Word Of The Year 2023

This is Hans Shiel from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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Welcome to the masculine journey. We're glad that you're with us this week, and I know I say that every week, but I'm very glad to have you here, and I'm glad to be back with my friends. Yeah, it's great to be here with Robby Vannelli, too, right? Right, yeah.

He was sitting here lip-syncing the whole intro, and he had it nailed, man. Yeah, yeah. I bet that it's probably just you and I and maybe one other person that got that reference, but I did get the Billy Vannelli reference there. We know David won't get that, right? I thought it was karaoke night or something.

David, do you know who Billy Vannelli was? Yes, absolutely. It's not a Ben & Jerry's ice cream, because that's what we're thinking. Well, maybe I need to rethink that. Let me get Google out and check it out.

Yeah, you can get Google and check it out. All right, so welcome to the masculine journey. We are here, and we are talking about a really cool topic that we do it every year. We're excited about doing it three, four times a year, I think. Yeah, well, three times.

We do the beginning of the year, then we do mid-year, then we do end of the year. That's right. Right, and then we do the next year, so that's kind of like four times. It's creative math is what that is. That's right. If you can follow it, thank you for being with us today.

I'd like to see your tax returns here. Well, if you count a year as 366 days, then it's four times, because you go into the next year, you're just one day over. Is this so long?

No, that's true, I guess. So we are doing word of the year. Last week we did word of the year from 2022, because it was still 2022.

Now we're into 2023, and most of us have our words of the year, some very recently, and some not quite yet, and that's not abnormal. There's no way to put God on a timetable. You can try. It's probably not going to work real well, and sometimes God will be very accommodating, and He'll be right there with you, and then sometimes it's like, we're going to wait a little bit. So a couple of us are in the holding pattern, and then others already have their words, and so we're going to start with Andy. Andy, you have the first clip, and wow, I think Danny's still crying that he's not the first clip. It'll be all right, Danny.

It'll get you back. I don't know, man. I don't know. It's your show next week that you're doing, so you can put yourself up. Guess who's first clip.

Exactly. I think it's going to be all the clips next week, Danny. So you got a clip?

I do have a clip, and I'm not going to—the clip pretty much speaks for itself. You may have heard it out there. It's about a substitute teacher that comes in and gets integrated with the students, and it's one of those overbearing ones, but see if you can figure out what my word of the year is, and we'll go from there. All right, listen up, y'all. I'm y'all's substitute teacher, Mr. Garvey. I taught school for 20 years in the inner city, so don't even think about messing with me. Y'all feel me?

Let's take a roll here. J. Quellen. Where's J. Quellen at? No J. Quellen here? Yeah. Uh, do you mean Jacqueline? Okay, so that's how it's going to be. Y'all want to play.

Okay, then. I've got my eye on you, J. Quellen. Balake. Where is Balake at?

There's no Balake here today. Yes, sir? My name is Blake. Are you out there in mind?

Blake? What? Do you want to go to war, Balake? No.

Because we could go to war. No. I'm for real. I'm for real.

So you better check yourself. D-Nice. Is there a D-Nice? If one of y'all says some silly name, this whole class is going to feel my wrath.

Now, D-Nice. Do you mean Denise? You say your name right.

Right now. Denise? Say it right. Denise. Correctly. Denise. Right.

Denise. Right. D-Nice. That's better.

Thank you. Now, A-Aron, where are you? Where is A-Aron right now? No A-Aron, huh? Well, you better be sick, dead, or mute, A-Aron.

Here. Oh, man. Why didn't you answer me the first time I said it, huh? Huh?

You know, I'm just asking you. I said it like four times, so why didn't you say it the first time I said A-Aron? Because it's pronounced Aaron. You done messed up, A-Aron. Now take on down to Osag Hennessey's office right now and tell him exactly what you did.

Who? Osag Hennessey. Principal O'Shaughnessy?

Get out of my class! And churlish. Timothy. Present. Thank you.

I'm sorry, but that's a whole lot of clip that has nothing to do with my word. Well, I thought your favorite player was Hank A-Aron. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was.

Hank A-Aron. It must be enunciation. Yeah, it must be. Substitute? Is that your word? No.

No? Present. If you heard our What Do You Want For Christmas show, I kind of had an overabundance of the word present.

Present. But, you know, the idea behind it, the word is just to be more present in situations. I feel like, and again, I'm not trying to make this, I really feel like God gave it to me, but, you know, I felt like with the word love last year, as we were ending the year, one of the things that you do when you love people is you're present with them. I mean, I know that I've been fidgeting on my phone before with my daughter, and she's like, Dad, listen to me. You know, and I have a tendency to be scattered all over.

I've got, being technology, I've always got a computer or a phone in my hand or whatever. It's just being more intentional about being present. And not only, you know, with others, obviously, but with God, obviously. And you can do that with Him.

You can be sitting there reading the Bible and have a thought, hmm, I haven't checked a text in a while, and you go over and check the text. You know, that interrupts that intimacy. So, that's my word for the year. So, probably not the best clip for it, but I love the way it ended, though. Yeah, it got you first. Yeah, it did. That was the real, that was the goal. We were all really clear on what your word was. That was not a question for any of us.

Yeah, I became quite repetitive. Yeah. But it was in the heart, man. It was in the heart. It was there. Like Prego's spaghetti sauce.

That's right. As Robby would say. So, if you haven't, if you've been, this is your first time listening to us.

Let's just say it that way, and you have no idea what we're talking about. Word of the year. Would one of you like to kind of explain what the word of the year is and why we do it? Robby, would you like to do that? Sure, sure, sure. So, you know, real fun.

We got this from, you know, the Wild at Heart guys in Colorado. And they talked about, you know, getting with God, consecrating your year to God. Like, I really want to go on a journey this year with God.

And to give me an advanced word to kind of focus, you know, kind of the adventure for 2023 as it is as we go into this year. So, you know, about a month or so prior to the end of the year, you begin to ask God, you know, what is my advanced word? As, you know, clearly I want to give you this year and I want to walk with you this year.

What's a word we can walk into? And for those of you who've been doing it a while, you know, you get really attached to it. Because, you know, what I've learned is I actually put this in my journal, my prayer journals, so that really early on in my prayers every morning I'm looking at my word for the year to kind of help me see, you know, how what God did yesterday fits into what's going on with that. And then, you know, as we go through the year, you know, we will have shows, as you mentioned, where we talk about, you know, where God's taking you on that journey. And then it's really been a neat thing as you'll see these words end up being connected, which you'll hear from a lot of the guys today, is that this year's word, as Andy just talked about, last year's word was love. And this year he's taken an aspect of love, which is what good is love if you're not there, if you're not present. And so, you know, it's always been the connection to the way that God is building on this overall adventure.

And after you've got, you know, six or seven of them lined up, it's really, really cool to see where God has taken you as he's stepping up his game with you. And love is a present, right? Yeah, it is.

They're already tied together right there. It is. To Robby's point, Jon and them, while our team does, this week is the same topic. They're talking about advanced words and consecration. We're stealing our stuff again. Exactly. We have a great show here, but listen to their podcast.

I thought it was good. It gives you some more reference from their point of view and just more stories of how they walk into it and how they use the same point about it, the words tying from one year to the other. One guy got it the same word back to back years, so God does allow that.

Obviously, he's the one giving it. So there's just a lot that you can glean from that as well. And then there's the idea of listening prayer. Like, you may not have experienced this idea of asking God an open-ended question or expecting. You can expect or expect, but expecting him to answer.

But in order to do that requires you to actually risk your faith. Like, do you believe he's going to answer? Do you believe he really wants to talk to you?

Do you believe? And so, can you sit there and be quiet and listen and be present is what Andy was discussing. And I came across this issue, really helpful to describe the feeling to me in the Song of Solomon, where she says, I was slept, but my heart was awake. It was the voice of my beloved knocking. In other words, Jesus' voice knocks. It tugs on your heart in a way that only his voice does.

I don't know how to explain it unless you've had it happen. But you will feel something as a result of something he tells you that you don't feel with other things. And you can tell, even though often you don't want to believe it, like, man, he asked, you know, I was looking for where he wanted me to go after the Song of Solomon. And he told me the day before yesterday, Habakkuk. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

You say, bless you? That's exactly about what I felt like, Habakkuk. But I knew it just based on the fact that it tugged on my heart that this must be what you want, but it came completely out of left field. Like, there's no way I would intentionally want to go study Habakkuk.

I mean, that's just not the way. You want me to memorize Habakkuk? Okay. But, you know, really cool, as I've entered into it, because I just knew based on how it came and that sense of this knocking on my heart that it was his voice. And so as you get a chance to do these kind of things, to me, you're practicing intimacy with him and beginning to be able to hear his voice, which becomes critical to your life.

Yeah. There's a scripture somewhere in there, sheep know my voice. And so just practicing hearing that voice and knowing. And there's something, you're right, Robby, that's in your heart. When you hear from Jesus, you just know. It's different than any other thing you'll hear. You know, it's just, there's truth to it. There's compassion. Just all these things are all tied up in one.

You know, when you do hear from him and you just know clearly it is him. So it's good. We're going to go to a break here soon.

We'll come back and talk about some more words of the year. But if you haven't done this before, it's early in the year. We're just in the first week. And so this is something that you don't have to say, okay, January 1, I'm going to do, you could do this February 1. Or maybe you're listening to this podcast and it's June. Start today, right?

The word of the year could be today. So just go start. It'd be like a fiscal year for a company, right? Their fiscal year starts in June, I mean June, so what? Yeah, maybe God's running your year from September to September.

Just do it then. When we come back, we're going to talk more about our word for the year. And we have an entrenchment coming up January 27th and 28th. And it is free and it's in Kernisville.

Go to masculinejourney.org to register. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. The first one I had no clue what I was walking into. And then realizing that other people were in the same boat and, you know, how open everybody was to share their struggle.

It was a great group and a lot of contacting with that could be done. It is a tight bond of men. Everybody's the same. And each and every time that I've come to boot camp, I've learned something different. And not one man that's ever been there neglects not to take time out to talk or to share.

It's serious business. And you need to come one time to break bread with the men and fellowship. Feel the atmosphere. Hear the people pray and get down to earth about what's going on in life and get real. Register today at masculinejourney.org.

So I can live like I've been changed. Andy, now that was your bump. Jeremy Camp. I heard that song quite a few times. And I always put a mark in my head as, like, we got to use that for Word of the Year sometime.

And finally did it this year. Yeah, I was hoping you'd stay on your phone just a little longer. I know. Because I was going to give you a hard time about being present. I was trying to get the lyrics up so I could kind of reference back to them. But it talks about speak to me for my weary heart and then also to go on and to change me. And that's what these words do. I mean, they bring life to you. If you're, you know, feel like you're kind of lost in this life, a word from God can come in and change everything.

You know, whether it's you being down in your spirit, whether it's you want direction, whether you feel like he's calling you to go deeper in a particular area. That's what we're talking about here is these words. Absolutely. Now, Harold, I told you guys I was going to come to you next, but I changed my mind. So, Harold, you haven't gotten your Word of the Year quite yet.

No. God has my word. But Scripture says, be still and know that I am God. I am not being still enough.

It's all my fault, not his. But we're going to work on it this coming week. And I feel sure that if I'll do what I'm supposed to do, he'll do what he's supposed to do.

And we'll have a word for the year. Good. Good. But no pressure. No.

It'll come when it comes. Yes, I want my word. So, OK. All right.

Harold's one of those guys that puts enough pressure on himself, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. We've got to let you like zipper merge right into a word.

How ironic would it be if it was like zipper? I mean, that would be so cool. I don't know if I'll admit that. God gave it to me. I'm not sure I want to admit it on air. You're pretty obedient. I think you would. You would. We know you would.

But you would not be enjoying it. Well, thank you, Harold. Now, Rodney, you actually have a clip of sorts. It's a clip, but it's like a really short clip.

It is short. We were talking about how God, you know, creates a theme over the years. And that's one of the things that I was just shocked at after, you know, it was the first year. Then, you know, you had the first word.

You're like, OK, that's a word. It really spoke to me. And I'm like, OK. Then the second year I was like, well, that ties in a lot. It's kind of a theme here. And this kept going.

So just to reiterate that for everybody, I started off with son, then went into father, then into family, then into freedom. And this year you can just play the clip and do Andy's theme and just guess it. OK. Hold on.

Got to wait to guess. Here we go. That was it.

Oh, sorry. Car wreck? Car wreck? Is that what it is? Shard?

Shard? Yeah, it's breaking. OK, breaking. And it's like there's so many different things out there. Once you start looking at breaking, you know, like breaking wood, breaking glass, breaking this, breaking that.

And breaking glass is one of the more familiar sounds. But so the first thing that came up in my mind was, oh, yeah, breaking agreements. Oh, yeah, I've got my first thing was, oh, man, I got a lot of those to break. And then I just kind of been praying over it. Well, where where do we want to go? Because I'm always about trying to figure out, well, what is it that God wants to do? I got to guess that I got to get it figured out. I've got to have it, you know, kind of my hip pocket. OK, I know what we're going to do.

And that's the beautiful thing about doing the word of the year is that you come up with all the things that you thought God wanted to do in you. And you find out, no, he wanted to do something else. There's always a curveball in the middle of the year, you know, somewhere. So a breaking pitch. There you go. Maybe that's your swing and a miss. And then, oh, there it goes by.

Bugs Bunny commercial where, you know, he throws it so slow the guy strikes out, you know, three times three times in one pitch. So you've got. Like the breaking of agreements, what I said, then I was like, there's you know, I was like, what else is going on? Like, you know, old habits, old patterns of behavior, ways of thinking relationships and not in a way that's like, oh, you've got to be ending relationships. So it's more of a focus on making all things new. And that's where I was like, oh, yeah, the second Corinthians popped into my head with. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away.

Behold, new things have come. That's what really is the spirit behind this. As I was praying through it, it's not just, oh, you need to stop.

These things are bad, but it's like renew your mind. You know, get in the word, say in the word and just keep renewing your relationships with the band of brothers and others in the church and other people that you don't even know who's going to bring into your life. You know, it's great work. I'm finding more and more believers as I more openly share my faith because you say something, you know, oh, yeah, well, God bless you or just anything that you kind of say, just kind of break the ice sometimes. And you find out, oh, there's another believer in here because sometimes you're just you're sure there's not.

Right. Because the world can be awfully cruel, but as you do that, there's like more things that I feel that God is going to continue to open up in my life that I never thought was was there. But it is going to take breaking some things from my past, some old habits and things that I do that I just I rationalize with myself that I need to just say no, be more open, be more freeing to go and do things that you normally wouldn't have done. And you have to you're going to have to own this because it's it's it's yours.

You know, he's given you a life and you have to go live it to make it abundant with him. And that's like, OK, but it's it's just going to be a interesting ride because this word is definitely a little different than the last words I've had. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting year. Yeah.

I think he always makes it one. Yeah. Yes. So, David.

Yeah, I have a faster clip than Rodney. You do. Yeah. It's done. Yeah.

No. So, you know, this one's pretty cool for me. This is my second year getting the word of the year. And this word this year I got patience, which if you listen to the show or in my band of brothers, they are pretty fully aware that I'm pretty impatient person. So as I walk this out, just in the three days of the year so far, you know, in just the first week is that I'm starting to learn that it's not just about patience, about one thing, because every time something happens, I'm like at work. Well, is that what you want me to be patient with is work with my daughter, you know, with my marriage, with with anything. And it's really going to be patience just about everything. Just be impatient. You know, I've gotten a little bit more active with hunting this year.

And, you know, that it doesn't matter what you go in and hunt. You have to show patience for that. So it's pretty cool coming off a relinquish because I've still got that in my pocket. I'm still working on that and it's talking about letting go of control of things. And to really, you know, to be patient, you have to not want to hold on to that control. You have to let it go.

So I'm I'm very excited to see where the rest of this year goes with it. Yeah. Break it. Yeah. Got to break it. Yeah. So but yeah, it's going to be a good year and I'm looking forward to walking this out and then sharing with you all in the middle of the year how it's going.

It'll be good. It's always exciting to see how the the words can take on different directions. You know, even when God does give you a little direction of which way it's going to go, it doesn't stay there.

He's got so much more into it. You talked about having a word, you know, for two years. And I did that one time, but it wasn't because I actually did what I was supposed to do. I got a word and didn't do anything with it for like a whole year. You know, I did like according to God, I didn't do what I was supposed to do.

Repeat tender. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I was held back for the same word for the next year. And so I'm not trying not to repeat that process. Yeah, and I just thought it was interesting listening to John and Alan. Just the more they talked, I'm like, I think one of the things I need to do is be more open to hearing multiple words or phrases or more. Because usually I go get one word and I'm like, OK, got it.

I'm done because it's simple and it's easy. They talked about themes, too. Yeah, because sometimes you get something that's more of a theme.

And that's where honestly, after I usually get in about every year, that's what I find out. It's almost always been a theme of some kind because you're saying, David, just days into it, you're like, oh, wow, it's more and more and more things. And I think that's one of the things we have to do is really kind of go in very open and not just shut God down or especially guide the word. Because that's the one thing at least I don't feel I've done yet is just kind of said, OK, I want X to be this and oh, yeah, I got confirmation. You know, it's being open to really where does he want to take you? And that doesn't that's not just on getting the word, but it's it's throughout the year. It really just saying, OK, where are we going and seeing it in areas that you would have never saw that word or that theme. And that's where I think we get the richness and why we've kind of over the years got more and more enjoyment out of it. I think it's pretty cool that leading up into getting your word of the year is you're you're praying about it and wanting to get to it. And then once you get it, if you look back at you digging into it, trying to figure out what it is, God's already leading you into it.

You're like, oh, wow, like you were already preparing me for this. Well, I think that's the whole thing. Christian maturity and growth and all everything you experience through God is the process.

So that's what you're really talking about. You take a word and it becomes a process for me. And I did get a new word this year.

I'll share in the after hours because you're going to be finishing up the regular show here pretty soon. But you do get attached to the word that you had, you know, this year for sure. I didn't really want to let go of my word.

And I think it's because I poured more into it than I have. And, you know, I walked with God in the midst of it. It was it was an enjoyable adventure.

Right. And so you don't want the adventure to come to an end, which is which it does the opposite for me because it makes me look forward to the next one, because I'm like, why? I really actually enjoyed that. And now that I've connected for a few years, I see the themes, how they connect year to year.

And I'm like, oh, I enjoy it, but I'm really always looking forward to where am I going next? That's been a lot of fun for me. Yeah. So how many years have we been doing this? Now, Robby, do you know? I have no clue.

I'm just wondering if you might know. I know I've got six words, so I'm guessing this is the sixth year. Which means I probably have about four. Because you're a holdback, right? Yeah, because I was stubborn. It should have been my word for a couple of years.

There's no doubt that they link and there's no doubt that they become extremely valuable. And, you know, one of the beauty of journaling, right, is to have these, you know, fixed into where God's taken you over the last number of years. So, you know, the journey starts with today and beginning to work on it.

Yeah. So regardless of what day of the year you're listening to this, today is your day to get the word of the year. At least pray about it and say, God, I really want to know what my word is for this year, regardless how much of the years left. You know, here's something that we put a limit on. God doesn't.

God's beyond time, and so He can do any of that. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming entrenchment. It's January 27th and 28th. That's free. We do have a boot camp coming up March 30th through April 2nd. That's not free, but it's going to be an advanced camp and it's going to be amazing. This is the Truth Network.