Preparing Your Heart For Christmas

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Welcome to the Masculine Journey. We are preparing the Truth Network Podcast. This is the Truth Network Podcast. See, we miss Harold. We talk about him when he's not here. Patricia Bucklew. Who could forget?

I do. So we are preparing our hearts for Christmas and it's our first weekend in December. And it seems like Christmas is so far away. I mean, Thanksgiving is just over. But it kind of does that every year, right? Thanksgiving is a month later. Let's go back and replay them all, right?

Yeah. And so we have about three or four weeks to get ready. We've got three after this week. Second is this weekend. And then you got the ninth, whatever it is, 17th, 24th. I got something off there.

Jim, you're usually on the mass stuff there. The third, the 10th, the 17th, and the 24th. Yeah, it's actually, you know, Christmas Eve. We get to do a Christmas Eve show, the actual eve of evenness.

Wow. We'll be evening out. We'll have no idea what to do with that. Yeah, we've got to prepare. You think we're preparing our hearts for Christmas.

We've just got to prepare our hearts for Christmas Eve at this point. So we'll get to our first clip. You guys are so talkative. I'll go ahead and jump into the first clip. This is actually my clip.

And the reason that we're playing this, this is more of a laugh kind of clip. And this is something, I actually, when I cut this clip the other day, I sent it to my kids. And said, hey, this is a clip I'm using for this week's radio show. And my daughter texted me back and said, thanks, that caused me to start listening to Christmas music already. Because at the beginning of this clip you have some Christmas music.

And so they listen to it the rest of the day. But this is from the original movie, The Santa Clause, with Tim Allen. And this is him and his son. He's going through a divorce, or he is divorced, and the son comes with him for Christmas. And it doesn't go well. He burns a turkey and they end up at Denny's.

And you think things are going to get better, but they just don't. And so we're going to pick it up and listen to it from there. All right. Denny's. It's always open. I don't want it in here. What are you talking about? Everybody likes Denny's.

It's an American institution. Are you with Hansutashi? No.

Dad wants a turkey. Oh yeah, that's fine. Come on. Right over there?

Thank you. Coffee? No thank you, Judy. What do you say we start out with cold glasses? Or a delicious seasonal favorite? Eggnog. I don't like eggnog.

We're out. Coffee. Decaf.

Mm-hmm. All chocolate milk, please. We're out.

Plain milk's fine. Okay. At least we know they got hot apple pie. We did.

This is nice. So the whole story, and I've shared it on here before, is we watched that movie a lot when the kids were young. You know, it had to come out and it was on probably VHS at the time. And we watched it a lot. And one of the things that we would tease the kids whenever they would get the little lip sticking out when they weren't getting things their way, we'd always say plain milk's fine, you know, echoing Charlie. And so it became a whole thing that we said in our family year round. And so for me, when I was thinking about a clip, I went to this not because of that. It always makes me think of Christmas and have fond memories.

But I have my own plain milk moments. You know, I have to deal with putting away things that aren't going exactly the way I want them to, or not going to be able to be around this family the way that I was around them in the past. You know, because kids are spread out across the country and people's lives change over the years. And so each year Christmas just becomes a different kind of iteration.

You know, and it's never going to go back to being kind of the same thing. And I think my heart always kind of longs for some of that time. You know, time when the kids were little and I know we've already lived through that.

But it's part of preparing my heart is stop thinking about the things that aren't going to happen that I want to happen and appreciate what I do have and step more into the season of just relationship with Jesus in the midst of it. And instead of just focusing on the negatives and the plain milk kind of stuff, focus on the positives. And my kids are healthy, they're happy, you know, that type of thing and enjoying that for what it is.

And so that's my plain milk story. It's so easy to build things up to where they have to be spectacular. You just start off with, oh, yeah, reserve yourself, right? You come into the season prior to Thanksgiving, oh, it's just going to be normal.

That's okay. You keep telling yourself, we're just going to have a normal, nice, quiet Christmas. And then the season starts coming. It gets closer. And then you're past Thanksgiving and you're like, wow, what are we going to do that's spectacular?

What are you going to do that's going to knock your socks off? I don't know about you guys, but for me, the kid inside me just starts to want to have more. I just start to desire more and more and more and I build up expectations that are just sometimes just unmanageable. You can't have Christmas live up to some memory you have in the past or some feeling that you had in the past. And it just has a hard time of just getting it to where it's sensible anymore. You can just build it up to where, oh, no, I got to make it all about everything else around me and not just about Jesus. Yeah, I think a lot of times, too, when we're kids, you know, we had a kid's perspective.

Right. And as we're thinking about it as kids, you don't have the pressures of, for most kids, I'm sure it's not the story for everybody, but the financial issues and, you know, worried about having food on the table. You're just a kid thinking about what you're getting for Christmas, you know.

And as you kind of think back, a lot of times those stories or those times in your life are more romanticized, you know, going from there. Danny, I'd like to go ahead and get to your clip because I think we can get that in. And yours is probably the oldest clip in the Maloo. But it's not first, you know. Oh, it's not the oldest. Jim's would technically probably be the oldest. Yeah. By far.

By way far. But still, this is Little House on the Prairie. Yeah, Little House on the Prairie. It's a Christmas episode and it's one of the early episodes. And it's an interchange between Charles, the dad, and Carrie, the little youngest daughter at the time, and discussing Christmas because she's probably three.

And I mean, she just you can tell by the way she talks and everything. But she's asking the question, what is Christmas? And Charles explains it. Oh, what if we did forget Santa Claus would come all the way down from the North Pole for Christmas anyway? What's Christmas?

What's Christmas? That's a very good question. Let's see if I can show you. See that star up there?

A real pigment? Well, a long, long time ago, a star like that appeared in the sky. Except it was much, much bigger and much brighter. And lots of people saw it. But only a few people knew what it meant. Some shepherds, three kings, three wise men. And they followed that star a long, long way. They finally came to a manger.

And you know what they found? A baby. Baby Jesus. And he was God's son. And God gave him to the world because he loved us. So Christmas is the baby Jesus birthday.

And now, young lady, it's time for Greenland. Yeah, it just reminded me of a Christmas time when we were trying to do a project in Asheboro. A manger moment. And it was an example of everything getting in the way.

You're trying to plan this. And we were trying to put this whole scenario together where stages of the Christmas story ended in a live manger scene. Where Mary and Joseph would pray with you. Not the real Mary and Joseph. We had somebody playing that just to be clear. Asheboro Mary and Joseph.

Asheboro Mary and Joseph, yeah. And we got so busy and so wrapped up into the project and getting everything right. And this person can't do this and this person can't do that. That it pretty much almost ruined Christmas. But when we finally got to the place where we were actually doing the thing on a Friday night and a Saturday night.

I realized that I was the one that needed the manger moment. Because, you know, things do get in the way. You know, this family scheduling, this dinner at this time. But that's going to conflict with this one and that one. And you'll cry out, you know, I think I'll just stay at home. But, you know, that's not the Christmas spirit.

And, you know, so it does take some preparation. Thank you. I forgot to share something when I was talking about the whole Denny's thing.

And I think I know Robby's heard this story. But part of what made that so funny for my kids and stuff was when my daughters were little. Their mom lived in Pennsylvania. And so we lived in Indiana. And if you don't know the map of the United States, they're not connected. There's Ohio that's in between them.

And it's a pretty large state to cross. And so we'd have to travel on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day every year to take the girls over so that they could spend part of Christmas with their mom. So we were always on the road either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And the only place that was open most of the time was Denny's. And so we'd always meet at the Denny's. And so when that came on, that was funny for that reason as well. That, you know, it was so many years of our life that was spent on Christmas or Christmas Eve at a Denny's. You know, and you did have a pretty decent collection of people there that was there. You know, just kind of being there on their own or being there with a small family.

And so it was kind of interesting. We're going to come back. We're going to talk more about preparing your heart for Christmas. We do have an entrenchment coming up January 28th and 29th. It's not on our website yet. It will be soon. And we have a boot camp coming up. It's March 30th through April 2nd. And that'll be on our website again here pretty soon. And we'll be able to register for that.

We'll let you know. But we'll talk to you after the break. It is a tight bond of men.

Everybody's the same. And each and every time that I've come to boot camp, I've learned something different. And not one man has ever been there, neglect not to take time out to talk or to share. It's serious business, and you need to come one time to break bread with the men and fellowship, fill the atmosphere, hear the people pray, and get down to earth about what's going on in life and get real.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. As Christmas is all in the heart, that's where the feeling starts. And like a fire inside, it touches every part. As Christmas is all in the heart.

Welcome back to Masculine Journey. We are talking about preparing your heart for Christmas. And that was a song from Steven Curtis Chapman. It's several years old now. It's on his original Christmas album.

I think he's had two of them out. But that was a song called Christmas is all in the heart. And I always liked that song.

The video was pretty cool. If you watch the video back on the days when they had music videos, but you had the husband was played the guitar. You know, it's the old story. The husband plays the guitar and his wife, you know, loves her long hair. And so she wants a hairbrush or something. And so he goes and he pawns his guitar to get her stuff for her hair.

At the same time, she's getting her hair cut to get him a guitar case. You know, and so it's just this whole thing and this whole exchange of thinking of others at Christmas. And and for me, that's a big part of it is just as we talked earlier, not getting absorbed in.

It's not about me. And we're going to hear kind of that in a theme, I think, today. But, Jim, we're kind of moving on to your clip. And so this is actually the oldest clip we have.

Yes and no. The recording was only 12 years ago. So I think you win that one. But it was written 280 years ago. So that's pretty old.

It's there. And I'm pretty old. And I have.

Yeah, Harold probably remembers when it came out. But when this topic came up, God sort of, I want to say, hit me with it. But reminded me that over the last few years, particularly with the commercialization of Christmas, my memories of Christmas as a kid were wonderful and I've become something of a Scrooge. In fact, I've been known to say bah humbug.

I almost did earlier when we were introducing. But God reminded me of how wonderful Christmas was when I was young. And it wasn't about gifts. I can remember two presents I got in the 15, 16 years I was at home and conscious. And one of them started my life in war games when I got Avalon Hills, Gettysburg. And the other was a very expensive trombone. And even though I wasn't a very good trombone player, I felt like I'd made it.

But my fondest memories, there are really two of Christmas. One was music. My father was a wonderful tenor.

I was an okay baritone. I had the opportunity over many years of singing with him. And Christmas was the most special time. He would start playing Christmas music after Thanksgiving and it would be piped throughout our house because he was kind of ahead of the game in the 60s and that sort of thing. But always, every Christmas, the probably most common thing played was Handel's Messiah. And a profound part of my relationship with God revolved around music, especially in my younger days.

And I've sort of lost that over the years. I'm going to play this and this is whenever I hear it. I do think of my dad because it is a tenor aria at the beginning of Messiah. Or sort of that. Speak ye comfort of it through Jerusalem.

And cry unto her that the warfare, the warfare is accomplished. What I heard when this became my clip, actually it was early yesterday, I knew this is what I was going to do. It reminded me that my father was a wonderful example of giving around Christmas.

He was an example that I'd love to emulate better. And over the years I've gotten more and more selfish around Christmas. It has become about me and that's the worst possible thing for Christmas to be about. My father dying just before Christmas and it was suddenly.

He died on the 3rd of December. And that was also the month that my daughter got married, at the end of the month. So that was a very sad Christmas for me. And since then it's been not about the joy that I always felt with Christmas.

It was more about the, okay, let's see if we can get through this without spending a bunch of money. And I said I became something of a Scrooge. And God reminded me of the fact that this isn't about me, it's about Him. And I know that, but emotionally it had become about the losses. And this music in particular spoke to that for me. I need to be a comfort to others. My losses are minor compared to many of the people I know that are really sad this time of year. And if I can reach out to those, I think my joy will be back to the level it was when I was younger. Yeah, and that right around your birthday time too, so it kind of robs you from joy of birthday and everything kind of hit there.

Yeah, he died a week before my birthday. Wow. Yeah, that's tough.

This is an honest question. Was that in English? Yes. Okay, because I couldn't understand the words. Okay, I couldn't understand the words.

It's actually, it's not King James, it's a different version, but it's similar time periods. Because I thought I could understand a word here and there, and I'm like, no. Speak comfortably to his people.

Okay, makes more sense. Say it to your God. Yeah, I need the lyrics to run across the screen. It helps me.

It's hard to do that on radio. It is. Thank you. I appreciate that.

So we've got, we don't have time for another clip, so we will just talk for here a little bit. So Andy, I'm just going to throw a question at you without prepping you for it. You like that, don't you? Andy? Andy is not.

We may have lost Andy, so we may have to call Andy back. Oh, I was talking to mute. Thank you for the Christmas present.

There you go, there you go. So the question, now that you're off mute, is what is it that gets in the way of Christmas for all of us? You know, we talk about preparing our hearts for Christmas and some of itself, right? But what are the things that gets in the way of Christmas that distracts you from the real point of it? It can be a lot of things. I think one of them is just the fact that we feel like we have all this stuff to do to get ready. The whole Mary Martha kind of thing of trying to prepare for this event, but really the event is the person, Jesus.

The whole shopping and all. I think I'm in a better position this year than most times, I guess, of being able to get some of those things done and really focus on what's important more. I think one of the things my desire, I mean, there's things that get in the way, but my desire is to not, I want to be present much more than I have been in the past. You know, I felt like I tried to do it a little bit more on Thanksgiving, but it was kind of going through some health things, but just being present, that's what I think the enemy would like to take you out of most is present to what the holiday is about in the celebration and present with your family and being, I mean, how are you going to build memories for the future if you're not present in the present of what's going on as you celebrate Christmas?

You know, as you share that time with your families, and a lot of times our minds are wandering off to what's going to happen next week or whatever. Yeah, I'd feel remiss if I don't remind you that you're not present with us tonight. Today I feel a little slighted. I'm partially, but I'm virtually present.

Okay, all right, fair enough. You are virtually present, and you were here last week, so we'll give you that. So we miss the present of your presence.

How's that? Yeah, well, I miss the presence of y'all. That's right, I miss y'all guys. But yeah, I think it's just a matter of really remembering that, though, even though you're busting on me for not being there. But that is so important. Well, just as another present for your presence, I just thought I would share with you that the second letter in the word nafesh, which is your soul, okay, is pay, and that pay is the idea of being present, right? And so your soul, it's one of the neat things, is what gets to be present with God. In other words, when you're sensing his presence, it's your soul that does that.

Right. And interestingly, it fits into your Santa Claus movie because the first letter is a nun, and it has to do with whether or not you believe. And so, you know, as they say in the Santa Claus movie, right, believing is seeing. And so you don't sense his presence unless you believe he exists.

And it's a fascinating thing that as we actually get into that idea of, like, I believe I can experience him right now, then you can actually come into his presence. You've been looking at my notes. I was getting ready to say that exact same thing.

The nash and everything else-ish in there. I knew there's a whatever, a yud in there somewhere too. Nafesh, nafesh. You were all on the nafesh. I was trying. I was trying to be there, yeah. You were very nafesh. Trying to believe, yeah, trying to believe. My soul was right in there in the believing part. Yeah, no, that was good, Robby.

Thank you so much. So, guys, what else gets in the way? Commercialism a little bit maybe or getting the perfect present? You know, what's the stuff?

My mother-in-law. Oh, there you go. Let's bring it right out there. Yeah, all right.

Well, that's a good one to end on. Tell us about boot camp. So we do have a boot camp coming up. It's coming up March 30th through April 2nd. I think I have the dates right then. And we have a, whatever it's called, entrenchment coming up before that. It's January 28th and 29th.

Those will be on our website here in the next couple of weeks. Just in time to purchase it for Christmas for the boot camp, you could do that for somebody. What a great present. We'd have their presents as a present. Oh, we would. Oh, we would. Oh, wow.

There's presents all around. On April Fool's Day. We'd all nafesh out right there. So, Keith, we'll tell you when it's ready to go register. But in the meantime, if you have a question for us, reach out to us on social media or send us an email. We'll talk with you next week.