2023 Word Of The Year Finalized After Hours

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Thank you. Go to YouTube, Masculine Journey Radio YouTube, and watch this on there if you'd like. Or you can go back and watch it after the show if you want to go see what David just did to Andy. And I'm hoping you're watching something.

Yeah, and may not be watching anything. We'll have to see. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we're on or not. Okay. Well, Rodney, while I got you back on the microphone, you want to set up a little bit. We'll have to do a big setup. If people are just joining for the after hours, what are we talking about today?

What are we finalizing? I don't know. Well, there you go. Let's go back to your clip. Dazed and confused.

That works really well. This is the word of the year, year, year, year. Ta-da. So we hijacked this from Wild at Heart team. Robby hijacked it. We co-opted it.

We put up with him doing this for a little while, but his antics, his energy kind of ends up taking over after a while. And it's like, all right, we'll try it. Some of us tried it a little harder than others, and we've grown in it. And we've all kind of got to the point where we really enjoy having a word that we can soak in and be with God in for a full year and brings meaning into our lives, our journey with God. And it's just a word that it can be a phrase also, but it's just something you pray for at the beginning of the year. It says, Lord, where are we going this year?

Where do you want to take us? Can you give me a word at the beginning of the year that's going to be something we can have a relationship through for the rest of the year? And it's just one of those things where some of us in certain years have just incredible breakthrough. It's wonderful.

This is all what's going on. It's not always like wonderful and like good. Sometimes it's like, wow, there's some negative in there, but it's telling. It's very comforting to know that God's bringing you to a place ahead of time so you can actually – He's preparing you for some things, and you don't even know it. But after you've had it, you're like, oh, I see where we're going, why we're doing that.

It's very wonderful on the back end to kind of have that early. So that's what we do. We do the word of the year. So we're finishing up 2023. We started last week with part of the team doing their word, and then those of us that weren't here or weren't able to talk last week are doing our word and finishing up this week. And then next week we'll start with word of the year 2024.

So we'll do that for probably a couple shows, and then we'll get back into our regular shows. But Harold, do you want to talk to us a little bit about your word of the year? Oh, I had one that – it's one of those that you get slapped in the face, and you know exactly why. For most of my lifetime, I was a very angry person. I had road rage before they had a name for it. And there were those times that if I could have run somebody off the road and gotten away with it, I probably would have. Just a real nasty temperament for whatever reason.

My fuse was about an eighth of an inch long, and it was just not the right way to be, but I excused it for far too long. That's just the way I am. You know, I can't be any other way, and that was stupid. But anyway, the word that I had is exasperation, and that is a feeling of intense irritation or annoyance. It can lead to injudicious action, being frustrated or angry because of something that is happening or something that another person is doing. And I had described once before that when we used to make road trips back to Alabama, I would get mad even before getting in the car. Because I anticipated that there were going to be people out there that were going to block me, and I couldn't go as fast as I wanted to go. And I usually wanted to go fast. But with this word, exasperation, I'm really pleased to be able to say that I ain't that way no more. I still see what I consider to be stupid actions on the part of other drivers, but I handled it differently. I don't get angry and upset. I just try to stay out of their way and not get hurt.

You know, I used to block people because I would get so angry at people. You've got a situation where a lane is ending due to construction or whatever. And instead of people merging back a mile back where you could maintain a reasonable speed, everybody wants to get to the front.

So everybody has to stop and you merge like ants, which would just infuriate me. And so when I had people that would actually get off on the apron and go forward, I pulled off and blocked them. I realized that's a good way to get shot, so I quit doing that. But it's been an amazing trip that God has taken me on. And I have to give the Holy Spirit credit. I can't take the credit myself, but I am a different person from that angry guy for so many years. I mean, you were way ahead of the curve on the road rage thing. Well, you have been driving for a lot of years. But you crank the car to start it.

No, I'm just kidding. I thought it was foot motorized, like Flintstones. No, believe it or not, as a young child, I saw the cars being cranked.

They had a crank in the front. Well, the other thing I was going to say is you're way ahead of UFC martial arts because you were a kickboxer long before they talked about any of those ultimate fighting stuff. I just want to know if he's getting his royalties or not. Because from Talladega Nights, you should get royalties.

I want to go fast. You should be getting your royalties. When you get to be this age, you can look back over a long period of time and see things that you just say, you know, did I really do that? Was I really that way? And you have to admit the truth. Yes, I was.

Kind of exasperating. But, you know, the real joy is that God let me live long enough to get past that. Good. That is good. Rodney, obviously, somebody had a dictionary.

I was reading off his phone. Harold, as much grief as we give you, you know, we you know, we love you. But you give me a lot of encouragement. Right. Because the old adage of you either get bitter or better in life.

You've chosen to get better. Yeah. Right. And there's a lot of 80 year old wasn't a lot of 80 year olds. But a lot of the 80 year olds I know right have chosen the bitter route. And then they wonder why people don't want to talk to them.

Well, it's because they're just really bitter and have a focus on getting beat. Yeah, exactly. You know, you've talked so much about boot camps. Yeah. You know, and you've chosen the path continually to get better.

Right. And that's an encouragement to me. Because there's things that I hold on to which you guys know, you know, there's things I'm stubborn about. And then, you know, when I hear you talk, I look back and go, that's one of those things. I look back and go, why was I so stubborn for so long?

Right. That's something I need a breakthrough on and just kept holding my ground for no real reason. How many people do you ever run into say, man, I wish I'd have been more stubborn.

You get later in life. Oh, I need to be more stubborn. Yeah.

Yeah. And you get clarity when you look back and go, yeah, how dumb was that? But thank you for the encouragement and thank you for demonstrating that to us. We appreciate it as much of a hard time as we give you. Oh, I relish it, to be honest, because it really does make me feel loved and accepted. I mean, I'm quite a few years older than the rest of you guys in the room, but you treat me like a peer. And so, you know, I feel like I fit in. You do fit in.

That difference in age. Where's your sidekick? He disappeared on us.

Yeah, he did. Art's not in here. Where's wherefore? Wherefore art thou? Wherefore art thou? Well, I'm just calling him wherefore for short.

We shorten everything. Yeah. We'll try to find a funny response here later. Sorry.

Way to be myopic, Sam. I know. I got a dictionary. So, thank you.

Are you done with your word? I'm sorry. We kind of just jumped right in on that. We do that.

We hijack. Yeah, I think that's it. Okay. Well, thank you.

Sorry. My word of the year. My word of the year this year was family. And part of it was, my word of the year last year was talents. And it really felt God calling me out of my comfort zone and to invest more in the ministry, to invest more at work, to invest more differently at work, not more at work. Invest more in some stuff that I do with the Hope Center. And I spend a lot of time trying to push my talents, the things God's given me, that I can do well or even okay, you know, to push into those and to give out of those instead of holding onto them for myself.

A lot of times I wouldn't risk. And so two years ago that word was talents. In doing that, and when God gave me family at the first last year, I realized pushing into talents did come at a cost sometimes. There were times that I chose to do something that I needed to do maybe for the Hope Center instead of doing something with one of my kids.

Right? Because I had to go help there. I was already committed. And so when God gave me family, I'm like, okay, I don't think I over-invested last year, but I can't really invest at the same way that I did because there was a cost to that investment.

Does that make sense? And so when God gave me family, I knew pretty quickly, okay, this is about investing back into my family. And so, honestly, all year last year, I can't think of a single time when my family asked me about doing something or wanted to do something that I didn't make myself available to do it. There were times that maybe I didn't feel like going to do it, I'd rather just go home and relax, but I got invited to dinner, I got to this or I got to that.

And God would say, remember the word family. And I did it. And I look back at last year and it was a great investment.

You know, got to travel a lot last year. God pushed my understanding of the word family, what he did for me. I mean, I've always came from a close family. We had arguments, we had this stuff, but we were a close family. And so I was always raised in a close family. And my kids and I have all been close. They were raised in a close family.

And so to be intimate as far as conversations and stuff, we'd always kind of done that. Right? So that wasn't anything new, but God was saying, that's with your immediate family.

What about the family I send to you that isn't blood? Right? You guys. You guys are family. Right?

I mean, I share more with you guys than I do with anyone else. Right? You guys are family. But he also pushed my concept of beyond that to my daughter-in-law's family and really investing in them. I took a trip this year with my daughter out to see a family out there that was having a baby shower.

Right? But it wasn't my immediate family. But God's saying, no, that is your family now. Yeah, it's married into it, but that's your family and you're going to be around those people. And so I've given you that family.

And this year I've invested in them more and more. Right? And God's expanded that thought of who family is. And it's been really good and it's been really healthy and it's been really rewarding.

Right? And so one of the other things I got to do is travel down to Florida to my brother and sister-in-law's 50th wedding anniversary. That was in September and it was a big get-together for him and it was a big deal. And me and three of my other siblings were able to get together for it and it was an amazing event. And when I left there, just something in my heart said, I don't know that we'll be able to do this again, all four of us, because we're all getting older. You know, I'm the youngest, you know, so if you guys, you just know me, right?

I'm the youngest, they're much older, right? And just looking at their health kind of, it's not age, it's health. And I'm like, okay, I don't know that we're all going to be able to do this much longer, not knowing that I'd get a call a couple weeks ago that my brother was in the hospital, the one that had the 50th wedding anniversary, was in the hospital and had a collapsed lung and his kidneys were shutting down and they were giving him antibiotics. And I just kept thinking, okay, you know, he'll pull through, it'll be okay.

And then less than 48 hours later, he was dead. He had passed away and I was really grateful for the time. You know, I wouldn't have missed that. I was from a close family, I wouldn't have missed that event.

But you can be at something and not be in tune. You can be at something and not be engaged, right? And I felt God really say, no, I want you to be engaged with your family this year. And so when I was there for the four days or five days I was down in Florida, I wasn't really on my phone much.

I really wasn't doing much other than maybe texting my daughter or doing something, catching up on stuff, because I was engaged and I was there. I was invested. I don't think I've ever watched so much Longmire in my life. It's a TV show. It was one of my brother's favorites, but it was odd, like 24-7, right? I always watch one this week just to think about my brother, you know? But I was so grateful for that word, right?

And so I'm going to go ahead and play my clip, and then I'll come back and talk a little bit more about it. This isn't an exact match. In order to understand the clip a little bit, the family I was born into was my normal, which was everybody's situation, right? But it was not society's normal at the time. When I was born, my parents had both been married before. My dad had had two daughters and was much older than my mom, and my mom had two sons and a daughter. And so we were like the Brady Bunch family before there was a Brady Bunch family, and I was the addition.

I was the one that came along later. But the clip that I got is from a movie called Instant Family, and this is about foster care, and this was not part of my relationship, but I want you to listen to this, and I'll come back and talk about why I chose this clip. But it's a trailer for the movie Instant Family with Mark Wahlberg, and they adopt some kids. There are so many kids in foster care, and they're having an orientation. Ellie, people who take in foster kids are really special. They're the kind of people who volunteer when it's not even a holiday.

We don't even volunteer on a holiday. Over a half million children are currently in foster care. The county puts these on because they can match a lot of kids and parents quickly. Look at the big kids. Everybody's avoiding them. I'm going to go and say hi. But they're teenagers, okay?

They use drugs, and they watch people playing video games on YouTube. We're not equipped for any of that. Hi. This is FYI. We can all hear you. It's okay. We'll mingle with the kiddies and don't give it another thought.

Bye-bye. She was cool. Lizzie comes with two younger siblings. Three kids? Too much. No, they're adorable. Why would you show us that? That's wrong. Here we are.

Make yourself at home because you're at home. Do you like the Cougars? I'm more of a Lakers fan. You hate me because I like the Clippers. I think the Clippers are awesome. They were smart for trading Blake Griffin.

They're best players. I don't want this. Just stay there until the fire department comes, okay? You're just another lady who wants to adopt charity orphans to make you feel good about yourself. Pretend, Mom. We might have a little bit of a knack for this. I beg to differ.

This stuff takes time. Lizzie had to parent Juan and Lita all by herself. This is never going to be easy.

But with some structure and love, you could make your house a home. Lizzie! We love you.

Please go away. All right, let me text her, okay? Thanks, Daddy. I just got my first daddy.

I want some of that. Hey, honey, can I help you with anything? Nope. What are you doing to my phone? Look at what this boy texted her. Is this that kid, Jacob? Hey, I saw the picture you sent for Jacob. Great, Jacob. You're lucky I lived your life right now, Carrot Top. We're going to call your mom.

You're going down today. So what do you think of that, Jacob? My name is not Jacob. What? Okay, okay, okay. Okay, sorry, that's a much better visual clip than it was an audio clip. But bear with me, it was really hard to try to- Trailers most of the time are.

Yeah, yeah, that one was- go watch the video. Yeah, I didn't have it in me to look through a lot of family clips. And so the reason I picked that, there was a reason I picked that was, you know, I was born into what was at some point an instant family. We had people that didn't live together, had not grown up together, all of a sudden they're a family, right?

Not totally different when you get married and you get a whole bunch more family, right? But I was born into this instant family. But for me, my perception always was they're just my brothers and sisters.

I was always raised that way. You know, they beat me up just like any other brother and sister would. And my sister did do that. She was older than me for a time.

She was able to do that, right? But they were also the first one to protect me, right? When someone else wasn't going to pick on me, no, they would stand up and they were going to be there for me. You know, that's what family does, right? And so I was born into a family that a lot of people would say, well, that's just a half brother.

That's not, you know, this or it's just a step, this or whatever. No, it was a family, right? And so I was really grateful for that word this year, really grateful that God led me in some different directions with it throughout the year. And I'm running out of things to say right now about family.

But no, it was just a – I'm very, very grateful. There was a piece of me all year that kept saying, God, I know you gave me this for a reason. I don't know what it is, you know, because I've had some scares with other family having some health issues, you know, and it's not a distrust of God in any way, but to be very transparent, that's kind of had in the back of my head, God, am I going to lose somebody this year? Is family my word because I'm going to lose someone?

You know, I don't know who it is, so I've got to love them all well, right? And I didn't know. He didn't say, yeah, you're going to lose someone.

I just kind of wondered. And so when my brother passed away, yeah, it was unexpectedly, but it wasn't in some ways. It was unexpected it was him. But kind of in a way, God was letting me know, you better love your family while you got them, right, because there's no guarantees, you know, along the way. And so, again, I'm waxing on a lot, but I'm very, very grateful for that word. For me, I'm solidly into the word of the year moving forward, you know, because the last couple of years have really changed me. And so you guys hold me to that, right, that, you know, there's life in God's words, right, and this is just another way to get more life from him.

Yeah, that when you talk about, we talk about not just getting a word of the year, but an advanced word of the year. So you're getting something for the future. And I think that's in the grace of God. He was quite prophetic and positioned you to experience family more, to be more present with them, I think is kind of what you suggested. And I think that, I think it gives you and enables you, I've never really looked at it this way, a lot of it is to learn and that kind of thing, but it positions you in a way to best live your life. God knows what the future is, you don't.

And he gives you the word for that season, for that year. What I thought was really kind of cool about losing my brother, not that that was cool in any stretch of the imagination, but things that come from it. I have an older sister, Connie, that I love her dearly. We just, she's much older than me, and we just don't have a lot in common. And so we don't have a lot of, and our schedules are way off. You know, I mean, she's been retired for a number of years, and I don't know her schedule, but it seems like a lot of times when I call, she's asleep.

And so I don't want to do that. And so I just really haven't talked to her much over this last year. That was the one family member I really hadn't talked to a lot, and it wasn't intentional.

But when I had to call her and let her know about her brother, pass away is my half-brother, her step-brother. We talked some that day, and we talked a lot last week, and that's a lot of what I did last week was talk to family. But her and I agreed we need to be better, and so we made a pact. We're going to talk at least once a month.

We're going to start with that. And I'd had a little bit of a challenged relationship with her son. I don't know why.

I don't know what caused that rift. But he and I talked for about an hour on Thursday, and I don't know when we'll talk again, but we realized it had been almost eight years since we'd really talked, and we'd been really close. And so God was just still taking that word, saying, okay, I'm still going to give you more investment in family. And so out of my brother's death, one of the good things will be is I'll be closer with some of my other family because I'm going to need to be more intentional.

And they realize the need, too. That's one thing you can learn from it. I think one thing to not shy away from what the Word of the Year does is, I think, yes, it builds each year, but we don't ever actually lose that word. It doesn't go away. It's kind of like, oh, you had this word in 2023, and now it's 2024, and you forget that, and it goes away. I mean, you're still going to always work through those words, even from hearing the stories of y'all talking about doing it for multiple years. Y'all are still continuing working on those words.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. What it does, as you change because you see a desire to change, that habit, that word becomes a part of who you are. And so, yeah, it is always with you because you've lived it for a year, right? And so I'm hoping that I don't lose traction on words in the past, but God just helps me to redefine them in different ways or see them in different ways. Danny, did you have something?

I was going to basically say the same thing, but it is an investment into who you are and your identity, and so it helps you let go of things like we've heard and also break away from things, but it also builds things in your life. So how many of you have your word for this upcoming year? Very many of you? I think I do. Okay. I think I can.

Robby got his in like June, so yeah. I think Rodney's word is going to be driving the bus. Is that what the word is going to be for us here? Driving the bus. Yeah.

It's not the topic of the show. Put it in reverse. Yeah, put it in reverse. Road bump, something. Run them over, run them over.

Drive 55. Yeah. Ooh, I like that.

Well, I know you've already had ramrod as a moniker for a while, so maybe God's got something there for you. Well, what other things do you want to talk about? We've got a couple more minutes. Anything on your heart?

Anything on your mind we can talk about? Anything more about the word of the year? Crickets. Crickets, yeah.

Crickets. I was just thinking back. The first word I got, and I won't tell how I got it. It'd be too much information, but that first year I was praying and I just couldn't seem to get it. But God kind of surprised me where I was at, and it was like clarity. And I had really been struggling with direction and stuff. And through that year I walked it out, and there was a lot of clarity that came. But to your point, Sam, I mean, I guess my life is brought on. Each year I've walked further and further down this road of the masculine journey that I've gotten more clarity.

Pretty on things that I needed to get to allow him to come into. Wounds, character building, walking out this thing. And I was stuck at wanting to understand. I think John Eldridge says at times, you can either have understanding or – Life or knowledge are the two choices.

And you can't have both, essentially. And it's important to understand that this is a walk of faith, but that clarity that God can give you in the due time and help you see what's going on in the past is important. Yeah, there are two choices in the garden, right? Tree of knowledge, tree of life. And so what we're talking about is choosing life. And when you choose life, you do get more knowledge in the midst of it. But just assure knowledge will not give you life. But you can't choose life and not get knowledge along the way.

So you get two for one. So this year, invest with God. Ask him for a word of the year. He may surprise you. He may make you wait a while. Maybe your word's patience, like David. You wait like a couple months.

But go to maskandjourney.org. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody well this week. And pray, pray for your word of the year. Talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.