What I Want for Christmas After Hours

Nothing says Christmas like a water buffalo. For a poor family in Asia, getting a water buffalo is like getting a farm tractor to pull a plow, or getting a milk truck full of delicious milk, or getting a stand at the market to sell cheese.

A water buffalo opens the door for work, food, and income. More importantly, it opens the door to talk about Jesus. And nothing says Christmas better than that. 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. 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. I get to fill in for Sam again, although he's here. But it's just some of the fun stuff that we get to do occasionally, and here we are in the Christmas season following up on Andy's topic that he's excited about. I'm very excited about it.

I'm so excited I'm about to jump out of my seat right now. What do you want for Christmas? That's the topic. What do you want for Christmas? Yeah, last time I came across this, Debbie Downer kind of got us in the wrong mood, so we're going to start out this show better. But you said you knew exactly what you wanted to say, so go ahead.

No, I can't say it, actually. So the idea, though, behind what we're talking about is what do you want for Christmas? We touched on desire at boot camp. We talked about that on your giftings and how if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. And I used to take that as pretty much, oh, cool, all the stuff I wanted, a nice house, good marriage, kids, then all the play toys that you get with boats. But no, seriously, desire, though, if you truly put God first, he will awaken your heart to the desires that he's put in you uniquely, and then she'll come alive.

And I know that I said no beauty pageant answers last time, and then I guess I got charged for having a beauty pageant answer. But truly, what I shared, what my heart is desiring this Christmas, and this is more general, not just for Christmas, but it's really for those things that God has put in my heart, those desires and ministry, and to fulfill those giftings and stuff that he's put in within me. There's probably some other stuff as we go deeper talking in the show that I may talk more about, but that's just an idea of just kind of where my heart was when we came up with this topic.

And it's a great topic. It's something, really, we all have an opportunity to spend some time with God helping him, and I like what Danny said, what might be in my heart, that he wants to point out that we need to work on this here, that kind of thing. And I actually backed into it by asking God, what do you want for Christmas? And we had an interesting discussion along those lines, where he wanted to work with me on my shame, is exactly where he went with that, that I really began to walk with him, realizing what I start to hide and start to be afraid to say what I want to say in given circumstances, especially around people that I'm really familiar with, that that shame flashing on my dashboard is a check engine light saying, you know, you need to be yourself.

You need to be willing to walk with me and trust me that this is the time I want you to be Robby. I don't want you to hide. And, you know, it's kind of, I backed into it, but it's the way I got there, Sam. I kind of like it. Yeah, I think it's really good.

You know, I think shame is just so much a part of the way the enemy entraps us, you know, that it's definitely a pretty cool adventure you're going to be on. And I love that. Actually, I really do love the clip. I didn't when I first heard it, it was a little bit of a Debbie Downer clip it is. But as you walked it out with this, I was like, Oh, man, that's right on the money.

Yeah, I don't know if I'll be able to walk it out the same way, but I'll try. This is a clip from a show that you would bet money that we would never use a clip from. It's called The Family Guy, and it's not got very many redeeming things. This is a clip, you know, as far as what we could use on here. This is a clip where the little baby that can talk in a cartoon named Stewie goes and he sits on Santa's lap and he's talking about what he wants for Christmas. And what had happened in a previous show at some point is his dog Brian had died.

And so we get to listen to what Stewie wants and we'll come back and talk about it. You know what I want for Christmas? I want my friend back. Your friend?

Yes, my best friend. My dog Brian. He's dead. It's our first Christmas without him and no one's even mentioned his name. I don't care about this stupid carnival or Christmas. I don't care about anything except Brian. I want Brian. You want me to put a dead dog under your tree? Yes. The premise, you know, I think we all have the opportunity to focus on what we don't have that we want at Christmas.

Right? We could all say, you know, I wish Aunt Joanne or whatever is still alive or whatever that may be. And to go a little bit more personal, you know, for me, December is a very hard month. Typically, my dad was his birthday was December 9th, you know, and he passed away several years ago.

And my mom's December 27th, you know, and when I get out and I decorate stuff around the house, a lot of the decorations my mom handmade, you know, or my stepdad had handmade. And so there's a lot of good memories, but there's also a lot of missing them. You know, it's not my dog, obviously, but, you know, I can focus on that or I can focus on being present and stepping into the things God has for me this year. You know, it's at these times, honestly, that I do miss being married because I do miss the traditions we had as a family. Now, my boys and I and my youngest daughter, we all have a tradition that we do now, and it's pretty cool. But I think, you know, what I want for Christmas is to be content and to be present and to be hopeful.

Right. And to be available to my family when they are with me, you know, instead of thinking more about, you know, I wished I was here, I wish this person was here, whatever that may be. But being in a positive place. Yeah, I mean, we're in the same, you know, used to be that Tess would bring her daughter, Lila, you know, we would still enjoy Christmas like we did when they were kids. Mariah was going to be there from, you know, college. And my son would certainly always try to make it back somehow. And this Christmas, that's all discombobulated. Right. And so Tammy, my wife, you know, she she's like, I'm not going to get a Christmas tree anymore because it's just it's just not the same when we, you know, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, and I'm feeling it.

I mean, I see the expectation and I see that the new normal is is something and exactly like, how do we find something really fun? Well, you know, we have this friend and I told Tammy, I said, you know, who would really? We had a friend who'd been in prison for actually 13 years. And he used to help us before he went in prison. He used to help us when the kids were small, decorated at Christmas.

And he got out of prison just two years ago. And I said, I'll tell you who would enjoy decorating that Christmas tree more than any of our kids. I said, call Doug. He'll come. I mean, I can't be more excited that way.

You know, we just just start praying, you know, God, what do you have that's new that would be along the lines of what we want to do? And so I'm hoping that she'll let us go get another Christmas tree next year because we can decorate it with Doug, if nothing else, you know, it's part of the taking the past. And, you know, at one point, you know, you're excited and I hear it from friends that, you know, this Christmas is different because all of a sudden their children are married. Right.

And now they have to split time with in-laws that they didn't have to split before. And, you know, we all go through these new normals. Right. And so but it can rob our joy if we're not careful if we focus on what's not there or what is no longer the option instead of learning to flow with what is a new option and having God awaken in our hearts some things that are really cool to do and create some new normals that are fun.

You know, exactly. And as we talked about before the show and what got Jim all excited about the Hebrew letter, he calls it the kaf, which makes sense because it looks like it's spelled that way, K-A-F. If you listen to many Jewish people, you'll hear them say huff. So but, you know, however it's pronounced, the idea of the letter is it looks like the palm of your hand upside down asking for a blessing. And the idea of the wisdom of that letter is that that desire drives intellect. In other words, you want to get somebody to really develop a skill that they want if it starts with a desire, then away they go. And so what happens at our boot camps, right, is the very first talk we do or the, you know, core desires of a man's heart because if we can reawaken those things, then it's a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue, you know, and an adventure to live.

I have nothing to really add to that. I was just thinking how sad it's going to be if a thousand years from now that people look back at emojis and think that there are hieroglyphics or it's our hidden language, you know, like you're talking about Hebrew, right? And so I was thinking, you know, hopefully it's not like the praying hands emoji and all the other ones that are used that they're going to think that, oh, wow, look at how they communicated.

Sorry, just a random thought that you know. But it's actually helpful when you see that how much desire actually, you know, drives behavior. And even when you listen to all these clips that we're talking about, these, you know, how did you feel when you wanted that, you know, Rock Em Sock Em robots game when you were a little kid? And what behavior did it drive because you wanted that kind of thing, Jim?

I wasn't even listening to you because I'm still sorry. I was thinking about our personal responses, and it hit me the other day as I was trying very hard to get off the floor of how much I loved Christmas when I was young. And I would go sometimes for hours lay under the Christmas tree and just look up through the lights and all the decorations of the tree that my father put up primarily. And earlier this week, I was at my daughter's house, and I think it was one of my sisters was on the phone and she wanted a picture of me under the tree like I used to be. And I got down and my daughter made just a beautiful tree is one of the greatest ones I've seen. So I got down there and I laid down under there for a couple of minutes and it started hurting.

And then I tried to get up and didn't work. And I'm not eight years old anymore, but I can still enjoy some of the same things I did then, but enjoy it with my kids as opposed to my parents. And a gift I have gotten for Christmas this year is to actually be in a position to impact my son in a difficult time in his life.

All my kids have done exceedingly well with all that's been put before him, but he's in a rough patch right now. And I'm beginning to really appreciate my new name of Morning Dove. I'm having some of the morning now, but that's okay because it's bittersweet.

I know God has it and I want him to use me with my family more than he has in quite a while would be my longing right now. Absolutely beautiful. Well, we have a guest in the studio with us, David. Hey, how are you? I'm good. And so I'm going to hit you with an easy question.

Okay. Can you take us back to when you were a kid? Just, you know, picture back when you were five, six, seven, eight. What about Christmas caused wonder in a young David? Oh, it was all about the gifts, you know, anticipation of what I was going to get, what I wasn't going to get, you know.

What's the one that sticks out? You know, probably one year I was really, really asking for one of those two wheeled scooters. Now they have a metal and they pulled up and everything like this is actually a pump up tires on it. And I really wanted it really bad and asked for it and asked for it and begged and begged. And, you know, we got I got it on Christmas, but my dad actually hit it outside on me.

So didn't really think I was getting it, but ended up getting it. So, yeah, that's what really sticks out to me. It's not unlike the scene from the red rider ride where the dad, you know, just didn't want to make it easy.

He wanted to see the big surprise and the big reveal. And so was it? Yeah, it was pretty good.

I think I tore it up in about a week. Really? You know, it's not as off road as I would have liked. See, this is the masculine journey, right? So, you know, we need an off road scooter. We don't need the one that just goes on sidewalks. No, absolutely not.

It needs to be able to do jumps and right. Yeah. And so, you know, that there you go. How about you, Rodney? What was it? What was that? Was it the red rider BB gun for you or? No, for me, you think about what gifts or whatever you got, but for me, it was the gift was snow. You give me some snow because after my dad first bought a snowmobile, that's all I wanted to do. It came in wintertime, it came Christmas time, is go ride. I want to go fast, Robby.

That's what I want to do. I want to go fast. And it was fun, wasn't it? Oh, when you've, you know, everybody loves to do donuts in a car. Oh, snowmobiles are just like donut making machines.

You just sit there and do donuts and wherever you want to go, you slide around, turn, you go fast, you wreck, you get back up and go again. We lived in Michigan when I was 12 or 13 years old. And, you know, you've heard the stories of Skipper Wagner. Well, what you don't know is Skipper Wagner's dad worked for the experimental part of General Motors. And so he had access to all these different, and he had an experimental snowmobile. Sweet.

It was sweet. And in that area of Michigan, you know, the glaciers would dig out all these lakes. And then we had probably four lakes in the neighborhood and there were really steep hills that would come down to the lake. Of course, the lakes were glare ice. And so, man, you could, that snowmobile back in those days would go 70 or 80 miles an hour down that hill and then hit that ice.

And then if you just tweaked it just right, it would go into doing 360s through across the ice, you know, just like you're getting a picture, right? Oh, been there, done that. And if you did really good, you could whip slip Skipper right off the back. Yeah, I used to get rides home after basketball practice. You know, you think about all these people, you seem to wear helmets and stuff nowadays.

That thought never crossed their mind. Yeah. You just brought up the picture of me getting a ride home from Troy Wilkie. My buddy, Sean, was with me. We were walking home. He would purposely stop by, he knew when basketball practice would be over, give us a ride home on a snowmobile. And I was always on the back. Well, he's a big, strong guy, too, and he would just push us all the way off. So I just said, okay, fine.

I sat my rear right on the snow and pavement and just poof on the home windwind. But it was like just one of those things you just look forward to. You knew he was kind of being a turd about it, but it was like, that's okay. That's just fun, you know.

It's after hours, we could use the word turd. It's fun. It's fun, man. It was just, it was rock and roll in time, man.

I loved having snow for Christmas. That's fun, man. Oh, yeah. It was. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. It was a lot of fun. You know, I used to, and I know you love to play football, and I know lots of the guys do here, but it was something really fun. If you had about a foot of snow on the ground or six, eight, ten inches, man, and you can play tackle football with your buddies in the snow, that was something, wasn't it? Oh, man, that was a blast.

Yep. Then you had all the little ones or the older ones and who's at home crying, and you had the brothers that were just like fighting with each other because that's where the real catch really happened. It wasn't everybody else. It was within the family.

They're the ones that were like picking on each other all the time. So, Danny, down here in the south, I'm guessing it wasn't snow for you. If you got snow, it was a surprise. Yeah.

And eight to ten inches was never seen that, I don't think. I can remember one Christmas, and I don't remember asking for it, which made it a better surprise. I get up on Christmas morning and there's a orange flaked motorcycle helmet, and I was excited about the helmet. I mean, cool. It was cool because it matched my dad's motorcycle. I thought he'd bought me a helmet to ride with him or something, but he had bought me a mini bike.

It had off-road capabilities, just saying, and it matched the helmet and what an excitement that was. And one of the things I'm looking forward to is for the first time that I can remember, my granddaughter's seven, and she's going to be at my house on Christmas morning. She's already checked out the credentials to make sure Santa has the capability to find her at my house.

She's scoped it out pretty good. But to see the wonderment and excitement in her eyes is going to be a Merry Christmas. Yeah.

Yeah. There's that childlike, you know, how cool is that? And something Sam said a while ago, you know, we've lost some loved ones this year and it's easy to focus on what has gone and, but to realize what's going to happen and the wonderment of it, because we will have, Michelle and I will have our children and in-laws and granddaughter all under the same roof for the first time in quite some time. So that's going to be really cool. That is awesome.

Sam, I guess we got to go around Robin Hood's barn to get to Sam, but we'll get to him. From my childhood, I don't really have, we didn't have a whole lot, you know, growing up and we had Christmas, but a lot of times it was just like put you in a burlap bag and yeah, they did, you know, and they call it normal, you know, just a normal childhood. I think a lot of times, you know, it was, there was a toy here and there, but it was mainly, you know, socks and t-shirts and underwear and stuff that I needed, you know, and, and that was okay.

That's what my, my parents could do. You know, I think white milk is fine. Plain milk is fine. Yeah. Um, reference from the Santa Claus, the original, as they said in Denny's actually know that scene well, um, could you detect a little bit of a pose and that underwear was fine.

It was fine. No, I can't really honestly think of a toy that really did that when I was a kid. When I think more about stuff, it was, um, something Danny and I talked about the other day was, you know, for you guys that were at my house, uh, for the Christmas thing, as you walked in, you saw the, the nutcrackers that were up on the, uh, the creepy nutcrackers up on the ledge. I don't like nutcrackers. I have all those because my kids know I don't like nutcrackers and they would buy them for me for Christmas. And so I just knew a nutcracker was common at some point, you know, and so looking at those, when I get them out each year, it makes me laugh, you know, because my kids just give me stuff that they know is just going to frustrate me. You know, it's a, it's kind of like I grew up, I didn't like, um, Do you suppose your parents were given the underwear? Yeah, I wish I got it anywhere.

It frustrates them. It's been, it's, you know, it's the story of your life. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I got a pickle today.

I'm good. The, um, no, but like my kids, it's funny. They know I didn't like, um, Dr. Seuss growing up because, uh, green eggs and ham. If your name is Sam, you don't like this, the story green eggs and ham.

Right. And so, uh, one of the shirts that I wear around the house now is the green eggs and ham. Sam, I am, they got it for me for Christmas. And so when I think back, a lot of them now, my favorite memories are just the things my kids did just to poke fun at me and, and, uh, you know, have fun giving me a present they know was just gonna make me, uh, chase them around the house a little bit. So, all right, Andy, it finally, it circles, but all comes back to young Andy in the beauty contest.

That's right, beauty pageant answer, world peace. So this is cool how this is, I love hearing you guys' stories and mine, you know, my parents, we didn't have a lot, but my, they, my parents made sure we, we had Christmas gifts. Just, uh, it was just, they did whatever they could to do it. It wasn't easy for them, I don't think, but I can remember, you know, I was into everything. I wanted to be a revolutionary war soldier. I wanted to be Daniel Boone. I wanted to be a football player, baseball player. Uh, you know, I was, I was even into like, um, um, Smokey the Bear and saving the forest. I mean, they were really promoting that back in the day. I guess everybody was burning up the forest at the time.

I don't know. But anyway, all these gifts, I could, I was just sitting here remembering all the stuff that I got through, uh, as a childhood. And now there is that certain wonder and it's not always about a material gift.

It's usually something that is drawn, a drawing from your heart. And you know, I think we did a show back a while back about how we get sophisticated as we get older and we lose that childlike wonder. And then you think back about what was going on. To me, when you're a child, that's the truest you because you don't, you haven't been all this crap from the, from your adult life gets in the way. So we've used the word crap in the same show. It's a slippery slope, Rodney started it out, so shame on you, but it's just, it's just all that stuff gets in the way. And I think having that childlike wonder and that's where I going back to where what I wanted for Christmas to me, it's almost like a childlike wonder because once you get some things out of the way, you get back, you remember your childhood, you remember those things.

And then when you do, then you see the possibilities of what God's trying to do in your life now as an adult where, you know, you're, you're in a position to actually use what you've learned. Okay. I did think of two things, right? I got my coolest Christmas present as a kid, I got a cowboy hat, two six shooters that, you know, use caps.

Okay. And had the holsters and the whole deal. And I had them from Christmas and I actually used them in Halloween for the Halloween parade.

I went as a cowboy. And so that was one of the coolest. And one of the other ones I thought was cool for a while that I got was a Hot Wheels track. I remember my, it wasn't as cool when my dad decided to use it to whip me.

Not a big fan of the Hot Wheels track at that point, but up until then, it's probably effective. It left a life lesson. I'll give you that one. You know, it's interesting. I was just sitting there and wonder, I, my favorite, interestingly, my favorite Christmas present I can remember ever is I wanted this really super duty long underwear that was like really insulated because I love to go out in the snow and I love to actually stay out for two or three days in the woods, you know, and just live off of whatever it was. My family knew that. So it was this, it was almost like a down jacket, but it was long underwear. It was green. I can remember it. I got that. It was, I was so excited.

It was unbelievable. Well, I was relating back to what I want this Christmas. And I told these guys before the show, what I really want is wetsuit pants, which sounds a little comical, but the thing of it is, is my sailboat.

You got to go into the lake, which we live off Blues Creek Lake and the water's cold this time of year. I'm to, and so when you go to launch this sailboat, I got to have my wetsuit pants. Like I used to have my, you know.

And so Sam said I should get yellow ones so that way I could be the official banana wetsuit pants, Robby that they all. So how about you, like, can we go back to our childhood, want something maybe even physical that would bring wonder back to your life? Like something that you might really, really want, how fun, like, I bet you enjoyed talking about all this. I bet you kicked up a memory or two. Your heart is still a kid, believe me, it's all in there.

Like preggo spaghetti sauce. So enjoy it. We'll be back. Go to masterandjourneyradio.org, register for the boot camp, coming up March 31st through April 3rd. This is the Truth Network.