Word of the Year-Mid Year After Hours

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Welcome to the masculine journey. We're having fun making fun of Sam today as he's left us to the word of the year without Sam. So next week's program, we're thinking that Sam can pretty much carry the wall with his word of the year. Does that know all you want an update? Like we all do. Right, Danny?

Wouldn't you like to know that? Yeah, we'd like to know what his word was. Was it absent or what was it? I think it was hope. There's a lot of hope. We hope he's going to be here next week.

I like the idea that his word was absent. So anyway, we are our show today. If you listen to the regular broadcast, we've been talking about the concept that actually was introduced by John Eldridge and the Wild at Heart team a number of years ago of as you come in to the end of the year to begin to ask and pray God for a theme for where you're going in the upcoming year. And if you listen to our show right at the beginning of the year, we all had words. And so we wanted to do an update. We're halfway through the year to kind of give you an idea of the adventure that everybody's been on in that.

And I think we all are challenged, which is exactly how he wants us to be searching for, you know, where he wants to take us in that. And along those lines, another one of our freshmen, Danny, this is your first year for a word of the year, right? It is, yes. And your word was? My word is heritage.

How cool is that? And oh, what a lesson plan he's had, John. Oh, yes. And it's almost been like a foundation to everything that's going on. And in other words, everything kind of leads back to it. And, you know, family has been very important in my life. And we moved last year to King, which is about two hours away from where I grew up and about an hour away from my wife's family. And so God has led us on another heritage of spiritual heritage and just lots of neat stuff and lots of hard stuff to, you know, a father-in-law just passing away and lots of things.

My parents' health is failing and that kind of thing. But just digging into the roots of who I am physically, mentally, and spiritually. Yeah. What's really cool is I've been just processing where everybody's been going. And as we talked about it pre-show and then we had a chance to do it in the broadcast, it's almost like God has given us themes along a major theme of some kind.

Because what Andy's word played very significantly into Wayne's word, which plays significantly into Rodney's word, which plays into my word, which all play into Danny's word. And you'll see that when we get to Big Jim's word and Harold, that interestingly it seems like in some way they're all connected, right? And so it's kind of really like, man, God, you're taking us all on that. And it's kind of neat that we're updating it here so we can see kind of where everybody else's words come together. So for you specifically, you've got a clip for us, Danny, along the lines of an older TV show.

Yeah. The TV show's The Waltons and I think this was clipped out on I-40, best we can tell. But it's Grandpa Walton and Grandma Walton sitting up on the mountain and talking about their life on the mountain and the things that have come to pass. And it just reminded me of everything I just talked about, so. So as you listen to this, our producer, Keith, made mention that this doesn't appear to be a scene from The Wizard of Oz, although you might think based on the quality of the sound that they are munchkins, but they are in fact – The Wizard of Walton Mountain.

The Wizard of Walton Mountain. But I think if you settle down and listen, you're going to hear something worthwhile. So what's your advice about all this? That is a different clip. And that would be – Come on, age backwards.

The best there is, anyway. Young people don't know what's important. Memories are important.

They can't take them away from you. We've had some good times, haven't we? I had some good times you didn't know anything about.

Being home alone, making a cake for you, coming all the time, sweeping the floor, cleaning up, watching the kids grow. You remember the time when there was just the two of us? We took a horse and buggy and drove over to Goochland County. Is it my brother Ben?

My brother, the axle on the buggy wheel drove. That gave us a good excuse to stay around a while and visit all the cousins and uncles and aunts and in-laws. Oh, and I sure would like to go back to Goochland County again. And all I wanted to do was to get back to my own home.

Never could get used to sleeping on strange sheets. What are you laughing at? Oh, I was just thinking, Esther. We are going to be rich. We have been richer, haven't we? Did I ever tell you what that pesky Kathleen Carter told me when we were little?

Probably. We can tell me again. She says, I'm the gnomliest child and I'm immensely rich and I can spit on walls. Esther, are you going to spit on the walls of our new house?

I just might. Let's go home second issue. Yeah. So Danny, spit away. Well, they, they talk a lot about family and, and, you know, the connections and, you know, having just changed church families. And there's a scripture ironically out of Psalm 16 that says, verse six says, the lines are falling upon me in pleasant places.

Yeah, I have a goodly heritage. And in this, in this last year has been where we pulled up roots out of Randolph County and came to Stokes County. And God has put us in pleasant places.

I mean, I tell you guys all the time, man, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. You guys are an answered prayer because I literally left a men's ministry that me and another gentleman started and walked right in here. And it was just, just like plugging up these headphones when you do Robby and the, and church has been kind of the same way. Just the, probably the last church in Stokes County.

I probably would have said, Hey, I'm going to go visit there is where we're members at. And it's just been an awesome journey. He has planted us in pleasant places. What's really cool about that, Danny, I have not shared this with you. But I actually, since I memorized the 16th Psalm here recently, I say that verse and so I studied, as you might imagine, and Danny, the other day he sent a very funny text after I'd called him about something and he said, well, Rabbi Robby told me to take two Hebrew words and call him in the morning.

And so I, which you do have to think that's funny, right? And so I looked up that word heritage and really studied it. And what I saw in that is the word heritage as everything to do with a bright morning, like a morning that has all sorts of wonderful things that can happen in it, right?

That has all sorts of potential. That your heritage has all sorts of potential. And the interesting thing about the word is it's so eternal because you have potential going forward and you have potential going backward. And I don't know if you guys heard the podcast this week from Ransom Heart, or Wild at Heart, but this one lady got a healing, or no, it was Alan Arnold himself had gotten a healing from his pirate heritage. And so they had gone back and gotten forgiveness from Jesus for something that had happened generations back. And so when you think about that word heritage and the healing that's available to us, it's not only moving forward, but it's going back that Jesus paid it all. It's a fabulously beautiful thing, and it leads to righteousness, which gets us over to Big Jim. And his word of the year, which challenges all, is he went and went there.

Darrell Bock I like Danny's word so much, I'm going to stay on it for a second. But listen to that clip. She talked about whistling when she was alone.

And this will tell you how long ago this was. But my cousin and I had a nickname for my grandmother, Grandma Groovy. And she was always whistling. And I never really recognized the tune. And that was partially because of her whistling and partially because I didn't know it that well. But I found out at my father's funeral, where I sang Amazing Grace, that that was what she walked around whistling all the time. And that was very meaningful to me.

And my parents, grandparents on both sides all had a significant impact. So I like your word better than mine, because mine's been a real challenge to me this year. It's integrity. And I don't think I've ever had a word that God brought up more than this one.

It's multiple times a week, I'll get a reminder, a prodding that my word is integrity. And looking for a clip for this, I had never heard of the movie. It was one of these canned, you know, teacher goes and really has a major impact on poor kids in a school.

And that, I mean, it's been done so many times, I didn't really grab me. But what did, and this kind of speaks to the heritage, too, is that the woman responsible for Anne Frank's diary being saved during World War II during World War II was a, she was actually an Austrian lady, but she married a Dutch man. Her name was not easy to say, but it's good and short, so I can't mess it up too bad.

Meep was her nickname, and Geese was her last name. And she actually saved the diary, which she would not have done if she had read it. So it was kind of miraculous that happened. But they had this lady, and she did an excellent job, but it's very historic.

Come and talk to the students in the class, and that's what we're going to hear now. The bounty on a Jew was about two dollars. Someone desperate for money told the Gestapo. On August 4th, they stormed into my office, and a man pointed a gun at me and said, not a sound, not one word. And then they went straight upstairs to the attic. I felt so helpless. I could hear Anne screaming, objects being thrown around, so I ran back to my house. I looked for an earring or knickknacks, you know, anything I could take back with me to bribe them. So I took this back with me, all these things, and the soldier there took out his gun and put it against my head. You could be shot for hiding a Jew or go to camp.

There isn't a day that I don't remember August 4th, and I think about Anne Frank. I've never had a hero before, but you are my hero. Oh no, no, no, young man, no. I am not a hero. No, I did what I had to do, because it was the right thing to do. That is all.

You know, we are all ordinary people, but even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, that just tore me up then and now when I heard that story in this movie. The name of the movie was You Are Heroes, and I might see it someday, but she's a hero. She's a hero. She's, they're telling the children that they are heroes, and the heroic thing, both in this and in the life of anyone listening, is being able to hold on to your integrity, to be honest, to do the right thing regardless of the outcome, and I've always been one that did a real good job of playing out scenarios and figuring out the best outcome, usually for me, rarely for others, but integrity this year has been brought up time and time again because historically, and even now, I'm always tempted to sell that out cheap, and integrity is very difficult to reclaim if you give it away for nothing, and that's, in wanting to please people, I've done that many times in my life, and I don't want to do that anymore, and God has helped me considerably with that. You know, it's really cool for us, you know, that walk with you, Jim, that this year, you know, from my perspective, it's almost like you're an Esther, like for such a time as this, you are put in a very unique position where you work within your family and some other things that have taken place where I've just went, wow, you know, there is nobody better on the planet earth and then some.

I mean, like, if you know Jim and you knew the situation that he got put in, it was like, oh, my goodness, talk about the round peg in the – like Forrest Gump, like, man, he was exactly the person for that job at that moment. I don't think anybody else could have walked the tight line that you walked, and it was fun to pray for you and with you and the other people involved because you could see so clearly that God endowed you with the gifts to be able to walk that. And I thank you so much for that, Rodney. That's the first time I remember messing up names, but maybe that's why I'm being damaged right now, that the enemy's trying to take me out and had me take a dive into a door jam, but in any case, I've heard that more than once, and I guess God needs me to hear that because I don't really believe it. I said, well, you know, I know that I've got the right personality for some of the things I'm doing, but I still have my moments of feeling like the efforts may be futile, but that doesn't matter because I am doing what God is telling me to do in the moment. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's so beautiful, like what Rodney, the clip that Rodney played, that, you know, here's this lady, she lost a baby, right?

She lost a baby. But still, your will be done, and to know that that was what is right. I mean, you know, that's what God had in mind, and there you go. So, you know, we kind of went by age because if you didn't know, Jim is older than me by about six months. Jim So if you've ever wondered what it looked like, you know, listen to somebody of Enoch's generation, you know, he can tell you. Harold is with us. Harold Yeah, I was gone a couple of weeks. Yeah, by the end of this month, I'll be 80.

And I get a lot of teasing about it, but I'm very proud of it. It's never thought about it years ago that I would ever get anywhere near this age. But I'm still here and I'm still kicking. Jim Harold, can I say something nice for a change? Harold Absolutely.

Jim Harold Something I have told a few people that once you hit 80, you're no longer old, you're venerable. We need to listen to you. Harold Well, my word really ties in with your word. And after hearing you speak, my word is conflict. And I heard you speak about being conflicted.

And earlier in the pre-show, we were talking about my word. And I kind of put the blame off on all the other things that are happening out there. You know, the COVID stuff, the political wrangling, those kinds of things. But since then, it's really dawned on me that the real conflict was internal. The conflict between who I am at times and who I want to be all the time. The conflict between the guy that used to get so angry on the road that he screamed at other people and would have probably run him off the road if he could have done it and got away with it. And so most of that's gone. In fact, I was late getting here for for our meal, because I got behind some people on a 55 mile an hour speed limit that really thought it read anywhere between 35 and 40.

It's okay. Darrell Bock Were they zipper verging? Dr. Darrell Bock And 801 between Highway 64 where I get on and out of the advance where I get on I-40. There is no passing. Nowhere along that road is it safe to pass. But at any rate, conflict, when I got that word, I didn't realize how many areas of conflict there would be. But God is there. And we need to allow Him to fight the battles. So many times, if you read through the Old Testament, the Israelites were told, you know, to just watch. God is going to fight the battle. You don't have to do anything but be there. And in my life, those conflicts are fewer and farther between.

But I don't expect they'll ever be totally gone. But I expect to win, because God's on my side. Darrell Bock So one of the huge discussions that we got into, which was really fun from my perspective. So if somebody wants to swing the mic to Danny, and one to Wayne, so that we can just go right at it. Dr. Darrell Bock It's on.

In this corner. Darrell Bock And so as we've been discussing, Are you ready to rumble? Dr. Darrell Bock So as we were in the pre-pre-game show, we were discussing the 22nd Psalm. And so in the white trunks, we have Danny. Danny, is it safe to say that you believe, based on the 22nd Psalm and other things, that God cannot have it look straight at sin, or just put it in your own words, so that I don't want to misquote you?

Or better, better, better. Let's go to the black shorts, okay? And over here in the dark corner, we have Wayne, who's adamant on the fact that God does, and that from the 22nd Psalm, that he does never turn his back on Jesus. So go ahead.

Wayne Jones Yes. So for me, the last years have been extremely, extremely hard. And in the midst of that, I've not done everything correct. And I had this experience where I was, God, where are you? You're nowhere to be found. I can't hear you, can't see you. And later on, he showed me that he never left.

He was always there. And I was like, I've started asking the question of what does that really look like? Because it says in your word that he was hung on the cross, and that you turned his back on that sin. And I kind of heard him kind of chuckle and say, No, it doesn't.

I never turned my face on my son. And I was and so he started to take me through that Psalm where when Jesus said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was expressing that Jesus felt that I believe he fully felt that I do that he was experiencing because we have a high priest who has known all the things that we've gone through, right. But then I get down to, I think it's verse 22 of Psalm 22, right, you can't make this stuff up, but you start reading that. And he starts praising Father and it says in there that he never turned his face from him.

Darrell Bock 22nd Psalm. So getting back to Danny, who, you know, is very important to Danny, that this discussion come out, and it may be important to you listening, you know, where do you stand on this issue? And, and maybe you stand over here with Danny, or maybe you stand over here with Wayne, but we do want to hear Danny's viewpoint. It's really a fun discussion.

Darrell Bock I think what prompted me and and to clear that up, Wayne and I stand together. There is no division here. It's just just a lively discussion. But the the point of I've always heard it being taught that the darkness fail, and God couldn't look upon Jesus because he taken on the sins of the world. And that that's what has been preached. That's what's been talked. That's what commentaries talk about. And to hear someone bring up something other than that, pricked me just a little bit, and made me think and challenged what I thought I knew. So I'm going to do some more digging. I did not know the bout was going to begin tonight.

Darrell Bock That's okay. So for those of you, you know, Psalm 22, verse 24 is really where the rubber meets the road. It says, For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither has he hid his face from him. But when he cried unto him, he heard. Okay, that's then the 22nd Psalm, you may know they cast a lot for his clothes, he was pierced for a trance, and all these things are in there.

And then there's this line. And, you know, not unlike Wayne's challenge to me from Hebrews, chapter five, verse two, you know, we've heard stuff all our life, and we think things. And, you know, I think that's really good. But I think it's also really good to go back to God and say, well, you know, where are you here? And so, you know, just to make sure everybody's got equal voice, you know, Harold, you know, certainly piped up in the discussion, and we don't want to miss out on, you know, because you were there. And I mean, we feel like you, you know, whether he turned his back or not. Well, the point I made there at dinner was that if God could be in the presence of sin and accept it, and we didn't need Jesus to save us, we could just be there with our sin. So I'm sort of in between the two guys, maybe. And then really, one of my favorite things happened to bring Jim in, you know, Jim jumped in, and Jim quickly, so we can be sure and tell people to register for the boot camp. I was able to stay in the middle and be happy with it because of the Hebraic logic of both and. Jesus was both fully man and fully God. So the fully man felt deserted by God, but the fully God knew he was not.

Was that quick enough? And there you go. So you can see that we have a lot of fun.

And part of that is the freedom that's given through staying engaged with him and all that we're doing. And we want you to be part of it. And, you know, we just miss you if you don't come. So come to the boot camp. Go register masculinejourneyradio.org. We are so grateful that you took time to be with us today. This is the Truth Network.