Word For the Year Revisited

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers, who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're very glad to have you with us this week.

I've got something going on with my throat there. Very professional. Thank you.

We're very professional. We're on the Masculine Journey. I had like a half hour to get rid of that, apparently. Dad sounds. I'm just making dad sounds from last week.

If you don't know what we're talking about, you can go back and listen to last week's podcast on dad noises, which is actually quite funny. But the topic this week was brought to us from Rodney. Rodney, you have the topic for the week, so why don't you tell us about what our topic is?

Well, when you walked out last week, you're like, hey guys, we don't have a topic for next week. And on my way home, I was praying about my word of the year, and it dawned on me, we haven't done a review. And I was like, oh boy, this is going to be a fun text to see how everybody responds to this when I sent it out.

Hey guys, we haven't done a review on the word of the year. And then I sent that out and definitely Robby immediately jumped on, oh yeah, I'm ready. Let's let's do that.

And then everybody else I was waiting for. And that's why I was like, Sam said, I forget what your text was. Okay. Yeah.

It was like very, very short. I remember that. And I was like, okay, let's see if anybody else responds because I was like, okay, yep, that's right.

It's confession time. Because typically most of us, other than Robby, don't really spend as much time into our word as we probably would really like to. Yeah. And I think for some clarity, we all have words we'd like to use with 2020.

Most of them, most of them aren't really good. So we won't do that. But what we're talking about is something that started, gosh, a few years back or I'll be, I don't remember when it, when it all started three, four years ago, maybe three years ago. Yeah. We got it from, you know, the wild heart people who, you know, had this idea of a topic that God wanted to deal with you this year. And we started asking usually in December, what, you know, where we're going in the next year. So this is really fun for me. I mean, it's, here we are. You are definitely excited. And I'm excited to hear about it. And we are going to go through and kind of do an update and go through what our word is. We actually have a, each of us have a clip for the most part.

I think most of the people have a clip. And so the chances are, we'll go into the After Hours show and maybe into another week. We'll see where God takes us. But this is really his topic and we're going to talk about our word.

And so I want to start with a song about a word. There you go. Yeah.

And it's probably one of Robby's favorite songs. It really actually. Yeah. I wasn't making fun that time. I did. I didn't pick the clip.

It was actually Sam and I got it. And I said, it's perfect. And the longest word we will use online. It's right from Mary Poppins. And they've gone, you know, out on the merry-go-round into the wonderland. And there they're going to get a lesson from Mary and Bert on using words. Here we go. They're probably hard words to describe your emotions.

Now, now, now, now, gentlemen, please. On the contrary, there's a very good word. Am I right, Bert? Tell them what it is.

Right. It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Of course, I was afraid to speak while I was just a lad. Me father gave me tells a tweak, told me I was bad. But then one day I learned a word to say. We ain't a nose. The biggest word you've ever heard.

And this is how we go. Oh, it's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I'm the really lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely. And believe it or not, that was just under a minute.

I know it felt much longer. But a couple of things about that. Obviously, I want to turn this over to you. But it's impossible to be in a bad mood and listen to that song.

I will give you that. You know, you can't listen to that song and stay in a bad mood, right? Because there's something about just so upbeat.

Mary Poppins, not my favorite movie, but that song is pretty cool. The reason I actually like the clip is it reminded me of regardless of the word God gives you, you may go, that doesn't make any sense at all. You know, why would you give me that word? Which a lot of times the way we look at stuff is like, really God, that's a word you gave me? Right. But it always makes sense. You know, in that word, when you think about it, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, right, doesn't seem to make any sense. But once you know the context of it, the way they play it out in the song and stuff, it does.

And so Robby, why don't you tell us a little bit about your word and your adventure for the year? Well, I just really think the concept of what they're describing is the fact that often we want to communicate and we really do not know what to say. And this young man that obviously has his father wound is his father's totally tweaking his nose. And calling him bad. Right. And he's calling him bad. And, you know, this is a situation that he's got an opportunity to express himself and he doesn't know what to say.

So he needs words and he actually needs intimacy. And the cool thing about my word for this year is ahaba in Hebrew. So it's the Hebrew word for love. It's the MacDaddy Hebrew word for love, kind of like you would say agape in Greek.

But this one beats that, trumps that word from my perspective tremendously because it's in the original language. And so when you hear the word, you're hearing sounds that literally God himself, the father, like this is when Jesus said ahba, father. In other words, this is what Jesus calls dad, right?

And it's the same word as love. And the reason is, is because the father expressed, like words are an expression, is a sound of a ha sound that's like an H sound, which means the hey in the Hebrew language, which means expression itself. And so we, a lot of people have this issue of thinking that God the father is this distant player in a, you know, kind of thing.

You know, they're looking always for the other shoe to drop when it comes to the father. But here you're learning something very cool within the word itself, is this idea of God himself is love expressed. But then the second part of the word, the ba ba sound in it is now the house or the, this is the head of the house expressed. And so when you think about this concept of house, how many of us long to be home? Or does home mean a significant thing to us? And it certainly is a gigantically significant thing to God because his home is in heaven, but he really wants to hang out with people that love him and that he loves. And so as God has taken me on this adventure this year, as we've studied this word together and began to see why he wanted me to go there with it, is I have had a tendency my entire, I guess, life to not have the priority on home that the word love actually has. In other words, I think God was trying to show me that Robby, it starts from your home, meaning your home with me, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, and then it comes out with Tammy and Robby and Tess, Mariah and Leslie in my home. You see, out of that place of love, because, you know, we talked about it on that show with Morgan Snyder, the kid that was at his dad's funeral, and he said, gee, that sounded like a really nice guy.

I wish I'd known him. Well, you know, God is showing me that out of this place of home that we create as the head of our house and as we recreate as fathers ourselves, that can I, as the father, when they think of the father, do they think of love? And when they think of my house, like, I want to go home. And home is a place, you know, where I want to be. And a good king creates that good kingdom. And so as I think about Bert and Mary, you know, they're telling you that this word is a way to express life. And God gave us this very basic, like, triple whammy word.

You'll find it all over the book of the Song of Solomon, which has everything to do to love, that tell us that, wow, love is connected to home in a way that I never would have perceived, except I've been journeying with him on that word all year. And, see, I made it without even finishing the first segment. Chris We're close. I wanted to ask a follow-up question, Robby, on that. I mean, you are really diligent at doing this. And so, you know, for the people out there that's thinking, okay, the whole concept of just getting a word from God is foreign, let alone spending an entire year on it, right?

Because, you know, for most of us, we're a microwave mentality. Okay, God, you gave me the word. All right, I'm gonna look up the meaning in the dictionary. Good to go. We're good. Yeah, let's go. How do you spend a year and what's it really look like digging into something with God for a year?

I mean, isn't there enough meat there to last you the whole year? Robby Oh, you know, I guess God just helps focus. If you came to see my prayer life every morning and go, you got to be kidding me, this guy. My mind is going 40 million different places and all sorts of things. And so, I discovered that, A, you start out the year by asking God, where do you want to go? Where do you want to go? And just like you hear your new name and other things, you get this sense, oh, that didn't come from me.

That's where we're going and that's what you want. Now that I have that, I pray the Lord's Prayer every morning because it just orients me because my mind wants to go on and meet people I'm upset about or something I've got to do at work. My mind's going everywhere but where it ought to be going, which is home, by the way, with God. And so, I have a note where I've written out the Lord's Prayer and at the bottom, I write my word for the year so that I literally, as I begin my daily prayer, it's happening at four in the morning, so I don't really have my act all that together. It's just this really confused looking guy, but I'm saying, God, show me how to ha-ha-ha but like you this morning.

And so often, it's almost like you jumped off the diving board, now where are we going? And that's how it works. So in English, I mean, you're basically saying, hey God, show me how to love like you love. Right. Right. And I'm not making fun, I'm saying people maybe just didn't hear it right the first time, that's really what you're asking him in Hebrew. Exactly.

Right. How do I love like you today, God? And he takes you there.

And it's weird how much he unpacks throughout the year. You know, things that he unearths that you're like, wow, you got all that from this word, this is why you wanted to take me on it. And last question for you before we go into break, because I'm trying to make you last all the way to break so I can make fun of you. No, the the the words often dovetail from one year to the next, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And so, you know, you'll build upon one to the next to the next.

And so it's really cool to watch you continue to unpack and unfold your life. In the meantime, go to masculinejourney.org, register for the upcoming boot camp, November 12th through 15th, masculinejourney.org, November 12th through 15th, we'll be there, God will be there, he's gonna have great words for you. Lots of words, one, two, a million of them. I don't know, but go register now. Or call 800-943-7096. Remember that promo code CARGUY. Mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina 27285. And now the Masculine Journey After Hours Podcast, Masculine Journey Radio. I'm a come on baby, tell me what's the word, I'll write up. Yeah, you gotta continue to listen to it. I mean, that song also puts me in a good mood. I can't, not like supercalifragilistic, but close. Yeah, you brought both of those.

Yeah, I did actually, one's for Robby. But that one was for me, because I'm thinking about, we're talking about word, what better bump and then word up. Yeah, what is the word up, Sam?

Yeah, it's a word up to God and back down to you, you know, it's great. 1986 is when that was out. It was a... R&B. You mean the time in rock and roll when the music started really going downhill. Yeah, this was not rock and roll though, it was R&B and funk.

And so it was not technically rocking. Andy, did you have something to add? I was gonna say, it reminds me of you dropped the bomb on me.

It does, it's about that same era. Yeah, you dropped the bomb on me, yeah. So coming back to the word, word up, we're gonna come back to the word. And we're talking about the words that we got at the first of the year from God, and what we've done or not done with them over that time.

And so Robby went first because he's the most diligent out of the group of hanging in there and doing what he's committed to do. And he brought it to us and he did it before we ever did it. And we saw the fruit that it had in his life and we're excited about trying to get that same fruit. Andy twists our arm a little bit.

Ouch. No, but it has been watching him get the fruit out of the word each year makes you hungry to say, I wanna know what God's really wanting to do for me. So Rodney, do you wanna talk about your word first or do you wanna play your clip first? Probably go to the clip, but I'll let Jim get his little comment in here.

I know he wants to get in. I reminded Rodney, this is his show, so he gets to decide. One of the things Sam asked Robby before was, can you spend that much time on a word? And ahava is one, not just a year, that's a lifetime. And it reminded me of when I first did this, I also chose a life word and it is the other Hebrew word, chesed, which is, you'll usually see loving kindness and often you'll see God's love expressed that way as well. And we don't, the English word love hardly touches it.

So if you can get hold of one of those and live it, it's good for a lifetime. Yeah. And we watered down the word love. You know, I love this TV show. I love chips. You know, I love this.

I love that. Ice cream. I love ice cream. You know, why are you looking at me? I love all these things, right?

But no, but not the type of love we're talking about. Thank you, Jim. That was very good. Rodney, to your word, you wanna do the clip? You wanna set it up or just play it?

There's nothing to set up other than playing it sets itself up. Well, there's probably a whole generation that's never heard. Well, I was gonna say our more mature audience will recognize it, but then after that I can explain it. Okay.

We'll go ahead and play it. Announcer Robert Young and Jane White with Eleanor Donohue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin in Father Knows Best. That's before he went to be a doctor, right? That's where he just went to be a doctor. He was Marcus Welby for the next generation of people, I think. Yeah. And there's a bunch of characters in that show that became a lot of different other characters.

Yeah. But yeah, Father Knows Best, you know, was a show a long time ago in my youth. And it was just something that fits very well with my theme and my word for the year, which is father, which fits very well with what Robby was just talking about as well, because the path that I've been on has been very interesting. So it starts off with, I remember Jim and I both had the same thing. We came to the show that night and it's like, oh, we're doing our word of the year.

And we're both of us like, oh, we didn't really get that from the text and the emails that that's what the show was about. So we went off to separate rooms and thought, uh, we better come up with a word here. So God graciously gave us a word quickly and mine was father. And then, so my first thing after the show was like, okay, so now that you give me this word, father, what's that all about? And the first thing he did was said, cause my last year's word was overcomer. He's like, well, you'll never be an overcomer without a father. And I need to follow you to help you to be an overcomer. And that's where, like you said, the connection of the words, it's just, you know, this is only my second year doing a word of the year.

And it was just interesting that, yep, immediately there's a connection. So I'm actually so super excited about what's coming up in the future as to, okay, how many more connections are we going to have? How am I going to see them?

How is he going to reveal them to me? So, you know, you talk about how can you live in a word for a year? It's just, it's just like the Bible. You read any part of the Bible that references and refers to so many other segments and portions of the Bible and you learn and you learn and you learn and you learn.

And when you have a hunger and a thirst for God and his word and learning about that, there's, there's not an end to that. So just want to add that in for the, for that comment. So my word was father and immediately, you know, he ties in, I'm going to father you basically.

Well, where my mind goes soon after it was all about me, because I do have to let all our millions of listeners know that, hey, I am a dad, I'm a father, I'm a husband, and I do know best. Yeah. So now my family may not agree with that, but I'm trying to convince them.

I'm working hard at that. Yeah. You make them watch your show.

You make them go back and watch your remaster. See? Even there's a TV show about me. Yeah.

So where has God taken you so far from January to now? So it started off with, you know, Hey, here's the connection. And then it went to me trying to make it about me. I tried to make it. Okay. So what do I need to do?

What do I need to learn? How am I going to be about the father, husband and all this kind of stuff. And it was within a, you know, two or three months he had completely reversed that and said, no, it's about me as father to you and the way that you're going to ever learn to be a good father, be an overcomer, be what you need to be is I need to be in his will just like, and I've been spending a lot of time this whole year in John where we do expositional teaching at church and we're on John and just like the sermon has passed week and was wonderful because it was two verses. I love the ones that are a verse or two and that's all there is. And you just go so deep into scripture and you just dive all around the Bible and the meaning and deep that you can draw out of something so small. And, you know, and again, Jesus is always saying, I'm here to do the father's will. So it's not about self. It's just not about me.

It's gotta be about his will. So my number one prayer all year has been father me, just, just simple, just Lord, father me. And when I'm in a good place, I try to do it because that's where that's when I usually drift off to my own arena. I go to take off and I go my own direction, but very often when I do my heavy praying on my word and trying to figure out, okay, Lord, what do you have for me is after I just screwed something up after something just went bad. Cause that's what triggers you.

You should have done this beforehand before you got into this situation, before you went into the conversation with your daughter, your son, your wife, your boss with whatever's going on. And it's like, you maybe should have went to him first. So throughout the year I have gotten better at, okay, God, what do you, what do you have for me in this? There's been things at work that were, I thought, Oh, this would be a perfect opportunity for me to dive into something new.

It, there were promotion opportunities available, but they were like, it's, it's already decided before even got posted 10 of things. So it's like, okay, those things aren't happening. I'm not going there. And I'm comfortable and cool with that because I'm like, God, whatever you have for me, I'm just not anxious about things. And this is the year of anxiety. I mean, COVID all the riots and everything else going on. I'm, I'm not that worried.

The other apocalyptic thing is being talked about. It's just, I just got this ease that, okay, God, you've got it. Father, you've got me. I'm here to be your son. And that's my identity is I'm your son. I'm just happy in that skin. And I'm just comfortable with that. And that's where he's just been building that in me all year.

And it's been a fun ride. Thank you, Harold. We've got a few minutes left. I don't know if we'll get your full story in this segment with not, we'll come back to it afterwards, but you want to play your clip first, or you want to talk about your work first clip. We'll go with the clip.

It's a short bump, so we should be able to get it in. I do think it's interesting that all of our words have had upbeat music so far. Anyway, Harold, tell us about the happening. That was your word happening, right? Right. Yeah, this was a new thing for me. Robby, of course, was the leader in the word of the year, et cetera. And toward the end of last year, it's like, Lord, I don't, I don't want to be the only guy in the group that doesn't have a word.

I don't really know how this works, but help me out here. So for several days, you know, it's like, okay, God, you know, what's, what's my word? I need a word. And finally it, you know, it was like happening. I thought, huh, what kind of word is that for me to have for a year?

And wow, that was before. And talk about happening. I'm 79 years old, and this year is different than anything I've ever experienced, but I have to fess up and be truthful and say that I really have not followed up.

Like, I guess I will the last part of this year, I really haven't visited my word. I've just been like everybody else, astounded at what's going on. And the COVID thing is one thing, but what bothers me more than that is the direction that our country is going in from a moral standpoint.

I don't, I don't understand how you can justify murdering babies and calling it not murder and, and other things that are changing in our country and from the standpoint of an old man like me, not for the better. I grew up in what my wife and I refer to as the best of times. We grew up in the fifties and a lot of people would a lot of people would say, well, you're just got your head in the sand. Was that the 17? Who was president? Was there a president? Yeah, the fifties were a great time to grow up and we didn't have the moral dilemmas.

We didn't face drugs and stuff, at least not in the part of the world I grew up in. And so my word was happening and I wish that things could be happening differently. Go to masculinejourney.org, register for the upcoming bootcamp, November 12th through 15th, and go download the podcast where we talk about the after hours and the rest of this topic. This is the truth network.