Word For the Year Revisited After Hours

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Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. And if you didn't join us for the first part of this podcast on The Rego Show, we've been talking about our words for the year. Our friend Rodney reminded us that we need to talk about it. We were all so very grateful to Rodney for that reminder. And as we talked about the first show, some of the people shared what God's been doing with them for this year. And so we're going to continue that topic and get to the people that didn't get to talk in the first segment. And we'll continue on with Jim. But before I do that, the word for the year is something Robby brought to us from Wild at Heart group that they did it for a while and they still do it.

But he learned it from them. And then he kind of brought it to our group. And you just ask God at the beginning of the year, right before the beginning of the year, what's my word for the year? And you kind of stay in that prayer until he gives you a word. And then you spend that year entering into that word with him to say, okay, what's that really mean?

What's that mean in my life? Why are you bringing this to me? Why is this the topic that we're unearthing now? That type of thing.

And let God just work on that throughout the year. And so we come to Jim and for Jim to talk a little bit about his word, his clip that he brought with it. Which would you like to do first?

Would you like to clip first or would you like to talk first? Yes. Okay. Well, I started, I wanted to start by saying that, uh, I was like you. I was sort of, Oh yeah, my word. But I, we not only have Rodney of Rodney, but the way we do have him to think, but I was thinking Robby to thank for this being brought to us, but he has made it possible for me to at least remember my word all year long because it's his name, not Robby. And this is something I actually picked up from a leadership book that we were doing at my church.

And when he brought it in, I was familiar with it, but I've never heard it with wild at heart. And it is been a very powerful thing. And we'll start now go to the clip, which is, it's an interesting thing because it's from a movie called defiance and that's pretty close to the opposite of my word. Okay. Let's run that clip. Give it to me. You use this on yourself before you let them take you.

Why are we stopping the soil? They're alive. Someone take them. Take them. They're coming. They're coming. Why aren't we moving?

Huh? We must keep going. It is impossible. Nothing is impossible.

What we all have done is impossible. The troops are coming. God will not part these waters. We will do it ourselves.

Not by miracles. We will do it together by our strength. You take the rope from your pack. Give it to me. And you give me your belt quickly.

It's not enough. Then we will link arms. We make a chain, but if someone slips, the strong will take care of the week. Give me your belt. Give me your belt. Give me your belt. Give me your belt. Give me your belt. Here, take these. Use this too. Here.

Okay. I probably should have set the clip up a little more, but this is from the movie Defiance. If you haven't seen it, you should, but this is a group led by three brothers that really were sort of thrust into the leadership of saving a large number of Jews that were running from the Nazis during World War II. And when this clip starts, or the beginning of the clip, he is taking a handgun from a young lady and telling her to use it on herself rather than being captured. And he's lost heart. And they've also lost part of the group, including another brother who is the one that comes up and gives the speech about doing things there.

But they're stuck between men that are trying to kill them and a swamp that looks impassable. And it really was something that when I saw this, and I looked at a lot of clips, trying to decide where to go with this. And the faithful word is very important because it's not, I mean, it is about my faithfulness, but it's more about God's faithfulness. And we know the 1 Corinthians 13, faith, hope, charity, or love, these three, the greatest is love, which we've covered.

But faith and hope to me are intertwined in a way that without faith, we have no hope. And I was talking to a brother at lunch today, and he has had a rough year. And as Andy said earlier, that's something that all of us have been going through. But he also said he's never been more content than this year. His wife left him.

He's got health problems. But in the midst of that, he recognizes the faithfulness of God and faith. And he has faith in him. And if you don't have that, you don't have the hope. And that was kind of where I went with the word today, as I got the opportunity to revisit it, because I, like Sam and everyone but Robby, have sort of let that slide.

But I don't want to do that anymore, because that has been a very significant journey this year, off and on. And as my friend said at lunch, you know, this has been a year where, against all the odds, looking what's happening in the world, and all the things that are against us, I've probably never had more hope and more faith in the faithfulness of our Creator. Thank you, Jim. Andy, you have a movie clip and your word.

And which would you like to talk about first? I guess I'll open it up just a little bit, just talking about the word. The word was abundance.

And just to start out, when I heard that, I think Robby had that a year or two ago. And, you know, there's been a lot of, you know, I'll just say there's sometimes it's always taken with the context of just physical prosperity, or financial prosperity. And I think it's so much more than that. When Jesus talked about, in John 10, that he came to me, we might have life and have it more abundantly. You know, I've always liked that scripture, and I felt like it was good. But I didn't know that I always really lived it out, because I think I was too focused on the evidence of it, of actually the outcome, not necessarily of just of being, I guess. And so I thought last year, winding it down, I thought God was going to restore some things, and I was kind of stuck on restoration.

But I kept praying, because I didn't really have a confidence and a sense that that's what my word was. And I can't even remember. It was like I remember I was turning on an exit somewhere on the road, and just abundance came. And it was just one of those things.

I just knew that that was the word. Now, you guys are talking about some of them that we haven't necessarily walked it out and given it focus or whatever. And I haven't as much as I have.

I don't put it before my eyes, like Robby does, on an everyday basis. But what I will say is that I've seen the fruit of it, and it's come in a different form than what I thought. And really, it gets down to really just more of a confidence, kind of like you were talking about, Jim, just a confidence and a settledness in God that I haven't had before. And COVID, and all the stuff that's going around in the world today, I feel like it's prepared me much more of just being settled in that abundance that he gives. Abundance of peace, abundance of joy.

Not perfect. I still struggle with the things, but things don't seem to take me out or haven't this year like at other times. You know, something doesn't go right and you get in depressed and get in a funk for a couple weeks. I will say this last couple of weeks, probably more so that and that than any, but I really have sensed just an abundance of God. And it goes back to, if you heard the first show, Rodney talked about sonship.

These guys are probably tired of hearing me talk about sonship, but I feel like I've come into sonship more this year more than ever. So now that I've totally explained what my thoughts were on abundance, let's listen to the clip. It is from Forrest Gump, Sam's favorite movie of all time. But it's really, it's where the storms come. Actually, Lieutenant Dan is frustrated with God and kind of, you know, challenging God on some things. But right before that, they couldn't get any shrimp.

Everybody else was doing good in the shrimp business, all the other competition. And Forrest says, let's just pray. This storm comes and Lieutenant Dan, you'll hear him. He's up on top of the mass, yelling at God or whatever.

But God works it out to where abundance comes to both of their lives. And it's pretty funny. There's a storm! I'm right here!

Come and get me! You'll never sink this boat! Carmen came through here yesterday, destroying nearly everything in its path.

And as in other towns up and down the coast, Biola Battery's entire shrimping industry has fallen victim to Carmen and has been left in utter ruin. Speaking with local officials, this reporter has learned, in fact, only one shrimping boat actually survived the storm. Louise!

Louise, there's Forrest! After that, shrimping was easy. Since people still needed them shrimps for shrimp cocktails and barbecues and all, we were the only boat left standing. Bubba Gump Shrimp's what they got. We've got a whole bunch of boats, 12 Jennys, a big old warehouse. We even have hats that say Bubba Gump on them. Bubba Gump Shrimp, it's a household name. All right, that's a good clip.

I'll give you that one. I do like that clip. Yeah, and it really, I found it today and I was like, you know, that's really a parallel to our lives. You know, we cry out like, God, why haven't you done this? And the storms of life come.

But then he, sometimes he turns it out or a lot of times he turns it out to where we get an incredible amount of abundance and really finding him and finding his ways or whatever. Yeah, I'd seen a meme the other day, I think that's what you call him. And it was like, had Forrest and his mom, which was, what's her name? Sally Fields.

Sally Fields. And then in the question mark was Burt Reynolds, really his dad, because Burt Reynolds would have done that movie. You had to see Smoking the Bandit to get that reference. But yeah.

Anyway, moving on. I'll go ahead and go, because I have a clip and then we'll get to Danny. Because Danny's kind of newer with the group and he didn't have a clip with him today because we didn't tell him about it until late in the week. It explained the whole concept to him.

We were really bad about that. My word for the year was believe. Belief, believe, you know, kind of both of those words. And I haven't done much with it. And I was really kind of feeling conviction, kind of pointing some of that anger at Rodney for bringing up the topic. No, I wasn't angry. I was gonna say, oh man, here it is September, almost, you know, midway through and I haven't done anything with it. And so as I started to pray about it, because the show was coming up, I'm like, oh, better pray.

And God was reminding me of the times that he has been dealing with me on this word, even when I didn't know it. And so I'm gonna go ahead and play a clip from the movie Unbroken. And in this clip, you've got the two brothers, you have Louis Zamperini and his brother, I think it's Pete maybe, are out. And the older brother has seen Louis take off running when he was in trouble and realizes he's got some real talent. So he makes him go out running and he's riding a bicycle beside him.

And he listened to the interchange there. Louis is not real happy about being out running, but I want you to listen to the interchange and we'll come back and talk about it. If you can take it, you can make it. All right, you train, you fight way harder than those other guys and you win.

You get out from under them or you keep going the way you're going and you end up as a bum in the streets. You can do this, Lou. You just got to believe you can. I don't believe.

I do. That begins, you know, obviously with him not believing, but if you follow the true story, uh, the book so much better than the movie, not a big fan of the movie, but the book was amazing. And Louis story, he goes on to be an Olympic athlete, right? And, and, and distance running, you know, I mean, and he makes it through amazing things that you say, how in the world could anyone ever survive those things that was founded in this little interchange with his brother, you know, important enough that was in the book important enough.

They put it in the movie, but it really came down to what he believed to be the truest things about himself. Right. And so back a couple of weeks ago, you know, Robby was prompting the group, which Robby's really good about doing. And I like to give him a hard time about it, but I really do appreciate it. Whether I tell him that much or not, you know, he was, he was prompting the group on how that he asked Jesus, uh, every morning, you know, Jesus, um, how can I love you today? Right. How can I love you today? And so, you know, we were having a conversation after the radio show and I'm like, I've never prayed that.

Honestly, I've never concept never even came to me. He's Jesus. He doesn't need anything. That's kind of my whole mindset. He's got it.

You don't need that. And so as you know, God has a sense of humor that night, you know, I go to sleep and I wake up wide awake. It's like four in the morning and it's, I'm not running Robby hours.

I'm on, you know, regular people hours. And I'm like, it's not time to get up yet. So I'm laying there and obviously I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep and I'm like, well, thanks Robby.

I might as well just ask the question now. And so I said, all right, Jesus, here we go. How can I love you? And right away, he's like, you could treat your own heart better. And it floored me. I wasn't really expecting that. And the more that I thought about it and he reminded me of it this week when I said, God, I haven't really focused on it.

He said, no, no, we've had this conversation, right? Part of your problem with how you treat your heart is where you let your beliefs go. Yes, I am a sinner saved by grace.

I understand that. But if that's a sum total of what I am, I'm very easily able to slip back into sin, right? But when I realize I'm a redeemed, free son of the father and live my life out of that belief, wow, things are a lot different. And it really comes down to how I want to believe not just that day, but that part of the day, that moment.

I mean, it really has to go down to that level. What am I going to hold to be true? Because, you know, the greatest distance I say is between your brain and your heart. I mean, I really do know what's true. I just don't always live it, right? And I got to get that connection, you know, cohesive between the two.

But yes, what I know to really be true, what it says in Scripture, what God's shown me time and time and time again, are the things that really are the deepest beliefs. And so that's a part of why he's had me focusing on that word, because there's still some beliefs that I need to break through about myself primarily. This is more focused on me, on how I see me. What do I see in the mirror?

Right? And I'd love to see, I always like that guy. Most of the time I don't, you know, if I'm being very honest, and not because I don't believe I'm likable. It's just, I know the thoughts I have. I mean, I'm the only one that hears all my thoughts other than God, right? And so I know that person. And so that belief for me is really, really important, something to focus on.

You know, we talked at the beginning of the show, I made the point of, how can you take a year and focus on a word? So far, I've taken 57 and build up beliefs. You know, it may take me 57 to break through. I probably won't be here that long, right? But it's going to take at least a year to break through some good ones. And so that's kind of my story. I haven't spent that much time on it consciously. But I don't think God's let me forget it either, because it's constantly been in front of me in one way or another. Now, I don't know if this means anything, but I keep hearing the Doobie Brothers, what a fool believes. And I'm thinking that's probably him just saying, what do you really believe?

Yeah. Darrell Bock Well, part of it is too, I think sometimes, Sam, when God gives us a word, we have a certain responsibility to go act something out. But if he's given it to us in grace, it's his job. It's more of like he gives it to you.

And he says, Go see what I'll do. And I think part of that is what I experienced was, is I do think there's something to be said for being more intentional than what I have been with it. But then I also feel like there's a grace in it that he gave you the word, he gave me the word, but that was my word, that was what he was going to do in my life, you know? So. And I do thank Rodney for bringing it back up, because honestly, it's given me a hunger. Yeah.

That I'd kind of forgotten about. And said, Okay, God, why did you really give this to me? And now let's get back into those things, I believe, you know, and focus on those things that I do, that hurt myself in one way or another. Now, Danny, now this whole word concept just kind of came to you this week, as far as we were talking about it the way we do it.

So would you like to share a little bit about where God's got taken you so far? Yeah. I had to respond to the email. Okay, what are you guys talking about? Because I, they may not know, I came to the boot camp, the spring boot camp that was in the summer.

So the and so and then in this whole process, me and my wife relocated from Lower Ashboro, like seagrove area to King, North Carolina. So my word has been I kind of backed into this thing. So I was like, Okay, what are y'all doing? Okay, I didn't pray the prayer to be in a year, I have no idea. So okay, God, what have you been teaching me? Because I don't pay attention to that. I always tell people I have spiritual ADD, oh, look, a squirrel, you know, or something like that.

So I've been looking and the word that came to me was release. And I was thinking about what Solomon said in the Ecclesiastes, there was time and a season for everything. And the hard parts of life for me are when seasons are over, because I never wanted the ballgame to be over. I never wanted the party to be over. I don't I love things that go on and on and on conversations.

I love to talk. And I found the end of the year last year, the season at a church I absolutely loved a community absolutely loved the season was over. And it was a little bit of mourning, if you will, but at any but and then I find myself engaged in this wild at heart stuff again. And then I discovered that there's these crazy bunch of guys that do a boot camp in North Carolina. And I think Darren called them called us dysfunctional friends.

So yeah, that's the new three words for the year. And so what we found is, I mean, in the midst of a global pandemic, my wife and I sell our house and buy another one. And we totally relocate. We leave church, we leave family, we leave everything not like across the country, but to us, I'm an old North Carolina boy. I've never lived outside of North Carolina.

Been outside of North Carolina, but never lived outside. And so it's a whole new world a whole new community. But the beauty of it is with you guys is you are my new dysfunctional friends because my old ones were dysfunctional too, by the way. I hope they're listening.

Because I love the fact that guys are guys. And to be released from a ministry that you me and Jim Vitti started. And when I walked away, it was peaceful. It was not a, I wasn't mad at anybody at the church.

I wasn't tired of doing ministry. I wasn't it was I knew the season was over. And I was kind of like you saying when we went to sell our house, it was an old farmhouse. And I thought the inspectors are going to show up and this gig is going to be over.

No, I ain't gonna say no way you know that kind of thing. Surprised you're still living here. And so, but he comes in a few things wrong. They list the house for way more than I thought it was worth. And it sold for that price. And I'm like, wow. And then you know, we walked into another deal up in King and lo and behold, our friend lo and behold, our friend Darren lives is building a house about a mile away. So I'm thinking about selling out moving a little further. I don't know.

You'll definitely feel more like that as time goes. I did have a burning question hearing that story. You do know King is still barely in North Carolina, right? Yeah. Okay. Just checking. Yeah.

One of the things you said, I've been accused of running toward the border of Virginia. I don't know. One of the things you said in the, in the pre-show though, when God releases you from something, you're also released to something, to something. Yeah.

Can you explain that a little bit? Well, what has happened in our lives is we are my wife. She, she's not going to listen to show. She's this man show, but she says that, uh, the ministry became the other woman. I basically had an affair with God in her eyes, if that's possible.

I don't know, but I understand what she's saying. So what we've been released to do is because she kind of got away from church, kind of got away from the whole thing for lots of different reasons, not just me, but I contributed my share. Um, and now we're engaged in another church. We're engaged in life again, together. We've been married for going on 18 years and both of us, this is our third marriage. So we're released to starting all over again. It did our whole marriage. We've talked about the next 80 years. We never changed the number because we're going to spend the next 80 years together.

And it has become a release to discover a whole nother world together. Well, thank you, Danny. Appreciate it. Well, guys, we've got a couple minutes left. Um, I want to ask you a quick question, Jim, I'm going to point to you first. What are you going to do differently these next few months than you did the last nine months with this topic? Wow. What I'm going to do is, and it's posted on the inside of my office and on my window of my car, and I'm ignoring that too, is be intentionally obedient.

Okay. So I'm going to add this to the list where of things God's told me to do. And I let slide because I know he loves me anyway. And it really is. I mean, I was approached earlier.

It can be a real problem when you're comfortable with God. So Andy, what about you? So thanks, Sam, for putting me on the spot again. You chose to sit there.

So comes with a territory. I think probably just being more intentional about it. Looking for ways that God is providing abundance in himself and his spirit in ministry and even in finances, the things that we kind of avoid around there, but all of those things and praise him for those things and look for an opportunity to take it in, roll it into next year. A lot of the times these words tying together from year to year.

Yeah, I think they pretty much always do so far for us. Anyway, I guess for me, I'm just going to put a couple reminders. I'm gonna put one on my mirror when I get home today that says, what do I choose to believe today? I'm gonna put it in my phone. I'm gonna put it in my car. I'm gonna put it in places that I have to look at it and make the choice to not be obedient. And for me, I'll choose to be obedient.

I think most of the time, you know, I'd love to say all the time, but that wouldn't be true. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that because at least it's a step in the right direction. And so I want you guys to challenge me on that next week and say, I want to see a picture of that on your mirror without you in it. Okay. But anyway, go to masculinejourney.org. Uh, go to masculinejourney.org. This is the Truth Network.