Ep 13: The Silent Battles Men Fight

We explore the silent battles men carry, the grip of pride and pressure, and how God meets us in weakness with real strength. Scripture, prayer, and honest friendship become the tools to face fear, speak truth, and receive what God wants to give.

• grace made perfect in weakness from 2 Corinthians 
• the danger of “I’m fine” and hidden pain 
• provision pressure and the shame that silences 
• prayer as honest, audible conversation with God 
• listening in silence and noticing unexpected answers 
• surrender as open hands ready to receive 
• practical steps for accountability and friendship 
• balancing spiritual insight with daily action

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Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Foundation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to The Road Travel, a Christian podcast for men, where real faith meets real life. Through honest conversations and personal stories, we help you apply God's word to your everyday journey by sharing the road we've traveled. Whether you're walking through challenge, change, or calling, this is your road. And you don't have to travel it alone. Now, let's take the next step with your hosts, Aaron Degler and Alan Hugator.

The Thorn And Power In Weakness

The Running Ad: Check On A Friend

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Welcome back to the Road Travel. Thanks for taking a little time to join us on our road as we join you on your road each week. We just take a little time to share some insights, some scripture, some experiences from our road travel to share with you that we can we hope that you can take on your road and help your road that you travel maybe a little bit easier, maybe a little bit uh more manageable. So I'm your host, Aaron Degler, along with your host Alan Hugator, as we navigate this road of life together. So we're going to start out with a little scripture from 2 Corinthians. It is 2 Corinthians verses 7 through 10. It says, and it was I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded my Lord to take it away from me, but said to me, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. There is this commercial that I've seen, and I don't think it's in the United States. I actually think it's from over in England, I believe. But but it's it's two guys, their buddies are running together, and it kind of shows them both meeting up, starting on the same bridge, and one doesn't really talk at all, the other one just talks the whole time, and always in a good mood, the one talking, and and it shows probably four or five times in meeting up, and then there's one day where just the one that doesn't talk much, he shows up and he's by himself, and the other friend is gone. And so the friend that doesn't talk much, he takes off running by himself. And the the message of the commercial is check on a friend. The other friend that was running with him that talked all the time, he ended up committing suicide. And it was really about checking on your friends, even though on the outside they look really, really healthy, really strong, really good. That's kind of those things that we battle silently. So that's kind of what we wanted to cover today was the silent battles that we fight.

Men, Pride, And Silent Struggles

SPEAKER_04 2:56

It's interesting there because you'd think the person that was quiet might be the one that was fighting the battle. You know, oh, I'm quiet, I'm not gonna say nothing. I'm always struggling inside, I just can't hardly talk about it. But no, it was right opposite in this case. This one was wanting to talk, wanting to talk about it, didn't come across with the question or ask for help or hey, let's talk this out. I need some help here. And so often they won't. You know, do we not feel weak as men to when we have to go to a friend or somebody and say, hey, I'm hurting and I don't know how to handle this? Oh, we're we're supposed to be the big tough ones. We're supposed to be able to handle any situation that comes up, and yet in everyone's life, there's we have weak spots, something that's happened to us, something that's going on, or something that we're facing that's coming up, whether it's medical, you've heard a lot of times that someone might have a terminally ill and they don't want to talk about it, or you know, or someone else may just that's all they want to talk about. So you really never know what's going on in somebody else's that we're just talking about men to men. We sure don't understand what's going on in a woman's mind. But uh we we don't. We don't always see it. I mean, I use that jokingly, but there's times that maybe my wife is might be struggling with something, and maybe I don't really listen. I've heard that before about a husband. They don't listen, you know. They talk and yet I'm not listening. Because they could be telling you a whole lot with what they're saying and never touch on the subject. So all situations could be different, different personalities. So we can't always read that person about what's going on deep inside.

Provision Pressure And Feeling Like A Failure

SPEAKER_03 4:42

And I think as as men, we're supposed to be strong and tough and not necessarily have weaknesses, and especially if we want to share it with another man, you know, we sometimes what are we, you know, we're afraid of what are they gonna think about us? They're gonna think, well, he's pretty weak. He can't handle this or that. You know, the stereotypical man can fix anything. Our joke around that, our house is I can't fix anything. If you ever watched Kind of Age Myself, one day at a time, right? There's this the manager of the apartment complex, his name was Schneider, and he had these keys, had these keys on the side that he'd, you know, pull out, he can get anything. So I always call Kim, my wife, I always call her Schneider because she can fix if if anything's broken, I say, Hey, can you can you help me? Or you need to fix that. So we had a few weeks ago, probably about a month ago, we had a garbage disposal go out. And, you know, on YouTube it showed it's gonna be real simple. So she sent me the YouTube, she found the YouTube for me, and I thought, I don't know if I can do this by myself. So I asked her to help me. And and so I say, asked her to help me. I don't know if I was helping her or she's helping me, but I think it was more of us helping her because she is she just can fix things better. And as a man, it's it's one of those things that sometimes we go, you should know how to fix things. But I think for me, I I I mean, I tell everybody, you know, I'm not I can't fix anything. She's gonna be the one that's probably gonna fix anything. And I knew that that was one of my things I wasn't good at. And so I said, hey, can you can we do this together? Because I know that's a strong thing. But there, but you know, would I have another would I have an issue telling another guy I can't fix like I don't have a problem personally with if there's a guy thing like if you took me hunting, I might say, I don't have a clue what we're doing. You know, if you told me if we shot something and had to gut it, I'm like, I have no idea what to do. For me, I don't have a problem saying that's a manly thing to do. I don't have a clue what we're doing. But there are times when we do, but yet there are other things that I'd like to be like, I'd have a really hard time sharing that, man. I I'm really struggling with that. And some of those invisible weights as men that we have, it it's it's the pressure to provide. You know, there's been times where, you know, I've really it's been a really struggle to provide for my family. And that's not something we always want to tell everybody as a man.

God’s Guidance Through Challenges

Why We Hide: Pride And Not Burdening Others

SPEAKER_04 7:14

No, we feel like a failure. We're not we're not making enough money to cover all the ends, or we can't provide this for our children, so we feel like a failure, and we look too much at finance about being the big reward. Mm-hmm. And not us up. But when you speak of somebody, what's going on inside of them? Psychologists don't know it and they can't fix it. They can help guide someone to fixing it themselves, right? So I think God does the same with us. You referred to this in a earlier episode of when we go to God with a problem, He don't always just fix it for us, if you use the word loosely. He might give us challenges in life of some kind, obstacle that might come up, and we are to work through that to learn what he's teaching us on how to handle a situation. It's not always just God fix this for me, God fix this for me. That's miraculously fixed. Can he? Sure. But he lets us work through it, but why? If your wife was saying you fix this and you go to YouTube and you go through it and it takes you two or three hours, but if you had to do another one, what? It'd be a lot simpler. You could do it a lot quicker, same way with God. If he sits, you learn by keeping your hands on is a term. By being hands-on, you learn how to get through this situation, how to handle this situation. He may guide you along the way, like the instruction video from YouTube or whatever, but he is letting you experience that because it sits deeper within our minds, in our human minds. We remember more by going through that experience than if somebody just gives us the answer. And so when people pray, they expect answers. I've been praying for this. I've been praying for more strength, or I've been praying for more patience. I use patience. I see I seem to be in short supply at times. So I do pray for more patience, but he might give me obstacles for me to develop more patience. And situations have come up and come up, and maybe through those times I hadn't taken it so hard or taken back a step and looked at it and analyzed it without just jumping off the cuff. So I've learned something about patience and how it can help me to be impatient. But he's let me go through some experiences to develop those patience.

Beyond “I’m Fine”: Real Friendship

SPEAKER_03 10:08

And and as we go through those experiences, I think sometimes as men we want to hide those. Sure. Because maybe it's because what are the men gonna think of us? Maybe it's our pride. Maybe it's here's a big one. Not wanting to burden others. I don't I don't they got a lot going on. I don't want to bother them. And sometimes, you know, I think that holds us those things hold us up from sharing some of what we're going through with other men. But I also think too that maybe it's our responsibility as as men is to, you know, kind of the the that commercial that it was check on friends. And it's not one of the I don't really care for that term because a check on a friend means, hey, you doing all right? Yeah, I'm doing great. And then you move on. But as men, how many times do we say, yeah, we're doing great? How many times have I told my wife, yeah, I'm doing great, and not really meant it. Because sometimes you just want to move on. But I think we have to we have to engage in conversation and relationships. Because we I mean we know with our spouse sometimes when she says, I'm doing great, you know that is not what's going on. You can feel the tension, you can feel it in the air, you can feel everything that it is not great. And why and why do you know that? It's because you've spent time with her, you spent years of being married. You know when things are said that sometimes that's not what's really going on. And the same thing is true when when we share with friends, other guys, and and you know, it's not about if they say we're okay. As you mentioned, you might have a friend that says, Oh, I'm good, but you spend a little time with them and you know that's not the the case. And so you just continue to engage in a conversation without sometimes saying, Hey, what's wrong? Because what happens when we say, Hey, what's wrong? Oh, nothing. It's okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Deny it. Yeah. Someone loses a loved one, you go up and say, How you doing? I'm okay. Deep down they're hurting terrible. But so why do we ask that? So, well, we don't think before we speak. That's what my big problem. But like when we go to God, we have problems. That's why we go to him a lot of times. It's one of my big pet peeves about me and everybody else. Don't go to God when things are good, but we go to him when things are tough. But when we do go when they're tough and we do pray and we do, it's like going to that friend because you're going and having a conversation with him. So don't always ask. Just spill your guts about what's going on. And and just it's like sharing it with a friend. Just open up, tell him what your challenge is. Thanks for listening, Lord. Talk to you tomorrow. Go back, talk to him about it again. If you don't have somewhere to spill it, there's no better place than to release it there. Because he already knows what your challenge is. He knows how to help you with that. Sometimes you might just need to admit what that challenge is or that situation or where that's hurting at. And he should be your closest friend. So instead of going to someone that would maybe use afraid that they might think you was weak, he's not going to think that. Or that you're silly about this situation or that. Just go and and share that with him. And believe me, he will listen. Your friend may not. He may be looking at you. He may be thinking about the girl next door or what's going on down the street or his job. But God is listening. So what what better way to go and if you if you have the and and we all have them. And it don't have to be in the worst, it could be something small. Just share it with him. It don't have to be in one of these, you know, God I don't think about committing suicide. Well, you no, no, no. It could be just some kind of challenge. I mean, like, God, I I didn't I didn't do something right, my wife's mad at me, and just want to talk to you a minute about it, and I want you to help me with it.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Because it in the in 2 Corinthians it says, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Before that, it says, This is why for Christ's sake I delight in weakness and in the insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. Because in that weakness, where do you turn? What is one of our worst weaknesses?

Prayer As Honest Conversation

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Pride. Mm-hmm. We're too prideful to talk about it to even one of our friends here. We're too prideful to go to God about it, and God knows it. We're not telling him something he don't already know. He already knows it. So we're holding up this manly pride. Oh no, I ain't supposed to talk about that. You know, that's one of our worst enemies, is being prideful. And yet, so what is there to be embarrassed about? He knows it all. He knows what you're confronted with, he knows your weaknesses in your life, so talk to him about them. You don't have to ask for nothing, or you can ask him. He may deliver it quick, and like we spoke earlier, it may be a while before he delivers. He will give you a situation that will help you understand or maybe give you comfort. It's uh because when you start trying to cure other people's problems, you can really step off into it. Because you really don't know the angle they're thinking of it. I mean, there's psychiatrists that go through years of studying and books and trying to learn how to get into the human mind and they ain't figured it out. They may help someone some, but they ain't figured out how to go in there and push a button and make it happen. It's more of guiding guiding you in the direction. You're gonna have to heal yourself, and with the help of God, you can heal yourself, whatever's whatever's eaten on you, whatever struggles you have.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

And I think though though too, sometimes that comes in different forms. We we pray to God, and I think he helps us to have a report form. Maybe it's through a person, maybe it's through his word, maybe it's through something you hear. I do think that those things, uh maybe it's it's it's talking to somebody else and the words they might have to say. Maybe they're not trying to fix, say, fix it, but I think he does give that power. He he appeals to us in all different ways.

Answers Arrive In Unexpected Forms

SPEAKER_04 17:18

And reading his word, there's a lot of answers there. We know that. So not only spend time in prayer with him, but reading. Read his word, and he will give you a lot of answers that will help us. Because this world's a bigger mind game than it is a physical game. I mean, you're a fitness guy, you know what it is to be fit. We all try to stay healthy, we try to eat better, do that for you know we can live a good quality of life. And but it's a mind game. This whole world is a mind game. And it starts early. But that's where we need the most help. And that sounds like I'm off my rocker thing, oh, I need help mentally. But that's what God gives us is mental strength. He can give you physical strength, yes. But he strengthens you mentally where you can handle situations where you can few if I sense that you're having a struggle mentally, he will give me some guide me into my some of my words to help you. You know, pray together. I've set my pickup, I can name you numerous times, with someone come in. I had a man there just crying away one day, and and I said, uh, tell me about it, and he talked a minute, and so I said, Well, let's go where someone that can help us. And I went into prayer. And I don't know the end results of that, but that was the place to go, in my opinion, was to God right then and pray for his help. Hopefully, and I said, you know, you need to continue this visitation with God, you need to stay in prayer with him, you need to keep talking to him and ask for guidance. Now, it may not just pop up like the sun does every morning, but give it time and you stay with him, and it will come to you. And there is your comfort. Jesus says, Come rest in me. Come rest in me. Then you get your peace of mind, is what it is. Come rest your mind. You know. That's where our struggle's at. And there's our comfort, there's our answers.

Silence, Waiting, And Listening For God

SPEAKER_03 19:41

And we just have to keep that commute line of communication open. Um, to find that rest, to find that peace. We have to come to him, you know, what's bothering you? Like you said, he already knows it. So but it it makes it better for us to be able to name that what is going on with our battle. We need some accountability. Maybe it is going daily in prayer. Maybe it's going a number of times in prayer. Maybe it is seeking others to help. But it's also building those. How do we how do we fight those battles? We have to build spiritual and practical ways. Because spiritual is great. But how do we put that in practical use? Because you know, we go to him in prayer, and it's going to maybe come up in another situation that we have to grow in through that. That's going to help us in this battle that we're facing. So, you know, we have to look at it as a practical way is is this thing going on in my life helping me fight this other battle? Am I learning something I need to use in this battle? But we do have to have that communication with him, with others. Maybe it's accountability through God, through others, and be feel that strength in showing our weakness.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

When you bring that up, you'll be thinking about it, and then you might get some answers yourself. You know, when you start to talk to someone, I've been here before where I started talking to someone about something, and answers started coming to me without that person even replying. I said, oops, I think I can fix that with this, or this here makes more sense just because I talked it out a little bit. Did you like text it out? Like have you ever in my head, I guess, but not on text. But yeah, I mean, yeah, it it just is I talked about it. People think you're crazy if you're just talking even out loud in a room by yourself about it, but sometimes that brings you the your answers. They say, well, when you start answering your own questions, you're crazy. But I don't find that. I think if you really think and don't let it build in there, that negativity gets to build in. So if you start talking it out even to yourself or talking it to God, which is the best, then some of those answers will come clearer or that situation will clear up something for you. And I think I don't mean to sound like psychiatrists, because I sure think.

Open Hands: Surrender And Receiving

SPEAKER_03 22:06

But I think that's right. I think even sometimes w we have those thoughts and we go over them in our head. And I think it's even different if we say them audibly. Like maybe, maybe prayer you do silently. But have you ever tried prayer out loud? That's why I pray out loud.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

And by myself, I still pray out loud.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

And some people might be very nervous of that to pray out loud because what happens in our mind, it's hidden, right? Nobody can see it. Even though we pray and and God can see it and he hears it, he knows it already. But when we say it audibly, we have just put it into the world. It is out there. Whether it's just us, we've just heard it, and when we hear ourselves say it, it's now become real.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Listen to this podcast and see how you sound different than you think you would.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Okay. So the more you speak out openly, like even in private, speak out loud to God, it becomes easier.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

And don't worry. He's not worried about you saying something stupid. Most of what we bring up is really nothing to be concerned about anyway. Don't worry about tomorrow, for it will worry about itself. Scripture, where it's at, it's in the Bible. I can't tell you. But so, yes, but you know, you've got to be real cautious on when you are talking to someone of need. But we all have inner fears. You want to share all of yours right now on the microphone? No. No. No, we don't. We don't want everybody to know about it. Again, we're we worry about what other people think.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Yeah, exactly. Why wouldn't we say it to where anybody could hear it? Because we well, what other people think? They don't know us. They don't that what if they form this opinion of us?

Practical And Spiritual Tools For Battles

SPEAKER_04 23:49

What if it's love somebody says, I don't care what anybody thinks, I want to call that personal liar. We all want to be accepted. Yeah, there's times it don't matter what other people think at times. You do what you think's right within the guidance of the Lord. But yet we do. We like to be liked, we like to be respected, we like you know. Prayer answers a lot of things in this life. And I go back to saying it's a mental gain. And and and again challenge, maybe not gain, but challenge.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

And I think so people I think can understand as as I've learned because I always thought differently, when prayers are answered, it's through all different things. And we have to be looking for those. Because sometimes the prayer is answered not in the way we anticipate it to be answered. It can be answered in a completely different way, but it is an answer. It can be through a person, it can be through a challenge, it can be through an opportunity, it can be through through a word of scripture, it can be through a wide variety of things. So as we pray, we have to be open to whatever those answers are and however they may come. Because I don't think if we're not looking for those answers, we'll think, well, he never answered me. Because sometimes those answers to the prayers become in a form of a challenge or an opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

I had a good friend of mine tell me one time when I'm praying for something, when I finish my prayer, and you do it in silence, like I do it here in this room, it's quiet, TV's not on, nothing's on. Set there for a little bit and give God a chance to answer it. Don't just jump up and say, Well, he already tell me sometime today. Sit right there for a moment. In the silence. Be quiet and know that I'm Lord. That I'm God. Understand what that meant. Sit there. Acknowledge that He is our servant, mighty God that He is. And give Him a chance to answer your question.

Speak It Out: Audible Prayer And Clarity

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Silence means so much. And I think I've shared this over the last couple of weeks quite a bit as we go into the new year into 2026. So many times we have New Year's resolutions that don't last, don't work. And I think sometimes there's good things that happen, and we hold on really tight to those because they're good and we don't want to let go. And when we hold on really tight, we we hold them. Um I use the example when I did this with other people, I gave them a dollar bill. I gave them a dollar bill for each each hand. I said, now hold it real tight. And I mean they're gripping as tight as they can. And I had I had a two more dollars I wanted to give them in each hand. I said, but you can only you can only grab them, but you can't let go of that dollar bill. And they couldn't receive it because they're holding on, the dollar bill was good, and we hold really tight, but they couldn't receive more. And so I as we go into the new year and as we look for answers and as we struggle, as we go to the Lord and ask him for things, I think we need to go with palms up and arms open. So, what can we receive? What are the answers we can receive? I know this isn't didn't look like what I had planned, but what do you have? I'm gonna let go of this so that I can receive what you want me to receive, with arms open, palms open. And I think we have to do that when we when we pray and we look for things, I mean we share those battles with him and take that step of faith as we don't know how it's gonna be solved, how how it's gonna take shape, but we take those to him, whether it's we have pride, whether it's we have fear of judgment, whether it's we have fear that we're not doing enough. But we go faith-believing, knowing that what he has for us in store is more than what we ever thought possible.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

If you will go, it'd be it might be amazing what he puts in those hands. Probably not the first day, but over time, because you're showing your faith to him by saying, Hey, I'm turning loose of these daughter bills as you said.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

And it may be of a dictionary, it may be of the whatever it is that you've got a hold of.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

Open up, say, I'm here, I'm willing to receive, I know your love is going to flow through to me. Here I am.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I'm letting go of this battle to receive more, to receive the strengths.

Closing Encouragement, Prayer, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Part of what we call surrender. We're supposed to surrender to him every day. That word, like a set of G and times, but that word surrender is not the same as an army surrender, and you surrender to somebody, you're surrendering to God. You're surrendering really your old ways are going away and you're surrendering just to him. Doing away with the worldly things that's unimportant.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

And that's really the challenge that each of us is if there's a battle we're we're facing, how can we, you know, share that struggle? Maybe it's it's share it with with God first. He already knows your struggle, but share it in prayer. Maybe you go to another person, share that so that maybe the Lord will speak through them and the words that they have to say or the actions they have to take help you with. But what what's a big or small, what's a struggle, the challenge is what can you share? Maybe the first step is sharing with the Lord. And sharing it, maybe you've been sharing it quietly. Maybe you can share it audibly to the Lord and hear those words. Hear those words come out of you and be open to receive what the Lord would would give you.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Just have faith in Him and go to Him with any problem that you have. He'll give you the answer. It may not be what you're looking for or when you won't hear it, but He'll bring it. But he'll bring it. And will you lead us? Yes, Lord. Our gracious Heavenly Father, again we pause at this time, Lord. Lord, we all have struggles in this life, but we know that you are there with open arms to receive us. Your love flows through to us if we'll just come to you. You love us so much, Lord, that it's hard for us to fathom the Gopi love. And Lord, we just need to surrender our thoughts in this world and put them into your world, and you will bring peace, calmness to ours. Lord, we come to you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Amen. Thank you to each of you for joining us on the road traveled. We hope that we find you on the road you're traveling and our our stories, our word from the scripture of how you can apply that to life helps the road you traveled, make it a little bit easier. And as you travel your road, we hope that wherever you're finding us on YouTube, on wherever you find your podcast, that that you subscribe to YouTube or podcast. So that way when we have new episodes, which we have a new episode come out every other Tuesday, that you get notified and you can watch the latest show. And as always, share it with family, friends, those you think that we can add value to their life on the road that they're traveling. So thank you again for joining us on The Road Travel, and we look forward to seeing you down the road.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

You've been listening to The Road Travel, where real faith meets real life. Remember, every step matters, even the hard ones. So keep walking your road with courage, conviction, and Christ leading the way. Until next time, your hosts, Aaron and Allen, say we'll see you down the road.