delight in you." That, that's the stage of the beloved Son. And it lays a foundation in the heart that you're good. You're good, man. You're not going to be withheld from, ripped off. You're, you're good. And God will take us back and love us in the places that still need belovedness. Okay? Because he needs, he needs to go back and make sure that that is in you so that you can get that, you can get that like foundation in the soul. Stages of the beloved Son. And then in the bottom of the teenage years, anybody who's a father of sons recognizes it. There is something that happens. There's a shift around 12, 13 years old where he is no longer boy. There's something in him that, you know, he wants to, he wants to go fast. He wants, he wants to try mountaineering. He wants to, you know, try out for the lacrosse team or something starts showing up where the young man moves into the stage of the Cowboy. And the, in the cowboy years are primarily the years between 12 and 19, where hard work and adventures form things in the soul. And again, this is experiential learning, okay? It's not just being told. It is discovering it through experience. Okay? So part of my rescue was, I grew up in the alcoholic home, blew up, devastation, total abandonment wounds. But my part of God's rescue, before I even knew him, God was rescuing me, okay? Was my grandfather and his cattle ranch in eastern Oregon. And I would be dropped off there, partly because I was such a wild kid, my parents just didn't know what to do with me. So they would drop me off at my grandfather's ranch. My grandfather got it. He got it. Like, he knew boys. He knew men. He was a really good man. And there were two things. He's the only person in my life that's ever called me Johnny. Johnny Delight. Belovedness, affection. "You are special to me. You are the apple of my eye." I knew I was. I knew I was his delight. He delighted in me. And initiation, especially in the cowboy days, like literally cowboying. And we get on horses and, you know, herd cattle and stuff. But he would do, he would do the craziest stuff. So I'm a suburban kid. This is L.A. County, you know? And, and he would take me on the field and put me on a tractor and he would describe how he wanted furrowed, um, because he was going to irrigate it for alfalfa. And then he would just drive away. And then as a kid, man, you're like, "I get a tractor." I mean, Danny's still doing that, right? And like, how old do you feel when you're on that tractor? Have you ever noticed that? Yeah. Check it out next time. I bet you're about 12. Because of the joy, right? It's just the joy of, you're like, "You're kidding me. I get to drive this thing around. This is so freaking cool." Okay? So he would do things like that. But do you understand what that's best? "I believe in you. You have what it takes. I delight in you. I believe in you. I delight in you. I believe in you. I delight in you. I believe in you." Over and over and over all through the cowboy state. We go out and fix stuff and, you know, irrigation ditches. And he would just continually put things in my hand, put tools in my hands, put experiences in my hands to develop in me. I was a very unfinished boy, right? I was probably emotionally mature. I was probably like six when I was 12. And I was still six when I was 17, you know? Because I hadn't been, and hadn't had this kind of loving, okay? So that's the cowboy stage. Adventures and hard work to begin to form things in you. And then, like David, then you're able to move into the Warrior Stage. The Warrior Stage comes around 19. And you Bible guys can help me with this. So Israel, um, there's the Exodus. Now they're out in the wilderness and they're getting ready for war, right? They're going to go in and like fight a bunch of guys. Um, and they number the army. Remember this? They number the army. Every fighting man. And I think they were 19. They were 19 years old or older. You were considered a fighting man. That was just given. You're 19, you're a warrior. You're in that stage somewhere around that stage in a young man's life. And, and you'll see all that. I told you, little boy wants to be a Jedi Knight. You'll see these things through it. But I'm just, there's a stage around 17, 18, 19, and into your 20s. You hit the Warrior Stage. And, man, you just gotta have a mission. You gotta have a fight. You gotta have something. And so for some guys, it's sports. And other guys, it's maybe education. Or it's literally a mission, you know, they go to the field. Or, but there's just something in. Do you hear the songs of, you know, angry men? Right? Most of the revolutions in this world were started by young men in their 20s, right? Because they need to fight. They need a cause. And if they don't have a couple good kings around, hell, it's like, kind of shepherd that, like it gets, you know, it's gangs, right? Turns into gangs because they hit the Warrior Stage. They need, they need to fight. So they just kill each other, okay? But the warrior is in there. So you, you get into the Warrior Stage. And why this is really important, that this stage comes before the lover, okay? Because you are going to have to fight for her. And I love my young adult son, freshly married, comes to me one day and he says, he says, "Yeah, the problem with the beauty is that she doesn't stay rescued." He's like, "I gotta do it again and again and again." Like, "I leave her, and we're great in the morning. And I get back, and she, like, something happened. And there was this, you know, argument with a friend or whatever. And she's like taken out." And I'm like, "What? Again?" Perfect. So you better have, you better have some warrior in you. You better have some of that shaped before, before you go to the lover stage, okay? So God, and, and this is, um, that's what's happening there. You go, "Yeah, that's what's happening." The, a beauty to rescue. It's a lovely thought. [Applause] Um, and, and let, kindness. Kindness, kindness, kindness. First up, I need to do two kind things right now because there are some, there are some women listening to this. And when I said in the earlier session that Eve is fundamentally flawed after the fall, man, that just plays right into women's shame and self-contempt and all that. And that's not what I meant. Adam is fundamentally flawed too. It's why we need a savior who comes to restore our humanity. We're all broken. We're all damaged goods, okay? So it's not something unique to women. I, and I really wanted to clarify that thought to you. Because Eve is phenomenal. Eve's amazing, right? If you follow the story of creation, who is the crown of creation? It's Eve. She's the finishing touch. There's a unique glory there. The Trinity bestows so much into Eve. Beauty, mystery. Okay? Like, is phenomenal. So there's that. The other thing I want to say to you, because this is going to be along the mercy that you just felt ripple through the room, "Oh, that's what's going on." She needs God. You will never be enough for her. And you can feel, we, as a man, because you're like, "Man, I am trying. I'm trying." And go, "Yeah, she needs God, right? We need God." You will never be enough for her. And that is not something of a deficiency in your masculinity. It's just, she needs God. In fact, in, in the fall, you know, when God introduces the frustration into the human race to correct the human race, he introduces futility and failure into men's lives. Thorns and thistles, right? Because that will drive us to God. He introduces into Eve's life loneliness and heartache. Loneliness and heartache to drive her to God. So you're not failing because she's not well, okay? Your wife is not the report card on you. She needs God, just like you do. Okay? And that'll really help because there's a lot of good men in here going, "I don't, what do I do? I'm trying everything." Right? We've been to the conferences. We've done the counseling. I, you know. Well, yeah, she needs us. She needs a God. She needs a father. Yeah, she needs an infinite source of love. You're not anything close to an infinite source of love, right? Praise God. Like, we're like, it's just mercy, okay? This is all entering into the lover stage. So the warrior, we begin to develop some warrior in the 20s, beginning to get some strength. We get into a fight, you know, um, and, and the fascinating thing about the Warrior Stage is this. So, um, God is not going to do everything for you, right? It's not going to tie your shoes for you. It's like, "Tie your own shoes, right? He's not going to make breakfast for you. Make your own breakfast, right?" He treats you like a man. His engagement with Job is unbelievable. It's another one of his grieving friends. And he treats Job like a man. He talks to him like a man. Doesn't baby you, okay? So the problem with the Warrior Stage is if you haven't experienced some beloved Son and some Cowboy, you start getting into some fight, right? There's difficulty, kind of thing. You feel abandoned. Most men misinterpret hardship for abandonment, right? Come on, guys, right? Things go wrong. You blow a tire. You blow a check. You blow a conversation. You know, something goes wrong. Something, something blows up in your life. And our initial reaction is, "Come on, God, come on, right?" Or the reaction is just, "I knew it. I knew it, right?" Yeah, because there isn't belovedness in there. And so you interpret everything as rejection, right? Including from God. So you see how these things build on each other. The good news is God comes back around in our lives. We're going to get there in just a minute. He will come back and he will work in the areas to deposit what you didn't get. You still get belovedness. You still get adventure. You get cowboy, right? And that, that beautiful moment in the arena when he's like, "Come on, Shiloh, we're made to run." Like, "Oh, guys, you get to run. You get to ride, like fast motorcycles and invest money and do all kinds of cool stuff." Okay? Warrior. He's got to put you in a fight. And it's not abandonment. It's not abandonment. But how do you train a warrior? God will not do everything for you. Especially and including banishing your enemy. Now, early in your Christian life, you get hammered with accusation. You get hammered with overwhelming. You're like, "Oh Lord, please just take this from me." And he'll do that. He's kind. He's good. He'll do that. But after a while, he'll say, "No, you do it. You do it. You stand up to accusation. You stand, you stand up to shame. You banish it. You banish it." Because how else do you develop the warrior in you but to put you in a fight and ask you to rise up? You do it, okay? It's not abandonment. It's training, okay? So, and then, and then you come into the lover stage. And the lover stage, um, is a really beautiful stage. And it actually, I know it feels like it's totally, it's like around the woman you fall in love. It's romance, um, but actually the lover stage is the awakening of the heart, right? You read David's Psalms, man, he is a romantic guy. He really is. He loves nature. He's writing poetry about streams and flowers and the weather and stuff like that. He, he has an alive heart, right? You discover music, you discover art, you discover the beauty of the world. The beauty of the world is so nourishing. Your soul needs beauty to be nourished, did you know that? You need. And if you don't get nourished by the beauty of the world, you're going to think the beauty should do it. You're going to take all of that ache of your soul to the beauty. And she's not an infinite source of love either, okay? So, like, you need beauty in your life. And this is the awakening of the lover. Now, yes, yes, of course, he falls in love. He meets the girl, right? And, and it's a beautiful time in a young man's life. And, and there's romance and, and all that great stuff. I mean, if you have the goodness of God, sex is so awesome. Like, you're, kid, like sex is from God, right? Like, should we move? Like, a lot of your, like, religious conceptions about him, like, "Whoa, holy cow." And then he puts that erotic book right in the middle of the, I mean, have you read the Song of Songs? Fellas, fellas, like, this is like, "You are kidding me. I'm gonna climb the palm tree and take all of its fruit." Like, I'm just trying to help you with God, okay? "How beautiful your sandaled feet, oh Prince's daughter, your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman's hands. Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist, a mound of wheat." He is feasting on her on their wedding night. Okay? "Your breasts like fawns, your neck like an ivory tower." Like, and he, yeah, man. And then her invitation. The end of the poem is, "Come away, my lover, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the spice-laden mountains." Yes, please. [Applause] That is that is literally in the middle of the Holy Bible. [Applause] I'm telling you, God is the least religious person you'll ever meet. Like, he, he's the kind of person you want to go on a road trip with. Like, holy shmoly, okay? So the lover stage comes along. Just gotta learn to be a lover. And why the awakening of the heart is so important in the lover stages now, right? It's about, it's about her heart. It's about her heart. He's a warrior to fight for her heart. This is about your wife's heart, your lover's heart. A couple things on this real quick. Um, you should know her story. Do you know your wife's story? I mean, the story of her childhood. What was her relationship with her dad like? What was her relationship with her mother like? What were her friendships like as a girl? You need to know the arrows that have pierced your wife's heart. You need to know her wounds, right? So that you can fight for her healing. So ask her her story. I mean, you want like a super romantic weekend? Take her away for a couple days and say, "Honey, I am so sorry I haven't done this. I don't know why I haven't done this in 16 years of our marriage, but I need to know your story. Would you trust me with your story? I'd love to hear where'd you go to school? What did you love when you were a girl?" It's all parts of her story. You don't know. Okay? You need to know her story because you are there to fight for her heart, okay? As a warrior and a lover. Okay? Having passed through that, around the 40s, you hit the stage of the King. And the King is where you begin to be entrusted with power and influence. You're given a kingdom. And God wants to give you a kingdom. He's looking for men to entrust with his kingdom and with his power. But like I said, if the King, if the King doesn't know belovedness, he just buys himself a bunch of toys. If he hasn't been the Lover, he gets a, you know, a trophy wife and dumps the wife of his promise and his youth. If he, if he hasn't been the warrior, there are so many kings who have not been the warrior, and they lead their congregations into passivity. Here's one. It's not your job to resist the devil. That's God's job. No, you're commanded to. You have, have you read First Peter 5? James 4:7? You are commanded to deal directly with evil, okay? That's because you're a warrior king, okay? But you get the Kings who are like, they're just passive. And then, you know, it's all about control and their narcissism and stuff. And then the beautiful stage of the stage, later life, full of wisdom, full of experience, mostly learned through failure, right? Um, he becomes the Elder at the gates. He becomes the guy you want to go to. I loved driving with my grandfather. I loved it. He drove this old Ford pickup in a small cow town, gray hair, cowboy hat. And here's what I loved about it. Every single person who passed him on the road gave him one of these. He was a respected man. When people wanted opinions about, you know, cattle prices and weather and crops, when they when they needed advice, they went to Tom Eldridge. Okay? He was a sage. He was a sage. It's a beautiful stage of life. God is fathering us. We are in initiation. And this is the map. That's the map, okay? Now, you don't need to take any notes on that. You don't, you don't need to worry about that. If you'd like to learn more later, when it is kind to your soul, read the book, "Fathered by God," because it goes through all the stages and how God follows you through it and that sort of thing. So I'm just going to say, there's the map. The map is masculine initiation. We are unfinished men. There's all kinds of things in us that just need shoring up and love and training and experience. And that's, that's largely how he does. That's how we become wholehearted men, right? That, that I love that Gerber commercial. Do you know that? We use that at our retreats all the time. Oh yeah, we use that all over the place. I almost played it here. Um, "Hello, trouble." You know? And it's the idea of, through experience, you can handle whatever life throws at you. Okay? Um, all right. So that's the map. Now, for the key. What's the key to the map? Um, you cannot memorize enough scripture. You cannot, you cannot learn enough principles to navigate the complexity of life. It's good. I memorize scripture. It's good to learn principles. It's insufficient because one daughter is different than another. And one phase of life with your wife is very different from another phase. The menopause, the emptiness, like it, the train changes. My son, my son's like, "My wife has changed five times since we married." It's not entirely true, but she's growing up and she's maturing. And as a woman matures, she actually requires more of you, okay? So the train changes. And you go from job to job and town to town and different things happen, okay? You can't. This is, I'm giving you good news. The good news is you can't memorize all this stuff, right? You're not supposed to. You're a Father who loves you and is initiating you. He'll take care of it, okay? He'll see to this. He will see to this. The key is this. If I could give you one thing that would be so helpful, it is learning to hear the voice of God, okay? It is learning to hear the voice of God. I don't mean visions, though visions are super cool. I don't mean the prophetic, though the prophetic is super cool. I mean a simple, conversational, one-to-one with your Father, and you're Jesus, okay? And the Holy Spirit, right? He wants to talk to you about all kinds of stuff, okay? And, and this is so simple. Learning to hear the voice of God is, it's a rescue. It's a joy. It's a source of a thousand cool things. His sense of humor, all kinds of stuff, all kinds of stuff. I was trying to figure out, so we were going on this big trip to South America, we're going to Patagonia. And it was money, and it was tickets, and it felt like crazy. And then my friend who I was going with bails. And like, I'm like, "Wow, God, should I do this?" So here's what I said. I said, "God, I said, I need three signs. Three signs. I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to book these tickets." I had like tickets on hold. There was like 12 hours. You need to sign up. I'm in my office at home. I look down. Somebody left their Nalgene in my office. I think it was my friend Morgan. I pick it up, and it's got a Patagonia sticker on it. I'm like, "Okay, that's one." Had reached out to a friend to ask him about his experience in Patagonia years before. I never heard back from him. I get the email that day. "Oh, it's phenomenal. You should go. Here's the people to talk to." yada yada. I'm like, "Okay, that's two." Now it's like 10 o'clock at night, and I'm going to bed. And I'm not going to pull the trigger on this thing. And I am, I am in the John taking a dump. And I look down, and the tag on my underwear is staring up at me because I put them on backwards. And it says, "Patagonian." I'm like, "Jesus, you are talking to me through my underwear." Like, he is awesome. He's just unbelievable, okay? Intimate, conversational intimacy with God. Learning to hear his voice. In John chapter 10, we're going to put that slide up of John chapter 10 here, okay? John chapter 10, four times in this one passage, Jesus says, "You hear my voice. My sheep listen to his voice." Okay? "His sheep follow him because they know his voice." "I have other sheep who are not of this fold. They too will listen to my voice." "My sheep hear my voice and they follow me." On and on it goes. This afternoon, Revelation 3, "If you hear my voice today," right? "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears." Uh, on and on and on. And the scriptures are just filled with stories of men who hear the voice of God, right? All those guys. Okay, here's the thing. You think the Bible is a book of spiritual exceptions, right? But why would God give you like the driver's manual to a Toyota if you drive a Ford? It's totally. The Bible is simply a book of examples of what it looks like to walk with God. David hears from God. Gideon hears from God. The disciples hear from God. Paul hears from God. You're just, it's normal, guys. This is just this normal life. You, you are created for intimacy. And you are meant to hear the voice of your Father, okay? Because you cannot, you cannot navigate the complexity of life without this. This is, this is just going to be such a source of joy. The number of rescues. Big church in our town. We have an affection with them. Uh, Pastor calls me up. I know him. He's a pal. And he says, "Hey, you'd be perfect to speak at our Father's Day, uh, service this this year. Would you, would you come speak on Father's Day to the dads?" I've learned to ask God. And I'm like, "It feels like a no-brainer. Like, sure. You're just down the street. I'd love to do that. What an honor." And I ask. And I hear Jesus say, "No. You need to say no." I'm like, "Really? Why?" He doesn't tell me. He just says, "Trust me. Say no." That weekend, my father died. That was the weekend my dad died. I couldn't have known. I was in no emotional shape to be giving five sermons on the weekend, right? How kind of God. He's like, "Just trust me on this. You are not going to want to commit yourself to that." The number of rescues. Rescues. We were doing this Baja kayaking trip years ago to initiate our sons. Most of the footage, most of the adventures you're hearing, I rigged them to initiate my sons. So we're on this kayaking. We're trying to plan this sea kayaking trip down in the in in Baja. And there's some cool guys who run it, some Young Life guides. And they're, you know, we're going to book this thing. And I ask Jesus. And Jesus says, "Nope." And I'm like, "Oh, come on." He's like, "Nope. Nope. Not for you." Okay? They, they do go on the trip with a different group of guys. There is a tsunami. There's an earthquake and a tsunami. And they have to get emergency rescued out of Baja. Like, it's a crazy, crazy story. Now, you know, that ends up being their initiation and their kind of thing. But we got saved from that. Like, thanks, God. That that would have been a disaster. I rescue after rescue after the number of times I have walked into the house wanting to say something to Stacy. And Jesus says, "Don't do it. Don't do it." I'm serious. Like, guys, guys. Or, or the number of times that Jesus says, "Hey, you know, Romeo, you ought to snuggle up tonight with your, with your love." And I'm like, "Have you been in the kitchen? Do you know her mood right now?" He's like, "Step up, big boy." And it ends up being like this beautiful romantic evening. Joy, happiness, rescues. I mean, a thousand times I could tell you these stories, uh, uh, of things that I would never have done. I would, I would never have done it had God not said, "Hey, you gotta, you gotta do that." My buddy Craig, um, was in L.A. and

I was in Colorado and we were close friends for just decades, and we would get together twice a year. Um, I would go see him and then you come see me. Sometimes your closest brother is states away, you know, it's hard. And I take them fishing and, uh, I was so wanting this to be a good fishing trip, teaching him fly fishing. And we were, you know, on the Arkansas River and it was a dud. I'm sitting there really down and, and I just hear the father say, "Go down river." Like, what? It's like, "Go down river." I'm like, "Okay." I'm like, "Hey Craig, let's jump in my Jeep and just drive a little farther down." So I'm driving along going, "Now it's like this kind of, it's just, just go down the river." Like, "Oh, I remember that spot. I remember that spot." I love, you know, kind of pulled in there. We walk into the river and this hatch starts, this Caddis hatch starts and fish are rising everywhere. Okay, I'm, he's like, "So much joy."

If we will just listen. We were bow hunting a couple years ago and there was this herd about and there was this bull and this, these elk and they were bugling down in this really steep canyon below us. And I was just sitting there listening to him and I'm like, "Man, there is no way we're gonna get those guys." And then they move out, they move down this canyon and they move out. And I'm standing there, the forest is dead silent and the father says, "Get in the woods." Like, "What?" He's like, "Now, get in the woods." I'm like, "Okay." So I go bombing down into the forest and I'm just standing there in the tree. It's just me and the trees. Nothing. There's a jaybird in there, you know, look at my bow. I'm like, and now it's just the entire herd of elk turns around. I don't know why they did, and they come filtering back in the forest. And it was one of the most exotic moments. Pretty soon I am surrounded by elk, right? Because I listened to the voice of the father.

This isn't like specialty stuff, guys. This is for everybody. This is 101. 101 spirituality, 101 hearing the voice of God. So we're going to do a little bit of that in just a moment, but let me give you a couple tips, a couple things that will really help you tune in to what God's saying. The first off is, have you ever had like a big day coming and, and you go to bed that night and you say, "I have got to get a good night's sleep tonight." Those, how does that go? Yeah, it's an instant setup that you're not. That was last night for me. I'm like, "Okay, big day." It just, pressure kills, folks. Pressure kills. I could just. Okay, so you got to take the pressure off of like, "I have got to hear from God." Like, it just, it immediately cuts off communication. So you take the pressure off. That's the first thing.

Second thing is, ask simple questions. Ask simple questions. Do not ask him, "Do I have brain cancer?" Like, "Whoa, are you kidding me?" That's like crazy. "Should I quit my job tomorrow?" Like, you do not ask questions that have high drama to them, especially if it's your own story. If it's other people's story, it's really easy to hear for other people. But when it's your stuff, man, you are so mixed up in this. Okay? Just ask simple questions to get started at this, to like, kind of get good at it. You can eventually get to the place where you are good at it as a warrior, right? As a, as a king, you get to a place where you can hear God in high drama and, and you can navigate pretty, pretty gnarly situations with, with God. But don't make that your regular practice, right? It's like starting to learn the piano by playing Bach, you know? Start with chopsticks, you know? Like, just simple, simple, simple questions, okay? Get the drama out, take the pressure off, simple questions.

And then this is really a no-brainer. It's so helpful. Um, you have to be willing to hear yes or no. Because if you can only hear yes, you know, "Can I buy the motorcycle? Can we take the trip? Come on, Nick, Jesus," you know, kind of thing. Like, "You want me to start this church? I know you want me to start this church." Are you willing to hear a no? Because you're not gonna hear, you're not going to hear her with confidence. You, you have to surrender. Surrender the outcomes. And you just come to it and just say, "Lord, what do you say? What are you saying to me?" Okay. Romans 8:1, "There is no condemnation." Now, for those who are in Christ Jesus, the voice of God is never condemning. It's not. Okay? So if you try and tune into God and you're hearing things like, "I'm really disappointed with you," it's your enemy. That's not God, okay? So, you know, critic, that self-talk thing, you got to turn that guy off too. That internal chatter, that guy. Um, you just settle down, you get quiet, you turn off the drama. All these things are going to be really good for your soul regardless of whether or not you hear from God, right? Just, just like you just get still for a little bit, turn off the chatter, be quiet, and ask simple questions.

Now, here's the beautiful thing. I'm putting the two together. The map is initiation. The key is hearing the voice of God, okay? And, and so like, beloved son. And, you know, oh man, I, I, uh, I don't have a lot of belovedness. I'm super sensitive. I'm, you know, super sensitive to criticism. Um, I need people to like me. I, I will, I, I don't have a lot of beloved. I experience everything as abandonment or rejection when it doesn't go well. Like, okay, so you need some belovedness. You need some work on the beloved son. You ask the father, "Do you love me? Are you proud of me? What do you think of me, Dad?" Right? He, like, let him bring some belovedness into your life. Or you go into the cowboy stage. You're like, "Man, I, whoa, adventure. I know I just work. I don't, I don't need adventure in my life." And, and you ask him, "Father, what are the adventures that you have for me? What are the adventures you have for me?" And, and into the training, into the initiation. And the simplest question of all is, "Father, what are we working on right now?" Because he's not going to do the whole thing to you. He's not going to say, "Well, you know, we're doing everything. We're doing, you know, son and cowboy and warrior and lover. We're gonna get all this stuff straightened out this weekend."

Mercy, kindness. Are you kidding me? He's not going to do that to you. Like, like Todd said, what he did with Shiloh, he would not normally do in that speed. He would do it over like 30 days and, and then months, months, and then years, right? Like that horse will be great 27, you know, solid when he's 13. But, but there's God's like, "Easy there, tiger." Either we're not going to tackle everything at once. That's what I'm saying about like taking the pressure off. You are beloved. He's initiating you. I guarantee it. That's going on right now in your life. So you just simply ask, "What are we working on right now? Just where are we now, Father? Where are we now?" I used to, I used to have this prayer, this daily prayer. If you get on our website, we've got a number of prayers and there's a prayer on there called the daily prayer. And it was really fervent, earnest in my, in my youth. And it was, "Lord, search me, know me, reveal anything in my life that's not pleasing to you." And after a while, I'm like, "Yeah, no, no. I just show me what we're working on right now, right? I don't want to know everything that's broken in me. I don't, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to know all my sin." Like, "Just show me what we're working on today." And then he's like, "Oh, buddy, I'd love to do that. You betcha, right? We can work on this together. We can work on this together."

In fact, there's a, oh man, there's a gorgeous film, The Kingdom of Heaven. Has anybody seen that film about the Crusades and Liam Neeson, Orlando Bloom? It is literally the stages of the masculine journey. He's a wounded young man that doesn't know he's the beloved son. His father shows up and bestows belovedness on him. And then he trains them as a warrior and a lover and a king. And he literally gives him a kingdom, puts a ring on his finger, he becomes the, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's killer on the masculine journey. You'll start seeing this in a bunch of, bunch of, bunch of movies now that you kind of have this framework. But let's do, let's just do a little bit of gracious, no pressure, um, listening. Let's do a little listening to God. Let's practice this together. Let's practice hearing the voice of God. I don't mean that you're going to enter the third heaven, um, I just mean something very simple this evening where God is going to speak to you about some things you need him to speak to you to, okay? We're just gonna, we're just going to practice hearing the voice of God, okay? So we're gonna do, we're gonna do a little bit of this together through some of these stages here, okay?

So like immediately, immediately, I hear Jesus asking you first, "What are your fears?" Don't shout them out. This is just you and God. And it's okay to admit to God that you have fear, okay? He knows, by the way. So it's not like you've got secrets to hide from him. He says, "What, what are your fears? What are your fears?" And again, let your heart answer that question, not your head. What are your fears? Okay. All I want you to do, Jesus says, is just let me in. So just ask me into your fears. And your fear may be, right now, your fear might be, "I'm not going to hear from God. I never hear from God. Other people hear from God." Yeah, okay. Just, what are your fears? I let you into my fears. I'll let you into my fears. Let hand to my first. And here's how real and live moment this is. You know, you know what popped out of my heart? What my fears? Jesus says, "What are your fears?" I'm like, "This is not going well." Right? That's my fear. And Jesus is like, "Let me into that. Let me into that. What are your fears? Let me in. Give me access to that." Um, um, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Jesus will often enter into conversation with us by question asking. He will ask you questions. Even when you ask him questions, he'll come back with a question. And there's a whole lot of reasons for that, but he's trying to access your heart. He's trying to get in there, okay?

So, um, again, he asked, as it was earlier in prayer today, he asked, "What do you need?" What do you need? Do you need, as you think about the stages, as you think about son and cowboy and warrior and kind of where you are in life and what you may have missed, what do you need? Do you need tonight? Where do you need me? Where do you need me? [Music]

Um, Henry Nowen said that answers before questions do damage to the soul. It's why Jesus asks a lot of questions, right? Because he doesn't want to just deliver content to you. He's trying to meet you where you are in your place of need. What do you need? What do you need? Okay. Now, having said that, so let's linger there for a moment. Give me your fears. What do you need? And, and now he'd like to come to the, to the son. He'd like to come to the boy who needs to know belovedness. And, and actually, the father will step in in this moment because this is something you learned from the father, okay? Ask the father, "Do you love me? Am I beloved to you? Do you love me, Father? Are you proud of me?" We've got to find the boy again. And we kind of bounced out of that over dinner. And then on into the, so we got to kind of settle back into the, the need of the boy in you for belovedness. Where is the need for belovedness? And it is from that place you ask, "Papa, do you love me? Are you proud of me? Do you delight in me?" And here's a really sweet one. "What's your name for me? What do you call me?"

Okay, so some guys are dialed in and they're hearing some things. Some of you are a little frustrated right now. So when we talk to the frustrated guys for a moment, I release the pressure. I release the pressure. And I break the agreement that I don't hear from God. I break that agreement because if you make that agreement, it kind of locks things down. So I, I release the pressure and, and I renounce the agreement I've made that I don't really hear from God. And, and then you just, just sit. Just sit in quietness. One of the most vulnerable things a man ever does is to allow himself to be loved, really. And the reason I said that is the father just asked, "Will you let me love you? Will you let me love you? Come close, embrace you, pour my affection on you? Will you let me?" Now, some guys are tracking and you're cruising along in this and this is going well. And other guys, the issue right now is self-contempt and self-hatred. You are so accustomed to self-rejection that it is impossible to hear God say he loves you. Like he shouted and you wouldn't hear it, okay? So if that's your category, right? That what's really going on right now is just your own personal self-contempt. "Oh man, Jesus, I am, I am sorry for myself hatred and I renounce self-hatred. Renounce self-contempt. Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's so damaging. I invite you here and I, I reject and renounce the agreements I've made with self-contempt, self-hatred, self-loathing, self-rejection because that, that is in the way of you experiencing love. Jesus, help me with this. Father, help me with this."

Find the boy who needs belovedness. Find that young place in me that just needs to know delight. "Do you delight in me? What do you call me? Am I special to you? What do I mean to you, God?" Ah, and, and then let's move into a couple more stages, just kindly, just gently. The cowboy. I, I can hear him asking, "Are you ready for adventure?" Now, this isn't 38-year-old you. This isn't 65-year-old you. This is, this is teenage you, okay? Just find that teenager. Remember yourself in junior high, in high school, middle school, and high school. And let, let the father is asking, "Are you ready for adventure?" Is that, there's some doubts there, maybe? Yes. Just let them come there. And the father is asking, "Would you like to know the adventures I have for you?" Let me show you. Some of you, he's going to show you the adventures he has for you. Some of you, he will speak them, or he'll just speak one word. He'll, he'll just say, "Art," right? Or, or he'll say, um, "Europe." Or I don't know. I don't know what he said, you know? But others of you, he'll show you something. "Father, what are the adventures you have for the cowboy? What are the adventures you have for me?" I love him. I love God so much. He's just, he instantly back. He says, "Well, what have you abandoned?" What have you abandoned? Because there are things you loved, right? You play the guitar, you had a motorcycle, you used to love to road bike, right? There were things that you just abandoned. And so you're asking, "What are the adventures you have for me?" And for some of you, he's asking, "Well, what did you abandon that once brought you joy?" You got to get that back, okay?

So there's belovedness, there's cowboy, there's warrior. Hmm. Okay. So as we move into the warrior for a moment, and we're not going to go any farther than this from it. This is plenty. Um, that the whole terrain shifts with the warrior in your fight with your enemy. Um, you are hated. You are hated with such loathing by your enemy. And he has reaped so much havoc in your life against your heart over the years. Here's where we have to go with the warrior. This is where hearing the voice of God becomes so helpful. What are the agreements that I have been making with my enemy about myself as a man? What are the agreements that I've been making with my enemy about myself as a man? And some of you, what do you say to yourself when you blow it? What do you say to yourself when you see yourself in the mirror? Like, some of this stuff is just coming up, you know, what these sentences are. Others of you, just linger. Let, let Jesus reveal this to you, okay? What are the agreements I'm making with my enemy about myself as a man right now? And I'm going to say a few out loud that I'm hearing for some of you. Some of you older guys are hearing, "It's too late. It's too late. I'm finished." Some of you are hearing, "I can never get her back. I can never get her back." Some of you older, I don't know why he's focusing on some of the older guys right now, um, me included. It's an empathy for you. But, um, "They don't want me anymore." I don't know if that's your job, that's your church, that's your circle. But these lies that come against an older man's heart. Too late. It's over, right? What are the agreements I'm staying with? The question, "What are the agreements that I'm making with my enemy about myself as a man?" Okay? And as Jesus reveals those, or you just feel them, you just feel the, the self-hatred, or you feel the disgust, or you feel the shame. You break the agreement. And it goes like this: "I renounce ever." You don't say this out loud, just in your heart. "I renounce every agreement that I have been giving to my enemy that I am." And then what did you hear? Week? Finished? Not enough? Unlovable? Too dark? Too damaged? What's the agreement? This is where the war for your heart is being fought right now. The agreements that you make with your enemy about who you are as a man. And as those become clear to you, you renounce them. "I renounce the agreement that I am what?" Hmm. And then we ask you, uh, "Lord Jesus, would you train the warrior in me? The warrior needs a lot of training. The warrior needs a lot of training. To train the warrior in me, would you show me the adventures that you have for me? Father, would you bring belovedness to me? Bring belovedness to me." Hmm.

Okay, so I'm just going to close with some reminders. The journey now is towards wholeheartedness because of wholeheartedness is not only the promise of the Gospel, but it is your immune system in this world. You need it for a gnarly hour like this. You need whole. I need it more and more. And so we are asking God, "Where are we working, Father? What are we working on right now towards wholeheartedness?" You know, try and get it all done. You don't try and get five things done. Just where, where are we right now, Father? Where are we working? Okay. You are not alone. You are not alone. You have a father who loves you. Don't try and figure this out. Flick. That is so frustrating. Don't try and figure this out. Just ask God. Ask God. Practice hearing his voice. Practice hearing the voice of God. Second Corinthians 6 verse 18, we'll put that slide up. This is the promise, okay? That's the promise. You have a father. You are his son. You don't have to figure life out. You are the friend of God. Listen to his voice. Please, please, please listen to his voice, okay? That, that is enough. That is so enough.

Um, dear Jesus, have mercy on us. I, I, uh, this isn't my church. This isn't my gig. This isn't my thing. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna beg you for mercy. Please don't do anything else. Please, please don't, don't get up and prophesy or worship or just, mercy. Just give these guys a break, man. Uh, um, just like this is where we back away from Shiloh and just let, let the poor horse be okay. Just let him be for a second, okay? All right. Can we do that? All right. Any last minute announcements? Yeah. Thanks. Far out. Good night, guys. All right. Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the Braveco Podcast. If you like this podcast, would you please rate it, review it, leave us a great comment? And if you like this episode in particular, share with your friends and family. That helps us to spread the word, guys. Stay brave. We'll see you next week.