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Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us today. We are continuing talking about the word of the year, and so we're going to be able to continue with the people that haven't talked about their word yet, and not everybody in the group has a word quite yet, and that's where we learn to wait on God's timing. We may have an agenda that we want to talk about, or we may have what a timeline we think it should be, but God gives us our timeline. His timeline is what really plays out when we're talking about word of the year. And so as we talk about word of the year, Danny, do you want to tell us a little bit more what we're really talking about? Well, what we're talking about is that toward the end of the year, we begin to pray and ask God to give us a word for the year that we can focus on. And as the year goes, we try to pray into that and see what kind of journey God takes us on with this word. And it is amazing, because we've talked about it several times, and we do several shows a year on this, but where you think you're going to go and where you end up is usually totally opposite of what you think it's going to be.
Yeah, we probably do this topic almost as much as we do boot camp, talking about boot camp. Because I think Rodney was – we were talking about at dinner earlier that – Rodney, you were saying that we do at least six shows a year, right? We do now that we have a larger group in here. We do – we have three shows at the start of the year, which we're doing now, mid-year, and then the year end, and then we're going to start the year again. So it's three every year, and now we have so many people, we do at least two shows.
And it works out really well. Yeah. So we will continue on. And so, Michael, you actually have the first clip. This is your first clip ever, right? It's your first clip ever, and you're the first on the show. Wow.
You might as well retire now. Yeah. I feel like I got promoted. Yeah. So you want to tell us a little bit about your clip? Sure. So my clip comes from the movie Evan Almighty. It's just a scene where Morgan Freeman, who's playing the role as God, he's talking with Evan's wife, and basically just explaining how you might ask God for things, but you might not get them in the way that you expect.
Does God give you exactly what you want, or does He give you the opportunities to achieve those things? Yeah. That's good. And it really relates to my word of the year. All right.
So, Dana, if you want to go ahead and play the clip, and we'll come back and talk about it. Oh, excuse me. Can I get a refill, please?
Coming right up. Thank you. Excuse me. Are you all right? Yeah.
No. It's a long story. Well, I like stories. I'm considered a bit of a storyteller myself.
My husband? Have you heard of New York's Noah? The guy who's building the ark.
That's him. I love that story. You know where in the ark? You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it's about God's wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry. What is the story about, then, the ark?
Well, I think it's a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animals showed up in pairs. They stood by each other, side by side, just like Noah and his family.
Everybody entered the ark side by side. But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that? It sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience, or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they prayed for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunity to be courageous?
If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? Well, I gotta run. A lot of people to serve. Enjoy. That's such a good clip in so many ways. You know, because I know for me, as I listen to that, and I know you're going to talk about your clip, but as I listen to that, I just think about not being careful about what I pray for, but being intentional about what I pray for. Good word. Yeah, yeah.
We may revisit that at some point. You know, because God honors those prayers. And when you pray for patience, you're like, oh, do I have the stamina for all these things that are going to require patience?
So it makes you really think about how you pray as you go to him. Michael, that was your clip. And so what's your word this year? So my word was actually service. I feel people have been helping me throughout, obviously, my entire life. This year especially, I feel that God's calling me to somehow give back that service, not just to people or the people around me that have always helped me, but to myself, and most importantly, to God himself, you know. And obviously, I don't know exactly where this word will take me throughout the year, but I just – it really stood out to me that that's what he wanted from me, was just to help those around me and then also to please him.
Yeah. So if you don't mind me asking, if you're able to tell us, how did you know that this was the word that God gave you? Well, you know, I did a lot of praying, but it was also just evident in my life, especially the things that I've been going through lately, and everyone around me, you know, like I said, they always help me.
So I just feel this calling that he's just pulling me to give anything I can, you know, to just help anyone who needs it. That's good. And just kind of showed up. Yeah, that's really good. Go ahead, Harold. You want to say something? Yeah, I can attest to the fact that he's in on service.
My sweetheart had reached the point where she didn't want me driving at night anymore. Michael has jumped in, and Art was helping there for a while, and then Michael came in and driving me over here so I get to continue to be a part of the group on Tuesday evenings for our recordings. Otherwise, I would either be making my sweetheart mad at me, or I wouldn't be a part of this, and both are things I really want. So Michael is of great service to us. He recently drove us to Florida and back so that we could visit with Jan's brother's family down there here again.
She thinks I can't handle a drive of that duration, and she's probably right. But anyway, Michael did the driving for us, and it was great. So he's already doing his service. Good. Harold, did you notice, and Harold is sitting just to the left of Michael, did you notice he looked at you when he talked about serving those around him? Well, he's doing a great job for us, so we really appreciate it. So Michael, you said something about you really don't know where this word's going to take you this year. You're at a very good spot.
That's true. Because all of us that have really thought we knew where the word was going to go, yeah, it may touch on that. God has a sense of humor. He may throw us a bone a little bit and let us have a little bit of that, but he has a plan and an intention for that word, and so he's going to take it in a lot of different directions, so it's exciting to hear.
For me, it's nervousness but excited nervousness of where God's going to take it. You said it right. That's exactly where I'm at. Yeah.
Well, this could be a sequel to a movie. You know that, right? Driving Mr. Harold instead of driving Mr. Daisy.
That's true. Driving him crazy. Well, Jim, we're glad to have you back. It seems like, I don't know, months since you've been here. I don't even know how long it was that you were going.
We left Christmas Day. Okay. And we got back last week, so it's a little better than three weeks. Okay.
It seemed a lot longer. Well, I'm such a wonderful person to have around. You really miss me when I'm gone, so I appreciate that. It could be that, too. Maybe.
It's your modesty that attracts us. Absolutely. Yeah, it's absolutely that. We're kind of at a weird space on time. We don't have enough time to get another clip in before the break, and so we just need to continue to talk a little bit about Word of the Year. And so, Rodney, I know you don't have a Word of the Year this year yet, but that shouldn't be concerning if it's the first few weeks of the month of the year and you still don't have one, right? It shouldn't be, but I've always, every time I've went off to pray and ask for a word, it's usually come pretty easily. This year, I've prayed a few times.
I've tried to go get one. There's been times when I haven't prayed because I forgot all about it. And last year was one of the worst times I've ever had with a word and what I did or didn't do with it because I just kind of left it behind. Then I got sick in August. I didn't really get sick. I got taken to the hospital. I wasn't even sick. It was just, oh, you need to go.
I'm like, what? So I got taken to the hospital, told, hey, you're going to take all these tests, and the next thing I know, I'm in the middle of all that. So then I look at my word, devote, and I'm like, oh, man, it's so applicable to all this stuff I just went through. And that's where I'm asking God, do I stay with that word because I didn't really do as much or do I go somewhere? And this is the first time I've never gotten a new word. So I may be staying with my old word. I may be going to a new word.
I really don't know where I'm at. So I'm just kind of trying to pray through it. Yeah, we have a timeline. Like I said, God has his. Yup.
It's funny you said that because as I was praying about it back in December, God gave me two words. Uh-oh. Not yet. Not yet.
Not yet. One of them I really liked, and the other one I said, well, if I use that one, I'm sort of stealing it from a good friend because he uses it a lot. And in between the weeks since those were given to me, and I thought at the time I need to write both of these down. Well, I said, I don't need to write that one down. I'm not going to forget it. And I'll not forget that one either because it's such a great word. Well, that great word is now gone, so I went with the other word, which I presume is the one God wanted me to have. So if I think of what that word is, it might be yours, and I just had to throw it back in the pot.
He hasn't told me anything yet. Was it memory? Memory is not something. Not ringing a bell.
That is a gift I've never really had, and it's getting to be less. But I've always considered myself as a computer of having an exceptional processor and about 6K of RAM. Yeah, whatever that means. Yeah, I got nothing. Well, actually storage, how's that? That's better work for it anyway. Okay.
Well, we've got about a minute left. Anyone else want to add anything about Word of the Year? I know I'm excited about, I already know that at the end of the year, I'm going to be sad to get rid of it.
That's the whole thing is I don't know where it's going to go, but I do know the consistent thing will be, as it's been the last several years, I don't want to get rid of the word at the end of the year. And as Robby very well said, you never really get rid of them. They just stick with you, right? There's something that changes with you.
They say that you have to do something so many times before it becomes a habit. Well, you spend a word, a year on a word, it's ingrained in you in a way that it never was before, right? And so I think that's really cool that God has a way of just building upon our faith in so many different ways. And so we're going to talk more about it after the break, and we'll get to hear Harold's Word of the Year. We go to masculinejourney.org to look for anything that we have coming up. We don't have anything quite yet, but we will soon.
We'll talk with you after the break. What we have in 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. I got away from Christ and suffered an overdose, and he took my memory. At that time, I didn't know where I was, who was who, what I was doing. So he showed me a little bit of his power there, letting me know that without him, I'm nothing.
I don't got nothing, and I will be nothing. So I decided to come back, and just right now for the first time, I've been through a lot of things, like as you see me, tattoos all over and everything, I've been through a war. So for the first time in my life on this camp, I've been able to feel that peace in my heart. I haven't seen my family in over eight years now, but I actually can say today that I'm okay with it. God is with me, and he's been dealing with my heart in a way that I never experienced it before, and I'm just thankful and grateful.
Register today at masculinejourney.org Welcome back to Masculine Journey, and that was a different bump for us. I get that, and honestly, as you listen to that, I still struggle to understand what it says, you know, even though I have the words here in front of me, and that was the group Queen, and what surprised me about the group Queen, I would not really think, and I'm not being judgmental here, but you, well, I guess I am. You would not think that they would be singing a song about father and son in a way that sounds very Christian-oriented, right?
I mean, you think of Queen, and they have some great music. That would just not be what you would think of with them, but the part of the song that I played there, it's from a song called Father and Son, and he sings a word in your ear from father to son. Hear the word that I say. I fought with you, fought on your side, long before you were born. So, okay, who's fighting on our side long before we're born, and who has a word from father to son, right? Joyful to sound, the word goes around, and then the rest of it goes on for the chorus from father to son to son, and so I don't know that that's about God.
I just don't know what else it could be except about God. That's how you end up, we are the champions. That's true.
Of the world. Yeah, yeah. All right, that's fair. We got that. Thank you, Robby. We appreciate that.
So up next, Harold, we have a word of the year from you. Yeah. Was that your bones or was that the microphone? That's the squeaky corner over there, all the old guys.
I know I'm old, but I don't squeak like that. Okay. Oil can. I wasn't really sure what you needed there, Ted.
Squirt me with the oil can. Yeah, I do have a word this time. I was really kind of tickled because there's been a time or two in the past that I searched for one and just never felt like that it really came, and I didn't want to arbitrarily pick one. As a self-appointed poet, I like words, and I like to play with words, but I didn't think that word of the year was something that was subject to my choice. I wanted it to be God's choice, and so he gave me one, and if you are one of those people that thinks God does not have a sense of humor, I got news for you.
You're wrong because he does. My word for this year is smell, and if you don't realize how funny that is, it's because you don't understand. I can't smell anything anymore or rarely smell anything anymore, and so for me to have the word smell, I'm interested in seeing where all that's going to go. I know that the sacrifices were characterized as a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord, and there are a lot of uses of the word smell, so I'm just really anxious to experience it.
Now, the clip that I've got is sort of a default. When I was Googling around trying to find a movie clip for the word smell, most everything that came up would not be suitable for our broadcast, so I found this one, and I picked it more because of an expression used in it than anything else. I haven't seen the movie. It's from a movie called Perfume, and the storyline is trying to develop all these exotic, wonderful-smelling perfumes, and the guy gets into a mess. In this particular scene, it's really dark. At least when I was looking at it, you really can't pick out a whole lot, but apparently this guy is there with a young lady. We think she may be blind because she keeps saying hello and whatever. He seems to be sniffing and trying to smell, and then sort of the final scene is that he's actually gone out in the rain and he's trying to wash his arms and stuff in the rainwater. I'll play the clip, and I'll have some more things to say about smell.
After a while, he almost forgot his plans and obsessions, and indeed might have done so altogether. Hello? Hello?
Hello? There were a thousand smells in his clothes. The smell of sand, stone, moss, even the smell of the sausage he'd eaten weeks ago. Only one smell was not there.
His own. For the first time in his life, Grunewee realized that he had no smell of his own. He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.
Very interesting. When I was a young boy, young child, my father worked away on construction work and would be gone sometimes two or three weeks or whatever before I would see him again. I would always insist that he sleep in the bed that I slept in. Then I didn't want him to wash the pillowcase because my dad used a particular hairdressing that had a particular smell. So I would lay in the bed and I could smell my father's smell. And smell brings up memories stronger than most anything else.
I've read that it's even stronger than sight as far as memories. When I was engaged to my sweetheart, I had joined the Air National Guard and I went off for eight weeks to basic training out in San Antonio, Texas. That eight weeks seemed like 80 years at the time. But one of the things that was really good for me is that she wrote me. I got more mail than anybody else in the flight. And she would put a drop of her perfume on that letter. And I would get in the evening when we had our free time, I'd get my latest letter out, prop my feet up in the window and I'd start to read the letter. And I would periodically take and sniff.
And it was really a strong attachment. So that's why I said it's so ironic that God would give me smell as my word for the year, since I no longer can really enjoy that kind of thing like I once did. Now whether that's just a fact of being 83 years old, or if it's perhaps one of the signs of Parkinson's, I have some others.
So I'm afraid that may be it. Regardless of what the cause is, it's something that I miss. And oftentimes we take things for granted, never thinking that we're going to lose them. And when we do it, it's like, whoa, where'd that go?
I want it back. But anyway, smell. There's a great little book that was written about elders in the church. And it's called They Smell Like Sheep. And it has to do with the fact that if you're going to be a true shepherd, you're going to have to be with that flock, and you're going to have to be in with them, and you're going to get their smell on you. And I thought that was a great little book.
And I forget now the author's name, because it's been quite a while ago that I read it. They Smell Like Sheep. And so you might say that I stink, but I don't smell. I love that word, Harold, talking about words. I'll give a shout-out to my brother. I was talking to him this morning, and he actually has a word for the year, we think. He has become a recent listener to us. I guess he was just bored. And he's doing some things.
He started a ministry at his church called FIRE, and kind of similar to some of the stuff we've talked about around here. But he was talking about the word consistency, or being consistent. And he kept saying it over and over. I said, is that your word for the year?
He said, I guess it is. So a shout-out to my brother, Tracy, who's been walking with the Lord for a long time, but he's just as passionate now as he ever was. Just watching him take off in some sort of men's ministry and stuff like that, or just a ministry with people. Yeah, that's good. I'm excited that he's on that journey. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out this year. Hopefully, I'm sure he'll keep you updated and keep us updated.
It'll be good to know. Harold, you were talking about how smell is so powerful, and it is. Around my house here in North Carolina, I was excited to find out that you could actually grow lilacs in this part of North Carolina. You can't grow it any further south than the Triad. And why that's important, growing up as a kid, there's a huge lilac bush right outside my window.
It was quite huge. But just the smell in the spring always reminds me of home. And so I love being here, and I love living in North Carolina. But one of my favorite things in the spring is when the lilacs are blooming, is to open up my windows as this nice spring day and let that smell come in, because it reminds me of growing up in Indiana. It brings back memories of my mother, memories of my siblings as a kid, just lots of things that a smell will take you instantly right back to a place, which is pretty neat. You can walk into a room, and you can smell something, and you go, oh, this reminds me, and your memory is just flooded. And so I think it's so cool how that works, and so I'm interested to see how that plays out for the year.
In your clip, he talked about he could smell the sausage that he had two weeks ago, so obviously detergent was not one of the smells anywhere in there. But we're finishing up this show. We'd like for you to go to masculinejourney.org if you'd like to reach out to any of us. We'll put Rodney at Mascon Journey or Jim at Mascon Journey, any of our first names. That would be our e-mails, and reach out to us. And we'll talk with you next week. God love you this week. This is the Truth Network.
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