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. 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.
Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are talking about one of our favorite topics that we talk about all year, other than boot camp, which we talk about, like, every other week. But this is the Word of the Year. We're doing our Word of the Year recap, not recap, update, mid-year update, you know, on how we're doing. And so, Danny, you want to help them kind of understand what we're talking about when you say Word of the Year, if they've not been listening to us.
So what we did with Word of the Year. What Andy said earlier. I'm not going to give up my position. I'm just messing. That wasn't Danny.
That was Andy. They booted me out of the explanation of Word of the Year, so I was offended. Yeah, we're going to cut off your mic. And it's going to be even longer than the earlier one. He keeps going. And as I was saying, every year we pray toward the end of the year for a word from God, give us a word for the year.
And we try to focus on that the rest of the year and see what he teaches us and what we learn and that kind of thing. So, yeah. And so you actually have your update first in this segment of the show. And I've been woefully, woefully. Something. Something. MIA.
MIA. I had to look up my Word of the Year to see what it was. We're going to do a refresher, so that's good. Word of the second half. I had to refresh my memory on what it was. So my word was adoption. And so I chose a clip from Man of Steel. But God had done some things earlier in the year with adoption because the Scripture says, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And so I'm always reminded that God has adopted me.
And that comes with some privileges. And this clip from Man of Steel is an interchange between the dad and Clark is learning who he is. He's a teenager in this clip. And so he tells him that he's from another world, basically.
But the interchange is just awesome. So we can play the clip. We found you in this.
We were sure the government was going to show up at our doorstep, but no one ever came. This was in the chamber with you. I took it to a metallurgist at Kansas State. He said whatever it was made from didn't even exist on the periodic table. That's another way of saying that it's not from this world, Clark. And neither are you. You're the answer, son. You're the answer to are we alone in the universe. I don't want to be. And I don't blame you, son.
It'd be a huge burden for anyone to bear. But you're not just anyone, Clark. And I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. All these changes that you're going through one day, one day you're going to think of them as a blessing. And when that day comes, you're going to have to make a choice.
A choice of whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not. Can I just keep pretending I'm your son? You are my son. But somewhere out there, you have another father, too, who gave you another name. And he sent you here for a reason, Clark.
And even if it takes you the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is. There were so many boot camp moments in that clip for me. He talked about you have another name.
And I thought about the new name talk we do at boot camp. But listening to that, Clark is beginning to experience who really is with his super powers. And prior to this scene, he had rescued some kids on a bus or something like that.
Yeah, they were in the water. Yeah, and they're like, well, you have to be careful with that. But the spiritual implications of that is that we have gifts from God, and Andy and I were talking about this earlier today, that there are things that you discover that God made you. And when you begin discovering that and your heart begins to come alive, you have the same choice, basically, that Clark did.
That you can kind of hide it under a bushel, like the scripture says, or you can stand and be who God intended you to be. And to me, that's what the adoption is, is me embracing who I am, rather than being that kid that didn't think he was accepted by anybody, especially God. And so embracing the adoption, especially this year, has been something special to me. Because I am discovering things I used to love doing, even some new versions of that, and spending more time outdoors with different stuff, and experiencing God in so many different ways. But knowing that I'm his son, and that's just kind of where I've gone so far when I did go.
Yeah, that's good. So one of the questions we'd ask, what has the word of the year meant to you over the time you've been doing it? How has God really impacted you, not just this year, but before? Well, once I figured out what you guys were talking about, I always love to tell that story, because I remember sitting in here, okay guys, we're going to talk about the word of the year, and I'm sitting here going, do I strike a pose and act like I know what they're talking about?
I'm going, I don't have a clue. But the concept of it has really been neat, because when you hear that from God, and then when I begin to unpack that, and we talk about it a lot, how mine have linked together, and just kind of built into something, and they all do go together. And I love what Robby said, he prays over his all the time.
I can't remember mine for a week. But it does have those special spiritual implications, knowing that God has a special thing for you this year. And, you know, about all I can handle sometimes is one word. Yeah, well, thank you. Grant, you had something you wanted to share? Yeah, this relates to what Rodney said about, thank you to the Lord. A lot of times, this week, a lot of times I've been thanking Jesus for little things, like thanking me for not looking at my iPhone when somebody's pulling over in front of me, or stepping on a pebble, and it's been mostly a purpose.
I think maybe so, I'd say today. Well, thank you, Grant, we appreciate that. Jim, you have the next word of the year, and the next clip, and our most played clip, the most, I don't think we can play it much more, it's wearing out, I don't know. Well, I was thinking, I've used it probably no less than six times.
I think we've used it the last six shows. But I have help, and Rodney's over there at the corner cheering for it, and he has used it at least once, because it was his clip I stole for this one. No, it wasn't my clip, it was the clip I made for you. Oh. You stole your clip. I stole my clip. Well, I liked your version better than whatever other version was on there. What a pun.
I should have known Andy didn't have the class to use this, right? Oh, oh, oh, wow. Okay. So that's the last clip you're getting for me, aren't you? Yeah, cutting you off from cutting clips. This probably was a bad lead-in to mine, which is integrity, and see if you can hear integrity in this clip.
In our most well-played clip. Here we go. I have heard.
You're the Grey Rider. You would not make peace with the Bluecoats. You may go in peace.
I reckon that. Got nowhere to go. And you will die. I came here to die with you. I'll live with you. Governments don't live together.
People live together. Governments, you don't always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well, I've come here to give you either one or get either one from you. I came here like this so you'll know my word of death is true and that my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the kamachi. And so will we. And we'll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the kamachi does.
And every spring when the grass turns green, the kamachi moves north. You can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the kamachi that will be on our lodge, that's my word of life. And your word of death? It's here in my pistols, there in your rifles. I'm here for either one. These things you say we will have, we already have.
That's true. I ain't promising them nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
It's said that governments are achieved by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all kamachi to see. And so there is iron in your words of life.
No sign paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of tin bearers carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life or death.
It shall be life. Jim, that's probably the single best use of that clip for your word. So I will give you that one. Well, and this one, this year, in looking at that word, I did it well for about a month.
But I'm pretty good at, oh yeah, what was my word after all? And that kind of points to my struggle. And when I saw it, it really hit home on a couple of levels that when I went back it's, oh yeah, that was it. It was, first of all, and this goes to my buddy here.
This was originally where I was going to go. But Danny talked about the name we're given. And my father, my grandfather, both had my name. I'm the third.
And the first name is James. And, sadly, that word described who I was for many, many years. It's deception.
It's, well, supplanter is one. But, and that, to me, I see that as kind of playing a role rather than being the real me. And I sold my integrity early and often.
And I would tell people what I thought they wanted to hear instead of what was true. If I didn't think I was going to hurt anybody, I didn't mind picking up something that wasn't mine. And I think of all of the traits a man can have, integrity is about the most precious one. And if you lose it, it's the hardest one to regain. And that's been my journey for a number of years. And I am still not where I'd like to be in that area, but I'm a lot better than I used to be. And the older I get, for obvious reasons, that's part of it, but also the longer I lived and the more I see the importance of that, the more I do resemble the integrity of my father, my grandfather, and, to a much less extent, my Father in Heaven.
But that's the goal, and that's a big one in my life now. Dr. Darrell Bock Right. And so what has the Word of the Year meant to you over the time you've been doing it? Dr. Darrell Bock Well, it was actually not new to me when Robby introduced it to the group.
I had done that as part of a study the year before and with the group and their church, and it was just among staff. And for a long time, the whole time I sat in that office, I had all my words of the previous years up where I could see them daily. And I kind of miss that because it reminds me both of the journey I've taken with this practice, and the importance of remembering the past words, and the life word, which was part of the original we did for me, was chesed, and now Robby can be happy because Hebrew wasn't forgotten in this time without him.
But that is � I'll just give you the Michael Card definition. That's when the one who owes you nothing gives you everything. And that is what God did for us through Jesus Christ, and that's a love that there is no match for. And love as my life word, and I did actually use the English version in one of the years, is central to us living so that we can hear from God when we arrive, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Dr. Darrell Bock Thank you, Jim. The word of the year, I would encourage you, it doesn't have to be at the first year, right? I mean, it could be, Robby did the word of the day for a while, but Robby's a little bit of an overachiever, but still, he did a little bit, but he did word of the day for a long time, and it was very, very impactful to his walk, and so that's what God called him to do, and Robby was obedient, and that's what he's done. He may still be doing that every day, I'm not sure, but, you know, whatever God calls you to, but it's something that will really draw you closer to him when you let him open that word up to you in the different ways, you know, that it can be used or applied, and when you're focused on it, you'll be surprised how much he throws you little things to remind you of it, right? When it's kind of in your peripheral, you know, you've got it there, you'll hear it in a TV show, or you'll hear it in a song, or you'll hear it somewhere that you didn't, oh, wait, that's there? It'll make you dig in, and that's when you take it back to God and say, okay, God, why? Why did you bring that point to me?
What do you want me to work on here? And just letting him work in your life, it's a really cool experience, and it gets to the point where I think most years, we don't want to give up the word at the end of the year, because we know there's still so much more that he can do with it, and you're in it to see where he goes. You know, sometimes we'll get the word at the beginning of the year, and you're like, ah, really, that's my word, you know, but when you give it to him and let him take you where he wants you to go, it's just an amazing adventure. A lot of times I forgot to say thank you. Yeah, exactly, exactly. For me, over the time, the word of the year, I was late to join the crowd. I was reluctant and resistant, and I'm like, eh, I don't know, that sounds kind of out there, not really sure. Go ahead, Andy, you want to say something? Yeah, you had to repeat the word. Like kindergarten.
I was going to do that. I got held back one year, I did. You know, I had... And then you got the word confused with the two years or whatever. I still get it confused, yeah, because I had one year I had believed, you know, and it was like, what do you truly believe at your core? And there was much more to that, but it was a year of unpacking not just what do I say I believe, but what do I truly believe, because what you believe is how you act, right?
It drives everything, right? And so your beliefs, and that was really my first year that I focused, and I think he gave me that word a couple years, but it could have been the second word I had, because the second word I had was faith. And it's like, where are you putting your faith?
Now, my second word built on the first one. You know, it was okay, okay, this is what you say you believe, but are you putting your faith there, right? You say you believe in me, that you believe that, you know, I'm this, I'm that, but is that the way you walk, right? And so it was a year of building my faith in many different areas. And then the next word that I remember him giving to me was gifts, you know, and he was calling me to say, okay, where are you engaging the things that I've made you unique in, or your strengths, or where are you giving them to people for the better, right?
And why are you hiding them? You know, and it was a year of calling me out, and in that year, I really engaged in lots of different things and lots of different ministries and things that God called me to. And then the next year, he gave me family because in the midst of that, I kind of ignored my family a little bit, not intentional, but my point was on, you know, what he had me working on this. And at the end of that year, it was very important that he gave me the word family because I lost my brother at the end of that year. And I was really glad that I'd focused the whole year on family when that occurred. I think I would have felt it was hard enough losing him.
But it would have been much harder had I not really focused on family for the year. And you never stop focusing on those words. Once he's kind of got you drawn in, it's always there, right? It's always in your DNA at that point. And so he's constantly building on it, whether that's your word of the year or not.
Darrell Bock Well, if you go through school and you're using a textbook for the whole year, the final exam depends on all those chapters you read, not just the last chapter, right? Scott Horrell That's true. That's true. And then this year, he gave me the word generosity or generous. And I thought, okay, God, I hear you saying I'm just a tightwad.
I don't like to spend money. And he's like, no, it's more than that. Yes, you're right. But it's more than that. And I do like to spend money just like the way I would spend money. And but generosity is so much more than things or money. And money is a part of it and giving that but being in generous of time, being generous of your intention, you know, attention to somebody when they're talking, right? That's a generous move to really listen and, and listen to understand not just to respond, right, that kind of thing.
And there's many, many ways to be generous. And God's been unpacking that this year for me, and I'll talk more about it. But I'm gonna get to my clip. But I will tell you a little bit a quick story about how I got my clip.
I was really struggling. You know, I go to all my go tos, I go to wing clips, you know, if I can't find anything, if I can't think of stuff, and I have a pretty good memory on movies and TV shows, and I can usually pull something. And this whole word, I've just had nothing. You know, I've really struggled to find a clip. And I'm like, I love the word, just don't know where I'm going to get a clip. And so I went to wing clips. Really, there were some things on there, but didn't speak to where God took out my heart and like, okay, so I went to YouTube, looked up stuff there. Yeah, really nothing there I could get. I went to my movie wall, I have a bunch of DVDs.
I'm looking through all the movies saying, is there anything that stands out? Nothing, I cannot find anything. And so my oldest son, who's been involved with this ministry, he's been to boot camps, he's helped out, called me and we're talking about something like, hey, so we're doing the show on the word of the year. He's like, Well, what's your word? And I told him, I said, I'm really struggling to find a clip.
Can you think of anything? He goes, Oh, yeah, how about this? And this is the clip I'm going to play.
It was exactly the right thing. This is from the Santa Claus to, you know, with Tim Allen. And in this movie, he's called to the Santa Claus. This time is not to become Santa Claus. But the Santa Claus is he has to be married. By the end of the year, he can no longer be Santa Claus. And so he goes back, you know, from the North Pole to the rest of the world. And he's back in society and in he's at his son's school. And he starts becoming interested in the principal of the school.
And he starts dating her in on their date, they go to a staff party for Christmas, a staff Christmas party that's really boring and really bad. And so he decides he's got to do something. Now, what you don't know, if you haven't seen the movie, is he has a magical watch, because this is, you know, Disney and Santa Claus and all that. But he's got this magical watch. And he's got only so many magic things he can do, and he can't get back home. And so he decides to take a good portion of his magic and invest in other people and not let them know that it was him.
And he gets some secret Santa gifts, and we're going to listen to it. Uh, could I have your attention? Your attention, please. There we go.
Hi, I'm Scott Calvin. And I just thought I'd step up here and say the word that we've all been longing to hear. Fire! What I think, folks, is that a lot of you just forgotten what the true spirit of Christmas is all about, hmm?
Golly, if you're not willing to dance or laugh or flirt or risk your lives at the buffet, I don't think we have much choice. So before the choir gets out here, I say we rock this house with the secret Santa. Oh. Carol, happy, happy Christmas. I think they're just decorations for the Carolers. She's afraid that these are just decorations for the Caroling. I think Carol is right about the Caroling. I'm talking about the packages that are backstage. There aren't any packages backstage.
Oh, there's none back there. So I was mistaken when I saw this bag of gifts. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure looks like a bag of gifts. Oh, it's heavy like a bag of gifts. Look at this. What's in here?
It's very heavy. John Pierce. Doesn't your mom call you JJ?
Merry Christmas, JJ. No way. This is toss across. I used to love this when I was a kid, but I never told anybody. Who did this? Grace Kim. Yes, there you are.
Merry Christmas. Tom Astle. Me, haven't changed a bit.
Lizzie Garcia. Here, here. There you are. Merry Christmas.
Welcome to Arkham Robots. This is incredible. What I really loved about that clip was that there was nothing he was going to get back in return. You know, and Jim, your definition of love, you know, that's he's giving, expecting nothing back. And it's just really cool to see him come alive when someone thinks of them and they don't even know who it is, you know, that there's somebody special to someone.
And so it was really neat to see that. And God's really worked on my heart on this topic of generosity in lots of ways. A lot of this year has been financial, you know, been a single parent for eight and a half years, nine years, time, a long time.
And, you know, although my ex-wife does split, you know, in cost with the kids and things, we both have our own households and got to run those. And it's hard, you know, it's hard having money. And you're concerned a lot of the times about having enough money. And so I found that over time I just got tighter and tighter and tighter and less generous and less generous.
And God's saying, I need you to trust me. And so there's been a lot of times financially this year, he's asked me to help somebody in a way, sometimes family, sometimes not. And I've just learned to say, okay, God, if you're saying to do it, I'm going to do it. And what he's really shown me is I've not really missed that money.
I think I'm going to when I do it, but something happens, something changes that I don't really ever miss it. And when he's saying, hey, I want you to be generous with your time or generous with your attention. There's been something that's paid back to me that I didn't expect. And it was not the motivation, but it was a great learning thing to say, look, God, I just need to trust you more than I trust this feeling, more than I trust my fears, right, that you're greater than all those things. You know, and the most generous thing I can do is just trust in you and walk with you because I know you got me.
There's no guaranteed outcome, but I know you know where the outcome is. And I got to trust that you're going to lead me to the right place I need to be. And so it's been a great year of learning about generosity. I'm looking forward to the rest of the year and how he's going to take me in different directions, or maybe just stay in the same vein this whole year.
I don't know, but it's really cool to be walking through that with him, knowing that he's knowing that he's going to help me get to a deeper place in that. And so, again, if you haven't had a word of the year, I just encourage you to do that this year, to take some time, do it this week, do it today. Say, God, help me see a word of the year. Help me hear a word of the year. Have it stand out for me that I know what you're talking about.
And then just walk with him in it. I know what you'll do. You'll get a word and you'll go, I don't think it's my word. Anyway, yeah, it is your word.
God will confirm it. And then you'll think you have a direction and he's going to take you in a totally different direction. Trust his heart. He's going to lead you to places that your heart needs to go. And a great place to do that would be at a boot camp. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the boot camp coming up November 21st through 24th and let somebody well this week. We'll talk to you next week.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-08-03 15:17:55 / 2024-08-03 15:29:46 / 12