Word of The Year 2022 After Hours

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.

So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Darrell Bock Welcome to this Masculine Journey Christmas Eve extravaganza. Matt Slick New Year's, New Year's, New Year's. Darrell Bock Oops. Matt Slick Living in the past. Darrell Bock Excuse me. Welcome to this New Year's Eve. Matt Slick I thought we were doing Groundhog Day or Back to the Future or something. Darrell Bock Extravaganza, you're right.

It is New Year's Eve. Oh my goodness, how could I do that? But I did it. I did it with class.

But it is. And so you might guess, if you're a longtime listener to the Masculine Journey, that we would be talking about our Word of the Year for 2022. And so, you know, a lot of people came into this, you know, like a movie that they came into 20 minutes late, you know, like, what in the world is the Word of the Year? So Danny had that experience a couple years ago, and we're going to let him explain now because, you know, he can take all the people that don't know what I'm talking about and bring them up to speed. Right, Danny? Danny Matt Slick What are we talking about again? Darrell Bock Wake up, wake up. Matt Slick Yeah, I was sitting here one night, and they were talking about the Word of the Year.

Like, what are you talking about? The Word of the Year, you know. Darrell Bock That's not in my Bible, right?

Matt Slick Yeah, I missed that chapter or something, you know. But the Word of the Year, you know, you pray about a word. God, give me a word for the year that'll carry you through the year. Darrell Bock And just kind of unpack it as you go along and, you know, try to pray about it daily or weekly or some of us monthly or once a year, whatever you do. But, and as you see it unfold in your life, and it seems like you keep coming back to that, and just the experiences and then, you know, we sit around and tell our stories with it. And, you know, we all glean from others' words. So that's kind of cool.

I hope that was a good explanation. Matt Slick It is good. And I love what you said when we were getting ready for this, Danny. I mean, Andy. It's Christmas Eve, right? Darrell Bock Andy.

What do you want for Christmas? Matt Slick Andy. But anyway, Andy. No, I did love what you said when we were getting ready that, you know, about, you know, God will go along with you.

Go ahead, tell them. Darrell Bock Well, I think, you know, this whole idea is not in Scripture or anything. It was a good idea that we got from John Eldridge and his team, and it was like, okay, where does this really come from? Is this something that God intended for us to all experience individually, and those who did it just got the benefit of it?

Or is it just something where we just kind of say, okay, this is a great idea. I'm going to engage God. And God is all about, if you want to engage him, he's all about, you know, reciprocating that back. He's going to be with you. And just the effect of that of, I think he's just all in it. Anybody that's hungry enough to ask, you know, asking and seeking, you know, it's that whole concept of getting an answer from him. Anybody that's got a willing heart, it's just a way to go deeper with him and find out more about where he wants to carry you through the year and the word. I think that's one of the things that I—is that by the end of the time you get there, obviously you see your participation in it, but you also see his as well. Darrell Bock Right.

And I love that idea that, you know, if you're willing to ask, oh, he would love to take you on the adventure. And we've seen that with so many people's experiences, especially when you have a community, right, that you walk with, whether it's a Sunday school class or whatever that Band of Brothers looks like in your life, to share your word of the year with this group is a phenomenal thing to watch their growth, which builds your faith, right? Like, if he can do it for that shmuck, no one's going to say that. Robert Chisholm There's a certain amount of vulnerability in it as well, you know, that sharing your experience and what you're learning is part of it too.

Darrell Bock All right. So, you know, I was—however that works, be the guinea pig in your group and say, well, man, if God will do it for Robby, they don't have to do something for me, you know, how it works. But nonetheless, moving along, we have three more that we didn't get a chance to do in the regular show. And so I'm very excited because to me, it's just a beautiful thing to watch somebody walk with God and to hear how that relationship actually plays out. And so, you know, Rodney, it's been quite a year for you, honestly, to see where God has had you. And so I love what he's doing here. Robert Chisholm Yeah.

That's always fun to find out after the fact what God's doing, because you go into it, you're thinking, oh, I know what he's meaning, but you don't know. So, again, for this, it's going to be the Masculine Journey, Aretha Franklin Blues Brothers Clip. So Robby just— Darrell Bock Christmas Eve Extravagance. Robert Chisholm Yeah, yeah. Darrell Bock Merry Christmas. Robert Chisholm Again. Darrell Bock And a Happy New Year. All right, the trivia question is, what is Rodney's word of the year for 2022?

Robert Chisholm And we've never had a wrong answer yet. So my word was freedom. And when I first got the word as, you know, a little over a year ago, I probably got it in November of last year, because I was starting early thinking, man, I better start praying into this and figure out what my word is.

And in November, I also got a letter from my wife's attorney saying, hey, you know, she's seeking for divorce, this and that. I'm like, okay, it's taking the next step, the next chapter. And all my thought was, well, that must be what the freedom's about then. And it really wasn't. It played a part for sure. But what it did is really always played a part with my expectations. I always had this expectation of, okay, well, it's going to happen.

It's about you separating from your wife, and you're going to have a new life, and things are going to be different, and you're going to have this freedom or something. And I'm like, okay. And as the year went along, here we are in December, and we finally signed the separation agreement.

And I think January 3rd, the divorce will be final. So there's been a lot of change, to put it kind of mildly, because it's just, it's weird. But my relationship with my kids is different. My relationship with my wife is different. We really are actually free to be more vulnerable and talk with each other, because there's nothing on the line. There's not all the mess and muck and other things that are in that kind of world. And we've had some very good conversations, and it's actually been nice in freeing to go talk with her about things, to talk with my kids about things, and not have other distractions going on with relationships that aren't doing well.

So there's a lot of freedom in there. And then you have things with work, relationships like just with my mom, and just going back and finalizing that this year, I decided, well, I'll go back and spend Christmas with my mom, because I hadn't been able to do that for a long time. And just having some deep spiritual talks with her and her faith and mine and church experience and where we're going and how that's working in our lives and how that's going to work out. Because then, very unfortunately, Annie, with you losing your mom, just brought up very deep conversations.

So I was like, yeah, Annie just lost his mom. And we started talking. And just well, how are we going to do things? And that was even, it's kind of been a topic of conversation for us.

How are we going to handle things at that point in time? And it just allowed me to have a freedom in knowing what my mom's heart is in that, which it's just interesting how things work. As Andy's grieving his mom, I'm thinking about him, and I'm just, you know, it's hard to hold back the tears when I'm just sitting there with my mom, just thinking, you know, that could be me. And so just having that freedom to be able to talk and communicate and do those kinds of things where I wouldn't have had the same space if I wouldn't have been thinking about this. And it's just one of those things with the Word of the Year.

It's kind of like my personal topic with God. So if the word freedom comes up, if you see it in the Bible, especially, you know, when you hit these topics and you see the concept of freedom in the Bible, or you get freedom in somebody's life, it doesn't have to be the word exactly, but you get the concepts. It's just amazing how it just jumps out at you. All of a sudden, it's like the antennas go up, and you're like, you're alerted to that, and you're on it real quickly, and you're paying close attention. And that's what I really enjoy about having the Word of the Year, because it brings me to something that has some focus.

And even the old words still pop up all the time. And like David was saying, you kind of get a storyline over the years as to, oh, this is what's going on. This is where God's taken me so far. And it does get kind of exciting about, oh, look where I get to go next.

And that's fun. Yeah, it's really, really hard to see, you know, to watch a friend go through the stuff we've watched you go through this year. But I do admire what you said, you know, when you were getting ready for the show is, you know, you think about freedom when it comes to like, oh, man, but by the same token, the question really becomes, what will you do with that freedom?

Right? And God walking with you, and now you're, you do have some freedom you didn't have before, and what does he intend for to redeem that time? That clearly is not what, you know, you had planned to three years ago, in any way, shape, or form. So, you know, yes, it's really, it's amazing. And I am just so grateful for the transparency, right?

Like how many guys are going to get on a Christian talk show and talk about, you know, what they're going through in their separation of their life. I mean, you know, and so, you know, it's of great value, because all of us, including me, have been down that road or will be going down that road. It's not what we want. It's not what you wanted.

No. But it is what God brought, and away you go. So Andy, it's great to have you back.

I know it's been a particularly difficult couple of weeks, right before Christmas, but it's your turn. So my word of the year was charity. I felt like I saw it down in my spirit, driving back to Boone one night, and I kind of translated it to love. Charity sometimes gets pigeonholed at just giving to the poor, and that's a part of it. Obviously, it comes from a source of having concern for humanity other than yourself, but I think it's so much more than that. And some of the shows we've done before and the initial show and the mid-year show of just talking a lot of focus on 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, and it so much defines love.

But there's so much more to it even than that, I believe. What I think I experienced this year is more of the focus of being more intentional in spending time with people, quality time, giving them undivided attention. For example, my mom did pass away right before Christmas, but this year I was able to bless her in a lot of different ways. One was to honor her on one of her radio shows here, one of the podcasts for Mother's Day. Then I took her on a trip, a two-week trip, to Missouri, and I was able to honor her on one of her radio shows here, one of the podcasts.

One of the podcasts for Mother's Day. Then I took her on a trip, a two-week trip, to Missouri. Just a wonderful trip. Well, both of us were blown away.

And I don't know, I guess, by looking in retrospect, it was kind of led by God because of what was coming up. And then she came up and spent time with me in the mountains she loves, that I love, the mountains, and came up and wanted to experience it. And all those things, I just really felt a sense of love. Now, you know, that's love in your family. There's nothing unique in it other than being.

Sometimes I had a tendency to not always be present with my mom, and I was much more present during those times. But this clip that we have kind of goes along with it. It talks about heaven, which is kind of on my mind this week, obviously. But it really, it gets into this little boy, Colton, who goes to heaven during one of his surgeries. It gets really bad, and he goes to heaven. He comes back, and he has a lot of information that he shouldn't have that kind of validate his story. But his dad's a pastor, and this is a whole dialogue from his dad. And the church is almost dividing on the fact that some people kind of, maybe religious, don't believe that, and it's kind of divisive. And he's trying to, the pastor's trying to lead them through that and kind of bring some healing.

He makes a couple points about love that you'll hear. I apologize. There was a long clip. I chopped up a lot.

So there's not a lot of transition time, but enjoy the clip. I'm standing here today with wounds that are still healing, fears that are still echoing. And in that way, maybe some of you are sitting here this morning exactly like me. I can say truthfully that the pain that I suffered, it was nothing compared to watching my son act close to death. So now we got a question. Was Colton in heaven?

Yes. He was in the heaven that God showed him. Is heaven real? Because if heaven is for real, we'd all lead different lives, wouldn't we? Would we?

Really? Haven't we already seen heaven? In the first cry of a baby, the courage of a friend, the hands of a nurse or a doctor, the love of a mother or father, haven't we already had a glimpse of heaven and so often chosen the hell of hate and fear? Is heaven for real? Every single one of you has asked that question.

All of us have. And for me, the answer is yes, I see it. So I believe it.

What we believe changes what we perceive. And I believe that God, He's love. 10,000 times I've been here and I've talked about on earth as it is in heaven.

And I don't know that I ever listened to that. And my son, he saw something. He saw heaven. He'll tell you all about Jesus.

How about that name? Jesus. Ooh, Jesus creates so much hope in so many of you, so much distrust in so many others.

That's okay. I believe God asked me to be a pastor. Did He insist on my vision being the same as yours or yours? Of course not. Did He make me one of those heroes like that lion and the bear and unicorn I preached about?

No, that's what I wanted. God had a different plan. God crushed my pride, opened my heart to love. And all I have to do, the one thing this love requires is that I let others know they're not alone. Basically, he spoke about love, that he wanted people to know, to love them by telling them that they're not alone. And that's another thing, you know, that I want to convey, you know, that there was a message in there that God is love.

All this stuff starts just kind of circulating around. I just, I feel like there was just such a sense that I carried though differently than what I had, that love was, you know, they just talked about love's not a feeling. But if you're engaged with God and that's your word and you're getting the technical concepts, what it is, what it isn't from the Bible, but your heart draws into it more to where you're actually feeling that emotion. I felt different this year than I have before on love. And I was much more sensitive when I wasn't being loving because that happens occasionally, a time or two here or there. But, you know, what better word that you can build your life on is love.

I mean, obviously that says the greatest of all those, faith, hope, and love is love. And I don't know, it just, this word will always impact me. I think I've told before that I used to hear people get that and I was always getting these different words and I'm just kind of envious, but there was a time and a place.

And the fullness of time and the fullness of time it came about that I got that word. And again, just, you know, you also heard him talking about how, he was talking about how as a pastor is everybody, everybody's supposed to see things the way he sees them. And he was, he was giving people the idea that you got to have grace for other people to have different opinions and stuff. That's a form of love.

That's in 1 Corinthians 13, that, you know, it's not always your way and stuff. So again, I look back at the year, it's a perfect word for what happened this year with my mom. She loved me well. I feel like I loved her well. I wasn't perfect. And I think sometimes pretty, sometimes she and I could have a difference of opinion, but all in all, I just feel like I had the perfect word for this year.

Yeah. And when I think of that word, love, and, you know, we had a chance, some of us didn't spend dinner tonight together and, you know, Andy, when we first spoke after your mother's passing, you're really concerned about the timing of it. Like it wasn't her time because, you know, she was standing there talking to me and then she, you know, was at your house. And then you said something that just struck my heart. It was absolutely beautiful.

And I never really processed it before, but it really spoke of the love that you have for your mother in spite of the fact that obviously you miss her completely. But you said, how cool is it that she got to celebrate Christmas in heaven for the first time with all those people? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sure she, if she was on this side and she told, I don't know, she didn't want to leave this earth, I know that, but I know now where she's at. I mean, and she is truly, they've got to be celebrating Christmas. They have to do that. They probably celebrate Christmas every day, I guess, right?

But she did. She was celebrating Christmas in heaven this year. So, yeah. And so it being New Year's Eve, just saying, how'd you figure that out?

You're getting me messed up with all this back to the future stuff. So here's some fun facts that I don't know if you've ever considered, but you know, I'm here to challenge you that, you know, Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, right? So I don't know if you've done the math on that, but interestingly, the Greek Orthodox is apparently have different math than we do because that would put it somewhere around the third of January, but they celebrated as a festival on the first day of January.

Did you know that? It's the day that Jesus—and there's a lot of reasons that that's a miracle, okay? So the number eight is the miracle, you know, number in so many different ways. And so the fact that he was circumcised on the eighth day means that that was the name that he was given, Yeshua, Jesus, which was given to him by the angel that told both Mary and Joseph, this is the guy, right?

And so the fact that he had a name which means salvation in Hebrew, like, that in itself is a miracle. Well, let's look at some other eight days just for those eight-day lovers like I do that, you know, in the book of Luke, when it talks about that he was going to go up the mountain of transfiguration. If you look, it mentions that eight days later, after he was talking about some of you will not see God before the kingdom of heaven comes again.

I mean, some of you will see God before the kingdom of heaven. Well, eight days after that, they went up the mountain of transfiguration. And then in the book of John, when Thomas, you know, I figure he was the David in the group. He says, I ain't believing it until I stick my finger in his hands and stick my hand, you know.

That was my last name. Right. And fascinatingly, if you go look at that passage in John, you're going to see eight days later. There he was, and he got a chance to do that. So, you know, it's kind of neat, really, from my standpoint that here we are on the eve of the eighth day, you know, and just for those lovers of math. And my math would be that he came into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry on a Sunday. Well, when he was resurrected eight days later, right, it was the ultimate miracle of all time, which also happened. And I don't know if you knew this, but it's cool that the temple – that the temple was cleansed in the eighth day, right, originally.

And so the temple was really cleansed on the eighth day after the triumphal entry, just saying. Some things to put together as you're thinking about the fact that it's New Year's Eve. So I guess you guessed it. It's my turn. And my word of the year – how fun. I hope you all get this word at some point in time – was delight. And so I had begun a delightful journey last year in memorizing the 119th Psalm, which is where God had me.

And so I went on to – I never would have dreamed, you know, again, for those of you who have not heard the story, it started out the year before with the word engage. And so part of that engagement was he wanted me to memorize these different Psalms. When it came to the 13th Psalm, he says, I want you to memorize the 13th Psalm. And I had no clue what the 13th Psalm was. I said, well, man, I hope it's not a long one. Well, the very first verse in the 13th Psalm is how long, Lord?

He does, right? And when I read that, I just burst out laughing, right? But it's a very relevant Psalm. But fortunately – and I recall it only has eight verses. This is a really short one, easy one to memorize. But then he came through with my engagement and said, okay, we're going for the big boy, 119, 176 verses. Number eight becomes significant in that Psalm. And so, as I never would have dreamed at my age, I can't even remember what day it is, obviously.

It's not Christmas Eve. No, that I could memorize. But the delight of having finished that in 2023 was remarkable, the delight of quoting that on my way to work. And then he took me into an even just more delightful experience for me, because he knew that my favorite book in the Bible is the Song of Solomon.

And so, then he had me memorize the Song of Solomon in 2023 and to say that was delightful and continues to delight me all the time, right? There you go. And so, these guys are all showing me that I only have two minutes left. No. 22, not 23.

Oh, 22, not 23. Oh, they're showing, they're giving me hand signs of like, man, I'm running out of time. So, there I was memorizing the Song of Solomon. And I want to get down to my clip, right? And the idea of delight was, believe me, anybody listening to my podcast know how much I delight in the Word of God and how much I delight in experience this book. But what I was really praying for was to have that kind of experience, not just first thing in the morning, you know, when I would go spend, you know, three hours with God. I wanted to take it out into the playing field, you know.

I wanted to, you know, select that time when I went salmon fishing or steelhead fishing up there with Terry and them. And I got to catch that steelhead while engaging God, like speaking to him directly, knowing that he was in communion with me at that moment meant the world to me. And then, a couple weeks ago, I was hunting. And actually, I had, you know, due to some really strange circumstances, my stand wasn't in place.

So, I'm having to shoot from this walking stick because we don't have anything to rest a gun on. And so, I was just praying, like, God, it'd be really cool to have a hold of this staff, which I know is you biblically, it's the staff. I said, I want to have a hold of you as I'm shooting and know that this is the shot you want me to take. And so, as I'm finished that prayer, I turn around, there's three deer standing there, okay? I said, which one do you want, Jesus?

I mean, we got the staff in hand, which one do you want? Okay, you want that one. And I'm like, and I put the shot where it should go and away it went. And I missed. But you know what I delighted? And you don't get to hear my clip, but it's okay because I wanted you to hear how I delighted. And so, you can delight this year in your chance to get your word of the year. So, all you have to do, again, is just ask, what's my word of the year? And then, listen, and then write it down.

For goodness sakes, write it down because the enemy would love to steal that from you. Begin to pray with that, pray through it, begin to go on that adventure. And then, how cool, share it with others so they can see your journey. And you'd be shocked at how many other people will all of a sudden start that. So much more fun. So, we've got an entrenchment coming up. It's free January 27th through the 29th. This is the Truth Network.