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 continuing to talk about our Word of the Year this year, and we are glad that you're with us, but what we really hope that you'll do is continue to listen. But, beside that, invest some time with God and ask about a Word of the Year for yourself.
That's part of why we talk about it so much. One is to share what we've learned, but also to encourage you to say this is a really cool way to get a deeper intimacy with God. It's different than reading your Bible. Of course, you always read your Bible.
That's the first thing. It's different than prayer. Of course, you always pray. You should be doing those things, but this is just something that you can do to even get into a deeper intimacy in a way that you can't do in any other way.
It's to say, okay, God, I trust you with this Word and lead me through it this year. And it's been amazing in our life, and we'll talk more about it. But, Jim, welcome back. We said that last show.
We're glad to have you back, but this is your first clip of 2025. It is. And being the Word of the Year, I guess that's kind of appropriate, huh? Yeah.
True. The Word of the Year we've been doing on the show for quite a while, and I had actually been introduced to that a couple of years before. And you were talking about remembering your words. And back when I had an office, I had all of the years and my word of my life, which was chesed, and I can still say it in Hebrew more or less.
And that's love, which is my overarching desire for my life is to reflect God's love to others. But the words of the year I've struggled with from time to time. Last year's word was also the previous year's word, and it was integrity. I guess I needed extra time with that one. Well, then I don't think I told this on the air. We were talking separately. But in December, I was praying about my word before we left, and I got two. And one of them I was thinking, well, I'd rather it not be that one.
I'd sort of be stealing from a friend, and I'd just finished integrity, so stealing from a friend would be a bad thing, right? But the other word, I said, oh, this is a great word. It was sort of my choice. And so doing what I usually do when I think I should write this down, I didn't. And come to looking at the word of the year two days ago, I had no clue what the word was that I really liked.
So I figured that was God choosing my word, which is intentional. And to sort of set up my clip, there are a few of us, or at least a couple of us, that love Outlaw Josie Wales. If you haven't seen it, shame on you.
And don't tell us. We might force you to sit down and watch it with us one more time. But this is a mixed clip. It's very close to the, well, it is the beginning of the movie, and then it's getting towards the end. And we see Josie Wales, the farmer, with his kid and wife and farm. And they are raided by redlegs, which were folks that were from Kansas that were, and this was during the Civil War, and there was nothing civil about it. But Missouri and Kansas had their own little private war going on and would raid each other. And he was from Missouri and he got hit by the redlegs and they killed his wife and child.
And when this clip starts, he has just cried over them, prayed over them, buried them, and then falls over, kind of knocking down the cross that he made to mark the grave. And then it has some riders ride up, and that's where we pick up this clip and we'll talk more about it afterwards. Name's Anderson. Bloody Bill's what they call me. Redlegs? You'll find them up in Kansas. They're with the union. We're going up there and set things all right.
I'll be coming with you. I figure this right, we're facing the sun. This ought to give him an edge. Who are you talking about? What the hell does he want?
He looks like a parlay. Well, you're just going to sit there all day. You're going to run out and see what he wants. Get ready, little lady.
I was coming to breakfast. That's a mighty nice horse you got there, mister. Would you sell him?
We will give you a good price. Now speak. Just get off the horse. That gunfire was the first four bandits that went down. What is happening here is you hear, well, Chief Dan George, we're going to call him that, but that's his real name, not his name in there. But he was a Watie and a Cherokee chief, and he has kind of attached himself to Josie Wells, along with a dog and a few other strays he's picked up on the way. And he has tried to reject him the whole time, but he really is protective of his little band, and one of them is the chief, who is tied to the back of a wagon along with Granny. And they are being dragged to be sold to another tribe, and these are, well, 12 guys that are just, and there's a word, Comancheros. And they're not headed for anything wonderful, and Josie's by himself and rides up with the sun behind him, which the chief has mentioned, and spits, which he does a lot of, usually at the dog. But he's very intentional in setting up the way he's going to go in to free him or die trying, and he does get 11 of the 12, and one more of the followers gets the last one as he's running away. And so the party's saved, and the whole group is now attached to Josie, and he is trying very hard just to escape his life, but he is intentionally setting out to help those that are around him that need his protection. And I kind of like that, and as previously expressed, I love the movie, and it is one that I threaten Sam with trying to have the entire movie, being intentional about getting the whole movie on the show this year, but I probably will back off of that one.
One way or another, I just not play him. Well, that has happened on occasion. I've wandered into the last show wondering if he'll get to me, and I'll have 30 seconds or so. Well, he had plenty of time on this one.
No, I could keep talking, I'm told, but I'll quit now and let some others jump in. Intentionality for all of us is important, and it's a good adjective to attach to whatever your word is. And I want to intentionally love, I want to intentionally serve, I really like your word. I don't want to intentionally smell, but I don't mind smelling nice things.
I don't want to intentionally stink, how's that? Yeah, there you go. And we've really been through a lot of things together, and enjoying each other's words is really an important thing too.
Absolutely. We have ours and God works with us, but we see others growing. So I heard this in an interview I did recently, and I love it. It's simply what I want to apply it to your word to see how that fits in is, you know, we don't pray to get stuff from God, we pray to get with God. And so as I think about the word intentional, you know, Josie Wales was a loner.
He definitely was, and he tried very hard to be, but. And so, you know, that's my, you know, that would be immediately my challenge, although you know me well enough to know one of the most things I try to be intentional is like, okay, I want to do this, you know, whether it's catching a fish or, you know, shooting a deer or, you know, preaching to the congregation, I want to do it with God. And that's an interesting aspect of intentionality that I wonder if that's something you feel like you're going to incorporate or. That's one of the most important parts of it, and I've seen enough in life that I know when I pray for something that what I'm praying for may have very little to do with what is going to happen. And I cringe when I hear name it, claim it, and even when I hear, well, you want to heal this person completely, well, whenever I hear that, I say, okay, that's going home. I've got lots of healing that would be wonderful to have, but as we get older, Harold, there are certain things you don't expect to get better until we get home. And if you were trying to smell like a sheep, which is bad, and it might be good you don't have the expensive, just saying I'm waiting for two shows to say that, so just now got a mic. Maybe we should wait at three.
The after-after hours. Oh, bad. Yeah, I get it. The intentionality for me in that is when I'm praying, my intention is spending time with God, not getting what I think I want, because what I want may be the last thing God wants for me. And I want to get his best, not what I think is best for me. And that's a hard lesson to learn if you haven't yet.
Jump on it now, because it'll save you a lot of pain. But prayer, Bible reading, all the things that we are quote-unquote supposed to do don't mean a thing if it's not an intentional time spent with God. If you don't have that zing.
I know that commercial, but I can't remember. When you said that your word of life, or how you want to put that, is hesed, which you interpret as meaning love, which I would interpret at the end of the 23rd Psalm, surely goodness, and hesed will follow me all the days of my life. And so a lot of people would interpret that word as mercy, because love in Hebrew's got a lot of different ways you can describe it.
But hesed has a unique quality in it, in that the middle letter, which you can hear is an S sound, right, is the letter psalmic, which requires complete less support. Like it is such a powerful entity, it's best described as gravity, right, which that requires God. Like for me to give somebody hesed, meh, thank you for playing, I'm not God.
But the neat thing about that, as we talked about, is that if my intentionality is to get God involved in the love, then I have a shot at hesed, right? But otherwise, you know. Well, you don't have it without it.
Right, and you don't have, yeah, apart from me you can do what? Absolutely not. That's Jim's vision. Right. So I'm intrigued as always by your, I'm intrigued by everybody's, you know. And I was thinking about Mike's being served, right, and the greatest among you will be the servant of you all, right. By the same token, you know, I look at that word quite often because there's a level of humility in it, and it also is connected to a whole lot of other words in Hebrew. And a significant part of the word serve or servant is an idea of catching God's vision.
Because really if you're not serving God in whatever it is that you're serving, you ain't really, again, being intentional. And so I think that that too is like, man, what a cool thing to push into for a year to see, okay, where am I serving myself? You know, where am I serving my family? Where am I, you know, serving, you know, it's just a lot of opportunities.
So, you know, I really love you guys' words, and I am excited as always to see where God, you know, takes you and experientially. Especially, you know, Harold's is one of the most intriguing little stinker. I smell a rat. Yeah, I remember when Harold got the word happening, right? Remember?
I do. It was 2020, was it not? I think so, yeah. And that's when nothing was happening for a long time. But it was everything that, you know, you never know what God's going to unfold with it, right? You got that word happening, and it was quite a happening year, honestly. There was a lot going on just for society in general and for us and everything else. It was very happening. So that was a big one. That was a big one.
Very hip for an almost 80-year-old. You can't help but see that it was one of Satan's big power plays in our generation through COVID. One of the immediate things was it took away your smell, and with your smell went your taste, right? And, you know, what Harold had described when he started to say, you know, that the smell of something immediately evokes a memory. Well, anybody who's ever been to boot camp knows that there is a smell associated with Carolina Bible Camp.
I mean, it just is. Like, the second you walk into that hall, it smells like boot camp. Oh, I thought you were talking about the cows out back.
Well, those two, if you happen to be downwind of the pasture. But now I'm just talking about if you walk into that hall, there's a smell in it. Man, I always love to walk into that hall and go, smells like boot camp, right? Well, fascinatingly, if you go in the top door at Truth Broadcasting, and I come in here Saturday morning to do my shows, and there's a hint of boot camp in the smell when you walk into Truth. I don't know what it is, but it never ceases to amaze me as I come in the door like boot camp. And there's such a joy, you know, that comes with that, that you're right. I hadn't really thought about how much smell is connected to memory. Danny, you had something to add? It's like going to Robby's Church.
You get a fresh smell of incense when you walk in. Yeah. I've heard about that. That was insensitive, Danny.
It was very insensitive. Yeah. So, question for you. You know, I always like to ask some questions. Do you have a favorite word over the years that God's given you? Have they all been your favorite?
I'll let you think about that for a minute. Initially, when I was pondering the question myself, I was going to say, oh, there's not a favorite word for me. You know, because I've enjoyed them all. But honestly, there was a favorite word, and I talked about it a few weeks ago, but it's the word family when he gave it to me, and I really, really poured into it, not knowing that my brother was going to pass away later that year. You know, and all the times that I had conversations with him, going down to him and his wife's 50th anniversary, just all the pouring into family, I will never regret that time, and it's changed me forever. I've always been family-oriented, but that year was just different. You know, I could really feel God say, every time your family asks you something, say yes. You know, and so I did lots of things and traveled and, you know, hung out with family a lot and tried to just always say yes to family first, and I'm very grateful for that year, and I'm grateful for the changes that it made in relationships, the deepening of it over that time. You know, and so each word's been special, but for me, that's probably the most special to date.
Anyone else have anything? Yeah, I think it was three years ago, as the camera goes down. Oh, and interestingly, that disconnected the camera somehow.
Anyway, three years ago, my word of the – yeah, it's dangerous. Doing two things at one time over there. I don't know how that happened. All sorts of stuff.
Your browser did this. Yeah. Anyway, somebody give him some help. Three years ago, my word was engage, and it has been a struggle for me my whole work career. You know, I can easily go into flounder mode. I know what I'm supposed to do. I don't want to do it. I don't know what happens.
I get lazy. You know, whatever a shenanigans is going on, I'm not engaging. And I was – when I got that word, I was like super pumped, like, all right, God's going to give me whatever shot of – whatever it's going to take to get me to finally engage. But that was the year, and again, it was just – that was the year where he engaged me.
It wasn't me engaging him. It was like, you know, first thing, I was like, okay, God, where are we going with this? Well, I want you to memorize the 16th Psalm.
Like, what? Okay, well, I guess I'm going to engage the 16th Psalm. Well, what I didn't realize is that by the end of the year, he was going to be – memorized the 119th Psalm. And there is no way in the world that at the point in time I must have been 67 or something.
Like, really, you're going to go do that? Oh, he engaged me. You know, and I realized how much the Holy Spirit plays a role in your memory, in what you're doing. And my search for the ability to engage, again, coming back to the same thing that I talked about with Jim a minute ago, that it's him engaging you to whatever extent that is in order to truly be able to engage in anything that's worthwhile. So it was a precious – it was a precious year, and it made a gigantic impact. In other words, those Psalms, which have become as much a part of my life, it just spoke into me volumes.
Of course, they're always fun, and I'm looking forward to where this one goes this year with worship. And I know that when I started doing the Word of the Year, I was like, I don't know, I'll try this. And the first three words, which were father, family, and freedom, I would have never thought that much together. But I remember every year, like, man, that just seems to connect so well with the last one, I just want to continue.
And it was just like this continuation, and then it just kind of – as I noticed it coming on, then it kind of just broke off there. But I really like the fact that when you see how this word plays with last year's word or some other word, and the way you connect things, it's again what God's doing. He's just trying to work in you and through you something that is bigger or better than what you were before. If he's trying to grow you and do things and pull you out of something or pull you into something, it's like, wow, there's going to be connections and things of that nature. Like, this year is the first time I've ever went and prayed for a word of the year and said, okay, what's it going to be?
Got nothing. Normally, you know, you sit there, quiet for a little bit, and something comes. But this year, there's been nothing, and it's just been weird to sit there and go through that, but it's like, okay, it's all good. I just got to be more patient, which might be my word, I don't know, but something along those lines. But it's like, just sit and wait and let him tell you. Jim, go ahead. And it sounds like, based on prior experience, you might be looking for an F word.
Yeah, fortune, I don't know. I'm out of F words now, yeah. Family. We already had family.
You already fed freedom, yeah. I'll do it again. That's true. When Robby was talking about the meaning of hesed, and that is my most meaningful word, and it has been for a while, and he was talking about learning the Psalms. Well, I think that time for Robby also was a big part of when he really got engaged in Hebrew. And Hebrew language, as you said, hesed has so many meanings. Every letter in hesed has meaning. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in the Old Testament, Hebrew words, I don't think there's more than five or six thousand total.
But every one of them is a study. One of the ones that the Hebrew professor hit me with that I kind of liked, peace. We all know shalom. One of the meanings of shalom is death to your enemies.
And yeah, that sounds like it could be peaceful, but that's pretty brutal. And there are words that you can find meanings that are almost the opposite of what the normal meaning is. So it's a wonderful study, and somebody's been engaged in that more than I have, which I appreciate. You know, to me, what it does is it kind of makes the Bible stand out more in 3D. Like, you're looking at certain things two-dimensionally or one-dimensionally, but man, when you begin to dig into some of that, it's like, oh. Oh, oh, and you begin to see dimensions of ideas and concepts that you really hadn't seen before, which again makes you fall more into the worship because you're like, man, this is way more than I can. And I go way back and say, and you can even sing along with the fifth dimension. Yeah. Let the sun shine.
S-O-N. I had Beloved last year, and that has been so far the most impactful. I mean, they all have, ever since I've engaged with you guys with this, it has just been amazing the journeys we've been on. But last year was pretty impactful in my life so far.
I was kind of like you. I didn't really want to let go of it, but here we go. Okay, so this will be a harder question, and we'll finish with this. But if someone's out there wavering on should I really try this word of the year, should I not try this word of the year, what's a one-word answer, or maybe two words, but not more than about that, that you could say on why they should do this?
I'll start. You know, I would say adventure. You're going to be on an adventure, and it's going to be a cool one. Anyone else have a word or a reason? Mine would be advance, just to get somewhere, to go somewhere, to leave from where you're at to go somewhere else and find out what's there. Okay.
Which is a lot like mine, which was growth. Okay. I would say intimate. Okay. I would say joy, because in his presence is fullness of joy, and there's a joy in that that's incredible. Okay.
I would say excitement. Oh, awesome, yeah. Harold, do you have a word? Learn. Learn. Okay.
That's all good. Well, if we haven't encouraged you to do it, let God encourage you to do that. And so what I'd ask you to do this week is to pray and say, God, do you have a word of the year for me this year? And he does.
He really does. He may not give it to you quite yet. It may be like Rodney this year, or me other years, or Harold last year, that it may just take a while, and God may have you in a holding pattern, but he is doing it for a reason, and he will give you the word when it's time. But lean into him and trust what he tells you. It may be a word that may not make any sense, but just trust that it makes sense to God, and he's telling you that for a reason. And this week, just let yourself be loved by him very well, and then share that love with someone else. We'll talk with you next week. Thanks for listening. This is the Truth Network.
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