OMM’s Campfire Talks Part 3: A Battle To Fight

This is part of a series of posts about the Campfire Talks we conduct while on our wilderness adventures. The talks are based upon the book ‘Wild At Heart’ by John Eldredge and focus on the 5 things what every man must be and do. Below are the outline/discussion points for the facilitator as you learn about area number two: A Battle To Fight

5 Things Every Man Must Be/Do:

Dangerous

Battle To Fight

Warrior/Protector

A Beauty To Rescue

An Adventure To Live

A BATTLE TO FIGHT

Braveheart (read to them pages 22 and 23)

Man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life that involves and yet transcends even home and family.  Must have a cause to which he is devoted even unto death.  Think you don’t?  YOU DO.  Is why God created you – to be his ally in the Great Battle against evil.  You have a specific place in the line.

Feel you don’t?  Your life is insignificant?  Aren’t armed for it?  Lies of the enemy.  You ARE William Wallace.  God will help you find him in you. 

Lies of the enemy: Spiritual Warfare.  Taken down more men with whispers of doubt and lies than any earthly weapon.

Tremendous Spiritual War going on and the prize is you.  C.S. Lewis quote:  “Two extremes on Satan.  One is dismissing him and not thinking about him at all, other is obsessing.  Both are dangerous places to be”

QUESTION: What is a mercenary?

A mercenary fights for pay, for his own benefit, his life’s devoted to himself.  

QUESTION:  What’s one word to describe a Warrior? “The quality of a true warrior is that he is in service to a purpose greater than himself.”

QUESTION:  What is courage? Ok to be afraid?  Fear is normal.  Self-preservation instinct.  Keeps you alive.  But need to control and sometimes overcome your fear.

VIDEO:  Yoda (you will be)

Question for Mentors:  What was a fear when you were a teenager when it came to manhood?

Takes courage but what is courage?  “Strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.  Soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying.  He must not merely cling to live, fo then he will be a coward and will not escape.  He must not must merely wait for death, for then he will be suicide and will not escape.  He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” G.K. Chesteron.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the decision that something else is more important than fear.”  Ambrose Redmoon”

VIDEO:  Blackhawk Down

Great source of courage is God.

QUESTION:  WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE QUIET TIME WITH GOD?  (ask mentors)  Hard to do?  Why?

Most men have hard time sustaining spiritual life because doesn’t feel relevant to protecting their strength.  But if you saw your life as a great battle and you knew you needed time with God for your very survival, wouldn’t you do it?

Quiet time:  scripture important but not only that.  Can be music, journaling, listening in silence, or beautiful landscape at dawn/dusk.  Point is to connect w/ God.

Mentor Question:  What does quiet time look like for you?