January 6, 2025 • 55 mins
Almost everyone begins a new year with some sort of fresh start. In this episode, we talk through spiritual and general resolutions and how to keep the discipline we all start the year off with.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
DTours Family, welcome to another episode. As always, I am sitting here with my beautiful
(00:24):
wife Deb.
Hi guys, happy new year.
Happy first episode of 2025.
Hope you guys had a great start to your year.
I guess this is the time that everyone's looking for new beginnings.
It's interesting.
Did you know that the real calendar year actually began on April 1st, which is why they call
(00:47):
it April Fool's Day.
Brand new beginnings shouldn't start in the dead of winter.
So it used to begin on April 1st, right? When spring was here and everything was coming
to life.
I don't remember the full backstory on it, but hundreds, maybe even thousands of years
ago.
Fascinating.
Yeah, the new year actually started on April 1st and that's where that the start of April
(01:12):
Fool's Day.
I don't know enough about it to make it interesting for the audience.
Okay.
I don't remember enough of the backstory, but for some reason it just occurred to me
that yeah, that January 1st is not the time for new beginnings because this is when people
are shutting themselves in their homes, at least in Chicago, or maybe not here in Florida,
but where I'm from.
No, it's still warm.
Today was gorgeous.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
(01:32):
We actually started the year off great for you.
You went roller skating.
Thank you.
I thought so.
Yes.
You were scooting around.
We went to some outside basketball courts, outdoor basketball courts, and you've been
dying to go roller skating.
Yes.
So you just skated it up.
I ate concrete before we got to the smooth surface.
So I got my first fall in of the year and I survived it.
(01:55):
You got back up.
I did.
Yes.
Maybe a little bruise on the tookus or something.
You got back up and got on your feet and got out there.
So yeah.
It's harder to endure when you're getting up there in age and you're just like, that's
going to leave a bruise.
That is.
Yeah.
(02:16):
I was proud of you for getting back up there, shaking it off.
After the big moan.
Yeah.
Big moan on your hands and knees.
All the neighbors looking at you.
Kind of funny.
Oh yeah.
Like, what is this woman out there doing?
Trying to learn to roller skate.
I did look like a baby chick just coming out of the shell.
Oh yeah.
(02:36):
Totally.
But you know what?
I would have looked even worse if it was me.
My gosh.
Balance is not an ally of mine at all.
It's not an ally of mine.
Balance and flexibility are my enemies.
Yes.
My gosh.
I could bend over and touch my toes if you want to laugh.
It's pretty good.
Man.
But yeah, I think today's episode, we do want to talk through just New Year's resolutions.
(02:59):
Goals.
Yeah.
Goals that people may have for 2025, certainly from a spiritual perspective.
Yeah.
You know, we may have some.
You and I definitely have a different philosophy on New Year's resolutions.
You're more, yeah, if you were going to do it, you would have done it.
And I'm like, it's a new beginning.
So talk to me a little bit about your kind of theory on it.
(03:22):
Yeah.
My again, this is just a single opinion.
I'm sure there's all sorts of evidence to conjure.
Okay, whatever.
So yeah, for me, I think what is it?
What is it that said it's the second Friday of the year is the number one day to quit
your resolutions?
Typically, that's the statistic.
(03:43):
Yeah.
By the second Friday.
So this year it would be January 10th.
By January 10th, all the people that have vowed to lose weight, January 10th is the
average day that they stop going to the gym.
It will last a week and a half, according to statistics this year.
And they'll be what, shoving cookies in their face after that?
(04:04):
If that's what they were doing before, that's what, you know, you're a creature of habit,
right?
You got to put in a lot of work to break cycles.
True.
So yeah, I am not of the opinion.
If it's important enough to you, don't wait until January 1st to hit the reset button.
That already says to me that you're not wholeheartedly in it.
(04:26):
If you're willing to delay the start, if it's not important enough to start right now, that's
probably not a good sign.
So you know, from a spiritual perspective, if your goal is to pray more, or if your goal
is to spend more time in the Word, whatever it may be, insert whatever variable there
(04:46):
you want.
Get started right now.
Like, why would you wait?
It makes no sense to me.
Why would you wait until January 1st to start praying more?
That's a really important part of your spiritual life, your spiritual walk.
Now what do you think?
You are a different perspective.
(05:07):
You were all about gung ho January 1, use it as a slingshot, shoot you out.
Yeah, I'm very, I think out of the two of us, I'm slightly more optimistic, right?
Definitely.
Be your versus Tigger.
For sure.
And I think that there's something in our humanity that longs for new.
(05:30):
There's something that's very indicative of this is a new year.
This is a new moment.
And I get to start over.
And I get your philosophy.
I do.
If it was really important to you, you would have done it.
And that's why when we had...
Where you'd start now.
Right.
And we had some wellness goals that we started in November and everyone's like, why you're
(05:51):
going into the holidays?
And it was like, well, this is important for us.
But I also think that you get a chance to begin a new journey.
And to me is somewhat indicative of being a new believer, right?
A new believer has this fresh perspective of, wow, all my sins are forgiven.
Like, you know, that newly in love with Jesus and everybody, like, you just have this glow
(06:16):
about you and people are like, wow, you're so different.
And you're like, yeah, I gave my life to Jesus.
And you're just on fire.
I think we have the opportunity to do that every year.
But I would say, but you also don't wait to get on fire for Jesus until January 1st.
You do it when the Holy Spirit moves, you know?
(06:37):
I'm just not anti resolution.
I guess I'm not anti resolution.
I can certainly see...
Here's another subject that we have differing perspectives on.
Reading through the Bible in a year.
If you were going to do that, I can see why January 1, because that's a definitive easy-to-track
(06:59):
starting date.
Yes.
And it's easy to calculate, am I on track or am I not, as opposed to starting October
27th?
Sure.
You know, with that...
So there are instances where I can see how it is beneficial.
But I don't normally subscribe to that.
(07:21):
If it's worth it, let's go now.
If it's worth the initiative, like you said, we went into the holidays going, we're going
to implement fitness and wellness goals before the holidays get here.
Going into the holidays.
I don't mind, you know, our plan was, okay, we can eat like crap for a day or two.
(07:45):
But when the Christmas season turns into five or six weeks, I think the average person,
I can't remember what it is, the average person gains, I think it's 13 pounds between Thanksgiving
and the beginning of the year.
And it's because they treat it as an entire season and they completely give up on everything
for a season rather than Thanksgiving dinner.
(08:08):
Sure.
Eat all the turkey and stuffing you want.
Maybe the day after, eat some leftovers and then boom, right back at it.
Right.
And it needs to be your philosophy with any kind of goal because the reality is there
are going to be times where you get off track.
And if you become all consumed with the fact that you got off track, then it's really easy
(08:29):
to go, well, I already blew it.
What's the difference?
That's what I mean.
The 11th of January rolls around and you know, you don't go to the gym that day and you're
just like, eh, I'll wait till 2020.
I just see it as too many potential stumbling blocks for me personally.
Maybe that's just the difference in my personality.
I know people have different approaches.
(08:49):
Yeah.
And I mentioned something earlier.
What are your thoughts about things like reading through the Bible in a year?
I think it's a worthy goal.
I also think that it doesn't mean you have to read an exact prescription.
You know, there are a lot of times there's like, here's a chart, these are the verses
(09:10):
you need to read.
If you're doing that just to check a box and you aren't truly spending time with the Lord,
then I think it's an exercise in just performance for God.
And I don't think that's, you know, I know that's not what God's asking of us.
I think it's a worthy goal because it does keep you on track and it's something that
(09:31):
gives you a little bit more structure.
And there are people that definitely need more structure than others.
My thought pattern is like, well, am I really getting something out of reading two verses
out of Leviticus if I'm not reading the whole scope of the story?
I'm a big picture narrative kind of person.
So sometimes those programs set you up to read two or three scriptures and then you're
(09:55):
in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And I think it becomes challenging, but I do think it's a worthy goal if you're doing
it for the right intention, which is to spend time and grow in the Word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For me personally, I could never do it because it always felt like quantity over quality
(10:15):
for me.
It always, you know, you're reading some of Psalms every single day because Psalms is
such a long book.
You're reading some of Psalms, you're reading some other Old Testament and you're reading
some New Testament and you're blitzing through it so quickly that there's no time to meditate.
And if there's something that really starts pulling on your heartstrings, you're going,
(10:39):
but I don't have time to pause here.
I got to keep going because by the end of the day today, I'm supposed to be at, you
know, page whatever.
So I never, U-version always sends out a push notification in their app, hey, start a Bible
plan reading through the Bible in a year.
For me personally, I need to sit and be methodical for me to comprehend.
(11:01):
I need to be methodical about my studying.
So reading through the Bible an entire year, it just, it never made sense to me.
If you can do it, more power to you.
But you know, to meditate on something is to be hyper aware of something.
Do you think that you can do that in small clips throughout the day?
(11:24):
If you had four chapters, let's say to read, couldn't you meditate in the morning on the
few chapters that you read and then go back in at lunch and do it again?
And there is a way to still meditate and digest and mull over what you've read.
Maybe I, you know, it's not on the person.
(11:48):
Yeah, it probably depends on the person for me.
I just, I need to sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing.
Yeah, I'm not going to be, I have a man brain.
I'm only capable of doing one thing at a time.
So I cannot be sitting there building emails for Calvary and meditating at the same time.
(12:11):
It's one or the other.
So for me to bring my entire day to a halt four times a day, 365 days out of the year
so that I can purely focus and meditate on something is a really tall order.
I think, you know, one day when I retire, that might be a different story.
That's probably a great discipline to have.
(12:34):
But I think for me, just the slow pace, I mean, if I meet somebody, I have to meet that
person a dozen times before I'll remember their name.
Oh God, don't I know it.
We have already met this person like five times.
This person's been to our house and had dinner.
I'm sitting there going, I just, I don't remember, I can't remember a face.
(12:58):
And so for me to read through the Bible at the pace that's required for reading the Bible
in a year, I would be reading so fast and retaining so little that for me it just, it
wouldn't be worth it.
So I mean, my goodness, there are some books, I think I would be hard pressed to read the
(13:19):
book of Psalms in a year and truly study it the way that I need to study it to retain
it and glean from it what I feel like I need to glean.
Because like you were saying, some of the stuff I love the most is just understanding
the history and the context.
You get none of that when you read the Bible in a year, you're just reading to read where
I need to go back and refresh my memory.
(13:40):
What was happening?
What was the world like in Leviticus?
Yeah.
What was the culture like?
What were the people, what their responses would be based on living in that culture at
that timeframe?
I think that's the kind of meditation that gives you a deeper understanding and depth
to the Word that just reading it just off the page, you don't get unless you slow down.
(14:01):
Yeah.
And that's the stuff that I enjoy the most.
I enjoy the apologetics, the logic of it all.
And it's not like I want to sit and put God in a box and say he's limited to logic or
anything, but just understanding his thought process or the Israelites thought process
or King David, pick anything and everything.
(14:25):
And I just love to understand the context and put myself in that situation.
That's how I'm going to retain something.
So I may not remember that somebody came to the house for dinner, but if you talk about,
remember that time where I made this certain dish and then we did this and then we, you
recall the evening for me, I'm going to be much more likely to remember that over a person.
(14:51):
A person, like memorizing a name, forget it.
The chances of me remembering that is literally almost nothing.
Whereas you recount an evening, I may not remember.
There's a pretty good chance that I may not, but it's certainly higher than remembering
just a person's name.
(15:11):
Okay, fair enough.
So what are your reading plan?
If you don't do a reading plan, do you have some plans to work through certain books this
year?
Not books so much.
I know our Wednesday night Bible study, we're getting ready to start the book of Daniel.
Calvary Chapel is getting ready to begin.
(15:32):
I believe it's first sample.
Yeah, I believe.
I'm writing Devo's for it already.
Okay.
And I think the plan is to do the life of David.
So there's a lot of emphasis happening right now on the Old Testament, which I love.
Me too.
Because so many people focus on the New Testament for good reason.
(15:55):
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but the last...
A couple of years.
Since COVID, when COVID came, Pastor Bill was doing the book of Revelation.
We've gone through just almost virtually every book in the New Testament.
This is the first time in a really long time that I've seen him teaching in the Old Testament,
(16:17):
which I love.
Same thing at Calvary Surfside.
We've been in the book.
We took, I think it was like two, two and a half years on the book of Acts.
Oh, I know.
That was super long.
Yeah.
So we've been in the New Testament forever.
And Calvary, Fort Lauderdale, it's been a good amount of New Testament.
So I'm definitely ready.
I don't have a reading plan per se, but I am excited to spend a lot of time in the Old
(16:41):
Testament this year.
Bill does an incredible study in Genesis.
I mean, just knock your socks off.
There's so much information in Genesis and he hits everything just letter by letter,
verse by verse.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He is a good teacher.
So that'll be nice.
I mean, the New Year's resolutions for this year, it's a really just discipline inconsistencies
(17:07):
that I see that need to become consistencies.
So it's just, how do I get that discipline to keep that?
You know, you just wrote a Devo.
What was your Devo about for honoring God and kind of the mundane?
No, it's basically the name of the Devo.
So glory in the, gosh, I don't even remember the name of the title.
(17:29):
It was basically talking about the Ark of the Covenant coming back into Israel after
the Philistines had captured it.
And those moments of victory and celebration that you have, amen, you should be praising
God for sure.
But there's so many things in the day to day that deserve God's attention and praise.
(17:51):
And those are the things that when we do that well, and we walk in gratitude and we walk
in the acknowledgement that none of this is owed to me, but yet you love me enough to
give me a job and a home and a family that's healthy.
And all of those things need to be acknowledged.
(18:12):
And that was the basis of the Devo is reminding myself as often as I write a Devo is really
written to me first because I need to be accountable to what I write and then to invite the readers
to do the same.
Yeah, I think when you look at you look at things in the Old Testament, like the manna
and how a miracle of that magnitude became mundane and they forgot just how critically
(18:40):
important it was.
I don't remember the statistics behind it, but Joe Foch does a talk about breaking it
down to how many pounds would have fallen from the sky, how many people needed to be
fed.
So yeah, it's two million.
I think there's two million people and that's the size of Miami.
(19:01):
So if you think about the size, a group of people the size of Miami out in the middle
of nowhere needing to be fed daily.
And he, I remember him, I don't remember what the numbers were, but he correlated it to
this a number of freight cars worth of manna that had to be delivered on a daily basis
from heaven, from heaven.
(19:23):
And they sat there and they watched that miracle over and over and over and it became mundane
for them.
And I think the part of the discipline is, you know, how to be, how to honor God with
the mundane.
You and I even talked about it when we were talking about your Devo.
(19:43):
Yeah, our conversation just really helped prompt me to go, wow, that's something that
needs to be written about.
Yeah, just the miracle that was our marriage, just getting, getting us together and becoming
husband and wife.
You can easily get caught up in the mundane of going through the motions of going to work
and this, that, and the other, and get to the point where your marriage is no joy, no
(20:07):
joy in serving, not realizing just how lucky I am to have you.
And hopefully you feel the same way.
It can be, it can get very boring if you let it.
And to me it's working on the discipline, right?
And that's, we were even talking prior to this episode about Calvary House.
(20:27):
Yes, yes.
How many people are successful after leaving that structure?
Like if they had any statistics.
Yeah, so let's, let's.
And for the audience might not know, and Calvary House is a recovery based, that was about
a year long.
Yeah.
It's a residential program.
They've kind of changed things around to where it's like, there's two steps in the program.
(20:48):
So the first step is six months, but it's, it's basically if you're addicted to drugs
and alcohol and you've tried everything else, they have this place in Calvary, Fort Lauderdale
called Calvary House where you can, Calvary House for men and Calvary House for women.
And it's a residential program.
They put you up with housing for free.
It doesn't cost anything, but.
(21:08):
Yeah.
You work for your room and board at the church.
You do.
So that's, that's also a discipline.
It's like you have to really, it's kind of like the concept of gleaning in the field.
Like the welfare system God set up for Israel was you can, you know, you can glean the fields
and pull from the outer edges of the field.
(21:28):
But if you want to work, I mean, if you want to eat, you need to work.
And that's the same concept that they, they use.
And I love it because the program, it creates discipline, right?
What's the, what's the saying about idle hands?
Oh, it's the devil's workshop.
So what they do is they, they basically force discipline, if you will, where every minute
(21:52):
of every day is accounted for.
There is no time where you're sitting with idle hands.
Yeah.
I always say a bored man is a dangerous man.
Yeah.
So.
And I don't mean that in the respect that a lot of creativity can come out of boredom,
but when boredom becomes a point where you're now, I got to do something and it becomes
(22:13):
dangerous in the respect that you're spiritually not aligned with God, it could be very dangerous.
Yeah.
It can absolutely be dangerous, but that's what Calvary House does so well.
Those guys get up at six in the morning.
They do a workout from six to seven, seven to seven 30.
They're going to shower and get dressed.
(22:34):
Then at seven 30 from seven 30 to eight 30, they're having breakfast.
Then they had to work at nine o'clock, literally every moment of every day so that they do
not have idle hands.
And it's that discipline of just every day we're going through the same things, the repetitive
motion and that's what they do really well over there.
Right.
(22:55):
Do you, do you think that that's attainable outside of an environment?
Like well, so one of the things that you were so adamant about us talking about today was
accountability partners, how we want to be, how we want to hold ourselves accountable.
It's so critical to find someone that can sit there and go, Hey, you haven't done X.
This was a goal, a promise that you made to yourself, to your spouse, to God, whatever
(23:20):
it is.
I'm seeing that you're not doing it.
A, someone that will do that.
Yes.
B, someone that you're not going to be offended when they're telling you something that you
don't want to hear.
You have to have those in place.
I think it's tough.
Some people can do it without that accountability partner, but I think the vast majority of
(23:43):
people need to find at least one or two people, if not surrounding yourself with people that
make you better than what you are today.
Amen to that.
Yeah.
You have to find the willingness within yourself to take critique because it's hard to hear
like, Hey, you're not living up to the word you put out.
(24:05):
This is integrity now.
You said you were going to do it.
I trust that you're going to do it because I believe you want to be a man of your word
or a woman of your word.
If you can't self critique, it's really hard to take someone else's critique.
That's super important when it comes to discipline and when it comes to goals.
(24:26):
One of my downfalls is I'm so forward focused.
I don't turn around and look behind me very well to assess.
I'll assess well in the moment, but if you were to ever ask me to tell you stories about
me in elementary school, I virtually remember nothing.
You can ask me all sorts of things, but it's because I'm so forward focused in where I'm
(24:49):
going.
It's much more important to me where I'm going than where I've been, which is a good thing,
but it's also, it can be detrimental.
Sure, because you learn from where you've been.
I think I've learned tremendously from where I've been compared to where I am now.
If I didn't have a benchmark for all the hurt and pain, I wouldn't know how to make better
(25:11):
choices I think.
Some of those poor choices are benchmarks to my much better decisions moving forward.
I think looking backwards has helped me be a more forward thinking person because I'm
like, I don't want to repeat that.
That was painful.
It's like touching the hot stove.
(25:31):
There's a direct correlation to pain that makes you remember, oh, I'm not supposed to
touch that.
Those pain benchmarks are really helpful so that you don't keep burning your hand off
on the stove.
Yeah.
It's not that I don't remember.
I often remember learning experiences like what you just mentioned about getting burned
(25:53):
by a stove, I'll remember that significantly more than I'll remember things that happened
on family vacations or whatever it may be.
At least I have that aspect of looking back, but my memory going backwards is all my energy,
almost all of it is focused on going forward.
(26:19):
That's something that I do have to work on for sure, but at the same time, there are
times when it works to my advantage because I also can shake off failure very, very easily.
Yeah, that is an amazing attribute because I see that you're not afraid of failure, which
is really interesting because a lot of people get debilitated.
(26:40):
Oh, completely.
Yeah.
I land in that camp more often than I'd like to admit where I'm like, oh, I don't know
if I can do this because I've already predetermined all the what ifs and that prevents me from
wanting to do it because I think what's the point of trying that hard and failing?
(27:01):
Well, because you learn how to get back up again, right?
Today, when you landed on your tocus, what would have happened had you not dusty yourself
off?
We never would have went to the basketball courts and you never would have had the fun
that you had.
Yeah, we had to get you back up.
Yes.
Let you get your wits about you.
(27:22):
And honestly, if we want to talk about accountability, had you not been there, I might have had there
was a good chance I would have been like, forget this.
I'm too old for this nonsense and went back in the house and watch TV.
Possibly.
But I really did want to skate.
I just I would have said, OK, maybe I'll just wait until the roller rink is opened.
Yeah.
(27:43):
But I think failure does paralyze people.
It's so amazing teaching people how to drum for the audience that doesn't know.
I play Japanese drums and the word in Japanese for drum is taiko.
So you'll hear people call it taiko drums, but they're literally saying drum drums.
(28:03):
But I played taiko and for a long time I taught it.
And the differences between teaching adults and teaching kids was worlds apart.
And most of the time it was because the adults were so worried about what other people it's
awkward to drum.
It's not drum.
You don't play it like an American drum.
It's not wrists.
(28:23):
It's all lats.
It's very athletic and it can feel very awkward at the beginning when you're shape reshaping
your muscles.
And literally what you need to do is what your body naturally does.
But people resist it.
What do you mean what your body naturally does?
Your body, you're naturally very strong when you relax.
(28:44):
If you relax, you're actually stronger.
And what you do is you relax your entire body, but you tense up right at the last moment.
But so many adults are just so tense the entire time that they're completely winded and can't
drum after 30 seconds.
Yes, I've tried.
I know.
Yeah.
But it's interesting to teach children.
Children don't have that fear of failing that adults do.
(29:07):
So when we give them that fear.
Yeah.
It's something that's definitely taught.
Our society teaches you to fear messing up.
And so children learn significantly faster and they have much more joy at the beginning
than adults do.
Adults a lot of times don't enjoy the beginning and they're so worried about messing up, getting
(29:29):
a rhythm wrong that they'll actually almost talk themselves out of the joy of just drumming.
Wow.
Isn't that interesting how that correlates to Jesus saying, you must come to me as a
child.
Yeah.
Like, wow, now that you're saying it, it makes total sense.
Yeah.
The child, they don't sit there with their head down and go, oh man, Michael, I messed
(29:52):
up.
I'm, oh my gosh.
They just dust themselves off and go at it again.
And they're like, okay, I'll get it next time.
And even if they don't, okay, I'll get it next time.
And it was incredible.
The differences, they just, when they mess up, they're able to let go of that mistake.
(30:13):
That's beautiful.
Almost instantly.
Almost instantly.
Everybody in the class knew that they were trying to do it right.
Right.
They just didn't get it.
So, okay.
I love that though.
So what?
Yeah.
It is something, one of the things that I've learned through the many years of drumming
is just to accept the mistakes before they happen.
Not that I'm trying to make mistakes, not that I'm excusing them, but they are going
(30:36):
to happen and you don't want to be paralyzed when they do happen.
Yeah.
You said that to me a few times.
How horrible, yeah.
How horrible or Christian am I because I lied or, you know, insert any sin there.
Right.
You know, and again, you know, I want to be very clear and you don't, just because you
(30:57):
accept it before it happens doesn't make it okay.
Just understand that that's like God has so much grace.
Yeah.
That, okay, yeah, you messed up.
He knew you were, guess what?
He knew you were going to mess up before you ever did it.
So don't run from him.
Don't run from that grace.
Accept that grace.
(31:18):
Be grateful for that grace.
Yeah, that's wise.
And get right back up on the horse.
Yeah.
And then we correlate the will to live with the will to be uncomfortable and to keep going.
Yeah.
And I saw some meme not too long ago about it and I was like, oh, that makes total sense
because you're literally training yourself to fight for your life in your later years.
(31:40):
Yeah.
And I see people that give up a lot.
I wonder what their elderly years are going to be like.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And drumming, just we'd call him sensei, he hated running.
He hated running with a passion.
Most people do.
I hate running.
(32:00):
But he would force himself to run and we live in Florida.
He would run in the early afternoon.
At the hottest point of the day?
Because he wanted to force himself to be so uncomfortable and miserable and he would do
a minimum of five miles a day doing the one thing.
He was like you.
His entire career is fitness and the thing he hated most was running or darn closest
(32:27):
to the most was running.
And so he would force himself a minimum five miles a day at the worst time of day in Florida
to run.
God bless the guy.
But he's a machine.
Yes.
And just the level of discipline that both him and his wife have are incredible.
So I think that's where Christian's kind of looping this all the way back around.
(32:49):
If you're not uncomfortable with what you are trying to do, creating a new muscle or
a discipline, you have to be uncomfortable.
It's that voluntary exposure to something uncomfortable that does create a resilience
in you and that will over time create discipline and so on and so forth.
(33:10):
The spiritual life as a whole can be a very uncomfortable journey.
People have the impression that are new to the faith that they're going to give their
life to Jesus and everything is just going to magically get better.
And that's totally not what happens.
I mean, it can happen.
(33:30):
Don't get me wrong.
It can happen.
But it does even to you.
God helped you with your smoking.
Oh, he took it instantly.
But there were other aspects that you were struggling with.
That journey of fighting for my life, the new life that God promised me, it took a lot.
And I just kept going back to him and saying, well, you're good.
(33:54):
And I believe you.
And because I believe you, I know that you can walk me through anything.
I can't do this in my own strength.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the areas where people being afraid to fail, one of the great things
that you and I have watched lately, if you guys know him, his name is there's a philosopher,
(34:14):
Jordan Peterson.
I like Jordan.
Jordan does a lot of great stuff.
But Jordan recently interviewed Dallas Jenkins, who's the creator of The Chosen.
And it really was, I don't know, it was probably two hours and 15 minutes, maybe two and a
half hours.
But it's amazing.
Jordan can get very deep and philosophical and so on and so forth.
(34:35):
But this was like two hours and 15 minutes of Dallas's testimony.
Yeah, it was good.
So it was a totally different interview for Jordan Peterson.
And one of the things that I'm focusing on for this year is getting better.
Dallas talks about how in the midst of a failure, a movie that he made that completely failed,
that was the birth of The Chosen and the passage that God gives him as the feeding of the 5000.
(35:00):
And he focused on the loaves and the fishes where all God was asking him to do was bring
the loaves and fish and let him worry about the multiplication.
Where in the movie industry, you know, you're judged by how much money your movies make.
And God told Dallas, hey, let me worry about the multiplication.
(35:23):
And so I think that's that's kind of our focus, at least for me anyway, the focus of this
year.
Yeah, we did talk about it.
Well, is just all right.
What are our loaves and fishes?
God, you've given Deb talent.
I mean, you're an amazing writer.
Thank you.
I've got, you know, digital talents and so on and so forth.
(35:44):
How do we focus on the loaves and fishes and not the results?
Yeah.
And that's that's hard at times.
But that was so convicting to me listening to his testimony and and really freeing that
I just need to I just need to show up and and be what God has called me to be.
And what is yielded is really his.
(36:07):
Yeah, you know, like I, I gave a friend of mine who I know is not a Christian, I have
a Devo called Woman of Worth.
And it just is my experience with Jesus looking through the Bible and saying, wow, look at
all these ways that you treat women and how radically different that is than any other
world religion that I've studied.
(36:28):
And I wrote a Devo and I know that she's not necessarily a reader and may not be completely
interested in the topic.
But all I need to do is provide that and God will open her heart if she decides to read
it and speak to her.
And if he if she doesn't read it, that's no reflection of me.
(36:50):
I provided the loaves and fishes.
What God does with it is on God.
Yeah, and I think a lot of times you can insert all sorts of kind of cliche statements like
leading a horse to water, but can't make it drink and so on.
So he's actually there there because they have some element of truth to it.
They do.
(37:11):
But so many times we're focusing on is the horse drinking, not the fact that it's our
job to bring them to water.
And if they don't want to take a drink, then that's fine.
But we did our part.
We brought them to the water.
Right.
We were so focused on what but the horse didn't drink.
So many times, you know, the seeds that fall on different types of soil, we can't you don't
(37:37):
plant a seed and immediately harvest it.
It's time you plant seeds.
Some of them are going to fall on rocks and get blown away.
All sorts of things happen.
And the ones that do land in soil, you water them.
Still some of those can get choked out by we, you know, there's so many things, but
especially because I love apologetics.
(37:57):
So many times you can see people making an argument in apologetics and immediately trying
to harvest that seed that they're planting.
And no, you just need to answer those questions and plant those seeds.
Amen.
Absolutely.
You can harvest.
You know, sometimes that will happen.
But so many times we just were so eager.
(38:19):
We want what we want yesterday.
Oh, isn't that true?
We're very or something from Amazon and it shows up tomorrow if I'm on prime.
So yeah, you got to you got to pace yourself.
For sure.
I think even with the apologetics is the the processing of time and someone really died.
Like we said about the reading through the Bible in a year, you need time to digest the
(38:42):
answer you you've sought an answer.
You got an answer.
You may not like the answer.
It takes a moment in time where you're like, OK, let me mull this over.
And then another question might happen.
But yeah, you can't harvest like you said right away.
Yeah, I think so.
Do you have any apologetic goals since you're you love that so much?
(39:02):
Like do you have any?
Maybe.
But I think to circle everything back around how we got on this is, you know, what what
are some of our goals?
Bring loaves and fishes.
It's not the multiplication that it's our responsibility, and it's also not the timing
of the multiplication that is our responsibility.
(39:24):
So just keep bringing loaves and fishes and eventually you will absolutely witness Jesus
doing something amazing.
I think so many times we bring loaves and fishes and we present them to God and we go,
OK, I want to see my miracle.
We don't have the patience to sit there and see a prodigal son go through a process that
(39:46):
God's got under control.
We go, but God, I'm bringing my loaves and fishes.
I'm praying.
I'm inviting him to church.
I'm doing what I can do, but I'm still not seeing salvation.
And I think so many times that that process that also is for that prodigal is for us because
we're sitting there telling God, but where is it?
(40:08):
You know, I'm planting seeds.
Where's the food?
And he's going, well, we got to we got to water this.
We got to give this time.
It's a good point.
So I think, you know, that that's also part of the discipline that I need for this next
year is just getting away from the instant gratification and just bring the loaves and
(40:34):
fishes, trust God with the multiplication and trust God with the timing.
Yes.
And that's two areas that that I'm just not good at.
I'm not great at that either.
We have some things coming up in, you know, our health care with parents.
And this year showed me that I over and over, I'm not in control no matter how much I think
(40:56):
I can control a scenario.
I'm not in control.
And things take a lot longer than you want them to take.
Can for sure.
Everything that 24 showed me was everything takes a long time.
And I have to be growing in patience with the Lord and that and that to me is always
(41:18):
one of those to me, that's a dangerous prayer because I'm like, oh, no, you're going to
test my patience more in 2025.
But it is something that you learn over over pain points.
And mom's health care was a massive pain point this year.
And the only way to keep going forward is to do everything that we can do and stop expecting
(41:44):
instant results.
Right.
Yep.
Especially some of the stuff that we've learned with with dad and he gets all these veteran
benefits because he served in the Navy or hoping he's going to get those benefits.
Yeah, he served during wartime.
He served in the Korean War.
And so he is on the table for all sorts of benefits, but that is a government institution
(42:08):
passing those out and they don't do anything efficiently.
So I think or quickly.
Yes.
So I think that's you know, there are options like that that we can select and just go,
OK, we're going to do something different.
And for me, it is the stoplights in South Florida or it is so they are so bad coming
(42:29):
from Chicago where everything is so efficient from a streetlight perspective and coming
to Florida where nobody expected Florida to explode and grow the way that it grew.
Thank you.
Air conditioning prior to air conditioning, Florida, nobody wanted to live here.
Yeah.
And so street systems, nothing was built for a lot of people where Chicago has been a large
(42:51):
city for a very, very long time and they know how to move traffic.
Yes, you hit traffic on two ninety four and so on.
So but every light, Mike's like, hmm, this is so unnecessary.
Unnecessarily.
Well, you're just sitting there staring at intersections and not a single every car is
sitting there staring at one another and no one's going through the intersection.
(43:11):
So how are you going to improve on that in twenty twenty five?
Let me hear because I am here to support you.
So I think it's we touched on it earlier.
It's idle hands.
I'm sitting at a light and my brain is now idle.
So it defaults to frustration.
OK, because I'm in a situation where I'm sitting still and I can't control it and it's extremely
(43:34):
inefficient.
You do feel uncomfortable with sitting still.
Oh, yeah.
I have to I have to be moved like I have to be doing something mentally, physically.
I have to be doing something.
The ADD man.
I don't know what it is, but yeah.
So just that's what you're going to drum on your steering wheel.
Will that help?
(43:54):
Good idea.
I can start writing songs every time I get to a stoplight.
Yeah, give me purpose and I won't focus on the unnecessarily long Florida light.
Yeah.
Nobody going through the intersection, even though we've been here for three minutes.
Oh, gosh, God forbid three minutes.
The one up the streets like 10.
Oh, I know.
It's so bad.
(44:15):
So yeah, that's that's something I will be working on.
I can distract myself with drumming on the steering wheel.
There you go.
People think I'm weird, but so what?
Exactly.
People always think I'm weird.
So yeah.
So what are you working on this year?
I am working on.
I want to be able to get a book a month accomplished.
(44:35):
OK.
And I don't mean sitting down and reading because I am an auditory learner.
So I have a library app and I'm driving every day for you know, my total commute time is
an hour and a half every day.
Not one way, but total.
There's plenty of time to get a book a month in.
(44:55):
So I already have my first book for this month.
It's Jesus.
What is it?
Choosing Jesus in the culture or something.
And I'm going to do that.
That's one of the goals.
Are they all religious books or just whatever strikes your fancy?
Yeah, I tend to go nonfiction more often than not.
(45:18):
OK.
If not, I like to do historical fiction, which kind of gives me a little bit of a, oh, well,
like Francine Rivers does a lot of really good historical fiction through the Bible,
kind of like watching The Chosen.
You're like, oh, that really registers.
Wow, I never thought of it that way.
Sure.
So maybe some of those possibly, but predominantly nonfiction.
(45:39):
I want to continue to grow in my faith.
And sometimes people just walk through a journey and they're able to articulate it in such
a way that really makes you go, wow, I never thought of it that way.
Yeah.
So a book a month is definitely on the table and I need you to hold me accountable.
So if you can just ask me once a month, hey, what was your book this month?
(45:59):
Yeah, accountability partners can really make or break resolutions.
So that's one of the underlying themes that you'll notice is surround yourself with people
that are better than you at what you want to get good at.
Amen to that.
Use them as accountability partners.
Amen.
And I need to have a year of fun.
I am very fun driven and I haven't had any fun in 2024.
(46:23):
And that's my responsibility to bring the fun.
I can't expect people to make my life fun.
It's a good shirt.
Bring the fun.
Yeah, I'm going to bring the fun.
That's my goal.
So today was the very first day and I brought the fun.
I brought roller skating and we're doing a podcast and that's fun to me.
(46:43):
So two things on the list right now.
Right now.
There you go.
All right.
Well, yeah, we'll hold each other accountable and we'll certainly check in on things.
So you're the stoplights.
Yeah, several things.
For me, it's just I think men, I've noticed men struggle more than women do with prayer
life.
So I definitely want to get better at that.
(47:05):
Why did you have any idea why you think that might be?
Well, I think it for me, my default is with anyone is only have conversation when I feel
it's necessary.
I call my dad on Christmas.
(47:27):
I call him on Father's Day.
I call him on his birthday and I love my dad.
My dad's my best friend.
But if I don't have anything to say to him, I'm not just going to call to check in and
go, hey, how you doing?
How's life?
Tell me about work.
I know I married you.
I know.
Yeah, it's so out of the norm for me.
And I think men are more that way than women.
(47:47):
And I'm speaking on just like a holistic level.
Yeah, they're definitely right.
Everybody knows the guys that are extroverts and they talk your leg off.
But I think for the most part, like you'll notice men's conferences at church are always
smaller than women's conferences.
Yeah, men are in a social.
Yeah.
(48:08):
So I have to, like I said, I call my dad when I have a purpose.
I call my mom when I have a purpose.
I call friends when I have purpose.
I need to get better at talking to Jesus when there is no purpose other than I want to just
ask him how his day is going or tell him about my day because I just I have struggled with
(48:30):
that in the past.
And I notice other men do too.
It's an intimacy thing.
Maybe it could be.
I don't know.
I don't know if I could sit and unpack that really well.
It certainly could be.
I don't I'm not afraid of intimate conversation at all.
It's just not normal for me.
I don't.
(48:52):
It's one of those.
It's just one of those things that I have to make it a point to do it.
Otherwise it won't do it.
Some people getting up early and going for a jog.
That's normal for them.
They're morning people.
It's natural for them and it takes no effort for them to do that.
But for me, I'm not a morning person.
That would be a tremendous amount of effort.
(49:13):
Still a good thing to get up in the morning and go jogging.
But for one person, it's more difficult than another.
This is just one of those areas for me.
The mundane.
God, let me just tell you about the mundane because you know what?
It's year coming up on year five on our wedding anniversary.
I can look at our marriage and go it's mundane and be ungrateful or I can be look at it and
(49:36):
say it's mundane and I'm still very, very grateful for it.
And I think the more I thank God for that mundane, the more grateful I will be for it
because I do love the fact that, you know, Monday through Friday, you wake up, you go
to work, you're giving me a kiss before you go out the door.
You know, I can sit there and not appreciate that or I can't appreciate that.
(50:00):
You get to, you know, I get to cook lunch for you because I work from home.
I get to cook lunch for you for the next, I can sit there and yeah, I can sit there
and go, oh man, I got to cook for Deb again or it can be, you know, teaching me to.
I get to versus I have to.
That's a big difference in how we look at life.
(50:20):
If we look at lives, our lives as I have to, it's radically different than I get to.
Yeah.
I've seen, you know, so many different things where people will walk through the, you know,
the subway and there's a musician sitting there playing.
Yes, I've seen those videos.
Where they're, you know, just outstanding.
(50:40):
Oblivious.
Yeah.
And people don't even, literally don't even stop.
And it's some world renowned concert pianist or violinist that's sitting there and people
are so caught up in what they're doing that they don't even stop to appreciate it.
I don't ever want to be that way.
Yeah.
Well, it's easy to say, I don't ever want to be that way.
It's another thing to be disciplined enough to stop, go for a walk, listen.
(51:04):
If heaven and earth are rejoicing in God and what he's done, go take a walk and listen
to birds chirp because that chirping gives God glory.
The wind blowing through the trees gives God glory.
And if you're sitting at home, like I work remotely, if you don't get out and go on that
walk, you'll never hear birds glorifying God.
You'll never hear the trees and the wind.
(51:27):
And so making that conscious effort to go, hey, this could be mundane.
I could just go for another walk or I can sit and appreciate this and have a change.
Yeah.
It's mindful.
Yeah.
It's meditative.
Yeah.
Constantly doing things with a purpose rather than just doing things because this is what
I always do.
I like that.
(51:48):
Those are good goals.
Yeah.
So those are the things that I'll be working on.
Stoplights and prayer life.
Yes.
Stoplights, prayer life, just discipline in general.
I think I know mentally where I need to be.
It's just the act of, OK, now I just got to do it.
So let me ask you, what's the best way to approach you if you're out of stoplight and
(52:10):
I'm in the car and you make a comment?
Would you like me to say something?
Would you like me to just look at you?
The old Italian backhand?
No, I don't want to back hands.
What?
No, that's not effective.
You all you look at me all the time like you want to take a swing at me.
What are you talking about?
I mean, I feel like my face can deliver the message better than my hand can.
(52:31):
I don't know about that.
I'm a woman of many faces.
That is so true.
Yeah.
Just give me a look.
OK.
The disappointed wife look.
Stop it with that.
I don't have one of those.
Oh, yes, you do.
Yes.
Give me the disappointed wife look and I'll know what you're referencing.
OK.
And I welcome the opportunity for you to ask me.
(52:55):
And if I'm not living up to my end of the bargain of my accountability goals for you
to call me out.
All right.
In love.
I don't like to say call out.
I think that makes people feel like I'm above you.
I'm not going to call you out.
OK, fair enough.
Approach you and go, hey, Deb, I noticed.
Yes, that works.
Yes, that's what I will be doing.
(53:17):
OK.
Score.
I will fill the audience in in six months on a brief.
You know, we won't do a whole episode again if we're fulfilling our goals.
But I think we need to be accountable.
I marked it on my calendar in June that will mention how we're doing on our goals that
we set.
Yes, if we don't talk about it before then.
Well, true, true, true.
(53:38):
All right, guys.
Well, happy 2025 to everyone listening.
We hope you're having a great year so far.
Oh, you're one day in.
So well, this is the first time.
Yeah, by the time this airs, it's a few days.
And I think it's like the fifth or something when this episode gets out there.
So hopefully everyone is off to a great start.
Everyone should be heading back into work.
(54:00):
This will be coming out the first Monday of the year.
So everybody should be heading back to the normal regularly scheduled programming by
then.
So happy 2025, guys.
Hopefully you can relate to some of the difficulties and ideas that we had as we were talking about
how we want to improve in the next year.
But thank you guys so much for tuning in.
(54:21):
We love you.
Absolutely.
See you next time.
Take care.
Hold
(54:53):
Thanks for watching guys!
DTours Family, welcome to another episode. As always, I am sitting here with my beautiful
(00:24):
wife Deb.
Hi guys, happy new year.
Happy first episode of 2025.
Hope you guys had a great start to your year.
I guess this is the time that everyone's looking for new beginnings.
It's interesting.
Did you know that the real calendar year actually began on April 1st, which is why they call
(00:47):
it April Fool's Day.
Brand new beginnings shouldn't start in the dead of winter.
So it used to begin on April 1st, right? When spring was here and everything was coming
to life.
I don't remember the full backstory on it, but hundreds, maybe even thousands of years
ago.
Fascinating.
Yeah, the new year actually started on April 1st and that's where that the start of April
(01:12):
Fool's Day.
I don't know enough about it to make it interesting for the audience.
Okay.
I don't remember enough of the backstory, but for some reason it just occurred to me
that yeah, that January 1st is not the time for new beginnings because this is when people
are shutting themselves in their homes, at least in Chicago, or maybe not here in Florida,
but where I'm from.
No, it's still warm.
Today was gorgeous.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
(01:32):
We actually started the year off great for you.
You went roller skating.
Thank you.
I thought so.
Yes.
You were scooting around.
We went to some outside basketball courts, outdoor basketball courts, and you've been
dying to go roller skating.
Yes.
So you just skated it up.
I ate concrete before we got to the smooth surface.
So I got my first fall in of the year and I survived it.
(01:55):
You got back up.
I did.
Yes.
Maybe a little bruise on the tookus or something.
You got back up and got on your feet and got out there.
So yeah.
It's harder to endure when you're getting up there in age and you're just like, that's
going to leave a bruise.
That is.
Yeah.
(02:16):
I was proud of you for getting back up there, shaking it off.
After the big moan.
Yeah.
Big moan on your hands and knees.
All the neighbors looking at you.
Kind of funny.
Oh yeah.
Like, what is this woman out there doing?
Trying to learn to roller skate.
I did look like a baby chick just coming out of the shell.
Oh yeah.
(02:36):
Totally.
But you know what?
I would have looked even worse if it was me.
My gosh.
Balance is not an ally of mine at all.
It's not an ally of mine.
Balance and flexibility are my enemies.
Yes.
My gosh.
I could bend over and touch my toes if you want to laugh.
It's pretty good.
Man.
But yeah, I think today's episode, we do want to talk through just New Year's resolutions.
(02:59):
Goals.
Yeah.
Goals that people may have for 2025, certainly from a spiritual perspective.
Yeah.
You know, we may have some.
You and I definitely have a different philosophy on New Year's resolutions.
You're more, yeah, if you were going to do it, you would have done it.
And I'm like, it's a new beginning.
So talk to me a little bit about your kind of theory on it.
(03:22):
Yeah.
My again, this is just a single opinion.
I'm sure there's all sorts of evidence to conjure.
Okay, whatever.
So yeah, for me, I think what is it?
What is it that said it's the second Friday of the year is the number one day to quit
your resolutions?
Typically, that's the statistic.
(03:43):
Yeah.
By the second Friday.
So this year it would be January 10th.
By January 10th, all the people that have vowed to lose weight, January 10th is the
average day that they stop going to the gym.
It will last a week and a half, according to statistics this year.
And they'll be what, shoving cookies in their face after that?
(04:04):
If that's what they were doing before, that's what, you know, you're a creature of habit,
right?
You got to put in a lot of work to break cycles.
True.
So yeah, I am not of the opinion.
If it's important enough to you, don't wait until January 1st to hit the reset button.
That already says to me that you're not wholeheartedly in it.
(04:26):
If you're willing to delay the start, if it's not important enough to start right now, that's
probably not a good sign.
So you know, from a spiritual perspective, if your goal is to pray more, or if your goal
is to spend more time in the Word, whatever it may be, insert whatever variable there
(04:46):
you want.
Get started right now.
Like, why would you wait?
It makes no sense to me.
Why would you wait until January 1st to start praying more?
That's a really important part of your spiritual life, your spiritual walk.
Now what do you think?
You are a different perspective.
(05:07):
You were all about gung ho January 1, use it as a slingshot, shoot you out.
Yeah, I'm very, I think out of the two of us, I'm slightly more optimistic, right?
Definitely.
Be your versus Tigger.
For sure.
And I think that there's something in our humanity that longs for new.
(05:30):
There's something that's very indicative of this is a new year.
This is a new moment.
And I get to start over.
And I get your philosophy.
I do.
If it was really important to you, you would have done it.
And that's why when we had...
Where you'd start now.
Right.
And we had some wellness goals that we started in November and everyone's like, why you're
(05:51):
going into the holidays?
And it was like, well, this is important for us.
But I also think that you get a chance to begin a new journey.
And to me is somewhat indicative of being a new believer, right?
A new believer has this fresh perspective of, wow, all my sins are forgiven.
Like, you know, that newly in love with Jesus and everybody, like, you just have this glow
(06:16):
about you and people are like, wow, you're so different.
And you're like, yeah, I gave my life to Jesus.
And you're just on fire.
I think we have the opportunity to do that every year.
But I would say, but you also don't wait to get on fire for Jesus until January 1st.
You do it when the Holy Spirit moves, you know?
(06:37):
I'm just not anti resolution.
I guess I'm not anti resolution.
I can certainly see...
Here's another subject that we have differing perspectives on.
Reading through the Bible in a year.
If you were going to do that, I can see why January 1, because that's a definitive easy-to-track
(06:59):
starting date.
Yes.
And it's easy to calculate, am I on track or am I not, as opposed to starting October
27th?
Sure.
You know, with that...
So there are instances where I can see how it is beneficial.
But I don't normally subscribe to that.
(07:21):
If it's worth it, let's go now.
If it's worth the initiative, like you said, we went into the holidays going, we're going
to implement fitness and wellness goals before the holidays get here.
Going into the holidays.
I don't mind, you know, our plan was, okay, we can eat like crap for a day or two.
(07:45):
But when the Christmas season turns into five or six weeks, I think the average person,
I can't remember what it is, the average person gains, I think it's 13 pounds between Thanksgiving
and the beginning of the year.
And it's because they treat it as an entire season and they completely give up on everything
for a season rather than Thanksgiving dinner.
(08:08):
Sure.
Eat all the turkey and stuffing you want.
Maybe the day after, eat some leftovers and then boom, right back at it.
Right.
And it needs to be your philosophy with any kind of goal because the reality is there
are going to be times where you get off track.
And if you become all consumed with the fact that you got off track, then it's really easy
(08:29):
to go, well, I already blew it.
What's the difference?
That's what I mean.
The 11th of January rolls around and you know, you don't go to the gym that day and you're
just like, eh, I'll wait till 2020.
I just see it as too many potential stumbling blocks for me personally.
Maybe that's just the difference in my personality.
I know people have different approaches.
(08:49):
Yeah.
And I mentioned something earlier.
What are your thoughts about things like reading through the Bible in a year?
I think it's a worthy goal.
I also think that it doesn't mean you have to read an exact prescription.
You know, there are a lot of times there's like, here's a chart, these are the verses
(09:10):
you need to read.
If you're doing that just to check a box and you aren't truly spending time with the Lord,
then I think it's an exercise in just performance for God.
And I don't think that's, you know, I know that's not what God's asking of us.
I think it's a worthy goal because it does keep you on track and it's something that
(09:31):
gives you a little bit more structure.
And there are people that definitely need more structure than others.
My thought pattern is like, well, am I really getting something out of reading two verses
out of Leviticus if I'm not reading the whole scope of the story?
I'm a big picture narrative kind of person.
So sometimes those programs set you up to read two or three scriptures and then you're
(09:55):
in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And I think it becomes challenging, but I do think it's a worthy goal if you're doing
it for the right intention, which is to spend time and grow in the Word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For me personally, I could never do it because it always felt like quantity over quality
(10:15):
for me.
It always, you know, you're reading some of Psalms every single day because Psalms is
such a long book.
You're reading some of Psalms, you're reading some other Old Testament and you're reading
some New Testament and you're blitzing through it so quickly that there's no time to meditate.
And if there's something that really starts pulling on your heartstrings, you're going,
(10:39):
but I don't have time to pause here.
I got to keep going because by the end of the day today, I'm supposed to be at, you
know, page whatever.
So I never, U-version always sends out a push notification in their app, hey, start a Bible
plan reading through the Bible in a year.
For me personally, I need to sit and be methodical for me to comprehend.
(11:01):
I need to be methodical about my studying.
So reading through the Bible an entire year, it just, it never made sense to me.
If you can do it, more power to you.
But you know, to meditate on something is to be hyper aware of something.
Do you think that you can do that in small clips throughout the day?
(11:24):
If you had four chapters, let's say to read, couldn't you meditate in the morning on the
few chapters that you read and then go back in at lunch and do it again?
And there is a way to still meditate and digest and mull over what you've read.
Maybe I, you know, it's not on the person.
(11:48):
Yeah, it probably depends on the person for me.
I just, I need to sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing.
Yeah, I'm not going to be, I have a man brain.
I'm only capable of doing one thing at a time.
So I cannot be sitting there building emails for Calvary and meditating at the same time.
(12:11):
It's one or the other.
So for me to bring my entire day to a halt four times a day, 365 days out of the year
so that I can purely focus and meditate on something is a really tall order.
I think, you know, one day when I retire, that might be a different story.
That's probably a great discipline to have.
(12:34):
But I think for me, just the slow pace, I mean, if I meet somebody, I have to meet that
person a dozen times before I'll remember their name.
Oh God, don't I know it.
We have already met this person like five times.
This person's been to our house and had dinner.
I'm sitting there going, I just, I don't remember, I can't remember a face.
(12:58):
And so for me to read through the Bible at the pace that's required for reading the Bible
in a year, I would be reading so fast and retaining so little that for me it just, it
wouldn't be worth it.
So I mean, my goodness, there are some books, I think I would be hard pressed to read the
(13:19):
book of Psalms in a year and truly study it the way that I need to study it to retain
it and glean from it what I feel like I need to glean.
Because like you were saying, some of the stuff I love the most is just understanding
the history and the context.
You get none of that when you read the Bible in a year, you're just reading to read where
I need to go back and refresh my memory.
(13:40):
What was happening?
What was the world like in Leviticus?
Yeah.
What was the culture like?
What were the people, what their responses would be based on living in that culture at
that timeframe?
I think that's the kind of meditation that gives you a deeper understanding and depth
to the Word that just reading it just off the page, you don't get unless you slow down.
(14:01):
Yeah.
And that's the stuff that I enjoy the most.
I enjoy the apologetics, the logic of it all.
And it's not like I want to sit and put God in a box and say he's limited to logic or
anything, but just understanding his thought process or the Israelites thought process
or King David, pick anything and everything.
(14:25):
And I just love to understand the context and put myself in that situation.
That's how I'm going to retain something.
So I may not remember that somebody came to the house for dinner, but if you talk about,
remember that time where I made this certain dish and then we did this and then we, you
recall the evening for me, I'm going to be much more likely to remember that over a person.
(14:51):
A person, like memorizing a name, forget it.
The chances of me remembering that is literally almost nothing.
Whereas you recount an evening, I may not remember.
There's a pretty good chance that I may not, but it's certainly higher than remembering
just a person's name.
(15:11):
Okay, fair enough.
So what are your reading plan?
If you don't do a reading plan, do you have some plans to work through certain books this
year?
Not books so much.
I know our Wednesday night Bible study, we're getting ready to start the book of Daniel.
Calvary Chapel is getting ready to begin.
(15:32):
I believe it's first sample.
Yeah, I believe.
I'm writing Devo's for it already.
Okay.
And I think the plan is to do the life of David.
So there's a lot of emphasis happening right now on the Old Testament, which I love.
Me too.
Because so many people focus on the New Testament for good reason.
(15:55):
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but the last...
A couple of years.
Since COVID, when COVID came, Pastor Bill was doing the book of Revelation.
We've gone through just almost virtually every book in the New Testament.
This is the first time in a really long time that I've seen him teaching in the Old Testament,
(16:17):
which I love.
Same thing at Calvary Surfside.
We've been in the book.
We took, I think it was like two, two and a half years on the book of Acts.
Oh, I know.
That was super long.
Yeah.
So we've been in the New Testament forever.
And Calvary, Fort Lauderdale, it's been a good amount of New Testament.
So I'm definitely ready.
I don't have a reading plan per se, but I am excited to spend a lot of time in the Old
(16:41):
Testament this year.
Bill does an incredible study in Genesis.
I mean, just knock your socks off.
There's so much information in Genesis and he hits everything just letter by letter,
verse by verse.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He is a good teacher.
So that'll be nice.
I mean, the New Year's resolutions for this year, it's a really just discipline inconsistencies
(17:07):
that I see that need to become consistencies.
So it's just, how do I get that discipline to keep that?
You know, you just wrote a Devo.
What was your Devo about for honoring God and kind of the mundane?
No, it's basically the name of the Devo.
So glory in the, gosh, I don't even remember the name of the title.
(17:29):
It was basically talking about the Ark of the Covenant coming back into Israel after
the Philistines had captured it.
And those moments of victory and celebration that you have, amen, you should be praising
God for sure.
But there's so many things in the day to day that deserve God's attention and praise.
(17:51):
And those are the things that when we do that well, and we walk in gratitude and we walk
in the acknowledgement that none of this is owed to me, but yet you love me enough to
give me a job and a home and a family that's healthy.
And all of those things need to be acknowledged.
(18:12):
And that was the basis of the Devo is reminding myself as often as I write a Devo is really
written to me first because I need to be accountable to what I write and then to invite the readers
to do the same.
Yeah, I think when you look at you look at things in the Old Testament, like the manna
and how a miracle of that magnitude became mundane and they forgot just how critically
(18:40):
important it was.
I don't remember the statistics behind it, but Joe Foch does a talk about breaking it
down to how many pounds would have fallen from the sky, how many people needed to be
fed.
So yeah, it's two million.
I think there's two million people and that's the size of Miami.
(19:01):
So if you think about the size, a group of people the size of Miami out in the middle
of nowhere needing to be fed daily.
And he, I remember him, I don't remember what the numbers were, but he correlated it to
this a number of freight cars worth of manna that had to be delivered on a daily basis
from heaven, from heaven.
(19:23):
And they sat there and they watched that miracle over and over and over and it became mundane
for them.
And I think the part of the discipline is, you know, how to be, how to honor God with
the mundane.
You and I even talked about it when we were talking about your Devo.
(19:43):
Yeah, our conversation just really helped prompt me to go, wow, that's something that
needs to be written about.
Yeah, just the miracle that was our marriage, just getting, getting us together and becoming
husband and wife.
You can easily get caught up in the mundane of going through the motions of going to work
and this, that, and the other, and get to the point where your marriage is no joy, no
(20:07):
joy in serving, not realizing just how lucky I am to have you.
And hopefully you feel the same way.
It can be, it can get very boring if you let it.
And to me it's working on the discipline, right?
And that's, we were even talking prior to this episode about Calvary House.
(20:27):
Yes, yes.
How many people are successful after leaving that structure?
Like if they had any statistics.
Yeah, so let's, let's.
And for the audience might not know, and Calvary House is a recovery based, that was about
a year long.
Yeah.
It's a residential program.
They've kind of changed things around to where it's like, there's two steps in the program.
(20:48):
So the first step is six months, but it's, it's basically if you're addicted to drugs
and alcohol and you've tried everything else, they have this place in Calvary, Fort Lauderdale
called Calvary House where you can, Calvary House for men and Calvary House for women.
And it's a residential program.
They put you up with housing for free.
It doesn't cost anything, but.
(21:08):
Yeah.
You work for your room and board at the church.
You do.
So that's, that's also a discipline.
It's like you have to really, it's kind of like the concept of gleaning in the field.
Like the welfare system God set up for Israel was you can, you know, you can glean the fields
and pull from the outer edges of the field.
(21:28):
But if you want to work, I mean, if you want to eat, you need to work.
And that's the same concept that they, they use.
And I love it because the program, it creates discipline, right?
What's the, what's the saying about idle hands?
Oh, it's the devil's workshop.
So what they do is they, they basically force discipline, if you will, where every minute
(21:52):
of every day is accounted for.
There is no time where you're sitting with idle hands.
Yeah.
I always say a bored man is a dangerous man.
Yeah.
So.
And I don't mean that in the respect that a lot of creativity can come out of boredom,
but when boredom becomes a point where you're now, I got to do something and it becomes
(22:13):
dangerous in the respect that you're spiritually not aligned with God, it could be very dangerous.
Yeah.
It can absolutely be dangerous, but that's what Calvary House does so well.
Those guys get up at six in the morning.
They do a workout from six to seven, seven to seven 30.
They're going to shower and get dressed.
(22:34):
Then at seven 30 from seven 30 to eight 30, they're having breakfast.
Then they had to work at nine o'clock, literally every moment of every day so that they do
not have idle hands.
And it's that discipline of just every day we're going through the same things, the repetitive
motion and that's what they do really well over there.
Right.
(22:55):
Do you, do you think that that's attainable outside of an environment?
Like well, so one of the things that you were so adamant about us talking about today was
accountability partners, how we want to be, how we want to hold ourselves accountable.
It's so critical to find someone that can sit there and go, Hey, you haven't done X.
This was a goal, a promise that you made to yourself, to your spouse, to God, whatever
(23:20):
it is.
I'm seeing that you're not doing it.
A, someone that will do that.
Yes.
B, someone that you're not going to be offended when they're telling you something that you
don't want to hear.
You have to have those in place.
I think it's tough.
Some people can do it without that accountability partner, but I think the vast majority of
(23:43):
people need to find at least one or two people, if not surrounding yourself with people that
make you better than what you are today.
Amen to that.
Yeah.
You have to find the willingness within yourself to take critique because it's hard to hear
like, Hey, you're not living up to the word you put out.
(24:05):
This is integrity now.
You said you were going to do it.
I trust that you're going to do it because I believe you want to be a man of your word
or a woman of your word.
If you can't self critique, it's really hard to take someone else's critique.
That's super important when it comes to discipline and when it comes to goals.
(24:26):
One of my downfalls is I'm so forward focused.
I don't turn around and look behind me very well to assess.
I'll assess well in the moment, but if you were to ever ask me to tell you stories about
me in elementary school, I virtually remember nothing.
You can ask me all sorts of things, but it's because I'm so forward focused in where I'm
(24:49):
going.
It's much more important to me where I'm going than where I've been, which is a good thing,
but it's also, it can be detrimental.
Sure, because you learn from where you've been.
I think I've learned tremendously from where I've been compared to where I am now.
If I didn't have a benchmark for all the hurt and pain, I wouldn't know how to make better
(25:11):
choices I think.
Some of those poor choices are benchmarks to my much better decisions moving forward.
I think looking backwards has helped me be a more forward thinking person because I'm
like, I don't want to repeat that.
That was painful.
It's like touching the hot stove.
(25:31):
There's a direct correlation to pain that makes you remember, oh, I'm not supposed to
touch that.
Those pain benchmarks are really helpful so that you don't keep burning your hand off
on the stove.
Yeah.
It's not that I don't remember.
I often remember learning experiences like what you just mentioned about getting burned
(25:53):
by a stove, I'll remember that significantly more than I'll remember things that happened
on family vacations or whatever it may be.
At least I have that aspect of looking back, but my memory going backwards is all my energy,
almost all of it is focused on going forward.
(26:19):
That's something that I do have to work on for sure, but at the same time, there are
times when it works to my advantage because I also can shake off failure very, very easily.
Yeah, that is an amazing attribute because I see that you're not afraid of failure, which
is really interesting because a lot of people get debilitated.
(26:40):
Oh, completely.
Yeah.
I land in that camp more often than I'd like to admit where I'm like, oh, I don't know
if I can do this because I've already predetermined all the what ifs and that prevents me from
wanting to do it because I think what's the point of trying that hard and failing?
(27:01):
Well, because you learn how to get back up again, right?
Today, when you landed on your tocus, what would have happened had you not dusty yourself
off?
We never would have went to the basketball courts and you never would have had the fun
that you had.
Yeah, we had to get you back up.
Yes.
Let you get your wits about you.
(27:22):
And honestly, if we want to talk about accountability, had you not been there, I might have had there
was a good chance I would have been like, forget this.
I'm too old for this nonsense and went back in the house and watch TV.
Possibly.
But I really did want to skate.
I just I would have said, OK, maybe I'll just wait until the roller rink is opened.
Yeah.
(27:43):
But I think failure does paralyze people.
It's so amazing teaching people how to drum for the audience that doesn't know.
I play Japanese drums and the word in Japanese for drum is taiko.
So you'll hear people call it taiko drums, but they're literally saying drum drums.
(28:03):
But I played taiko and for a long time I taught it.
And the differences between teaching adults and teaching kids was worlds apart.
And most of the time it was because the adults were so worried about what other people it's
awkward to drum.
It's not drum.
You don't play it like an American drum.
It's not wrists.
(28:23):
It's all lats.
It's very athletic and it can feel very awkward at the beginning when you're shape reshaping
your muscles.
And literally what you need to do is what your body naturally does.
But people resist it.
What do you mean what your body naturally does?
Your body, you're naturally very strong when you relax.
(28:44):
If you relax, you're actually stronger.
And what you do is you relax your entire body, but you tense up right at the last moment.
But so many adults are just so tense the entire time that they're completely winded and can't
drum after 30 seconds.
Yes, I've tried.
I know.
Yeah.
But it's interesting to teach children.
Children don't have that fear of failing that adults do.
(29:07):
So when we give them that fear.
Yeah.
It's something that's definitely taught.
Our society teaches you to fear messing up.
And so children learn significantly faster and they have much more joy at the beginning
than adults do.
Adults a lot of times don't enjoy the beginning and they're so worried about messing up, getting
(29:29):
a rhythm wrong that they'll actually almost talk themselves out of the joy of just drumming.
Wow.
Isn't that interesting how that correlates to Jesus saying, you must come to me as a
child.
Yeah.
Like, wow, now that you're saying it, it makes total sense.
Yeah.
The child, they don't sit there with their head down and go, oh man, Michael, I messed
(29:52):
up.
I'm, oh my gosh.
They just dust themselves off and go at it again.
And they're like, okay, I'll get it next time.
And even if they don't, okay, I'll get it next time.
And it was incredible.
The differences, they just, when they mess up, they're able to let go of that mistake.
(30:13):
That's beautiful.
Almost instantly.
Almost instantly.
Everybody in the class knew that they were trying to do it right.
Right.
They just didn't get it.
So, okay.
I love that though.
So what?
Yeah.
It is something, one of the things that I've learned through the many years of drumming
is just to accept the mistakes before they happen.
Not that I'm trying to make mistakes, not that I'm excusing them, but they are going
(30:36):
to happen and you don't want to be paralyzed when they do happen.
Yeah.
You said that to me a few times.
How horrible, yeah.
How horrible or Christian am I because I lied or, you know, insert any sin there.
Right.
You know, and again, you know, I want to be very clear and you don't, just because you
(30:57):
accept it before it happens doesn't make it okay.
Just understand that that's like God has so much grace.
Yeah.
That, okay, yeah, you messed up.
He knew you were, guess what?
He knew you were going to mess up before you ever did it.
So don't run from him.
Don't run from that grace.
Accept that grace.
(31:18):
Be grateful for that grace.
Yeah, that's wise.
And get right back up on the horse.
Yeah.
And then we correlate the will to live with the will to be uncomfortable and to keep going.
Yeah.
And I saw some meme not too long ago about it and I was like, oh, that makes total sense
because you're literally training yourself to fight for your life in your later years.
(31:40):
Yeah.
And I see people that give up a lot.
I wonder what their elderly years are going to be like.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And drumming, just we'd call him sensei, he hated running.
He hated running with a passion.
Most people do.
I hate running.
(32:00):
But he would force himself to run and we live in Florida.
He would run in the early afternoon.
At the hottest point of the day?
Because he wanted to force himself to be so uncomfortable and miserable and he would do
a minimum of five miles a day doing the one thing.
He was like you.
His entire career is fitness and the thing he hated most was running or darn closest
(32:27):
to the most was running.
And so he would force himself a minimum five miles a day at the worst time of day in Florida
to run.
God bless the guy.
But he's a machine.
Yes.
And just the level of discipline that both him and his wife have are incredible.
So I think that's where Christian's kind of looping this all the way back around.
(32:49):
If you're not uncomfortable with what you are trying to do, creating a new muscle or
a discipline, you have to be uncomfortable.
It's that voluntary exposure to something uncomfortable that does create a resilience
in you and that will over time create discipline and so on and so forth.
(33:10):
The spiritual life as a whole can be a very uncomfortable journey.
People have the impression that are new to the faith that they're going to give their
life to Jesus and everything is just going to magically get better.
And that's totally not what happens.
I mean, it can happen.
(33:30):
Don't get me wrong.
It can happen.
But it does even to you.
God helped you with your smoking.
Oh, he took it instantly.
But there were other aspects that you were struggling with.
That journey of fighting for my life, the new life that God promised me, it took a lot.
And I just kept going back to him and saying, well, you're good.
(33:54):
And I believe you.
And because I believe you, I know that you can walk me through anything.
I can't do this in my own strength.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the areas where people being afraid to fail, one of the great things
that you and I have watched lately, if you guys know him, his name is there's a philosopher,
(34:14):
Jordan Peterson.
I like Jordan.
Jordan does a lot of great stuff.
But Jordan recently interviewed Dallas Jenkins, who's the creator of The Chosen.
And it really was, I don't know, it was probably two hours and 15 minutes, maybe two and a
half hours.
But it's amazing.
Jordan can get very deep and philosophical and so on and so forth.
(34:35):
But this was like two hours and 15 minutes of Dallas's testimony.
Yeah, it was good.
So it was a totally different interview for Jordan Peterson.
And one of the things that I'm focusing on for this year is getting better.
Dallas talks about how in the midst of a failure, a movie that he made that completely failed,
that was the birth of The Chosen and the passage that God gives him as the feeding of the 5000.
(35:00):
And he focused on the loaves and the fishes where all God was asking him to do was bring
the loaves and fish and let him worry about the multiplication.
Where in the movie industry, you know, you're judged by how much money your movies make.
And God told Dallas, hey, let me worry about the multiplication.
(35:23):
And so I think that's that's kind of our focus, at least for me anyway, the focus of this
year.
Yeah, we did talk about it.
Well, is just all right.
What are our loaves and fishes?
God, you've given Deb talent.
I mean, you're an amazing writer.
Thank you.
I've got, you know, digital talents and so on and so forth.
(35:44):
How do we focus on the loaves and fishes and not the results?
Yeah.
And that's that's hard at times.
But that was so convicting to me listening to his testimony and and really freeing that
I just need to I just need to show up and and be what God has called me to be.
And what is yielded is really his.
(36:07):
Yeah, you know, like I, I gave a friend of mine who I know is not a Christian, I have
a Devo called Woman of Worth.
And it just is my experience with Jesus looking through the Bible and saying, wow, look at
all these ways that you treat women and how radically different that is than any other
world religion that I've studied.
(36:28):
And I wrote a Devo and I know that she's not necessarily a reader and may not be completely
interested in the topic.
But all I need to do is provide that and God will open her heart if she decides to read
it and speak to her.
And if he if she doesn't read it, that's no reflection of me.
(36:50):
I provided the loaves and fishes.
What God does with it is on God.
Yeah, and I think a lot of times you can insert all sorts of kind of cliche statements like
leading a horse to water, but can't make it drink and so on.
So he's actually there there because they have some element of truth to it.
They do.
(37:11):
But so many times we're focusing on is the horse drinking, not the fact that it's our
job to bring them to water.
And if they don't want to take a drink, then that's fine.
But we did our part.
We brought them to the water.
Right.
We were so focused on what but the horse didn't drink.
So many times, you know, the seeds that fall on different types of soil, we can't you don't
(37:37):
plant a seed and immediately harvest it.
It's time you plant seeds.
Some of them are going to fall on rocks and get blown away.
All sorts of things happen.
And the ones that do land in soil, you water them.
Still some of those can get choked out by we, you know, there's so many things, but
especially because I love apologetics.
(37:57):
So many times you can see people making an argument in apologetics and immediately trying
to harvest that seed that they're planting.
And no, you just need to answer those questions and plant those seeds.
Amen.
Absolutely.
You can harvest.
You know, sometimes that will happen.
But so many times we just were so eager.
(38:19):
We want what we want yesterday.
Oh, isn't that true?
We're very or something from Amazon and it shows up tomorrow if I'm on prime.
So yeah, you got to you got to pace yourself.
For sure.
I think even with the apologetics is the the processing of time and someone really died.
Like we said about the reading through the Bible in a year, you need time to digest the
(38:42):
answer you you've sought an answer.
You got an answer.
You may not like the answer.
It takes a moment in time where you're like, OK, let me mull this over.
And then another question might happen.
But yeah, you can't harvest like you said right away.
Yeah, I think so.
Do you have any apologetic goals since you're you love that so much?
(39:02):
Like do you have any?
Maybe.
But I think to circle everything back around how we got on this is, you know, what what
are some of our goals?
Bring loaves and fishes.
It's not the multiplication that it's our responsibility, and it's also not the timing
of the multiplication that is our responsibility.
(39:24):
So just keep bringing loaves and fishes and eventually you will absolutely witness Jesus
doing something amazing.
I think so many times we bring loaves and fishes and we present them to God and we go,
OK, I want to see my miracle.
We don't have the patience to sit there and see a prodigal son go through a process that
(39:46):
God's got under control.
We go, but God, I'm bringing my loaves and fishes.
I'm praying.
I'm inviting him to church.
I'm doing what I can do, but I'm still not seeing salvation.
And I think so many times that that process that also is for that prodigal is for us because
we're sitting there telling God, but where is it?
(40:08):
You know, I'm planting seeds.
Where's the food?
And he's going, well, we got to we got to water this.
We got to give this time.
It's a good point.
So I think, you know, that that's also part of the discipline that I need for this next
year is just getting away from the instant gratification and just bring the loaves and
(40:34):
fishes, trust God with the multiplication and trust God with the timing.
Yes.
And that's two areas that that I'm just not good at.
I'm not great at that either.
We have some things coming up in, you know, our health care with parents.
And this year showed me that I over and over, I'm not in control no matter how much I think
(40:56):
I can control a scenario.
I'm not in control.
And things take a lot longer than you want them to take.
Can for sure.
Everything that 24 showed me was everything takes a long time.
And I have to be growing in patience with the Lord and that and that to me is always
(41:18):
one of those to me, that's a dangerous prayer because I'm like, oh, no, you're going to
test my patience more in 2025.
But it is something that you learn over over pain points.
And mom's health care was a massive pain point this year.
And the only way to keep going forward is to do everything that we can do and stop expecting
(41:44):
instant results.
Right.
Yep.
Especially some of the stuff that we've learned with with dad and he gets all these veteran
benefits because he served in the Navy or hoping he's going to get those benefits.
Yeah, he served during wartime.
He served in the Korean War.
And so he is on the table for all sorts of benefits, but that is a government institution
(42:08):
passing those out and they don't do anything efficiently.
So I think or quickly.
Yes.
So I think that's you know, there are options like that that we can select and just go,
OK, we're going to do something different.
And for me, it is the stoplights in South Florida or it is so they are so bad coming
(42:29):
from Chicago where everything is so efficient from a streetlight perspective and coming
to Florida where nobody expected Florida to explode and grow the way that it grew.
Thank you.
Air conditioning prior to air conditioning, Florida, nobody wanted to live here.
Yeah.
And so street systems, nothing was built for a lot of people where Chicago has been a large
(42:51):
city for a very, very long time and they know how to move traffic.
Yes, you hit traffic on two ninety four and so on.
So but every light, Mike's like, hmm, this is so unnecessary.
Unnecessarily.
Well, you're just sitting there staring at intersections and not a single every car is
sitting there staring at one another and no one's going through the intersection.
(43:11):
So how are you going to improve on that in twenty twenty five?
Let me hear because I am here to support you.
So I think it's we touched on it earlier.
It's idle hands.
I'm sitting at a light and my brain is now idle.
So it defaults to frustration.
OK, because I'm in a situation where I'm sitting still and I can't control it and it's extremely
(43:34):
inefficient.
You do feel uncomfortable with sitting still.
Oh, yeah.
I have to I have to be moved like I have to be doing something mentally, physically.
I have to be doing something.
The ADD man.
I don't know what it is, but yeah.
So just that's what you're going to drum on your steering wheel.
Will that help?
(43:54):
Good idea.
I can start writing songs every time I get to a stoplight.
Yeah, give me purpose and I won't focus on the unnecessarily long Florida light.
Yeah.
Nobody going through the intersection, even though we've been here for three minutes.
Oh, gosh, God forbid three minutes.
The one up the streets like 10.
Oh, I know.
It's so bad.
(44:15):
So yeah, that's that's something I will be working on.
I can distract myself with drumming on the steering wheel.
There you go.
People think I'm weird, but so what?
Exactly.
People always think I'm weird.
So yeah.
So what are you working on this year?
I am working on.
I want to be able to get a book a month accomplished.
(44:35):
OK.
And I don't mean sitting down and reading because I am an auditory learner.
So I have a library app and I'm driving every day for you know, my total commute time is
an hour and a half every day.
Not one way, but total.
There's plenty of time to get a book a month in.
(44:55):
So I already have my first book for this month.
It's Jesus.
What is it?
Choosing Jesus in the culture or something.
And I'm going to do that.
That's one of the goals.
Are they all religious books or just whatever strikes your fancy?
Yeah, I tend to go nonfiction more often than not.
(45:18):
OK.
If not, I like to do historical fiction, which kind of gives me a little bit of a, oh, well,
like Francine Rivers does a lot of really good historical fiction through the Bible,
kind of like watching The Chosen.
You're like, oh, that really registers.
Wow, I never thought of it that way.
Sure.
So maybe some of those possibly, but predominantly nonfiction.
(45:39):
I want to continue to grow in my faith.
And sometimes people just walk through a journey and they're able to articulate it in such
a way that really makes you go, wow, I never thought of it that way.
Yeah.
So a book a month is definitely on the table and I need you to hold me accountable.
So if you can just ask me once a month, hey, what was your book this month?
(45:59):
Yeah, accountability partners can really make or break resolutions.
So that's one of the underlying themes that you'll notice is surround yourself with people
that are better than you at what you want to get good at.
Amen to that.
Use them as accountability partners.
Amen.
And I need to have a year of fun.
I am very fun driven and I haven't had any fun in 2024.
(46:23):
And that's my responsibility to bring the fun.
I can't expect people to make my life fun.
It's a good shirt.
Bring the fun.
Yeah, I'm going to bring the fun.
That's my goal.
So today was the very first day and I brought the fun.
I brought roller skating and we're doing a podcast and that's fun to me.
(46:43):
So two things on the list right now.
Right now.
There you go.
All right.
Well, yeah, we'll hold each other accountable and we'll certainly check in on things.
So you're the stoplights.
Yeah, several things.
For me, it's just I think men, I've noticed men struggle more than women do with prayer
life.
So I definitely want to get better at that.
(47:05):
Why did you have any idea why you think that might be?
Well, I think it for me, my default is with anyone is only have conversation when I feel
it's necessary.
I call my dad on Christmas.
(47:27):
I call him on Father's Day.
I call him on his birthday and I love my dad.
My dad's my best friend.
But if I don't have anything to say to him, I'm not just going to call to check in and
go, hey, how you doing?
How's life?
Tell me about work.
I know I married you.
I know.
Yeah, it's so out of the norm for me.
And I think men are more that way than women.
(47:47):
And I'm speaking on just like a holistic level.
Yeah, they're definitely right.
Everybody knows the guys that are extroverts and they talk your leg off.
But I think for the most part, like you'll notice men's conferences at church are always
smaller than women's conferences.
Yeah, men are in a social.
Yeah.
(48:08):
So I have to, like I said, I call my dad when I have a purpose.
I call my mom when I have a purpose.
I call friends when I have purpose.
I need to get better at talking to Jesus when there is no purpose other than I want to just
ask him how his day is going or tell him about my day because I just I have struggled with
(48:30):
that in the past.
And I notice other men do too.
It's an intimacy thing.
Maybe it could be.
I don't know.
I don't know if I could sit and unpack that really well.
It certainly could be.
I don't I'm not afraid of intimate conversation at all.
It's just not normal for me.
I don't.
(48:52):
It's one of those.
It's just one of those things that I have to make it a point to do it.
Otherwise it won't do it.
Some people getting up early and going for a jog.
That's normal for them.
They're morning people.
It's natural for them and it takes no effort for them to do that.
But for me, I'm not a morning person.
That would be a tremendous amount of effort.
(49:13):
Still a good thing to get up in the morning and go jogging.
But for one person, it's more difficult than another.
This is just one of those areas for me.
The mundane.
God, let me just tell you about the mundane because you know what?
It's year coming up on year five on our wedding anniversary.
I can look at our marriage and go it's mundane and be ungrateful or I can be look at it and
(49:36):
say it's mundane and I'm still very, very grateful for it.
And I think the more I thank God for that mundane, the more grateful I will be for it
because I do love the fact that, you know, Monday through Friday, you wake up, you go
to work, you're giving me a kiss before you go out the door.
You know, I can sit there and not appreciate that or I can't appreciate that.
(50:00):
You get to, you know, I get to cook lunch for you because I work from home.
I get to cook lunch for you for the next, I can sit there and yeah, I can sit there
and go, oh man, I got to cook for Deb again or it can be, you know, teaching me to.
I get to versus I have to.
That's a big difference in how we look at life.
(50:20):
If we look at lives, our lives as I have to, it's radically different than I get to.
Yeah.
I've seen, you know, so many different things where people will walk through the, you know,
the subway and there's a musician sitting there playing.
Yes, I've seen those videos.
Where they're, you know, just outstanding.
(50:40):
Oblivious.
Yeah.
And people don't even, literally don't even stop.
And it's some world renowned concert pianist or violinist that's sitting there and people
are so caught up in what they're doing that they don't even stop to appreciate it.
I don't ever want to be that way.
Yeah.
Well, it's easy to say, I don't ever want to be that way.
It's another thing to be disciplined enough to stop, go for a walk, listen.
(51:04):
If heaven and earth are rejoicing in God and what he's done, go take a walk and listen
to birds chirp because that chirping gives God glory.
The wind blowing through the trees gives God glory.
And if you're sitting at home, like I work remotely, if you don't get out and go on that
walk, you'll never hear birds glorifying God.
You'll never hear the trees and the wind.
(51:27):
And so making that conscious effort to go, hey, this could be mundane.
I could just go for another walk or I can sit and appreciate this and have a change.
Yeah.
It's mindful.
Yeah.
It's meditative.
Yeah.
Constantly doing things with a purpose rather than just doing things because this is what
I always do.
I like that.
(51:48):
Those are good goals.
Yeah.
So those are the things that I'll be working on.
Stoplights and prayer life.
Yes.
Stoplights, prayer life, just discipline in general.
I think I know mentally where I need to be.
It's just the act of, OK, now I just got to do it.
So let me ask you, what's the best way to approach you if you're out of stoplight and
(52:10):
I'm in the car and you make a comment?
Would you like me to say something?
Would you like me to just look at you?
The old Italian backhand?
No, I don't want to back hands.
What?
No, that's not effective.
You all you look at me all the time like you want to take a swing at me.
What are you talking about?
I mean, I feel like my face can deliver the message better than my hand can.
(52:31):
I don't know about that.
I'm a woman of many faces.
That is so true.
Yeah.
Just give me a look.
OK.
The disappointed wife look.
Stop it with that.
I don't have one of those.
Oh, yes, you do.
Yes.
Give me the disappointed wife look and I'll know what you're referencing.
OK.
And I welcome the opportunity for you to ask me.
(52:55):
And if I'm not living up to my end of the bargain of my accountability goals for you
to call me out.
All right.
In love.
I don't like to say call out.
I think that makes people feel like I'm above you.
I'm not going to call you out.
OK, fair enough.
Approach you and go, hey, Deb, I noticed.
Yes, that works.
Yes, that's what I will be doing.
(53:17):
OK.
Score.
I will fill the audience in in six months on a brief.
You know, we won't do a whole episode again if we're fulfilling our goals.
But I think we need to be accountable.
I marked it on my calendar in June that will mention how we're doing on our goals that
we set.
Yes, if we don't talk about it before then.
Well, true, true, true.
(53:38):
All right, guys.
Well, happy 2025 to everyone listening.
We hope you're having a great year so far.
Oh, you're one day in.
So well, this is the first time.
Yeah, by the time this airs, it's a few days.
And I think it's like the fifth or something when this episode gets out there.
So hopefully everyone is off to a great start.
Everyone should be heading back into work.
(54:00):
This will be coming out the first Monday of the year.
So everybody should be heading back to the normal regularly scheduled programming by
then.
So happy 2025, guys.
Hopefully you can relate to some of the difficulties and ideas that we had as we were talking about
how we want to improve in the next year.
But thank you guys so much for tuning in.
(54:21):
We love you.
Absolutely.
See you next time.
Take care.
Hold
(54:53):
Thanks for watching guys!
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!