This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.
So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now.
Darrell Bock Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad to have you with us this week, and we are in the middle of going through what we would say is our favorite topic other than boot camp. Wouldn't you guys say that it's probably our most done topic other than our boot camp topics? Darrell Bock Yeah, I mean, there's kind of a – it's something we're known for, I guess, if we're known for anything. You're going to get this on a regular basis, preparation for boot camps and Word of the Year. Darrell Bock Yeah, so we are doing Word of the Year, right? And so most of us have already went through and talked about our 2024 Word of the Year, most of us.
But some people were not here, repeatedly, and couldn't go over it. Darrell Bock Who might that be? Darrell Bock Just saying, I don't know. Andy, you have the first clip, so that might be – Darrell Bock It couldn't be me.
Darrell Bock It could be you. But no, Andy's finishing up his Word of the Year from 2024, and then we're going to go into 2025. So go ahead, Andy, talk about your word and play it if you want.
Andy King Yep, so if it'll launch here. I'll just go ahead and kind of talk about a little bit about my Word of the Year. So last year I was reading through Psalms, and I hit Psalm 25. I'd been reading through the Old Testament in 2023, I think, and bridged that over into 2024. And I hit the Psalms right around the time, the start of the year. And Psalms 25, I should have it in front of me, but it basically talks about how God would teach us, but then there's also that we can teach others. I felt like God was saying was the word, teach or learn. And so I felt like I was supposed to really learn and dig into the Psalms.
There's just so much. Psalms are constantly quoted. And a lot of times I feel like, oh, that's from Psalm 78.
I'm like, I have no idea. So I felt like I wanted to kind of do an index on Psalm 28, I mean, the Psalms. And I've been through the Psalms three times this year.
I've never done that. It was just something different. And I feel like I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about wisdom applied through the heart, looked at things, different perspective. If you want to see anybody that lives from their heart, King David.
And there's other worshipers in there as well, Moses, some of the worshipers assigned to the temple and stuff. But it's been great. I mean, I feel like I've really learned a lot. And I still want to continue to learn, but I feel like I've learned not just head knowledge, but really truly heart knowledge, if there's such. And so my clip is from one of the best things I've seen on teaching and the impact of it, and not just book learning, but it's from Dead Poets Society. And Robin Williams, I don't remember the character's name, but he really tries to instill in his students the passion for learning, but learning from a heart perspective, not just knowledge. He's like, all these career choices are great, but if you don't have something to live for and understand that that's what your heart's pursuing, then there's not a lot of point to the learning, I guess.
So I'm going to play the clip, and we'll talk about it when we get back. Words and language. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
Now, see that look in 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 him, 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? Darrell Bock Yeah, I mean, what will my verse be? And what impact will I have on life?
And will it be to enrich people? And he's talking about poetry and romance, beauty and love. When you think about those things, if you, again, we can get so caught up in succeeding and performing in this life from going to try to knock out checklists and do well in our careers. And even a lot of times, to his point about rating poetry, we didn't really get into that. But this is all based on the textbook way of evaluating poetry was a darn graph.
And so, and his whole point is that's not the way we're, that's not the purpose of poetry. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, you can't rate something that's going to hit you emotionally on a logical scale. Darrell Bock Right. Dr. Darrell Bock And that's what I've been, I feel like this whole thing when you get your heart back and you understand that a little bit, you look at these things. Psalms to me is no longer just extracting knowledge, but understanding how a guy lived.
I mean, most of it's David. But you look at his life and how he looked at life. And that's the way I want to approach life is that way. And to be taught that way from God and through his Word, and to be able to pass that on, like he's doing here, is to convey what that impact is on my life to other people. That's what I want my verse to be.
Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's good. And I think that there's something that happens probably about the time you hit your 50s, naturally anyway, somewhere in there. The whole part, the first part of your life, how do I achieve, how do I achieve, how do I achieve because I'm providing for my family. All that as your life situations change, you start to think about, I don't really want to focus on achieving as much as what am I leaving behind, what people are going to remember me for.
And so I think that that's such a great thing to look at at any age. Darrell Bock How you measure, it's like you're going from metric or from English to metric or whatever. You're using a totally different measurement. Dr. Darrell Bock English to metric. Dr. Darrell Bock Isn't that what they call the, oh, I don't know. Dr. Darrell Bock That's true. Dr. Darrell Bock Is it? Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. Dr. Darrell Bock It's like inches and stuff.
That's English to metric. Dr. Darrell Bock Oh, okay. Dr. Darrell Bock You didn't know that? Dr. Darrell Bock No, I didn't know it was called. Dr. Darrell Bock I just thought English was a language. Dr. Darrell Bock No, the English came up with a method of measurement. Dr. Darrell Bock A foot, et cetera, a yard versus a meter. Dr. Darrell Bock You're just looking at the way you evaluate things in a different way. Dr. Darrell Bock But what's confusing is the English use meters. Dr. Darrell Bock That is confusing. They did. Dr. Darrell Bock They abandoned their own system. Dr. Darrell Bock They got incorporated to the European Union.
Now Brexit even messes that up even more. But anyway. Let's move on. Dr. Darrell Bock That's all right.
Well, I just wanted to keep you talking as long as I could to see how long we could go at this. I think that officially finishes out the Word of the Year for 2024. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, I'm glad I could bring up the end. Dr. Darrell Bock That's all right.
No, you did great. The question I have, Andy, are you sad like everybody else that your word's kind of going away? Are you excited for the new word?
Dr. Darrell Bock I feel like it bridges into next year, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But yeah, I am. But I tell you, this experience – I mean, I needed something to tie it to in the Psalms or what I really tied it to. But I still believe – I still want to be a learner. I mean, Robby talked to – years ago he said, I feel like you're a disciple, an enthusiastic learner, and I want to do that. But I think you're given – this time in the 50s, you've received it, and you've got your heart back, and you've seen some victories. You also want to share those things with other people and teach as well.
Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. Well, we don't have time to get to another clip or to have somebody talk. So what I want to do before we go into break here in a little bit is ask you guys, why would you encourage somebody to do Word of the Year?
I know we've talked about it a lot, but it's something that doesn't sound like it's going to be that much fun, honestly. And I fought it for a long time, and I've talked about it on the air. But Andy, why would you encourage people to pray and say, God, give me a word for this year? I mean, just to have a theme, to tie yourself to something. Like I said, I was tied to the song, but I was tied to the Word.
But it takes the randomness out of life. There's structure. And whenever you've got an overarching God who knows what's coming before you, it's an advanced Word. It's not just the Word of the Year. It's the advanced Word of the Year. The idea is it's going to give you insight into what you're going to experience. And I think every one of us can testify how the Word was appropriate for what you went through that year.
And that's why I think everyone should have a Word of the Year. So it's kind of like the Blues Brothers from my perspective, you know. The Blues Brothers could have just gone through life, but they were on a mission from God. That's right. Exactly.
They were. As we all are. But there's so much truth in that. Then when you feel like God gave me this, this is what He wants me to pursue, then it gives you a sense of direction like the Israelites had a cloud of fire at night to go, this is the way I go, or a cloud of clouds during the day. Like, oh, I'm on a mission from God. This is when I wake up in the morning, and I'm like, okay, God, how does this relate to my Word of the Year for 2025, which is like, show me that.
And again, I consider myself an older Blues Brother. I'm on a mission from God. Yeah, you're Jake and Elrod.
I don't remember his name. I do something like that. Yeah, that's close.
It's been a while since I've seen it. Danny, what would you add to that? I would add that it's the adventure of it. Because you think going into the year with the Word, you think you may know where it's going. But as it unpacks, and as God takes you places, there's an adventure element of it. Yeah. For me, I would say it. There's nothing like the intimacy that you get.
Right. And so as we head into break, I want to just remind you to just be praying for the Word of the Year. If it's something you'd like to do, it's going to take you to a deeper intimacy with God. And then we'll talk with you after the break about what's coming up with our three, five words of the year and much more. We'll talk to you here in just a few minutes. What we have at our boot camp 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. What brings you here this weekend? So I met Rob. He invited me to come to the boot camp. And there was just so many doors that were closed before I was able to come here.
But God allowed these things to happen. And I said, you know, God, I'm going to, I'm going to ultimately acknowledge what's going on for all these doors to be open for me to come to this camp. I just want to seek you. So throughout that time, since I've been here, you know, just the illumination of God speaking to me through my heart and through my mind and through my soul is just, it's went to a whole other level since I've been here at the boot camp. The covenant of silence after the talks and being able to go out and just submit myself to being able to hear from God and what we've been working on. And it's just been transparent in my life. The level of the sanctification process, the discipleship process, and coming here, I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Register today at masculinejourney.org. But when I heard the Word, it changed my life. The Word is love. The Word is love. It gently touched my heart and changed my life. The Word is love. The Word is love. And I could never thank you enough.
Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That is B.J. Thomas.
You might remember him from Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. You know he's my cousin, right? Is he? Yeah, probably not.
I haven't even thought about that. B.J. Thomas? Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, B.J., I'm just kidding. I don't want to lie on Christian radio. Sorry, I didn't mean that, people.
It wouldn't be the first time. Oh, was that out loud? So what he was singing there, if you couldn't catch it. And what's important about it is when you're reading the lyrics – and that's why I like to read the lyrics – the word, word, is capitalized. So it's a person, right?
He's talking about a person. And he says the Word is love. So he's singing Jesus is love. And so he says, the Word is love. The Word is love.
It gently touched my heart and changed my life. The Word is love. The Word is love.
I can never thank you enough. And so he's singing that to Jesus. And I thought that was appropriate because we're talking about the Word of the year. And so the next one that's going to talk about the Word of the year – Robby, you already kind of teed it up. You told us a little bit about the Word, but go ahead.
All right. So yeah, I had an amazing run with the Word of the year. What God continues to show me has been unbelievable. And so my word last year was vision. And I came to my understanding that vision had to do with taste and see, right? That in Psalm 38, one of your Psalms there Andy, that to taste is to see.
And what? That the Lord is good. And so as I began to realize that as I was seeing how good the Lord was, I was able to see other things in life that became part of the vision that he wanted me to have.
And like everybody talked about that, I was really sad that that word would be over because I enjoyed it so much during the year. But I got my new word, which is worship, in late November, but I didn't want to unwrap it like a present until January 1st. And so it was fascinating to me.
So I literally did not do anything with it until, of course, New Year's Day, got up, began my study as I always would. And as you might guess, I went into the Hebrew or the word wisdom and unpacked that immediately. And as I began to see what it was, it's a compound of a couple of other ideas, actually three other ideas. The first idea is the idea of drinking, right? So we're going to drink something. And the other is the word Eva, which is Eve, which, you know, when she gave birth to her first child and Adam named her the giver of life, right? And so to drink this gift of life is what's packed in there.
But the third concept is to express that. So if I'm going to drink in life, i.e., taste and see that the Lord is good, now I'm going to express it, right? And so as I thought about what that is in worship, it just, it opened up a whole new idea of, again, tasting and see, the more that you have life and the more that you're experiencing God, whatever that may be, then now how do I express that back to him is an amazingly beautiful thing.
But it happens in community too. And so I use this clip from the end of the bucket list, which is just a movie everybody ought to see. If you haven't seen it, you know, two men dying of cancer, you know, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson and, you know, a couple of real characters and they go on a real adventure. But what we're going to hear is at the very end of the movie when they're both at the point of passing away from the cancer and what they have to say about life. And again, the idea is, from my standpoint that I now understand worship, is I got to have a great deal of life in order to express it back to God. And here's what their worshipping, you know, is as a result of their companionship.
Go ahead. Carter and I saw the world together, which is amazing, when you think that only three months ago we were complete strangers. I hope that it doesn't sound selfish of me, but the last months of his life were the best months of mine. He saved my life and he knew it before I did. I'm deeply proud that this man found it worth his while to know me. In the end, I think it's safe to say that we brought some joy to one another's lives.
So one day when I go to some final resting place, if I happen to wake up next to a certain wall with a gate, I hope that Carter's there to vouch for me and show me the ropes on the other side. Edward Perryman Cole died in May. It was a Sunday in the afternoon and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. He was 81 years old. Even now, I can't claim to understand the measure of a life, but I can tell you this. I know that when he died, his eyes were closed and his heart was open.
And I'm pretty sure he was happy with his final resting place because he was buried on the mountain and that was against the law. Darrell Bock Right, you get the picture. You know, part of life is humor, right? And stuff that comes at you that it's a surprise like that, you know, like it was against the law and you're like, yeah, because that was the character of that character, right? And, you know, when you really get to know people when they let all the masks go away, it's interesting that there's a character underneath the mask.
That a lot of people's masks hides the character. That really is life engaging when you get to see that. So when you walk with a true friend or a band of brothers like we're able to, you know, especially through the boot camp experience and we're out there, you know, and truly living life with each other and experiencing ministry together in really neat ways, right? Then you're drinking of God through just, and that life you just want to express it back as worship. And again, I'm excited about where God may take that this year. But I'm really so thrilled that he dovetailed these two words together for me to go from vision into worship.
And that's kind of how that works. Darrell Bock Well, I thought it was interesting about the clip. You know, you talked about, you know, he has his eyes closed because he's dead, right? But his heart was open. It was the exact opposite before he went on this journey, right? He had a closed heart. And that was his whole issue. His eyes were open. He was seeing the world through a very faulty lens, right? But because of the friendship and because of the character of the person that Morgan Freeman played, right? His life was changed. Darrell Bock Yeah, it was like Jesus said. His eyes were seeing, but they weren't perceiving, right? And his ears were hearing, but, you know, he wasn't really, you know, understanding.
And therein lies our opportunity, right? Somehow or another, well, we'll wait till Andy's word to get to all that. Darrell Bock So the Hebrew breakdown of that was, if I heard right, right? It's living, drinking life, right?
And expressing, right? So now for the Facebook people, Robby's going to get up and do interpretive dance. Darrell Bock Like he made us do a boot camp, right? Darrell Bock Like he made us do a boot camp. Darrell Bock We just lost three people. Darrell Bock Yeah, there we go. Darrell Bock Anyway, so, well, we're at a weird time again. We've got about four minutes left in this show.
And so we don't have enough time for another clip. And so what else would anyone like to add about this topic or word of the year as we're talking about this? What advice would you have for people out there that's kind of wavering about, do I do this?
Do I not do this? You know, a great person to give advice would be Harold, who didn't have a word last year. Harold Jones Well, I'm tying back to this thing of the vision and looking. One of my favorite songs is Open the Eyes of My Heart. And because I write poetry from time to time, and one of the things that I think is different is that an engineer-type person looks at things through his physical eyes, and he sees shapes, depth, et cetera. But a poet sees things through the eyes of his heart and sees things that are not obvious. And talking about what you leave behind, I'm really tickled at the idea of all the poems that I've written mostly about my sweetheart and her birthday, her birthday, our anniversary, et cetera. But I'm really thankful that I've got that that'll be there when I'm not.
And that'll give people a pretty good insight into who I really was. Because, again, I think when you write poetry, you open yourself up, unlike if you're just talking to one another. Because you look inside, and seeing things that are not there, I wrote a little poem about the sparrow. And it's out there in the sunroom where I do my morning devos. And I love seeing it from time to time. I reread it because I'm seeing not just a little just a little bird, but I'm seeing one of God's creatures in a different way than probably most people. But anyway, I'm rambling.
No, you're doing fine. You're a resident poet, so you have the authority on that. So that's good. Great. There's something you'd like to add? Yes.
The year for the Word for me is thinking and translating who is my superpower, personal. Okay. All right. That's a good one. It can be name it.
Should be the Lord. Yeah. I'm sure that's where you'll end up. Well, we're about done with this show. So I just want to remind you of a couple things. We do not have our boot camp posted yet. We're still working on all the details. There will be one coming up in late March, early April. We are planning on doing one. We will be doing one, God willing. We're just trying to figure out the details in that.
And as soon as we do, we'll let you know about that. This week as you're going out, I do want you to ponder, please consider praying about God, what is the Word of the Year that you would have for me? And just see what he has for you, because I promise you it's something that you won't regret doing.
The only ones I regret are the ones I didn't really work on. The guy gave me a word and I said on him, and I think I told you before on the air, and I know I did. I did that and he made me repeat. It's kind of like I failed the grade. So I had to do the same word two years in a row, because he just kind of laughed at me and said, oh, if you're not going to do it, I'll just have you do it again. But love somebody well this week and let yourself be loved. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.
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