Word of The Year 2021

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This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? 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. Well, happy new year from the masculine journey, guys.

We're excited that you're joining us in 2022, Andy. Yeah. Well, we're eaved out, right? We're completely eaved out.

The only day of the year. We have to start over. Yeah, it all starts. Like 360-some. Yeah.

Forget that. So, you know, very cool. It's sort of our tradition here in masculine journey this time of year to talk about the word for the year. And so we had gotten this idea actually from the Wild at Heart team there in Colorado a number of years ago.

They pray in the beginning of December, you know, that God would give them a word or some part of the adventure to go on together with him in the upcoming year. And so we all have been taking part in that for a number of years. And so this is our chance to review what happened with our words in 2021.

And so to give us sort of an example of that, Andy, how did that work for you over the years? So this is, I think, the fourth year that I've gotten the word, and it seems like every year. It ends up being spot on when you get the word at the beginning of the year. Sometimes like, hmm, I don't know about that God. But, you know, this year was, for me, I'll talk about it more in depth a little bit later.

But it was really linked to kind of the word from the previous year. And I think we've all found that God does that. He usually keeps you in a vein or an idea. But it's always good. And it's just, to me, it's participatory or it's what he's wanting to do in your life. And a lot of times we feel like, you know, it's our word, but it's really our, it's our personal word, but it's our word in the sense that it's both ours and God's, because he's always involved in the process. Man, oh, man, that could not be better said.

He really, really, really, really is. And so, Danny, for you, this was your first year to play with the way? Yeah, this was my rookie season.

You can buy the rookie cards on masculinejourney.org. I can remember sitting around last year and you guys started talking about, oh, we're going to do a show about the word of the year. And I'm like a sheep and deer in the headlights like, what are y'all talking about? But it's been really neat in some ways. And in some ways it's been a tough year.

So my word for the year was heritage and lo and behold, what a year for that. But the clip, yeah, I think you're going to play is from It's a Wonderful Life is the last scene where George Bailey has found himself in some trouble and he really begins to see what people really think about him in a good and overwhelming way. And just kind of a cool way to end the story. I love the movie. My wife loves it because it's in black and white.

Her brother said that he thought that she just had a black and white TV. That and Andy Griffith, right? That and Andy Griffith. But George finds out, like I have found out this year, a lot about myself and a lot about the people around me and who truly are your friends. So here's George. I get this.

It's from London. Oh, Mr. Gower cabled. You need cash. Stop.

My office instructed to advance you up to twenty five thousand dollars. Stop and Merry Christmas. Sam Wainwright to New York. I left right in the middle of it.

As soon as I got Mary's telegram. Good idea, Ernie. A toast to my big brother, George, the richest man in town.

That's a Christmas present for a very dear friend. That's right. That's right. And you wink like George, you know, that wink when you add a boy, Clarence, you know, he gets it.

There's nobody like Jimmy Stewart to win like that. You know, no, the Clarence was the angel that gave him the book, Tom Sawyer. And the phrase was. I can't remember a man's on a failure who has friends, essentially. Yeah, I couldn't remember who my friends were.

But this year we lost. I lost an uncle beginning the year to covid. And then we lost Michelle's dad and then we lost my mom, June and September. And so it was kind of tough, but it made you look it made me look at my heritage. It made me look at, you know, I remember my wife saying, it feels like your soul says, how can you go on?

Because half of what sustains you is gone. And and that was kind of the way it felt. But, you know, learned a lot about family. And and that was kind of the heritage where I thought we were going with it. But, you know, we have a spiritual heritage. And, you know, Robby, I love what you said before the show that, you know, God seems to turn his face toward your your heritage.

And when he turns his face, it is a you know, it is a blessing. And, you know, I remember and we talked about I'll tell a story about dad was looking at we sit down to do finances after mom was gone, because mom did all the books. And it really she had some things on the books that weren't dad didn't know was on the books.

But, you know, we were looking at $20,000 loan just kind of consolidate everything. And in just a short period of time, one thing led to another and a miracle after a miracle and dad ended up debt free. And it was it was a Yeah, some wire for $25,000 stop.

Yeah, stop. But, you know, to to be engaged with with dad, you know, whatever, to be engaged with dad on a whole new level, you know, and finding out things about about mom, but finding out things about dad, and because dad's filter went to the grave with mom. So dad just says what's on his mind, and there's no tell what'll come out. And that's been kind of interesting. But you know, as a whole as a year, you know, what a great practice it is to. And I'm behind eight ball again, I'm had to pray hard this week. But you know, for a word for the year and how that plays out to be able to look back.

So yeah, like you're not as weird as I thought you were. So yeah, we would talk about the word from last year. And then next week show we will be in 2022 with our words. So we'll talk about what God's given us this year. Well, Andy, you know, the clip you have is really just off the hook from my perspective, being a Star Trek fan and, and a neat Leonard Nimoy fan and many things.

So share what what's your deal? Okay, Merry Christmas. I knew you would like it. But actually, my word for the year was given was I thought it was gonna be something around restoration, because that's kind of what I wanted. But God, you know, there was a way I get it, the word is I'm the one that, you know, I have to have like confirmation sometimes. So when I heard prosper, I got it in like, three different ways. It was through different messages and stuff that I was reading in the Bible at the time. But when I got it, you know, a lot of it, I just had come off abundance. I'm like, God, are you trying to am I gonna be like a TV preacher or something?

Is that what's going on here? But you know, there's so much more to what God wants to do in that vein of more than financial blessing. And so this this clip is based on, you know, you won't hear that much about prosper other than the tagline and that you'll get it whenever you hear it.

The point is, I want you to hear this clip. It's from Leonard Nimoy Spock on Star Trek, and it kind of explains how they came up with, you know, the tagline and the and the salute. So live long and prosper. Live long and prosper. The Vulcan greeting is a wonderful sentiment.

Live long and prosper. And this too is something that was contributed by your father on the set. We had a wonderful script by Theodore Sturgeon called a mock time. We arrive on the planet, and a procession comes out from the city to greet us. I said to the director, I think we should have some kind of a special greeting. Asian people bow to each other, military people salute each other. I think Vulcan should have some kind of a greeting. And he said, What would you like to do?

And I said, How about this? Where it came from was from my childhood going to synagogue on the high holidays with my family. There's a moment where a group of men get up before the congregation, cover their heads with their prayer shawls, chant a prayer. My father said, Don't look.

I'm about eight or nine years old. So I stuck a peak. And what I saw were these gentlemen out there who were doing the shouting, had their hands out towards the congregation like that, both hands. I found out later, this is the shape of the letter Shin in the Hebrew alphabet.

Letter Shin is the first letter in the word Shaddai, the name of God. Well, I survived. I think that I survived. But I was so intrigued with that gesture. And I suggested that we do that as Logans. Within days after that episode was on the air, I started getting that gesture back on the streets. So what that was, was George Takei was interviewing, I think, Leonard Nimoy's son, and then Leonard Nimoy goes on to tell about how it goes along.

And what I think is cool is he talks about how that that was, and I've heard Robby talk about a shin, I don't know, a shin from a body part, you know, I mean, a shin's a shin, it's a shin, I guess, but it's connected. But in explaining it in another video, it's out there that Leonard Nimoy does, he talks about that same letter is the first letter in Shalom and Jeconah, which is like the glory of God. But, you know, we all hear about Shalom and peace.

So I went in and looked at Jeremiah 29, 11. And there's, we all know about that scripture, you know, it's like, I know the plans that I have for you to prosper you and not to bring harm to you. Essentially, there's some translations say peace, some say prosper.

Well, we know peace is Shalom, you know, we hear that quite a bit, we leave peace, Shalom is just peace. But the definition that I got when I went into the Blue Lever Bible, one of Robby's favorites, when you go in there, you look at the completeness of the definition of prosper. It's completeness, safety, soundness, welfare, health, prosperity, peace, quiet, tranquility, and contentment. That's one I've fully experienced this year, much beyond than I ever have. Rodney, I know you talk about contentment, you know, peace, friendship, you know, it's just a whole overall well-being. And that's what I've experienced this year. Not that everything in life is just totally perfect, but things are good. God has done so much and that actually, you know, that actually came to pass this year.

Jim, you wanted to? Well, my Hebrew professor who died two weeks ago when we were here, I found out about it, said that it also means death to your enemies. There you go, that's one way to prosper. That sounds more Klingon. Get that, get that, devil. We'll be right back with much more on your Word of the Year. Have you ever considered what you want your last words to be? Maybe you'd hope to express thanks to God for your life and exhort family members to follow Christ. A person's last words can tell you a lot about him, and the same is true of the Savior.

John MacArthur looks at Christ's final words in Scripture, this week on Grace to You. Join us for Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation and Research. We want to encourage you in your Christian faith by showing how scientific evidence supports the Bible, particularly the Genesis account. When we see that the first and most foundational book of the Bible can be trusted in all matters, including science, it builds confidence in the rest of the inspired Word all the way to revelation.

So that's my second gift to Robby there. It's on Psalm 119, 105, your word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path. And I've always loved that Scripture. I learned that early in my Christian life. And I know Robby's been on an excursion.

He'll probably talk a lot about that when he's talking about his word. I don't know if you want to add anything to that. Darrell Bock Well, we might end up in the after-after hours because we've got so many goodies to go that I don't know if we're going to get to mine, but because we've got to get to Rodney's. I mean, you know, nobody knows the joy it gives me. I mean, because, you know, I know what I got to do as a result of learning about this practice. And then I've watched, obviously, Andy, I've watched Danny, I've watched Rodney. In other words, as they, and I actually thought back to, we did Listening Prayer one time with a bunch of young students.

They were young teenagers, 14, 15 years old. And when they heard from God, they actually knew that they heard from God. They were like, Mr. Robby, did I really hear from God?

I mean, I heard from God. Like, you can really hear from God. And so when people have a chance to experience this adventure for a year of hearing from God on their word, it really is, it's a remarkable, remarkable thing. And so Rodney is another one of those that I just, I just delight, I especially delight in your clip because I can just sense all the time that you spent with the Lord as a result of the practice. And everybody goes through a year differently. Everybody has things that you thought would come to pass that might, but the real joy is in all those things that you had no idea was coming and meanings that you thought were there that, no, God had a different story to write for you that year.

And it's just, it's just fun to walk and live in it. So really what my clip is about, it's a medley of several different songs that started me with my first word, which was son. And I was like, okay, that was about being his son and living in being truly his son. And then the next word I got was father. I'm like, okay, so it's really about him being my father and living in that. And then the next word I had last year was last year was family. And when I got it, it was okay, I'm supposed to be working and harder on my family.

And God's like, no, no, no, no, you need to be working with my family. This is what we're going to work on my family together. And it's just been a year where both in the walk with my men here and my church family and others that I have at work and other people that are believers, just spending a lot more time talking about truth because truth ends up coming out and so many things today and what we do and what we don't do that you're finding that you have to take a stand for truth.

And that's been this past year for me is growing a family. So we'll go and hear the medley and maybe talk on the backside. Darrell Bock But as long as I'm sitting here, Andy, just correct me if I'm wrong, but just when you see Rodney's growing a beard because he's going hunting, hearing him, you know. And as I was sitting there, I was like, I'm seeing Abraham Lincoln. No wonder he's talking about, it's Honest Abe.

He's sitting there talking about truth. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's right. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's right. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's right.

Darrell Bock Yeah, that's right. So, just really what, you know, the word of the year does for me, it allows me to really focus on things. So it doesn't matter if I'm reading scripture, I'm listening to a sermon, we're talking about the game, we're talking about life.

It just doesn't matter. That word is there. And it's amazing when you're paying attention to it, how often it's just going to show up in your life and have meaning and purpose to it that you never would have saw if you didn't have the word and going through that for that year. So that's where it's been for me. It's just something that's like my own little personal ride with God that's like, oh, that's why you had me with this year. And, you know, because you'll hit that maybe several times even in a day. And then you'll go for a few days and all of a sudden, boom, there it is again.

And, you know, you can go in to do personal studies on it at different times. And that's where every once in a while, for me, that's what I just kind of, I'll take a tangent and just kind of, oh, look a little deeper there. What do you got for me, Lord?

It's just always a nice little treasure. Darrell Bock So your word this year was? Darrell Bock Family. Darrell Bock And? Darrell Bock And it's God's family.

Darrell Bock Really. You know, the passage in Mark to me is like just as years roll by, it just means, you know, it's in the Mark chapter 10 where it says, you know, he who loses lands and all this stuff because of my name or for the sake of the Gospel will not fail to receive a hundred times as many mothers, a hundred mothers. Danny, you got a hundred mothers. I'm telling you, when you start adding them up, you're going to find you got a hundred mothers. You got a hundred brothers. You got more than that. You're going to have, and then he goes on to describe all these things you're going to have and persecutions, by the way, not just in the life to come, but in this present age is what it says.

It's a promise. And that family is just like spectacular as he begins to point it out to you. And so, again, I love how God takes these, what we thought at the beginning of the year, what this appeared to be, this journey, and oh my goodness, it was a different adventure. So, Jim, you had a different kind of adventure this year. I did. But when you said family and God said no, our family, I immediately thought of we are family. You got all your brothers with you. That's the second one tonight you've done.

I think it's all songs. We do. But we are a family here and we act like it more often than not. We did this, I think, as a group the first time four years ago. And I had been introduced to the word the year before from a secular book. And that included both a life word and having a word each year. So when we did it, I thought that was really cool. So I sort of went back to the secular roots.

I've got a clip here that I just heard for the first time today. It's by a fellow named Jeremy Kingsley and he talks about integrity. And my word is integrity. And this is a story about taking a trip with a friend of his who's a geek to, I think he mentions it, but I won't mess by. And he has no clue, but he runs into integrity in this clip. I'm even a little embarrassed going to Best Buy with him because he's got this list of all the specs he wants on this TV. And I'm thinking, this is a little bit over the top, but he is my buddy. So we go in there, we're talking to the salesman there at the TV place and he's a techie too.

So they're enjoying each other. Well, I want 1280 of this and 700 of this and PC. And I'm like, I don't even know what these guys are talking about. And all of a sudden the sales guy goes, you know what? I think Sony does make a model that has all these specs, but we don't carry it.

But there is a store down the road that I think does have a model with all these specs on it if you want to go there. Now, when he said that, I call a time out. Now I'm going to embarrass my friend for a second. Time out, man, time out to the salesman. Did you just tell my friend to go to a different store? To a competitor store? Yes, sir. I'm sorry.

We don't carry that model, but I think they have a few that have all the specs that he wants. I said, I want to talk to your manager right now. Please go get your manager. Now this kid is freaking out, man. He is scared. He thinks he's going to get in trouble, but he's not.

Manager comes over. Hey, is there some kind of problem here? Is there some kind of problem?

No, there's no problem. I just want to tell you something. I was wondering if you could give this young man a raise.

Now all of a sudden he's kind of confused. Like what? Well, I travel, man, full time and I speak at a lot of different companies and corporations. And one of the things I talk about a lot is integrity. And he just showed that.

My friend's looking for a certain TV that you don't have. And instead of trying to trick him, instead of trying to manipulate a situation or steer him towards something he doesn't really want, he had integrity. And I appreciate that.

I appreciate it so much that you probably just got a customer for life because if this is the kind of people you have working here, I'm going to shop here. I wonder if you could give this guy a raise. And all of a sudden he wants to like give me a fist. Like, yeah, dog, thank you.

He's all excited, right? Integrity. Love it. We need it in our personal and professional relationships. Integrity. The person who knows the right thing, says the right thing, does the right thing. Integrity. This word was without a doubt the toughest one I've had.

It is one that I saw in my grandfather and my father. Both of them were named James. And I may talk more about that after this. So in order to hear the rest of Jim's story or my word of the year, you're going to have to listen to After Hours. That's on the podcast. You can go to maskandjourney.org, listen to our podcast After Hours, all those wonderful episodes, or while you're there, why not register for the upcoming bootcamp March 31st through May 3rd. No, actually through April 3rd. We thought about having a month and three days, but just March 31st through April 3rd. Don't miss it. This is the Truth Network.