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This is the Truth Network. 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.
Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week, and this is probably our most exciting week of the year. Well, it's one of the most exciting weeks of the year.
Well, they're all exciting, really, but it's one of them. Way to build it up there. Well, I was just trying. I was just trying to get some... Kind of went up and off a cliff. Well, it was. I was trying to get some interest, you know, but it is an exciting week.
I know you've been waiting on it. It's past mid-year, but it is our word of the year update. But it's not quite boot camp week, though.
No, it's not quite boot camp. Our favorite... This is the most exciting show for this week. It is. It's the most exciting show we'll do this week, except for maybe the after hours, which we'll do right after this one, but still.
Yeah, and if you don't listen to the after hours, you can do that at any podcast location. So we continue the topic that we talk about on the air show and continuing in the after hours. And so this week we're doing our word of the year update. And if you're a new listener or you haven't been paying attention when we have been talking about it, Andy, help them understand what we're talking about with the word of the year.
So word of the year is something that the Wild at Heart group... Rodney's messing with me over here. He's giving me the, well, the inquisitive eye. I don't know what the heck that is. But anyway... It's barely working. It is.
It's scaring me. Inform us, Andy. Keith, can I come in there and sit with you? He's on here.
He'd be a fan of the show. It's fabulous to produce our band at the show. That's right. But Wild at Heart does it years ago, probably five or six, maybe seven years ago, I guess now. But Robby was listening to it and he said, you know, that's a great idea. And he started doing it. And shortly thereafter the rest of us did it as he shared it with us. And it's just a way, I think a lot of people do it.
Some people do it in a different way. But, you know, at the beginning of the year you kind of consecrate your year to the Lord and you ask for a specific word and that could be a word or a phrase or a sentence. But it's something to give you context of something that God wants to emphasize for that year. And so we've had a variety of things. I've had some that just, you know, just seem like the perfect word for the year. And the other ones maybe not be as clear or maybe you get them and they're not very clear then as you walk them out through the year that they become, you understand a lot more. But it's been a life changer for all of us.
And why Sam said that, I think, about this is one of the most exciting times. Typically what we do is we get the word of the year and share it at the beginning of the year. And then we give an update halfway through the year and then we'll give a final update at the end of the year. So it kind of just gives you what's going on in our life and our perspective of what that word of the year has meant to us.
Yeah, adds a little intentionality to the year with Ford. It does. It never lands where you think it's going to go. I mean at some point throughout the year God will touch on where you think it's going to go invariably. You know, because often it's a place where he knows you need to work and you kind of know it too.
But you think, oh God, you're going to definitely go here and he goes in a lot of different places. And you're saying to yourself, how can you stay on one word for a year? You can stay on one word for a lifetime.
And to give you a word, love. You can just stay on that word for a lifetime and never fully understand it and how to apply it in all different applications and that type of thing. And word is what Jesus is.
That's what he's referred to in Scripture. When I was first introduced to this, you did a word of your life. And mine was love in Hebrew.
And it wouldn't be a show since Robby's not here without Hebrew. But my word is chesed. Bless you. The word, I went to see Michael Card for the last time next month.
Last month. Easy for you to say. I got no blood going to the brain. I apologize. Maybe your word for you should be clarity. Maybe next year except I'll never remember it.
But it's his life first. No, I remember my word. I just can't remember what month it is.
Last month I was at Michael Card. Seminar is basically a week Bible study. And he came up with what I think is the best definition for what chesed is. It's normally translated differently in Bibles. They made up words just to cover it. But it's basically love.
But his definition is it's when the one who owes you nothing gives you everything. Wow, that's good. And that is where I am for life. And I don't know where I am this year or even this week.
We're at this moment. And already Sam's wit reminds me of last week's topic where we really missed you on the humor side. Because I was like, that was really good. Thank you. I appreciate it.
I missed you guys too. Andy, you actually have the first clip. So if you want to tell us a little bit about either the clip, your word, however you want to go, which direction. So I'll go with my word first. And my word was teacher learn. And boy, we're going to have a fight here in the studio. This is easier than you staring at him. Rodney. If we ever had a week we needed to be on video, it was this week. Rodney's word of the year is aggravate.
He's doing well here. He's just trying to keep you from cheating by using notes. And I'm going to use them myself. So anyway, my word of the year was teacher learn. And really how it started was last year I'd started in the Old Testament. And I'd gotten to the Psalms. And I've always wanted to kind of know where the Psalms, where you have so many that speak to your life.
We know Psalm 23 and 91 and 103 and a variety of other ones. And I know a lot of them, but I even wanted to know it in more depth. And then I started reading through them. And then reading them through a study Bible that has great notes on it and gives me perspective. And then I've decided to go back through it.
But I got to Psalm 25. And this is when I got my word of the year. It just kind of just, these words of the year, sometimes they'll come through the word. Sometimes they'll come through you watching TV.
It's a variety of ways they come. But this one came through the word. But Psalm 25 was filled with an emphasis on learning.
So, 25-4, show me your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me. For you are God my Savior and my hope is in you all day long. And so, I'm trying to learn from the Psalms more of what each one is speaking and saying, but also applying that.
David had so much to say. And then the Psalms are quoted like crazy through the New Testament. And they're recaps some of the parts of the Old Testament.
But they're just so rich. And we all know the Psalms are, but I just never had really delved into them. But God has just been teaching me in that way. But in some ways I feel like I've gotten busy and not applied it as well. I'm really looking at refocusing on the second half of the year to really.
But I've both learned and taught some this first half of the year. But the clip I have is from Dead Poets Society. And it's where, I forgot the guy's name. Robin Williams.
I mean his real character. The teacher. I don't know. So anyway, first day of class they're opening their books. And they're looking at a book on poetry.
And the first thing it does is tell the students how to determine whether it's a good poem. And it's an analytical way of doing it. Yeah, it's a graph. It's a graph.
It's a comparison, an X and Y axis. And these guys are like, they started bringing out their rulers to mark this thing up. And he just tells them to rip out the first page. And his point you'll hear in here is the focus of what they're learning, what they're experiencing, what life is about. Poetry is something from the heart.
And beauty and poetry and these things. But that's the kind of learning I want to do is heart learning. Not just head learning, but heart learning. Getting understanding and wisdom from God. But not just from a knowledge standpoint. But from an experiential standpoint. But what really makes life work and matter. This is a battle. A war. And the casualties could be your hearts and souls. Thank you Mr. Dalton.
Armies of academics going forward, measuring poetry. No! We will not have that here.
No more Mr. J. Evans fishing. Now my class you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savor words and language. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. Now see that look at Mr. Pitt's eye.
Like 19th century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school. Right? Maybe.
Mr. Hopkins you may agree with them thinking yes we should simply study our Mr. Pritchard. And learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions. I have a little secret for you. Huddle up.
Huddle up! We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering. These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love. These are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman. Oh me. Oh life of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless.
Of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these. Oh me. Oh life. Answer. That you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
What will your verse be? Andy, were you in the bathroom when you recorded that? Because that's really bad quality. I'm blaming that on Robby. Is that a hollow? A copy he is. Okay, it sounds like a hollow echo.
I didn't even bother to do quality control. Yeah, Robby's not here. It only makes sense to blame him. Yeah, I would blame Robby.
We're going to blame him for everything. But poetry, Harold, did that ring a bell with you? Did that kind of strike a chord at all? Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of things that I can identify with. But poetry is one.
And my 83 years, we're getting the signal of limited time. Yeah. Well, go ahead. Go ahead. Is the beauty that I've seen.
All the computer programs I wrote are not worth a hoot and a holler. But I got a ton of poems that I've written, most concerning my sweetheart, that I'm going to leave behind, that people are going to be able to read and learn a lot more about me than they thought they knew. My persona is a lot different from what I used to portray.
I had a nasty temper. So why don't we come back with one of your poems. Once you have one teed up, we'll come back, we'll play the bump, and you can tell us one of your poems. Okay. All right. And so we're getting ready to go to break.
Or not to break. Well, whatever it is. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp coming up November 21st through 24th, masculinejourney.org. What we have in our bootcamp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there.
I listened to her Morgan Snyder's book, Driving to Work, last year, and that was a very profound experience. So this kind of culminated into it. God had been invited to it several times and just, it never worked out and God really had it set up that I came last time. So coming into this one, I knew this one went deeper and I really wanted it.
It's a break for me to get outside of things I've got going on and I just needed a break from it and needed to reconnect and it's been absolutely that, this process. The covenant of silence, silent prayer, those are some of my favorite parts. This is real connection with the Lord. You hear him speak, you can get direction, guidance.
Everything you're missing is there. You always learn something new. It's fun experiencing it with other men. It's fun standing for them and what they're going through. We're all different and unique, but we all go through the same struggles and when you hear somebody else went through it too, it kind of gives you an encouragement that, hey, you can make it through this and God's got you and He's going to hold you up through it and He's going to carry you to the next level.
Register today at masculinejourney.org. Words can build you up, words can break you down, start a fire in your heart or put it out. Let my words be life, let my words be truth, I don't want to say a word unless it points the world back to you.
Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That was Hock Nelson and normally I will read the words to you, but I chose not to this time because I want you to go look them up. It's such a great song. It's really, really cool.
Go look it up. Hock Nelson and the title of it is Words. We are talking about Word of the Year, but when we left off, Harold was getting ready to share some of his words in the form of a poem that he wrote. Would you tell us about that? Well, one of the things that I really love about poetry is the maximum meaning with the minimum words.
So to do that, you've got to think, and I enjoy it. One of the poems that I wrote in this one was long years ago. I scribbled it out on a piece of paper initially, and the poem said, I am you, you are me, together we are one, strange, love the key of us till time is done. Subsequent to that, we had our picture taken in her sister's neighborhood in Huntsville, Alabama at the intersection of Harold and Janice.
We had our picture taken smooching underneath the street sign with our names. Some years later, I had a young lady on my programming staff that did cross-stitch. She taught me how to cross-stitch, and I cross-stitched that poem.
I used red thread for me, blue for her, green for the neutral, and where it was us, I combined the red and the blue. Love had all three threads together, because love is all. So I made the comment earlier this evening before the show, talking about it, and my opinion is that a poet looks at the same thing but sees something different. I really love poetry. I've written tons of poems to my sweetheart for birthdays, anniversaries, and so forth.
So I'm leaving a legacy. Darrell Bock Have you guys gotten a poem? I've not gotten a poem. I'm still waiting on mine. I'm still waiting. I'm still kind of left out.
We'll be coming. Dr. Darrell Bock Wait just a second. Which one of you guys have I ever addressed as sweetheart? Darrell Bock Well, that's true. Dr. Darrell Bock Robby's not here, so what? Darrell Bock Fair enough, fair enough. Dr. Darrell Bock Oh, man.
See, that's that humor. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. Dr. Darrell Bock But I'm really impressed, because coming from a very analytical IT mind that Harold and I share, I mean, I struggle with the left brain that's more the feeling or whatever. Dr. Darrell Bock Brain. Just leave it at brain. Dr. Darrell Bock Okay.
I don't have either half. But anyway, I'm impressed, because it's hard for me. I've done like one poem, but it was a struggle. But I guess it's something that you practice, but I'm impressed, because it's not like writing a program, right? Dr. Darrell Bock No. Dr. Darrell Bock No.
Typically, once the germ comes and clears the top of the ground, it just flows. I mean, it's not a struggle most of the time. I will change a word when I think of a different one that fits better, but a lot of time, it's just getting that initial idea and boom. Dr. Darrell Bock That's cool. Dr. Darrell Bock That's good.
Well, before we get to our next clip, which we're going to do here in a second, it's Rodney. So I wanted to, Harold, since you have a mic in front of you, I would like for each of you guys to kind of share, as we have time to talk, and Andy, we can come back to you, is what has the word of the year meant to you as God's worked on it, not particularly this year, but just in general? Dr. Harold Bock Well, I look back at some of mine, and I had forgiveness another year I had happening.
But the one that I had last year fits right now. It was exasperation, which is a feeling of intense irritation or annoyance, and that's me because I don't have a 24 word. I gave it a half-hearted, I'm going to be honest, I gave it a sort of a half-hearted effort at the beginning, and then I got busy with stuff and forgot. So we roll up here at mid-year to talk about word of the year, and it's like, uh-oh.
So I'm now under intense pressure, self-imposed, to start working and make sure I got one for next year. Dr. Darrell Bock Well, no, and maybe God didn't have a word for you this year. Maybe He said, you know what, I'm going to give you a break. Andy, what about you?
And, Jim, you can share when you do your clip, but Andy, what about you? Dr. Harold Bock Rodney mentioned earlier about just being intentional. And you do find, you know, some people say there's a theme, sometimes two or three years can string together to seem like a theme over time, but sometimes they're really unique for what you're going to go through that year and maybe not tied to the other years, but it's meant a whole lot. The year that I felt like I'd really focused in on learning a lot of truth and a lot of growth, but that I didn't feel like I had really put a lot of focus on love, which was one of the most important concepts of our whole faith experience. And it was a really great – I feel like I grew so much in learning. And I had always had a focus on love, but I always applied it and walked it out right.
And you know how sometimes you think you understand something and yet you really don't. It was one of those years where I feel like I really delved into it and experienced love in a deeper way. I think I used an experience just where my love was overflowing with – I think it was on my London trip that year. And it's like God gives you these little nuggets. I was bent down to help a lady who had dropped something when I was in London and picked it up for her.
And you know how they do. And she said, oh, thank you, love, and it was like God was like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And it just helped that trip, but it helped really the rest of the year of just, yes, this is your word for the year. Darrell Bock Well, good. So Rodney, you want to talk about your word or your clip first for this year? And then you can answer the question and ask about it. Rodney McDonald Okay.
I'll do that at the end. Darrell Bock Or you can do it any way you want. Rodney McDonald All right, yeah.
Darrell Bock Just do it. Rodney McDonald When I started, I can't remember the exact order, but it was like son, father, family is I think the order that it went in. It was just like one after the other rolling through that was such a growing time for me because those are the things that I wasn't really thinking was important to me, but needed to be. And it became, that's why I said earlier, intentionality, because that's where I love having it. Because there's times throughout the year I completely forget about my word and that something happens that goes, oh, it reminds me of it.
And there's other times I'm very intentional looking for it, looking for it, and I don't see it, and all of a sudden something pops up. So I just like having something there where it's like it adds something that I can commune with God with. You know, there's this word, I'm into it, there's other studies I'm doing, things like that. But just a specific word, it doesn't overdo things, but it adds a nice intentional part of the walk. And I like that, yeah.
So my word for this year is devote, which is kind of a weird, hard word to go find something in clips and stuff for. But I happened to find this clip, and I actually listened to it, and I was like, hey, I think that applies in more ways than what I figured when I went to go listen to it. But it's from Batman Begins, and it's this guy named Ducard. He's with some organization called Ra's al Ghul, and he's seeking out Bruce Wayne who is in a jail cell, and it's a cold, dark place. And this organization he's trying to get Bruce Wayne into is for justice. And then Ducard tells Bruce that he can become more than just a man by devoting himself to an ideal. We'll talk more about this on the backside, thus becoming this legend.
So go ahead and play the clip. Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you lock yourself in to take them on one at a time? Actually, there were seven of them. I counted six, Mr. Wayne. How do you know my name?
The world is too small for someone like Bruce Wayne to disappear, no matter how deep he chooses to sink. Who are you? My name is merely Ducard, but I speak for Ra's al Ghul, a man greatly feared by the criminal underworld. A man who can offer you a path. It makes you think I need a path.
Someone like you is only here by choice, who have been exploring the criminal fraternity, but whatever your original intentions, you have become truly lost. On what path can Ra's al Ghul offer? The path of a man who shares his hatred of evil, who wishes to serve true justice. The path of the League of Shadows. The vigilantes.
No, no, no. The vigilante is just a man lost in a scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely, which is Legend of St. Wayne. There's several things he kind of touches on here, like when he says truly lost. That struck out at me as like, well, that's where we all start off.
We're lost until Christ pulls us out of the deprivation we're into. And like here, he was trying to fight and be a vigilante in vengeance as mine, says the Lord. So he's trying to do something on his own.
It's like, no, let this come to you. And he talks about taking the path, and it starts reminding me of the narrow path to the broad gate, the broad way. So and then he sits in there and says, more than just a man. I'm like, well, that's Christ. He's more than just a man.
He's the God man. And that's where we have to pull from in order for us to really live out our life. And for me, I was like, what am I supposed to devote to you, Lord?
Where am I supposed to go with this word? And every time I keep trying, especially about the first few months, it was looking for one thing. And then every time I ask about, is it this one thing or is it that one thing, it's always no. It's yes to all of them. It's no, I need you to be going where I call you to go, not just go to this one thing, ignore the others, which makes it what?
Easy for me. It's like, no, it's not going to be just go do the easy thing. It's like, go be with me in this wherever I send you. And one of the things that are looking up like devoted in the Bible and looking for verses and stuff, there's a lot of things in the Old Testament that were devoted to destruction, but it was all destruction of sin, destruction of the enemy, the enemies of God and bringing closer to Him and to be devoted to Him through that. And then one of the ones like here, it's like devoted in the New Testament, devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God in wealth, devoted to ourselves in prayer and the service of the word and others and brotherly love. Those are the kind of contexts for all of that, which I just love that I'm like, that's why I have to make sure that I'm moving towards in this second half this year. That's good. Thank you. We do have a boot camp coming up. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for that. And remember, love somebody well this week. And if you don't have a word of the year, ask God about it. This is the Truth Network.
