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Welcome to day six 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, let's go ahead and recap the first five days of this devotional because
0:41
in each day we dove into a different question.
0:43
So the first day we looked at what makes a godly man, then we moved on to what makes
0:46
a manly man, and then can you be both godly and manly, then was Jesus a manly man.
0:52
And then yesterday we looked at what is a foxhole.
0:54
So day one, what is a godly man, we looked at the truce outside the self.
0:58
That's the narrative of humanity that we all live in.
1:00
We all play a part in.
1:01
And the second was truth is played publicly, which this answers the question, what makes
1:05
a godly man.
1:06
So we listed some characteristics that we found from the Bible for what a godly man is.
1:10
And then the second day we looked at what makes a manly man.
1:12
So at Undaunted Life, we have a definition of what a man is.
1:15
And it's this, a man is a male that cultivates spiritual, mental, and physical resilience
1:20
daily.
1:21
Then we also looked at the example of deceased Navy seal Adam Brown and then also Paul whenever
1:24
he wrote his second letter to Timothy, then in day three, we looked at, can you be both
1:28
godly and manly?
1:29
And yes, of course you can be both godly and manly, regardless of what the church or western
1:33
culture tells you, you can be both.
1:35
We looked at Adam Brown again as a great example of that.
1:37
And then we went deep into the story of Nehemiah, specifically the first four chapters of that
1:41
book.
1:42
Then we looked at was Jesus a manly man.
1:43
That was day four.
1:44
And so obviously Jesus is godly because he is God, but Jesus is a manly man because he's
1:48
the perfect man.
1:50
He's a perfect man, perfectly manly.
1:52
And then Jesus also cultivated spiritual, mental, and physical resilience daily.
1:56
We looked at stories of him turning over the tables in the temple, his 40 days out in the
2:00
desert being tempted, those types of things.
2:02
And then yesterday we looked at what is a foxhole.
2:04
And then we gave you this definition, a foxhole is a group of men that constantly push each
2:07
other to cultivate spiritual, mental, and physical resilience daily.
2:11
Then we also talked about how Jesus had a foxhole and that was the 12 apostles.
2:15
And so we, we definitely went into a lot of detail there in terms of Jesus having a foxhole.
2:19
So guys, with all those lessons, if you haven't listened, today's went through five, make
2:23
sure that you go back and listen to those before you take in today's content.
2:26
But today's question that we're going to be looking at is why do men need a foxhole?
2:31
Because now you know what a foxhole is.
2:33
That's great.
2:34
You know what it is.
2:35
But why do you need it?
2:36
Now, this should be simple, especially if you remember what we talked about yesterday.
2:40
So why do men need a foxhole?
2:42
Because Jesus had one.
2:44
All right, guys, that wraps up the devotional for today.
2:48
I mean, I could just wrap up there because Jesus had one, we're supposed to be disciples
2:52
of Christ.
2:53
And so we just need a model after what he does.
2:54
But I'm going to digress a little bit because I'm sure some of you need a little bit more
2:57
convincing in terms of making sure that that's something that's true for you.
3:01
But great.
3:02
We know that Jesus had a foxhole.
3:04
That's wonderful.
3:05
But why did he have a foxhole?
3:07
And then why should you have a foxhole?
3:10
And guys, one of the first times that I kind of really reckoned with this concept of having
3:15
a foxhole and not being in the military, right, just a foxhole and your everyday suburban
3:19
life or whatever type of life you're leading.
3:21
And I remember whenever I read Wild at Heart for the first time by John Eldridge.
3:25
And I remember the concept kind of being in there, but it wasn't until I reread Wild
3:29
at Heart years down the road that this really started to kind of formulate into a philosophy
3:34
that I wanted to kind of go at a little bit further.
3:36
And so I'm going to read a section from chapter nine of Wild at Heart and the chapter is called
3:39
a battle to fight the strategy.
3:41
So Eldridge was basically discussing how we need to use Christ's authority and to walk
3:47
in it.
3:48
So let's go ahead and go into that section here.
3:50
One more thing.
3:52
Don't even think about going into battle alone.
3:54
Don't even try to take the masculine journey without at least one man by your side.
3:58
Yes, there are times a man must face the battle alone in the wee hours of the morn and fight
4:03
with all he's got.
4:04
But don't make that a lifestyle of isolation.
4:07
This may be our weakest point as David Smith points out in the friendless American mail.
4:11
One serious problem is the friendless condition of the average American mail.
4:15
Men find it hard to accept that they need the fellowship of other men.
4:19
Thanks to the men's movement, the church understands now that a man needs other men.
4:23
But what we've offered is another two dimensional solution accountability groups or partners.
4:28
Oh, that sounds so old covenant.
4:31
You're really a fool and you're just waiting to rush into sin.
4:33
So we'd better post a guard by you to keep you in line.
4:37
We don't need accountability groups.
4:39
We need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside someone to watch our back.
4:44
A young man just stopped me on the street to say, I feel surrounded by enemies and I'm
4:47
all alone.
4:49
The whole crisis in masculinity today has come because we no longer have a warrior culture,
4:53
a place for men to learn to fight like men.
4:56
We don't need a meeting of really nice guys.
4:59
We need a gathering of really dangerous men.
5:03
That's what we need.
5:05
I think of Henry V at Agencourt, his army had been reduced to a small band of tired
5:09
and weary men.
5:10
Many of them are wounded.
5:12
They are outnumbered five to one, but Henry rallies his troops to his side when he reminds
5:16
them that they are not mercenaries, but a band of brothers.
5:20
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
5:23
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
5:27
And gentlemen in England, now a bed shall think themselves a curse.
5:30
They were not here and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks that fought with us.
5:36
Yes, we need men to whom we can bear souls, but it isn't going to happen with a group
5:41
of guys you don't trust who really aren't willing to go to battle with you.
5:46
It's a longstanding truth that there is never a more devoted group of men than those who
5:49
have fought alongside one another, the men of your squadron, the guys in your foxhole.
5:55
It will never be a large group, but we don't need a large group.
5:58
We need a band of brothers willing to shed their blood with us.
6:02
So guys, that is just a seminal passage for me in all the books that I've read and all
6:07
the books that I've taken in on this subject matter.
6:09
That right there kind of encapsulates why this is so important, but I have three big
6:13
takeaways that I took from that passage.
6:15
The first is being in a foxhole prevents you from being in isolation.
6:20
And that is a massive problem for so many men.
6:23
We've mentioned it, you know, several other times in this devotional that so many men
6:26
are just alone and a lone wolf doesn't prosper.
6:30
We know that like we know that in nature and we know that in our everyday lives and isolation
6:35
can be a very dangerous thing because isolation can lead you deeper into your addictions.
6:40
It could lead you deeper into your depression.
6:42
It could lead to some horrific outcomes for your health, potentially even suicide.
6:47
Most of these people that end up taking their own lives, these weren't people that had
6:50
a tremendous support system around them.
6:52
Sometimes that does happen, right?
6:54
But a lot of these men that take their own life, they feel like they're alone.
6:57
And part of that is because they're allowing themselves to be alone.
7:01
And this isolation is an epidemic for a lot of men because making friends isn't as easy
7:07
as it was back in high school or back, you know, when they were in the army or back whenever
7:11
they were playing intramural softball every weekend, it's not as easy now.
7:15
And that's an issue for a lot of guys.
7:17
The second big takeaway from this passage is that we need to surround ourselves with
7:21
dangerous men.
7:23
Okay.
7:24
So one of the things that we look at whenever a man is surrounding himself with other men,
7:28
I don't want to be surrounded with men that I'm worried about what will happen.
7:32
If really, if things pop off, I'll say, if things get dangerous or things become a dangerous
7:38
situation for me and the people around me, I don't want to look to my left and to my
7:41
right and think, I don't know if I can trust this guy, I think this guy is going to go
7:46
hide in the corner.
7:47
I think this guy is going to leave me on my own here.
7:50
I don't think this guy is going to be ready to do what he needs to do to make sure that
7:53
we can all get out of here alive.
7:55
But the thing about being a dangerous man, most people think like, Oh my gosh, that's
7:58
a horrible thing to say.
7:59
Why would you want a man to be dangerous?
8:00
The thing is, is you want men to be dangerous, but you want them to have it under voluntary
8:04
control.
8:06
That's what that means when when we talk about the meek inheriting the earth, we don't understand
8:10
the word meekness correctly in our modern context because we look at meek and we think
8:14
of that as weak, but no, meekness is basically where you are a dangerous person, but you
8:19
have it under control.
8:21
You know how to fight in every way that that you can fight, but you don't do it unless
8:27
the situation calls for unless it is a righteous thing to do.
8:31
You need to surround yourself with dangerous men.
8:33
And the last big takeaway from that section is that we need to be in a group that is forged
8:37
in warfare.
8:38
Okay.
8:39
And I want to kind of throw this out there again.
8:40
I know people play out the warfare thing again, especially people that have never been
8:43
to war, but I'm not just talking about warfare in some, you know, God forsaken desert overseas.
8:49
That's not necessarily what I'm talking about.
8:50
Okay.
8:51
What I'm talking about is the warfare for your mind.
8:55
Are you helping the people around you?
8:57
Are the people around you helping you control your mind, control your thoughts to keep you
9:03
from lusting, to keep you from coveting, to keep you from doing those things that will
9:07
destroy you from the inside out?
9:10
It's the warfare of someone who's about to get a divorce, right?
9:14
Because they just can't reconcile the differences with their spouse and you draw a line in the
9:18
sand and you say, no, we're going to fight with you.
9:21
We're going to fight alongside you and we're going to help you maintain your covenant.
9:25
That's what we're going to do.
9:27
You know what?
9:28
Your family's going through it right now.
9:29
There's obviously some spiritual warfare going on in your household.
9:32
I'm going to come alongside you and help fight this battle against the dark forces using
9:36
the name of Christ to do so.
9:38
That's what we need.
9:39
That's warfare.
9:41
And guys, those situations will just come up.
9:43
You're going to suddenly lose a family member.
9:45
You know, I have people in my foxhole that have lost children, right?
9:48
You know, just these horrific situations, that's warfare.
9:52
The subsequent things that you're having to deal with because you're depressed and you're
9:54
torn up, that's warfare and you need a group of guys that's been forged by that.
9:59
And so all this reminds me of a truly amazing story from the Gospels that I really don't
10:04
think gets enough play.
10:05
I mean, I'm trying to think of the last time I had a preacher or a pastor really go through
10:08
the story and it's been a while.
10:10
And so when I went over it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is perfect.
10:13
So this is what we see in Mark two and it's versus one through 12.
10:16
I'll go and read them here.
10:18
And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home and
10:22
many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door.
10:26
And he was preaching the word to them.
10:28
And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
10:31
And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.
10:35
And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
10:39
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven.
10:44
Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts.
10:47
Why does this man speak like that?
10:49
He is blaspheming, who can forgive sins but God alone?
10:52
And immediately Jesus perceiving in his spirit that they thus question within themselves said
10:57
to them, why do you question these things in your hearts, which is easier to say to the
11:02
paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, rise, take up your bed and walk.
11:08
But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
11:13
He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.
11:19
And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all so that they
11:22
were all amazed and glorified God saying, we never saw anything like this.
11:27
Guys, that is such a cool story, but it's a cool story for these three main reasons.
11:32
This is my first big takeaway from that story.
11:33
The first thing is these men are clearly friends of the paralytic.
11:38
I mean, in fact, I would say these are 3 AM friends, these are, I'm on my way, types
11:43
of friends.
11:44
I mean, you can't really expect to see this amount of dedication otherwise.
11:49
I mean, these guys, these men would simply not be denied, right?
11:53
They were going to get this man to Jesus.
11:56
It's hard for me to conceive that these are just four strangers that just walked up all
11:59
this guy needs help.
12:00
Let's take them over to this Jesus guy.
12:01
See if they can fix them up.
12:02
No, these are friends of this guy that this is probably this guy's foxhole that's trying
12:06
to make this happen for him and don't miss this important key.
12:11
These dudes didn't just lower their buddy through a hole in the roof.
12:15
That's pretty cool.
12:16
That's pretty cool in and of itself.
12:18
They created the hole in the roof.
12:22
Also their buddy might be healed, right?
12:25
This wasn't a guarantee.
12:26
These guys didn't know that this was going to happen for their friend, but they're like,
12:29
you know what?
12:30
We're digging a hole in this roof and we're getting this guy to this Jesus fellow because
12:33
maybe he can help him out.
12:36
Amazing amazing story.
12:38
The second big takeaway from this passage is this, Jesus is just flexing on these doubters.
12:44
Flexing.
12:45
I mean, again, you read this and you take all the personality of Jesus out, but just think
12:49
about what he's saying in the situation.
12:51
Think about the look in his eye.
12:52
I'm going to go back to verse eight and we'll read through verse 11 here and immediately
12:55
Jesus perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves said to them,
13:00
why do you question these things in your hearts, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your
13:05
sins are forgiven or to say, rise, take up your bed and walk.
13:10
But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
13:15
He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.
13:20
Because again, Jesus knew what these guys were thinking.
13:24
So that's weird in and of itself.
13:25
These guys were probably freaked out like, Oh, oh, crap, this dude like knew what I was
13:28
thinking about.
13:29
Now he's like saying it and he's referring to it that this is a problem for me.
13:32
I need to, you know, kind of control my thoughts.
13:34
But then he was just like, I mean, you're mad because I'm talking about the fact that
13:37
I can forgive this person's sins.
13:39
But is that incredible or is it more incredible that I'm telling this paralyzed man to get
13:45
up, take his bed and walk around?
13:49
And then he just does it.
13:51
Hey, check this out, right?
13:53
There's part of me that thinks that Jesus is just staring at these guys.
13:56
And then he turns to the paralytic, says what he has to say and then turns right back to
14:00
these doubters and says, how about that, how you like that?
14:04
I mean, he's totally flexing on these guys.
14:06
I love it.
14:07
I love the personality of Jesus.
14:08
And the third big takeaway here is they acted as a faithful foxhole.
14:12
These men, these men that carried the paralytic, they acted as a faithful foxhole again.
14:17
Verse five.
14:18
And when Jesus saw their faith, their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins
14:24
are forgiven.
14:25
Not whenever he saw just the regular faith of this one man or this one person over there
14:30
or just in general because all these people are there to watch something cool happen
14:33
because Jesus is around.
14:34
No, he saw their faith as a group.
14:37
They acted as a faithful, godly, manly unit in that moment.
14:43
And Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven because he saw that faith.
14:48
That's incredible.
14:49
That's the type of group that you need to build around yourself.
14:52
So we come back to our question for the day and it's why do men need a foxhole?
14:58
And this reminds me of one of the most effective and definitive inventions in the history of
15:03
ground warfare.
15:04
And that's the failings.
15:06
So I'm sure many of you have heard about the failings concept, but for those of you that
15:09
are not familiar, this can be traced back all the way to the 25th century BC in Samaria.
15:14
And we know mainly about it today because of Greek literature, namely the writings of
15:17
Homer in the 8th century BC.
15:19
The failings is a formation defined by its tight rectangular shape.
15:24
Okay.
15:25
So it's kind of like a gigantic moving turtle shell, if you will.
15:27
So the shape was basically held together by soldiers that had shields in their left hand
15:32
and spears in their right hand.
15:34
Okay.
15:35
So essentially what you were doing is you were shielding the man to your left and the man
15:39
to your right was shielding you.
15:42
That was the failings.
15:43
It was a great defensive formation because the close interlocking shields, they created
15:48
a force field of sorts to defend against, you know, enemy spears and arrows.
15:51
They would just kind of bounce off or skit away or something like that.
15:53
But it was also a great offensive formation because you could move very slowly, very deliberately
15:59
and as one formation, right?
16:01
And then you could easily outlast your opponents if they weren't using the failings as well.
16:06
So the key to the failings, and this is the big thing that some people miss with the failings,
16:10
but this is the big key.
16:11
This is why it worked so well for so long.
16:15
Everyone has to commit 100% to the failings.
16:20
If anyone faltered or ran away, the failings would almost immediately shatter.
16:27
Especially if someone ran away and the gap wasn't filled immediately.
16:31
The failings was going to fall apart and then you're, you're back to kind of normal warfare
16:34
at that point.
16:35
But here's the deal.
16:36
We also have reports from those days of commanders where they would put family members together
16:42
side by side on the failings so that they would be less likely to flee like a coward if they
16:46
were charged with defending their father to their left and their son to their right or
16:51
maybe their brother or their uncle or their cousin, you know, something like that.
16:54
It was so important, but everyone knew that if you don't work as a unit, it's going to
16:58
be a problem.
16:59
So we're going to put you right next to the people to remind you of the fact that you
17:01
need to stay in the failings regardless of what happens, regardless of the discomfort
17:05
you might feel or how hard this is or the fact that maybe you don't even want to be
17:08
there fighting.
17:09
We're going to put these people around you so that you don't take off.
17:12
So here's the point.
17:14
The point with all of this really is that you can't do battle alone.
17:20
And yes, to the guy listening to this right now, I'm talking to you specifically, you
17:25
cannot do battle alone.
17:28
It's not going to work for you long term.
17:31
It may have worked for you for a little bit for a small stretch of your life.
17:34
It's not going to work for you.
17:37
You need dangerous men around you that are willing to go to battle for and with you.
17:43
Again, having that band of brothers that foxhole around you, those dangerous men, that is how
17:49
you will develop and improve moving forward, regardless of your station in life.
17:54
And it won't happen by accident either.
17:56
I mean, foxholes don't just fords themselves.
18:00
They don't just happen by accident.
18:02
And tomorrow we're going to talk a whole lot more about that.
18:04
But if you're going to build and maintain a foxhole, that is a purposeful endeavor.
18:09
You're meaning to do that in a certain way in a certain fashion.
18:12
So to find out how to build and maintain your foxhole, please do not miss tomorrow.
18:17
But before you move on to the next thing, here are some questions for you to ask yourself.
18:20
Number one, have you allowed yourself to become isolated?
18:25
Now guys, this should be a decent one for you to answer if you're being honest with yourself.
18:29
But honestly, you should look at this as indicative of the larger narrative of your life, because
18:36
you should be able to look around and tell very quickly whether or not you're isolated.
18:41
And I'm specifically talking about isolated from other dangerous men, because you might
18:44
be like, well, I'm not isolated.
18:45
I got my wife.
18:46
I've got my two little kids.
18:47
I got my dog like I'm not isolated, but you're isolated in terms of having a foxhole in terms
18:52
of having people to turn to if things are going wrong with the people inside your house.
18:56
The second question is this, are you surrounded by dangerous men that had been forged by warfare?
19:03
Because some of you guys are surrounded by men, right?
19:06
Because in terms of the male female binary, there are men around you, like they are in
19:10
your life, but these aren't dangerous men.
19:13
These are just dudes, they're just neighbors, they're just coworkers, they're just family
19:18
members.
19:19
These aren't people that are forged by warfare.
19:21
These aren't people that are going to intercede on your behalf spiritually, mentally or physically.
19:26
Are you surrounded by guys like that?
19:28
Or are you surrounded by dangerous men?
19:30
And the last question is, who to your right is protecting you and who to your left are
19:36
you protecting?
19:37
Again, this is going back to the phalanx, and this is to get you to look internally to
19:41
be like, who are the guys right next to me that are serving me that I am also serving?
19:48
Because those guys are going to be there.
19:50
You need to have those guys in your life, you need to work towards that.
19:54
But also, this isn't just about being defended.
19:58
This isn't just about getting your needs met.
20:01
This is about serving others as well.
20:03
I want to make sure that you're doing that.
20:05
All right, guys, for more content like this, check out the rest of our podcast episodes
20:08
wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to leave a review and a five star rating and
20:12
check out our website at www.undaunted.life.
20:17
Make sure you come back tomorrow for the final day of this devotional day seven, where we
20:20
show you how to build and maintain your voxel.
20:24
Until then, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
20:30
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.