: Welcome to Aggressive Life. This July we're running through some of my favorite live talks from the past year that happened to be recorded, but were never being planned on, on playing the podcast. But I found out they're recording. I went, huh, that actually might be a win. So today we're going to head to Rock Valley, Iowa. What's in Rock Valley? A lot of corn. I still don't understand that. If a valley has a lot of rocks, isn't that a place where corn wouldn't want to grow dirt? That's what you would think. I would think, but man, it is parallel universe and rock valley. I met some of the most unique, kind, and intense people ever. Farmers. A lot of, I would say farmer boys, no, these were farmer men. There's a small community of about 4,000 residents. Most of them are in the agriculture industry. Some of the men, they're decided they weren't content to just keep doing the same old same old, which would have been making money on the tractor. This is the harvest season. Like when they turn off the tractor, they literally turn off the money. that hundreds of guys turned off their tractors when they're trying to bring the crops in to make money and show up at an event at daylight. To hear a guy, which was me, push them in various areas was really mind blowing and humbling. One little interesting aside to it, as a speaker, you get really... You get comforted by getting the audience to laugh. That's why you might roll your eyes when a speaker says some corny joke or just says stupid things or is doing things. You roll your jokes, he doesn't need to do that. You're right, he or she probably doesn't need to do that, but here's what's happening. As a speaker, you need a little affirmation that the audience is with you and laugh because, oh, they're with me. Okay, you got some positive affirmation and then you can go with it. These guys, I gave two talks, these guys. had zero response. Nothing. I mean, they just sat still and stared forward with a look of boredom on their face. It was so disconcerting. And then I finally said to try to loosen up the crowd, I finally said after at the very end of that talk said, you guys are allowed to laugh. Like my insecurity came out. You're allowed to laugh. Some of this is actually funny, you know. And then I finished my talk out and I went back to my table I was and there was some farmers there and a farmer said um he said you know you know we are Dutch and Dutch people just don't show their emotions and he said that like oh you're right It's a farming community, a bunch of Dutch people. Sometimes stereotypes exist because a lot of people in a specific community have looked a certain way. And Dutch people wear on their sleeve their financial management, their measured cadence, their planning, their thoughtfulness, not getting too carried away emotionally. And so like I said that I was like, oh, you're right. And then I realized, oh, these guys are actually paying me a massive compliment. They're here. And it's the first audience I've been at in a long time, and I've never been in another one since, where not a single person in the room looked at their phone. Nobody looked at their phone. They sat there and looked and listened and learned intently the whole time. It was really humbling and encouraging. They asked me to do a talk, the second one. which I'd never given before, and that is that men are protectors. The first one was sort of a talk I've given a lot of what are the five marks for men. Then he wanted me to do a deep dive on what it means to be a protector. Don't need to tell you anymore. Here it goes, a deep dive and a mark number five. Men are protectors, recorded live in Rock Valley, Iowa. Let's go. You know what's really crazy is if someone came to your house, I'll tell those of you who have a house right now, someone came to your house and said, hey, I'm here to just take your shotgun. I like to have your shotgun. I said, take your shotgun out. You take it. Yeah, take it. Someone came to you and knocked on your door. Some 16-year-old you've never seen before, they said, hey, I'm here and I've come to just take your tractors for a spin. Hope you don't mind. Just gonna take your truck, or your car. I had a truck. I'm gonna take your truck out. I'll bring your truck back in three hours. You go, no, what do you mean no? You don't get to take my truck out. But if someone comes who's 16 years old, knocks on your door and says, hi, I'm here to take your daughter out tonight. You go, oh, my daughter, oh sure, of course. I don't have no idea who you are. Just take my daughter. Just take her out. a crazy, crazy thought that we are just giving our girls away and not treating them like they were actually inanimate objects. We ask them more questions. I've had a tradition with my girls, I've got two girls, that before they have a date with somebody, when they're in my house, I've got to interview them. I've got to see what's going on with them. So the last time this happened, a man came over, he was Ben, and I said, Lord, take my daughter out. And my daughter was embarrassed about this, so she said, I'm going to go out and interview you. And I said, I'm going to go out and interview you. And I said, I'm She tried to sneak him in and her go out before I could intercede. And as I found out he was coming over, I said, Mariah, you know the deal, he's not taking you out until I talk to him. She's all freaked out about it. Ben comes over, knocks on the door, Hey Ben, it's great to meet you, I'm Mr. Tom. You're going to take me out tonight. You and I are going to have a date instead of Mariah. You're going to meet with me before you meet with my daughter, okay? He goes, uh, okay. Teenagers, when they talk, they don't move their lips. They say, oh, okay. So I had him drive, and I wanted to see what his driving was like. We went out to a restaurant, a local establishment. There was a chain of them called Frish's Big Boy. Do they have Frish's Big Boy out here? sat down and I said, Ben, let's be serious here. You're gonna take my daughter out, but it's really not gonna last very long. I've been in her life long before you came around. I'll be in her life long after you leave. So I just have a responsibility to protect her. So I need assurance of two things. Number one, I need your assurance you're going to protect her reputation. Someday you're gonna break up, or you know you're dating, I don't need you talking stories about her. A young woman who has her reputation ruined makes the rest of her life really, really difficult. Do I have your assurance, your promise, you're gonna protect my daughter's reputation? She said, yes, sir. I said, good. Secondly, I need to know what your sexual intentions are with my daughter. He said, well, we're going to hold hands and stuff. And I said, and stuff? Like, what's and stuff? Kiss? I said, what kind of kiss? We're talking about alfalfa kisses? You know what alfalfa kiss is? Thal, thal, thal. That's alfalfa. Well, you guys are far but you still have alfalfa kisses. They have alfalfa here, don't they? Maybe you can see that. Alfalfa. Now, I know that what I'm going to do I was a 16 year old one time, I know it's like to have those kind of raging hormones, that raging testosterone. I remember that, I do. I know that what he tells me is not necessarily what he's going to do or not going to do. I know that, I'm not stupid, but I have a responsibility to protect my daughter and fire a shot across the bow of somebody and say, look dude, dad's on his game, I'm here. And this is between you and I. When I did that with my youngest daughter. The other two older siblings were like, Dad, way to go, dad, way to go, dad's on his game. What are they saying? They're saying dad's on his game, and dad is still a protector. Men are protectors, and boys are predators. Boys take, take. If a boy's gonna have it, they'll take it. Men have a higher understanding, and men protect. The Carnegie Research Council has found that the number of what they call Passerby heroic situations, which is someone's getting mugged, someone's getting beat up, a passerby who's passing by, when they see somebody and they intervene, 90% of the time it's a man. 90%. I'm not saying women can't protect, I'm not saying women can't be tough, I'm just saying the statistics say that 90% of the time it's a man. I think it's because men are protectors and boys are predators. By the way, that young man, Ben, ended up dating my daughter for six years and he's down my stun block. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool thing. I had no idea that I was dating a man, or that my wife, my daughter was dating a man, but she is. We'll look at a story in the Bible that probably everybody's heard. I know everyone's heard this story. Everyone's probably heard this story. But you might not have heard from the angle that I want to give it to you today. It's a story of David and Goliath. Who's ever heard of David and Goliath? Anybody in here? Did they have that story in Rock Valley? All right. There's a number of things about this story that really start to come. to focus for me once I started going over to Israel. I've been over to Israel 15 times. I've led a number of trips there. I've sat with a bunch of different guides. I've interacted with people who've lived there their whole life. They just have a different understanding of these stories that are in their native land, in the same way that you and I would have a different understanding of these stories if you lived in America. You'd understand American stories more so than someplace else. So you just have a general understanding of where geography and how it all relates. The background of David and Goliath, just to remind you if you haven't heard it, just reminds you the background, this is important. Samuel is a prophet. Samuel anoints it, the very first king in Israel's history, King Saul. Saul forfeits his throne when he does things that God doesn't approve of, and Samuel says to him, Your run is done. God has torn the kingship from you. From what? Samuel tells Saul, Saul knows his kingship is done, till when the next king comes. There's a long period of time. Samuel goes out, where God tells him to go, so the next king is in Jesse's house. Jesse is the guy who has a bunch of sons. He goes to Jesse's house, and he says, what do you got here, where's your sons? Brings the first son in, big son, the oldest son, burly, strapping son, and Samuel looks at him, and God says, no, he's not. one. He said, you have any other sons? Yeah, brings out another one, same thing. Another one, same thing. Goes all the way through, all the way through the sons. And nothing. There isn't anything. And Samuel says to Jesse, he said, are these all your sons? And Jesse says, well, I got one more. I got one more. In Israel, when you talk to the different rabbis, different rabbinical schools of thought, in Israel you've got rabbinical schools of thought, which are different rabbis who believe that they have oral tradition that traces all the way back to Moses when Moses came off the mountain and Moses brought the Ten Commandments to the Tables of Stone. Moses also brought back words and laws that were the oral tradition, the verbal tradition, and those are passed on to rabbis. So we've got all these different rabbinical schools of thought. What that means is all these different rabbis say that it's their rabbi who is their rabbi who is their rabbi who traces back to Moses. They've got secret verbal understanding passed on to them and was never written down. Sorry, I'm going in the weed right now. We can talk about Bible study, so I like the Bible, so I can geek out on this. This is why, by the way, when Jesus says, blessed is the poor in spirit, the poor in spirit would have been people that Jesus was speaking to who didn't have a rabbi, didn't have an understanding of all of these, this verbal spiritual knowledge. They were poor in spirit. They were losers. You don't have your own rabbi. You don't have all the secret inside information that we have. Most biblical schools of thought believe, sense that Jesse, David, Jesse believed that David was a bastard. Jesse believed that David came from his wife, his wife was messing around with somebody else other than Jesse. That this is why he's off in the field, this is why he's a son that he isn't cared for. Maybe Jesse, I'm not saying David was, they say that Jesse believed that. Maybe David looked different than his other brothers, maybe looked different than him, but you just see his whole The busy life just has no interest in David at all. Just paying him no respect whatsoever. This is the way you feel, by the way, when you're an orphan. Before you get adopted into the family of God, you feel like you've got to earn everything and you feel like you have to prove yourself over and over and over again. This is David's journey. David's older brothers are off of war. In this word, David and Goliath starts. Goliath comes out, and I'll just read you a little section here. The Philistine said, this is 1 Samuel 3. The Philistines said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day, give me a man that we may fight together. Give me a man. Like is there any men here? I defy the ranks. Give me a man. Are there no men here? Come on let's settle this model y mano. The reason this would happen is they were up on top of two ridges and you would have this valley. So what happens is these armies are up top here. No one wants to make the first move. and you start coming up the other. Also you have the low ground that can throw spears and shoot arrows down with gravity if you're easy. Whoever starts first, they're at disadvantage. That's why Goliath comes down, he taunts them, we're not gonna move anywhere, we're gonna stalemates. Let's do this mano a mano. And nobody will move the nation of Israel. David, who no one respects, his brothers are there at war, they're in the action. David's basically the errand boy for lunch. David's bringing lunch. This is where verse 17 says. And Jesse said that David is son. Take for your brothers an ifah of this parched grain and these ten loaves and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. Also take these ten cheeses, the commander of the thousand, to see if your brothers are well and bring some token from them. So David is just the errand boy. He goes up and Saul is trying to find who might actually do this battle against Goliath. And here's what picks up now. When David shows up, his brothers are like, what are you doing here? Come on. You should be back watching the sheep. You're just trying to get out of work. Well, you're not a man enough to be here. What are you here for? Go back, little boy. They're basically saying a bunch of insulting things to him, accusing him of not having work ethic. All the men in- They saw the man fled from him, and as the men of Israel said, Have you seen the man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel, and the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches, and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel. And David said to the man who stood by him, What shall be done for the man who kills the Philistine? This is interesting about David. This is a side here for a moment. David asked, What's my reward? What's done for the man who kills the Philistine? Men, don't ever let someone tell you that you shouldn't be up for getting more. Don't ever let someone tell you that if you want more than you have or you want a reward that you're somehow unholy or unspiritual. David, before he does, he says, huh, what happens, what do I get? What do I get if I do this? Is it okay? You always have to do everything just because you're a nice guy and just to serve somebody else. It's okay to do things to get ahead financially. Don't have a business and don't go to work. This is what David says, what shall be done for the man who kills his Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God. This is what they would do. If you were Jewish you were circumcised, if you were un-Jewish you were uncircumcised. So David is saying this uncircumcised Philistine, what he's saying is this unspiritual person And David does this because he is a warrior. He is a manly man and he is a girly man at the same time. He does poetry. He plays the harp. Saul has him come play the harp for him when Saul is being tormented either by a demon or a mental illness. David writes poetry. He journals. He plays the harp. Not drums, not electric guitar, the harp. He does a lot of feminine artistic things and he kills, he can't categorize. That's what I'm saying. Being a man isn't being a hunter any more than being a man as a poet. You can be a choose man as a poet or as a hunter. about those things. It's about these marks. But the thing that sets David off is he is protecting the honor of the nation of Israel. That's what sets him off. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who would defy the armies of God? He looks around the rest of the nation of Israel, his older brothers who are larger than him, who are stronger than him, but they don't have this thing about protecting the identity of God and the rest of the nation reputation of God, and so he takes off over them. There's five different kinds of protection. One, spiritual protection. There's spiritual protection. David here is spiritually protecting the nation of Israel. He's trying to defend the honor of his God. The way he sees it is if this Philistine has more valor and courage than another single man in the nation of Israel, that reflects really poorly on his God. There is spiritual protection. Why is it, as a dad, that you should find some way to build into your children spiritually? because you want to spiritually protect them. If you look at, by the way, I led two Bible studies for my children. I'm really good at the Bible. I got advanced degrees. I lead men to Bible studies. But whenever I would have Bible studies with my family, it was always a train wreck, always. I only did it twice, because both times people cried horribly. It was awful. It was. So I just said, I'm not going to do Bible studies anymore. I'm not going to do it anymore. I would take my kids to Home Depot, we'd talk about God on the way to Home Depot, we'd pray before meals, I'd have conversations about God. I realized there's something about me and having Bible studies in the home, it wasn't working. If you can do it, great. I just sucked at it. I was awful at it. But I needed to spiritually protect my kids. I needed to let them know who God is. I needed to let them see what it looks like when a man has his heart fully surrendered unto God. God more than the approval of men. It's spiritual protection.

Another protection is emotional protection. We emotionally protect. David, I believe, is also emotionally protecting the esteem of the nation of Israel. They're feeling bad. They're feeling awful that no one is man enough to go down and fight Goliath. He's emotionally protecting them. Men are a dangerous thing. My son urinated on me. in that delivery room, I also realized that I had an entity here that was able to wreak more destruction than my daughters could. Any dog lovers in here? Dog owners? I am. I like big dogs. I've always liked big dogs. The thing when you have a big dog versus a chihuahua, chihuahuas are awful dogs. I don't know. I know nobody in Rock Valley would have a chihuahua. They're awful. They're horrible, horrible. Unless your wife does and you want to serve your wife. Wonderful. But I've never met a chihuahua that was nice. I never have. They're always like, hey, hurt you, right? But if you own a Rottweiler, a Bullmastiff, an English Mastiff, a German Shepherd, all of a sudden you realize, man I can't afford this thing to be yappy or yippity, because this could genuinely hurt somebody. This is what's like when you have a son. When you have a son, they can do serious damage and the stakes on you as a dad is high, high. This statistic is debated. So take a leave, do your own Google search if you want to. 18 to 20% of all women on a college campus report to either being raped or having an attempted rape. 18 to 20%. or the land of boydom. Just more boys all hanging out with each other in close situations without a father figure keeping them in check. Scary, unbelievably scary. I'm just reminded just now of we do a lot of work in South Africa. And in South Africa, they have two massive national parks, which is where the safaris take place, and where the lions are, and the tigers, and bears. Actually, no tigers and bears in there, just lions and stuff. One of them, I always forget if it was Kruger or Palaunasburg, one of them had a dearth of elephants. There wasn't very many elephants over there. The other one had a bunch of elephants. So they thought, let's just transfer elephants from Palaunasburg over to Kruger. The problem was the harnesses that they would use to transport them via helicopter, they breaking so they had a they broke before they got 20 feet in the air you know just say something so they brought over the smaller ones came over from brought them okay and they found out that the white rhinos in the park were getting killed they didn't understand exactly why it was they start putting up game cameras and watched it and realized that the young male elephants were stomping the white rhinoceroses just for the sport of it. And that what appeared to be happening is they wanted to mate with the female elephants. But the female elephants kind of had hardwired in their biology and said, this is a young male, not mature enough, not ready to actually procreate. So these young males were frustrated, sectioned, they're being rejected, and they were just having their way and killing things in the park, not eating. They never see it before. They weren't sure what to do. Someone had the idea like, maybe these young bulls, they need mentors. At that point, technology had changed. A couple years later, they did some new things to harness. They brought over a couple of big, huge, massive big boy bulls over from Kroger and dropping them in plants for a device that was what Joe was. They saw this was what happened. dropped this, what was the name, this name of this elephant. Huge, one of the classic massive tusks. And sure enough, one of these young bucks that was killing Ryan Oswalt came over to try to flex his muscle, and this older bull, charged up to the side, hit him with his tusk, lifted him up near him, dropped him on his side. Immediately the problem went away, immediately. It's like, ooh, daddy's in town. Like, ooh. We've got a real man here and it all calmed down and the deaths stopped immediately. That's the effect that a man has on an environment. He just changes the barometric pressure and all the underlings end up slotting underneath them and understanding their place because that's what we do as men. We protect. We do what we need to do to keep things going in the right direction.

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Number three, there's physical protection. We physically protect. Like I said, 90% of all passerby, heroic deeds are done by men. We physically protect. Number four, we intellectually protect. My daughter, my oldest daughter was going to a sorority function with another fraternity. As they were driving there, a young man over corrected. He was wandering his car, over corrected. His car jerked the wheel back. Car flipped. He's a paraplegic, he's a quadriplegic, and the person beside him is a paraplegic. No drinking, no drugs happening, just going to a school event. He's a Christian, his dad is a Christian, great, great family, and here he is, paraplegic at the age of 21. Promising future, full ride to college, college scholarship, everything laid out for him, and he's a paraplegic. You heard me talk about being a protector, and he emailed me. which is a very arduous process, blowing into a tube to get the email out. He said, Brian, how do I possibly protect? think that's all protection is. We physically stand up to somebody. Which that might happen. I said, Ryan, you have spiritual wisdom and you have intellectual maturity based on what you've been through. You can protect people by giving them great counsel. This is what's so sad about the gap in our generations that, you know, we don't respect the older men. We don't hang out with the older men. And then the older men oftentimes just talking trash about the younger men. I mean, every generation in American history that's older always thinks the next generation is a loser. Every single one. Ugh, this can't be a snowflake generation. There's always this thing, and what we lose is the intellectual protection of we need the older men to tell us things that we don't wanna learn from on our own. And the older men need the younger men to be able to pour into, and to feel like I have worth still because I can do something right now with you that you need. intellectual protection. It's a big deal. Five, sexual protection. Sexual protection. When you go out with a girl, guys, when you go out with a girl or a young woman, do you think... What is it that she will allow me to do an experience with her sexually? Are you thinking that? Because if you're only thinking that, then you'll do things sexually that might not be the best thing to protect your future and your future family's future. Boys will say all the time, well she said I could, it was consensual. Okay, it might have been consensual between you two at that point, but are you protecting your future family if you don't marry this woman giving your wife a man who has as few sexual experiences as possible and doesn't make your wife feel like she has to measure up to what the other previous sexual experiences are. Are you protecting her and her future marriage by not giving her another barometer to compare her husband against? It just gets very, very complex, very, very deep. And if your vision is for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life, as a man has a vision, you'll behave sexually different other than, well, what can I get away with tonight? What will she let me do tonight? This is about a vision. What do you want in your future? Do you want the same thing that everybody else wants, which is comfortable sexual pleasure right now? Or are you building to something that's significant, that's off into the future? It's sexual protection. Financial protection. My Bible, our Bible study that we meet, I've been meeting with a group of guys on Thursday mornings for... 25 years. Not the same guys for 25 years. Because when I'm meeting with guys, we want to be multiplying. So we're regularly breaking up our group. Those of us who are in the group go find some other guys and teach them and lead that group because they haven't been in that group before. So constantly multiplying and starting new groups. Because if I'm just with the same people all the time, I mean, Jesus was with the same people for three years. I don't think he could have handled the disciples any further any longer than that. I don't know that he would have had more time. It's like, let's keep going I would have known them probably, but he was about go into all the world, multiply, get with other people, he was always about that. When I'm with a group of guys... We're looking for ways to be protectors. We had a woman who, she still serves us in the current Bible study, amen, right now. Her name is Bonnie. Actually, she's having two women at the same restaurant, Bonnie and Helen. Helen was the first one. Came, she was having some health issues. Her son was 300 pound offensive lineman from high school he was at. She was a single mom, she was on a waitress salary. We found she was behind on her bills. She wasn't able to feed her son, and she was going to get foreclosed on all the stuff that was coming in. And Helen had been serving us for a couple years at that point. And what did we do? We wanted to protect her. We covered her groceries for several months. We got her utility bills. We covered her utility bills. Generosity is the way that you protect. What's one of the reasons that you tithe, if you're a believer, you tithe, you give a minimum of 10% back to your church? It's not just because Malachi 3.10 says to do that. It's not just because Abraham did that before it was instructed. It's not just because Jesus affirms the tithe. It's because you want to protect your church. You want to give your church resources to help people who are hurting. You want to give your church resources to make sure that things go okay. You're protecting your church. Your finances are a way to protect people, to throw money people's way, to be generous with people. fun to be generous. When you're generous, you're just financially protecting somebody.

1 Peter 3, 7 says this, Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. You might not want to go home tonight, those of you who are married, or if you have a girlfriend, call her up when you're done here tonight and say, Hey, I just heard that you're the weaker vessel. That's really good. I don't know if you're, you are the weaker vessel. That's what it says here. It says likewise husband, live with your wives as in an understanding way. It's like you're intellectually protecting her because you're understanding, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. What does it mean that the woman is the weaker vessel? What does that mean? I tell you one thing, I know it doesn't mean, spiritually weaker than you, that's for darn short. One of the questions I have for God when I get to heaven is, why is it that there's so many more spiritually mature women than men? There just is, I don't understand. It doesn't mean that all women are inherently spiritually inferior to men. It definitely doesn't mean that women are intellectually inferior to men. One of the things that's happening with men, the flip that's happening in our culture, is I think in five years it will be 70% women on college campuses versus men, generally, this is not always the case, but generally in American history, the more educated you are, the more income that you can have. We're seeing right now in our generation already for the first time, women are out earning men. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I wish my wife out earned me. I'd buy more motorcycles and more Jeep parts. It'd be wonderful. I'd buy more guns. I'd buy, it'd be awesome. I'd take more hunting trips. No problem. But as a man, when you've never be out earned by your mother or grandmother it just kind of it messes with you it does the next generation won't because we'll see that it's just it's just awkward it's just weird we're in a really strange place where men are having to deal with stuff we never have before in American history and in world history all that to say I don't think it means that women are weaker financially and don't understand money So I also know, you won't ask who this is, but I know that there's women in here who can do more pushups than you can. Raise your hand if your wife can do more push-ups than you. No one's going to admit to that. I know women who are more physically competent than them. So what does it mean? What does it mean? Weaker vessel. What does it mean? Intelligent. Here's the thing about the Bible. I've learned there's certain things in the Bible I don't need to understand, I just need to do. I can't tell you what that means. physical things that women I think generally a lot of things but I don't know how but here's what I know If you treat her like she's a precious face from the Ming Dynasty that's delicately put together and is tender and beautiful and valuable. If you treat her that way, then you protect her that way. Man. your prayer life is going to take off. That's in this verse says, so that your prayers may not be hindered. When boys don't protect their wife, and I know many men who feel like they're in competition with their wife. They feel like they've got to be reading more books than their wife. This is also why many men don't go to church. The wife has more time, maybe during the day, to read the Bible, to do studies, and the man starts to feel like he's falling behind, and I'm not as spiritually mature as my wife, or I can't do all these studies. Instead of competing with his wife, she'll say, no, I'm not doing the church anymore. You just gotta do it for me, honey. And it comes from a place of feeling like my wife is beating me, she's getting ahead of me. Because as men, we don't like to feel stupid. That's why we don't take up new hobbies. Most of us have not taken up a new hobby since we were 18. Because we don't want to feel weak. We don't want to feel like we're not up for the task. But if we can instead not try to compete with our wives, but say, you are a weaker vessel. and I'm going to treat you that way. I'm going to love you that way. I'm going to honor you that way. Watch how our prayer life starts to take off. That's what God says here. So your prayers won't be hindered. How many of us are familiar with the Shackleton expedition that was hallmarked in a book called The Endurance? A couple decades ago. Have you ever heard this story? It's a fantastic story. I'll close with this. Year is 1912. has a dream to be the first person to cross over in Antarctica. He gathers .. men who will make this expedition with them, as they're going over to Antarctica and they're parked off of the land mass, they're gathering samples, they're taking their boats out, they're waiting, they're waiting, they wait long enough that their ice starts to form in and crush the ship. They weren't too freaked out about it. They had their plan in this way that it's okay, we're gonna be sitting here, we're gonna be beached for a while, we're gonna live on the ice floes, we'll be okay. They weren't totally freaked out. They were very, very well-supported. But the winter lasted longer than they thought and the ice came in and started to encroach on the boat and started to crush the boat, crush it. They realized once this ice rise this boat will sink immediately so they had to abandon ship, get all their supplies off on the ship and they just waited and waited hoping someone would come when the weather broke. The weather broke and nobody came, nobody came, nobody came. So they took what supplies they had left and they a boat and they took off trying to sail to safety. And as they sailed and sailed and sailed, 24 guys, and I think it was two boats, they had to make these boats that would take ballast with rocks and put them on the bottom of the boats. They couldn't make the keels go down on the bottom that were on the thing and they had, they're burning mutton fat to cook food and they're inside these boats and they've got like steel carcasses stretched over top of the boats. And as they're sitting in there, they're eating in the stick putrid, you know, gagging smoke where they're also having to defecate while they're in the midst of all the driving rain and they can't get a read on the stars to know exactly which way they go. They finally get to what's known as Elephant Island. They're on Elephant Island, they set up shop, they're able to get a little structure and they're waiting and they're waiting and no one's coming, no one's coming. And they decide to climb. over the mountain to get to where they hear there's a whaling village. The problem is all they have is like old-school rope. That's all they have. They take their shoes and all the screws that they had dodged off the shift and they send screws through the bottom of their feet, through the bottom of their soles, their shoes, basically for cramp walks, and they climb up over this mountain. That today, to this day, this day, mountain climbers look at what they did and they say if we had today's crampons and high technical polyurethane ropes and the best gear that would be an incredibly hard climb today and people look at what they did with what they had cobbled together they say it's unbelievable they climb up over top they get to the whaling station these whaling station see these guys come in who've now been a year and a half on their own They're just born and they look at them and they're like, what beings or entities have just come into this place? They wait for the weather to break. They go back to Elephant Island. They gather everybody up. They can't believe their bodies are still alive. They thought they were all dead. They see their bodies coming. They can't believe it. They get back to civilization two years later. Everyone has thought that they have died. Ernest Shackleton and one of the greatest leadership feats that man has ever known. has kept 24 people alive for two years and restored them back to their family in the most arduous and difficult circumstances you could possibly imagine. Why? How could he do that? You can find this on the internet, an actual photograph of the, of the ad that he placed, and I believe it was London. as he tried to get his crew. Here's the ad that he placed. Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. The next day. Five thousand people lined up to volunteer. Five thousand people. You tell me, if that was placed in the local publication here in Rock Valley? in Cincinnati and LA? I'll read to you again. Men wanted for a hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. What would happen? Men, this is what it's like to be a man today. This is what it's like to be a man today. We're not going to be called upon to go to white Antarctica. Very few of us would say I would step in front of a speeding bullet for my wife or my friend. OK, but you know what? There's not going to be one, thankfully. We have these ideas of being this macho guy who stands up and sits. And all I could do is never have to step in front of a speeding train. Never going to step in front of a bullet. But you don't have to do the dishes. That's what you have to do. You're going to have to fight for your daughter's virginity. That's what you're going to have to do. What are you going to have to do? You're going to have to tell your son who's a young buck, he's just out of control. You're going to have to reel him in and you're going to have to say things to him that he's not going to want to hear and you're going to have to man up and try to do it in a very gentle way that's very firm and loving, just like that bull elk got that other guy. You know what you're going to have to do? You're going to have to tell your kids, you're going to have to believe things that public schools are going to think you're awful to believe and actually teach. You're going to have to do that. You're going to have to manage your money a different way because you're going to be a man. Because you're going to act like a man. And there's going to be men, there's going to be few of us, there's going to be fewer and fewer of us. But there's honor and recognition for those of us who endure to the end. It's the honor of our Heavenly Father who tells you right now. He tells you right now. And you're his son and he's well pleased right now. He's pleased with you right now. And now what we want to hear from him is, well done good and faithful servants. Well done. Come and share in your master's happiness. That's what your heavenly dad has for you. This is the journey you're on. It's a great one. It's an amazing one. It's the greatest thing you ever do is be a godly man. That's what I have for you tonight. Let me pray for you. God, I thank you for these good men, these new friends of mine, with a guy like me from back east who doesn't understand all of their world and is in awe of their work ethic and what they're doing and who they are. Thank you for giving me brothers like this on the other side of the country and I thank you that we're like we get to be in the same fight together going after you and your will. Encourage them Lord. I pray right now you pour grace upon them. I pray for a fresh feeling of your spirit upon them. I pray for an awareness of your approval on them. I pray right now God, that there would be breakthrough conversations that happen when they go back in their homes and their families. I pray right now God, for there's future marriages in here, there's young guys in here dating a young girl, and that's the one. That's what you have for them. I pray that you would keep them equipped and keep them strong for the journey ahead. God, I pray for as well the father-son relations in here that may be broken, that may be bruised, that may be tattered. They are always mendable. Always. I thank you God for all I've learned, all that I've learned tonight, and all that I'm going to take away. May you bless this assembly, these churches, these families, and these men. I pray these things according to the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes and live events over at bryantome.com. Pre-orders for my new books, a repackaged edition of the Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps get the show in front of me. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.