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Welcome to day two of how to build a godly and manly foxhole.
0:34
I'm your host Kyle Thompson of Undaunted Life.
0:37
Let's get into it.
0:38
All right, guys.
0:39
In day one of this devotional, we talked about what makes a godly man.
0:42
So kind of the main two things we went over in that episode is number one, there are truths
0:45
that exist outside the self.
0:47
And so that's essentially the narrative of humanity.
0:49
And regardless of your belief system, we all exist in this narrative of humanity.
0:54
And the second is truths that are displayed publicly.
0:57
This is where we really got into listing out the characteristics of a godly man.
1:01
And that is what answered what makes a godly man.
1:03
So make sure you go back and listen to the first day of this.
1:06
If for some reason you missed it.
1:08
But today we're going to be focusing on this question.
1:11
What makes a manly man?
1:13
And that is a question, frankly, that I get asked often.
1:16
And culturally that is asked a lot because there's a lot of different answers and depending
1:20
on who you're talking to and what their political leanings are or the worldview is, you're going
1:23
to get a different answer, a wildly different answer.
1:26
Let's think if you went out and asked a hundred people that on the street or at a coffee shop,
1:29
what do you think that they would say?
1:31
What makes a manly man?
1:32
You're going to get a lot of different answers.
1:33
But I would say that most of the time, the answer is given, especially in kind of a Western
1:38
cultural context is the negative caricature of what a man is and does.
1:43
So you're going to get, you know, big muscles and eats meat and drives a four wheel drive
1:48
truck and hunts and chases women, you know, mini sexual exploits and gets in fights and
1:53
goes his own way, you know, etc., etc., on and on.
1:56
And that's what you're going to get from a lot of people, especially in modern culture.
2:00
Then you have the mostly positive side, but it's still a caricature of what a man is
2:05
and does.
2:06
And so that might be, you know, brings home the bacon, knows how to fix stuff or, you know,
2:10
he's a protector.
2:11
He's decisive.
2:12
He leads.
2:13
He's an amazing shape, you know, has a good business, you know, it could be things like
2:16
that.
2:17
Now, me personally, I know a lot of men that I would consider to be very manly, right?
2:22
A lot of guys in my own foxhole and they check off a lot of the boxes on both of those lists,
2:26
right?
2:27
So even if they're all in kind of that first list, it's not, you know, it's not a kind
2:31
of a negative thing.
2:32
It's just something that they do.
2:33
It's just something that they happen to like.
2:35
But in total, I guess in a macro sense, I don't think that those lists truly encapsulate
2:40
what being manly is.
2:42
So at Undaunted Life, we have a definition of what a man is and it's this, a man is
2:49
a male that cultivates spiritual, mental and physical resilience daily.
2:55
So I will just kind of have a little bit of a comment here about we live in a culture
3:00
now that people would even bristle at the use of the phrase a man is a male.
3:04
But that's not the point of today's lesson.
3:06
So I'll digress a little bit.
3:07
So let's talk about spiritual, mental and physical.
3:09
So those essentially cover all the aspects of what it means to be a person.
3:15
There's a spiritual side to you.
3:16
There's a mental side and there's a physical side to you.
3:18
Now, there's certainly relational sides and there's a psychological side and an emotional
3:23
side.
3:24
But if you're crushing it and those three areas, you're crushing it in general, right?
3:31
Spiritually, mentally and physically.
3:32
I mean, you just have to ask yourself, are you a guy that is crushing it in all three
3:35
of those areas?
3:36
And most guys would have to honestly answer no, because it's really, really hard to do
3:40
that.
3:41
But that's part of what we point out at Undaunted Life is we know a lot of guys that are crushing
3:44
it physically, right?
3:45
You know, they can lift every weight in the gym.
3:46
They can, you know, run a four minute mile and, you know, bench press 400 pounds.
3:50
But they haven't read a book since high school.
3:53
So they would potentially have the physical box checked, but mentally, they're not there.
3:58
You know, maybe they're, they're a prayer warrior, right?
4:00
And you know, they, they really go to battle in the spiritual realm.
4:02
But if they need to sprint to the end of the parking lot to save their life or the life
4:06
of someone they loved, sorry, they're goners, you know what I mean?
4:09
So that, that's kind of the deal that we run into.
4:11
But then I also want to talk about the word resilience because we use the word resilience
4:14
and we use that very, very specifically because most people talk about spiritual mental and
4:18
physical strength, right?
4:21
But strength is something that can wane certainly over time or timing.
4:26
So you know, Martine's lead seats.
4:28
This is a guy, you know, hard name to say, but he is currently the world's strongest
4:31
man.
4:32
He's one of the strongest human beings to ever live.
4:33
But the day after the world's strongest man competition, this man was not the strongest
4:37
man in the world because his body was broken down.
4:41
It was busted up.
4:42
He was still strong, but he wasn't as strong as he was just 24 hours prior to the competition.
4:47
Right?
4:48
It's one of those things.
4:49
He is a resilient human being.
4:52
He was physically resilient.
4:53
His ability to bounce back is what's important.
4:56
And so that's why we focus on spiritual and mental and physical resilience because depending
4:59
upon where you're at in your life and what you're going through, that's going to be
5:01
hard for you really to reckon with and figure out in terms of where you're at in terms of
5:05
strength, but resilience, you can always work on the ability to bounce back.
5:08
And then also in the definition, we talk about daily.
5:11
I mean, think about how ridiculous it would be.
5:12
If someone said, Hey, I worked out this year.
5:15
I checked my one workout for the year off, like that would essentially be useless.
5:19
Like you essentially did nothing if you only did that once a year, but the same could be
5:22
said of, Hey, I went to church this year.
5:24
I checked off the went to church box once.
5:26
Hey, you know, I read one book this year.
5:28
I did something difficult this year that really taxed me mentally.
5:31
I did that once.
5:32
No, no, no.
5:33
This is something that you have to cultivate on a daily basis.
5:36
So now you might be thinking to yourself, man, I don't know anyone.
5:40
That is crushing it spiritually, mentally and physically, like I don't know anyone that's
5:45
spiritually mentally and physically resilient all at the same time.
5:49
And I would say to you, that's okay.
5:51
It is an incredibly high bar to attain.
5:55
But two of the main reasons for this seven day devotional is that number one, you would
6:00
become one of those men that is spiritually mentally and physically resilient.
6:04
And number two, that you would build up a group of men around you that are striving towards
6:08
the same goal.
6:10
And so we, we've had a devotional that we put out a few years ago.
6:13
It was called a man's devotional.
6:15
And so it's a 21 day devotional.
6:16
We spend seven days on spiritual resilience, seven days on mental resilience and seven
6:20
days on physical resilience.
6:21
And you'll, I'll make sure that that is in the show notes so you can check that out after
6:24
you're done with this one.
6:25
But this is, this is just one of those things that it's something that you have to think
6:29
about.
6:30
It's not going to happen on accident for most of you guys.
6:33
But while it's preparing this, there was one amazing example of a man that perhaps got
6:38
the closest to truly checking off these three boxes of resilience, spiritual, mental, and
6:43
physical.
6:44
And that's a man named Adam Brown.
6:47
So this is the unbelievable, true, but unbelievable, but true, I guess, story of Adam Brown and
6:54
his life.
6:55
And it's actually recounted in my favorite book of all time fearless, the undaunted courage
6:59
and ultimate sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team six operator, Adam Brown, and that was written
7:04
by Eric Blem.
7:05
And I'll actually leave a link in the notes for today of the interview that I did with
7:09
Eric Blem discussing Adam Brown and discussing this book.
7:12
But that book is also on our 100 books that every modern Christian man should read list.
7:16
That's on our website.
7:17
So if you go to undaunted dot life backslash book list, you can check that out there.
7:21
And that one is prominently featured on that list.
7:23
And now I obviously can't get into all the intricacies of this man's life here today and
7:27
in terms of this episode.
7:29
So I would encourage every single one of you listening to this right now to go pick up
7:32
a copy of that book or download it or something like that and read it or listen to it.
7:37
So and if you've read it before, read it again, listen to it again.
7:40
But the very first words of that book are these.
7:44
What you are about to read is the account of an American hero who bravely gave permission
7:49
in his final written requests to share his journey from small town America to the gutter
7:55
to jail to Jesus to war to the top tier of the U.S. military seal team six.
8:03
So in one sentence, that really was the story of Adam Brown's life.
8:08
And so there's no spoiler here because you know, it's pretty well known at this point,
8:11
but Adam Brown actually did die on mission on March 17th St. Patrick's day of 2010 while
8:16
running towards the sound of a danger in Afghanistan when he was with his brothers.
8:20
He did not make it.
8:21
Very unfortunate, but this man during his life, he had displayed insane amounts of resilience
8:30
and he really had to display this insane amount of resilience for us to even understand and
8:35
be able to hear his story today.
8:37
So the first thing I'm going to talk about is his spiritual resilience.
8:40
So before his days, you know, as a Navy seal, a member of seal team six, Adam Brown was a
8:44
drug addict.
8:46
He was a thief.
8:47
He was a criminal, right?
8:49
This was a guy that shouldn't have even been in the Navy.
8:52
There was a man in the book that I'll let you read about.
8:54
He signed every waiver possible to get Adam Brown into the Navy because with his track
8:59
record and his rap sheet, he should never even have been in the Navy much less than Navy
9:03
seals.
9:04
So I'm actually going to read an excerpt from the fearless book and this is an interaction
9:07
between Adam and a man named pastor Smith while Adam was in jail.
9:12
I've been here before with other people in jail, pastor Smith said.
9:16
They've prayed like you were about to, but Adam, I want you to know that God can and
9:20
really does want to change your life, but it begins with an honest and open desire from
9:25
you to say, God, no more is it about me.
9:29
It's about you.
9:30
Are you ready for that commitment?
9:32
I am said Adam.
9:33
And on the other side, the glass partition, he got off the chair, knelt down, bowed his
9:37
head and repeated after the pastor.
9:40
God for the first time in my life, I trust you and God, I thank you that I'm here in
9:45
jail.
9:46
God, whatever you've got planned for my life, I trust you.
9:49
God, I'm sorry for my sins.
9:51
And today the best way I know how I ask you to come into my life, come into my heart and
9:56
save me.
9:57
I want to begin a brand new life, amen.
10:01
Pastor Smith visited Adam again for several days.
10:03
Adam had questions.
10:04
He says lots of questions, but the biggest one was after all I've done, how do I begin
10:09
to live this Christian life?
10:11
How do I turn my life around?
10:13
Well, the bad news is you can't, Pastor Smith said to Adam, but the good news is Christ
10:18
can turn it around for you and he'll give you the strength and power to do it.
10:22
How Adam asked, let me just show you a verse in the Bible.
10:26
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
10:29
That's Philippians 4, 13.
10:31
If we try to do it within our own power, Adam, we're going to fail.
10:35
And so this was the start really of Adam's spiritual journey.
10:40
This is the start of him becoming a spiritually resilient person because he grew up in the
10:44
state of Arkansas, which, you know, if you grow up in the Bible belt, you're going to
10:48
get some Christian knees.
10:49
That's just going to like, you know, be on your skin like it's just going to be around
10:52
you, right?
10:53
So you're almost going to be culturally Christian.
10:56
But at this moment, he became a disciple of Jesus Christ.
10:59
And he had to lean on that several times throughout his life.
11:03
And that certainly relates to the next two things that we're going to talk about his
11:06
mental and physical resilience.
11:07
I'm going to go ahead and combine these with a couple of stories.
11:10
The first story is Adam Brown actually lost an eye because of a training accident.
11:16
So him and the Navy seal.
11:17
This was when he was in the seals.
11:19
He actually got shot in the eye with what's called a simulation.
11:21
So it's, it's not an actual bullet, but it's like a simulated round.
11:25
So it can hurt you, but it, you know, it basically can't kill you.
11:27
It hit him in the eye and it took a while, but he actually did end up losing that eye.
11:32
So for a Navy seal, he had to learn to shoot with his non dominant eye.
11:36
And for any of you that are out there that are shooters, you have a dominant eye.
11:40
He had to train himself to shoot with his non dominant eye and shoot at the level to
11:44
keep him in the Navy seals, an unbelievable task.
11:49
And then in story two, after he had lost the eye, he got in a Humvee accident overseas
11:53
and it actually crushed his hand.
11:55
The Humvee, you know, actually I hit another American Humvee, it rolled over his hand was
11:59
out the window.
12:00
It rolled over on his hand, you know, basically it was a miracle that he didn't lose the hand
12:04
and didn't lose any fingers, but the hand was essentially useless.
12:07
Okay.
12:08
So, so he could hold things with it kind of, but it was essentially useless.
12:11
So this man not only had to learn how to shoot with his non dominant eye, he also had to
12:16
learn to shoot with his non dominant hand.
12:19
And for any of my shooters out there, I just blew your mind because some of you guys will
12:23
do that on the range because you're being funny.
12:25
No, no, this guy had to do it in order to just keep his job.
12:29
And with those two things combined, and this is just amazing to talk about, he managed
12:33
not only to stay a US Navy SEAL, he graduated from the hardest sniper school in the world.
12:39
And that's the Naval Special Warfare Sniper School, a school that he had previously failed
12:44
whenever he had two working eyes and his dominant hand.
12:48
And then he also eventually passed the green team screening to become a member of the Naval
12:52
Special Warfare Development Group or dev grew or as many of you know it, SEAL Team six.
12:57
So the amount of mental and physical resilience this man had to have just to keep his job
13:03
was incredible enough.
13:06
But then to pass the Naval Special Warfare Sniper School and then to become a member
13:10
of SEAL Team six, it's incredible.
13:13
And again, guys, I'm barely scratching the surface here.
13:15
So you really need to go read the entire book to truly grasp how incredible Adam was and
13:20
how amazing his spiritual mental and physical resilience was.
13:23
But before I move on, I do want to kind of point out that it might seem like a one eyed,
13:28
you know, bad handed member of SEAL Team six might seem super hard for you to relate to.
13:32
It's hard for me to relate to, right?
13:33
I've done some hard things in my life.
13:34
I haven't done anything even that even comes close to what he's done.
13:39
But stick with me because Adam Brown accomplished something that many of us can.
13:45
He had the circumstances of his life.
13:47
He had the hand he was dealt as it were, but he played it well.
13:52
He didn't tap out.
13:53
He didn't quit.
13:54
He didn't just say, Oh, well, I lost my, I guess I don't have a job anymore.
13:58
No, no, no.
13:59
Oh, hey, I messed up my hand.
14:00
I guess I should stop working out and stop trying to be a Navy SEAL.
14:03
Maybe I can go do some other job.
14:05
No, no, no.
14:06
He said, I'm here for a purpose and God put me here for this purpose.
14:09
So I'm going to overcome this.
14:11
I'm going to be resilient.
14:13
So again, you probably have both of your eyes and both of your hands work.
14:15
That's not the point.
14:16
The point is overcoming the circumstances that life has thrown at you.
14:20
Now the story of Adam Brown's life actually reminded me of another story of a truly manly
14:24
man.
14:25
And that's the story of the Apostle Paul.
14:27
So I would consider the Apostle Paul to be a manly man for a myriad of reasons.
14:31
But I especially think that it's true of how Paul comported himself at the beginning of
14:35
his second letter to his pupil Timothy.
14:37
So before we actually get into the scripture here, I do want to kind of set the scene for
14:41
he set the tone for you at the time of the writing of this letter, Paul is essentially
14:45
languishing in a Roman prison.
14:47
So this was likely his second stint in a Roman prison and he was awaiting his coming
14:51
execution.
14:52
He didn't really see any way around it.
14:53
He figured that he was going to die, that he was never going to make it out of a Roman
14:56
prison alive.
14:57
So I actually love the way that the cross way English standard version study Bible encapsulates
15:01
this letter to Timothy.
15:03
They say this, second Timothy is a bold, clear call for perseverance, or you know what I
15:08
would call resilience in the gospel in spite of suffering.
15:12
Paul calls on his young co-worker to continue the fight of faith, even as Paul approaches
15:17
the end of his life.
15:18
So Paul is absolutely up against it, right spiritually, mentally and physically while
15:23
he's in prison.
15:25
Now spiritually, he knows his execution and death are imminent and we know this because
15:30
in second Timothy four, six through eight, we see this, for I am already being poured
15:34
out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come.
15:38
I have fought the good fight.
15:39
I finished the race.
15:40
I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
15:45
the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me, but also
15:50
to all who have loved his appearing.
15:53
So he knows it's coming.
15:54
He knows he's right up against it, but look at his spiritual resilience there.
16:00
He knows he's about to, you know, his ticket's about to be punched, right?
16:05
But he's so excited about what lies on the other side in the crown of righteousness that
16:11
will be afforded to him.
16:13
It's just an incredible, incredible thing.
16:15
And then we also see that he's mentally up against it right now because in this letter,
16:20
Paul talks about how several of his supporters had abandoned him during this time in his
16:23
life.
16:24
And for any of you guys that have ever felt abandoned or have literally been abandoned
16:27
by maybe family or friends that you thought were your friends or maybe, you know, some
16:31
coworkers or whatever the situation is, the mental strain that that puts on you is extreme.
16:37
And yet Paul can still pin a letter like this.
16:41
And then in terms of physical resilience, I don't know about you guys, but I've never
16:44
heard of stories of ancient Roman prisons being known for their extreme comfort, right?
16:49
And also at this point, the Apostle Paul had been flogged and beaten a lot.
16:54
This dude should have died 10 times over, right?
16:56
But he hadn't been, right?
16:58
He hadn't been killed.
17:00
He was such a physically robust and resilient person to survive those things.
17:04
You know, Paul is going through spiritual, mental and physical anguish, but then he still
17:10
manages to show resilience to share this message with Timothy.
17:15
So I'm actually going to read 2 Timothy 1 verses 1 through 14.
17:20
Paul and Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life
17:24
that is in Christ Jesus to Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy and peace from God the
17:29
Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
17:31
I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience.
17:35
And I remember you constantly my prayers night and day.
17:38
As I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.
17:42
I am reminded of your sincere faith and faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois
17:46
and your mother, Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well.
17:50
For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through
17:55
the laying on of my hands.
17:57
For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power and love and self-control.
18:02
Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but
18:06
share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to
18:11
a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which
18:16
he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through
18:20
the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished earth and brought life and immortality
18:25
to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher,
18:31
which is why I suffer as I do, but I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and
18:36
I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.
18:41
Feel the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that
18:46
are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, guard the good deposit and
18:51
trusted to you.
18:53
I mean, that's overwhelming, even to read because of where he's at in his life, because
19:01
guys without the context there, it's really easy to overlook what he's going through.
19:06
It's really easy to be like, oh, you know, that's kind of a nice letter.
19:08
Like, oh, I might, you know, steal some of that and send it to a buddy.
19:11
No, no, no.
19:12
He is really, really in dire straits, spiritually mentally and physically.
19:18
And he writes that, I mean, you want to talk about being a manly man, again, at undaunted
19:23
life, you have to cultivate spiritual, mental and physical resilience daily, but Paul obviously
19:28
did that because you can't write a letter like that unless that's your reality.
19:34
So Paul is quite the manly man.
19:36
And so this entire lesson should have given you some ideas as to what makes a manly man.
19:41
But before you move on to the next thing, here are some questions to ask yourself.
19:46
Number one, when it comes to spiritual, mental and physical resilience, in which area am
19:51
I lagging the most?
19:53
How can I remedy that?
19:55
That's question one.
19:56
All right.
19:57
I mean, guys, you got to be honest with this one.
20:00
You can't say, oh, yeah, I'm doing pretty good.
20:02
I'm checking the boxes.
20:03
I don't know very many guys are checking all three of those boxes all the time.
20:06
There is a weak spot and typically it's kind of easy to see for you if you're kind of
20:11
being intellectually honest with yourself and you really need to think how you can remedy
20:15
that.
20:16
The second question is this, what steps am I going to take today to begin correcting that?
20:21
Right.
20:22
So I'm not letting you guys off the hook because a lot of guys have it has an easy, have an
20:25
easy time, you know, saying what the problem is, figuring out what the problem is, but
20:30
then they don't do anything about it.
20:32
So they have identified the issue and then they just let it sit there.
20:36
So we're not going to let you off the hook.
20:37
You need to figure out what steps that you can take today, like right after you're done
20:40
with this.
20:41
So you can begin creating, correcting that place.
20:44
Okay.
20:45
And the last question is this, who are the men in my life that are cultivating spiritual
20:49
mental and physical resilience daily?
20:53
And guys, we're going to talk about this throughout this, this lesson and throughout
20:57
this devotional, you have to surround yourself with men that are doing the same thing.
21:01
If you're looking around right now and you don't see any of those men, that is a major
21:06
problem.
21:07
But don't worry.
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We're going to help you fix it.
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All right, guys, for more content like this, check out the rest of our podcast episodes
21:12
wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to leave a review and a five star rating and
21:15
check out our website at www dot undaunted dot life.
21:20
Make sure you come back tomorrow for day three, where we discuss if it is possible to be both
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godly and manly until then keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual mental and
21:30
physical resilience, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.