What I Want for Christmas

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. campaign. Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick live podcast where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

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. Oh, how fun I get to host the masculine journey. I am excited because although Sam's here, he said, Robby, would you do it tonight? You know, so what an opportunity and especially this time of year, as Andy has given us some topic. And so we're gonna and a Christmas topic at that so far away, man. Yeah, nobody was there.

Nobody else was coming up with anything last week. So this through something out there. So, so, oh, now they're pumped.

Exactly. Let me review radio one on one. The idea is for the listeners to go, Oh, man, I can hardly wait.

This is actually a great topic, Andy. Oh, yeah, I'm really excited. Okay, good. So it is basically, what do you want for Christmas?

Click. Everybody wants to hear about what do you want for Christmas? Right?

It is it is. And so, you know, along those lines, if we all are, to some extent here as a result of the vision of salmon, Darren, and years ago, Darren taught on this something that really got down in my soul, and I've never forgotten it was he said, you know, if you were to ask your child what they want for Christmas, and they were to look up at you and go, Well, gee, Dad, you know, I want your will. I want your will to be done. Whatever you want for me, that would be good. Your immediate response would be what?

Right? You'd want to know what do you want? What do you really want? And so what an insight that is, and that clearly God wants your eyes to light up with what it is that he has for you in this season, the wonder of what God has given us. And so it's a neat thing to awaken those desires. And, you know, a lot of guys come into boot camp, and they don't realize how much desire plays a big part, a big role in, you know, restoring hope. Yeah, absolutely. You come into a boot camp, if you don't have a desire to go to that boot camp, I mean, what's the point, right? You have to have a desire to want life to change, you know, whatever God has for you.

So if you walk away from desire, which a lot of times, I believe that happens in Christendom is that we tend to kill desire, make it like all desires matter. Or we kill a microphone, so we're going to kill the white mic due to the fact. It must be me.

It happens to me no matter what time it's out of the table. I'm not forgetting the red mic. He does it to it if we get another one. It's you, Andy.

No, no, no. So anyway, we're just talking about the desire. Really, you don't think about desire a lot of times until it gets to Christmas.

Nobody asks you through the year much. Oh, maybe it's your birthday, but what do you want, you know? So it's a time to think about desire.

Right. So, you know, a lot of people would think that, you know, if they knew me well and they've, you know, seen my smile, that, you know, a long time ago, I gave up the whole idea of having front teeth. So, you know, I've thought about it a lot this Christmas, and here we go. Good morning, Janet, honey. How did Santa Claus treat you? Did he give you everything you wished for?

No? Well, what is it you want? All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth. Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth, then I could wish you Merry Christmas. Rodney made sure I had that clip.

That was going to be my bump. I remember one of my Christmases, I was, they were all gone. They were? Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of people still ask me about that. No, they're there.

They're definitely there, man. But anyway, when we think about the classic, you know, if you were going to think about a clip from a Christmas movie about something that somebody wants, you know, you had an opportunity to ponder that, Andy, and you came up with something from one of your favorite movies. Which one was that?

I had three clips. What? The Red Ryder.

Oh, okay. So this is a clip from a Christmas story, and Danny, you might be able to help me out since you've watched it so much. But basically, it's a kid who, he knows exactly what he wants, but he's cautioned about, you know, the dangers of what he's about to ask for. If you've seen Christmas Story, you'll obviously know what that's about. But, you know, a lot of times when we ask for things, they might not necessarily be good for our body or whatever, but they may be good for our heart.

You know, we talk a lot about, you know, what God puts in our heart and what we need to experience that, and I think this clip kind of identifies that. Oh, no. You'll shoot your eye out? Oh, no. My mother must have gotten to Miss Shields.

There could be no other explanation. You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out! No, no, I want an official Red Ryder combination. Do you want to get ready by later, Russell?

You'll shoot your eye out, kid. Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho. No! Did you have a nice Christmas? Yeah, pretty nice. Did you get everything you wanted? Almost. Almost, huh? Well, that's life.

Well, it's always next Christmas. Yeah. Hey, that's funny. What's that over there behind the desk? Where?

Behind the desk. It's the wall over there. Why don't you go check it out? Hmm. Oh, it was beautiful.

I could hardly wait to try it out. Do you not love it? Yeah.

Can I try it out, Ma, can I? Okay. But outside, oh, I still say those things are dangerous. Go down. Put on your glosses and your coat. It's cold out.

I had one when I was eight years old. What if he hurts himself? Johnny, your coat.

Don't shoot any animals or birds. Except the bump is his dog. Oh, my God, I shot my eye out. So a little bit, you know, there's a lot going on there. That was kind of a compilation clip. But essentially, his mom, his teacher and Santa Claus were all stacked up against him.

Said he'd shoot his eye out. How often we are, you know, guided against what our heart's desire is. But you can tell what's cool about it. I didn't really catch it as much. But his dad, you hear him in some of the space laughing when he sees how happy his kid is at getting the gun that he wanted, this BB gun. And, you know, he's laughing about it. You know, I had one and told his wife I had one when I was a kid, so he knew what that did to his child's heart. And then when he finally got it, sure enough, Ralphie, he's the kid in the story, you hear his adult voice talking about it as when he was a kid. But sure enough, he shot. He didn't shoot his eye out.

He had the glasses on, knocked his glasses off. But pretty much everything that they said about it. But anyway, it just goes to that desire of what's put into us. We talk about, you know, the guns and how we as men are made for war and stuff. You know, he didn't want a Barbie doll. He wanted a gun.

That was for him, his masculine heart. It's so Andy. Yep. You got a mic and, you know, right now we're short on them. I'm ready to pass it.

Yeah, too late. So how about you? Like what do you really, really, you know, like the song goes, what do you want? What do you really, really want? What do you really want?

When you were saying that, I was thinking that. So, you know, I'll try not to give like the beauty pageant answer, you know. World peace and, you know, end of world hunger.

All those things are good. But, you know, I don't know. There's so many things that my heart wants, but ultimately they get back to, you know, really understanding, you know, the purpose of what I'm here for, you know, is God's purpose and that desire that he put in my heart and for that to be manifest or to be experienced. And that's not necessarily a desire for this Christmas season. It's my desire, you know, to really fully walk in it. You know, I did the talk on adventure this last time or your calling or placing the story. And one of the things that I feel like is I don't think I've ever felt it as much as I do now is just being able to say that I'm actually walking in the purpose and plan that God has for me. And that's my desires to continue that out.

And that sounds like this beauty pageant answer, but it really is my heart's desires to do that because whenever you're doing that, when you're experiencing life through that because you were made for that desire. Darrell Bock Dig into that just a little bit, okay, since I got you right here. You know, we got a boot camp coming up in March 31st or April 3rd. And I'm assuming you're going to want to do a talk. Darrell Bock I'll probably do one, maybe. Darrell Bock And you feel like that's part of what God has for you in 2022?

Darrell Bock Yeah, absolutely. It's to continue to delve into him, and his avenue of where I've found life and him most is walking out what we've learned through this masculine journey while at heart. And I've thought about it a lot of times. Why does this not appeal to everyone?

I think it should, and because as men, I think so much is going against us in this culture about, you know, men being men and being leaders and being who God called us to be. But that is my desire. I don't know. I don't know what else to say. Darrell Bock So let's just try to get more specific here since, you know, we got Sam right here and I'm here. You know, so Andy. Darrell Bock This is like a – Darrell Bock Yes, this is your life. So which, you know, there's all these different talks that we do at boot camp.

Beautiful. Darrell Bock Oh, I can ask what talk I want. Darrell Bock There you go, since we know that's part of you walking out your – Sam Weaver Yeah, I'm kind of slow. Darrell Bock Go ahead, Sam. You might turn it on.

Sam Weaver I don't think it will work. Yeah, it's cutting out a little bit. Andy, a couple of things real quick. No one's going to really think you're going to give a beauty pageant answer. I'm just saying. Maybe a custodial answer or something.

I'm not really sure. But I like the way that you had the topic. You had the topic, but then you didn't have an answer. But you had like this world peace kind of answer. So kind of commit, man, commit. We need to do a talk on commitment and give it to you.

Darrell Bock You know, it's not an easy one. Nobody wants to take the, well, I want, you know, a million dollars on a trip to the Bahamas. Some of us have done that, you know.

And you didn't want to do the world peace or whatever. So we'll see if we can get rid of Andy's pose throughout the first question. Get into what do you want? What do you really, really want? I mean, it's a deep question that's worth asking this Christmas. And you might even hear some other people's answer.

Because we have them all on the hot seat tonight. And so this afternoon as you're living. Hi, this is Sam with Mask on Journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're going to talk about ways that you can help support the ministry. One way you can go to smile.amazon.com.

Go to smile.amazon.com. There's information on our website there on how to do that. You can go to facebook.com and click the donate button. Or you can go to masculinejourney.org and find the donate button. Masculinejourney.org.

Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O. Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. Next time on Focus on the Family, Dr. Tony Evans explains what it means to have a kingdom marriage under God's authority and for His glory. He shares about maintaining oneness, the importance of having a servant's heart and how to rebuild a marriage relationship that's been fractured. God's wisdom for your marriage on the next Focus on the Family. So that was Sam's bump in. Apparently he's got Mariah Carey on the mind just saying.

Go ahead, Sam. That could have been it. That could have been it. The whole thing of the bump was it wasn't for a person. It was more hoping that my heart would long more for God in it, right?

And that's kind of the churchy answer, and I get that, but to have more of a heart for what God wants to go on an adventure with me on. I mean, that's it. Very similar to Andy's answer, by the way. That's very interesting, Sam.

That's what you were beating me up on the break for. Very interesting. Glad to hear that. Moving on, we have Danny.

And Danny, we know that one of what he wanted for Christmas was to play his clip from last week. It's on the list. You know, I was thinking about earlier this week, I did the New Name talk at the last boot camp, and I used the analogy of the 18-inch journey. And usually I think about that from my head to my heart. And I think what God laid on my heart was, what about from your heart to your head? The truth of the things that you know are true, to think those things out and act those things out. And that's kind of a Christmas list, if you will. Because I want to discover things that make my heart come alive, not the things that I see other people doing. And that's just kind of it. And, you know, all kinds of family things going on, and I really had it laid on me to go after my family's heart.

And not all hearts respond, so it's been a challenge. But, you know, anyway. Was that a good answer?

No, I actually like Andy's and Sam's answers. You know, even though, you know, it just points to the fact that that's a little touchy feely. You know, we're getting into the Jerry Maguire thing.

We've got so few mics, but we're going to move to Jim, because he's going to swing around. Eventually we'll get to him. And I'm not going to answer your question, so ask later. But I wanted to make a comment on the question, and they fit right into it.

You said earlier, it's what we want, we're supposed to tell God what we want for us. But what came to mind when you were talking about that to me was, I got two gifts for my father. I'm not sure whether they were Christmas or not, my earthly father. One of them was a BB gun, and I literally shot my neighbor's tooth out, not his eye, thank God. And my father was a dentist, so he fixed it. But the other thing he gave me was a 1954 set of World Book encyclopedias. And I didn't ask for that. And he memorized them.

With a bonus dictionary, too, right? For those that don't know what that is. So those of you that are wondering about waxing gibbons and all that kind of stuff, that's where he got it.

But you spent all that time in the... I read them a lot, going these guys to death, and love it with that. But that has served me much better than the BB gun. And that's what he gave me that was his choice, not mine. Oh, that's cool. That really is cool.

And I'm so glad that you obviously valued those. So Rodney, you've got an interesting clip from us, also from a very classic Christmas movie. Yeah, so the Santa Claus 2. And what you have here is Santa figuring out what everybody wants that they'd never asked for.

They didn't get it as a child. And they had the big Christmas faculty party. And he's able to provide all these gifts. And, of course, the almost to be Mrs. Claus. He's kind of half dating, trying to figure out how he's going to get into the, you know, to stay Santa Claus. That's the whole point of the movie. But here, he's falling in love with her.

And he gives her the present that she really, really wanted that she couldn't ask for, which was baby doll. And that's what you'll hear in this clip. And then basically what's going on is just you've got somebody getting something they'd never asked for. The whole party's about that. That's what it turns into, because it's a really bummer of a party. And at the beginning of this scene, you'll hear all the commotion going on.

That's everybody playing Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Toss Across, and all these old games they had from their childhood. And then you get her heart warmed up from her gift. You know, sometimes you don't need to know all the answers. Speaking of which, even the principal needs a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas. Come on, open it. Rip it open. Come on, we're not going to save the paper.

It's baby doll. Come here. Did you call the office? No, no. Did they call you?

It's not like that. Did you investigate us? No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that, no. Did you?

I told you about baby doll an hour ago. And did you send someone to... No. No. Well, I don't know how you did it. It's like some kind of magic.

Yeah, sort of like some kind of magic. And pretty much the last day I have. What? You know what?

I don't want to know. What you did in there tonight for everyone was wonderful. Thank you. That's so cool, Rodney. I just want to say it really points to Danny's request, right? She didn't know her heart wanted a baby doll, right?

You know, and how many things like that are in our own hearts? That it was really nice that that made the 18-inch trip. And then you supplied the clip perfectly for it. Well done. And I timed it perfectly. If Sam had been the host, he'd have missed that completely. Yeah. Thank goodness we had Robby at the helm. The professional. Just kidding.

Who walked us right into the break without saying a word about the book. That's no problem. Go ahead. So right there you have the gift that you never asked for. And I can remember not too long ago getting that gift from God that I never asked for, didn't want, didn't ever even plan on. That gift of salvation that was given to me so long ago that I didn't know it was even given until all of a sudden one day it was there. And again, that's what I am definitely, whether it's this Christmas season or any day of the year, it's what I pray for every day is salvation for my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law, which are the closest to me.

And then there's many others. But those are the ones that every day get in my prayers for, you know, that's what I really, really want. That's, yeah, that's so cool. And I, not to be left out because, you know, I get to pick on myself a little bit, that I thought about this and prayed a lot about it, and I really know that I'm on this quest, and you made me, heard of me speak of it before, that there was this guy who lost his wife. And when he did, he realized that through prayer, he could kind of pick up the phone and call God, and after he lost his wife and he was more lonely, he picked up the phone more and more often to call God because he was struggling with the loss.

And then he got to the point where he never hung up. And ever since I've heard that, that's what I really want to get to that. But, you know, I know I'm not there or anybody straight to the imagination, but there's a desire there that is something that I really, really, I want to have that kind of relationship where I always feel like, you know, that I never hung up. And it just speaks to my heart. And so, you know, there you go. And I saw you leaning towards the mic, Jim, so, and by the way, it's your turn. Well, I was trying to save my turn for later.

I don't know why, but we'll do it. My first thought was a silly one, and that's how my brain usually operates. But one thing I'd like for Christmas is to never hear. Last year I gave you my heart song ever again, but particularly around Christmas. And then my next – We should have used it for the bump.

Yeah, I'd have had to leave. I mean, the fact that I've heard it six or seven times and I've heard eight or nine other Christmas carols on the radio this season says the whole bit there. My second thought, which was about me and that being centered on myself sometimes is big, and this was a show we did not long ago, but I just turned 67, so tonight at least, I'm the oldest guy here. And we miss you, Harold. But I want to finish well, and I don't – I mean, that is – We have a show along those lines. Yeah, we did. And it really is – and then I suggested that we do it again, and you told me that we'd already done it, so I'd like to finish well with my brain intact.

Let me clarify that some. And we were talking about Hebrew during the pregame chat, and that's when it really hit me that for other people – I had my Hebrew professor die early this morning, and I read about it from an email there. And I know there are a lot of folks out there that are really hurting because of people they've lost around Christmastime, and I lost my father in December. And that makes it bittersweet. Now, I know my father's in heaven, so it's okay, but that was one of my wounds. And all those that are out there wounded, I'd really like to see God give them healing this season.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Absolutely. And so Andy's wanting us to circle back. No, no. Oh, he wants to – I wish that the studio audience or the audience could see this mic being switched back and forth, back and forth as people are trying to find their way towards the microphone, but in an effort to get it to Sam. Oh, Rodney, go ahead.

No, I just – since it's the closest, I grabbed it. So along those lines of what you really, really want, you know, besides – I mean – Sing it. Yeah, right. That's what you don't want for Christmas. But as we go on out, there's just so many things that we want that we don't even think about or realize we can have.

And we just need to press into God and really search your heart for what those things are that really are that meaningful for you in this season. Yeah, absolutely, and we're going to press in further in the After Hours show, which you can go to MadisonandJourney.org and listen to that or register for the boot camp coming up March 31st through April 3rd, 2022. So when we come back, all those people that were passing the mic will get an opportunity to speak. We'll be right back if you're listening to the podcast. This is the Truth Network.