Welcome back again to another episode of Struggling Well. We're in a new year. We're in 2026. and this is our first episode of this year. And so we welcome you back and we hope that this year has gotten off to a pretty decent start for you. a good start, great start, I don't know, hopefully better than a bad start. and I'm joined today by our good friend and producer Tim Briggs, who is going to be sitting in for the next couple of weeks with us. And Suzi's not going to be with us. So I know those of you that are disappointed, try to keep it tuned in and keep on listening even though she won't be here. I'm looking around our house right now, Tim, and, there's no evidence of Christmas anymore. It's all gone. All the lights have been put away, the garleums down, the trees down. H how is it at your house?
Same way. we performed our yearly, funeral to Christmas and took down all of the, trees and decorations. So, we are Christmas free as well.
And, and I'm going to guess that for most of you, that's probably true. Christmas has been put away for another year. all your Advent stories have been put away for another year. year. here's the thing that struck me with all that. Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus. And I wonder how many of us tend to put him away for the year, too, because his birthday is over. We've celebrated it. I know my birthday is a few days before Christmas, and I don't celebrate all year long. I just kind of put it away till the next year. and I think there's a danger in that when it comes to how we see Christ. We see him in a manger as a babe. We know the story. We read the story. We listen to the story. We preach the story. And then we put it away for another year. And there's a danger in putting Christ away for a year.
Yeah. And it's interesting. Like for most Christians, the two biggest lurggical holidays are Christmas and Easter. So you get the birth, you get the death. Yeah.
And then we're not really sure what to do with the in between.
Yeah. It's really true. And yet we talk about at least I you and I are familiar with this phrase, and I guess most of our listeners would be too. walking with Christ, walking with the Lord. He's with us. We know the promises that he'll never leave us and never forsake us. So, let's talk for ourselves individually. First, I'm going to ask you this question. What do you do to keep your walk with Christ going all year long as opposed to celebrating his birth as you said and his death, the two lurggical holidays in the church calendar?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the things that helps is just meditating on what was the life of Jesus about? So we have his birth, we have his death, we have this great in between. And the life of Jesus is important.
So there's a reason why Jesus wasn't born and then immediately put to death. and it's because his life was meant to give us an example of how to live. And even more so, if I can speak to the theme of the podcast, His life shows us how to face hardship and humanity and suffering. And so it's always good to reflect upon when hard things come in life, the fact that Jesus knows those hardships. In fact, he probably knows those hardships even more so than you do.
Yeah. And I think that's a good point. In 2026 is we're as we're recording this, we're five days into the or six days into the year and yet it's already been in the world a tumultuous time across the world and decisions that are being made by world leaders has left people with a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and unknown but then I bring it down to my life to our lives we've got this coming Saturday the potential of being at two different funerals people have lost folks and I know there are people who are sick there are people who are in our own family where we've got people who are facing their own mortality so it's in the midst of those everyday struggles of life that I want an anchor for my life.
And to me, the anchor for my life is the hope that I have in Christ, not in anything else.
I don't know if the world's going to get any better. I really don't. But I do know the anchor that's there in Christ.
Yeah. Isn't it amazing, too, to think about? So, you have the birth of Jesus at Christmas, the death of Jesus. We could probably think about those things in the abstract, like he's out there someplace. He lived, he died, whatever.
But we also remember the promise that he'll never leave us or forsake us.
And actually is a walk with Jesus.
He's not just up there or out there. He's right here with me. and
we can take heart from the fact that he does know our pain and suffering personally, but he's also witnessing it with us.
Yeah. Yeah. we Suzi and I are in just kind of restarted. We're way behind what a lot of you probably are watching the chosen. And I realize it's a dramatization of the Gospels, but I think it's a pretty good dramatization. And we recently were just watching the scene where Jesus comes to Nicodemus that story that's recorded in John chapter 3 and talks to Nicodemus about him bringing a kingdom not to overthrow the Roman Empire, which is what so many people were hoping for, but the kingdom to deal with the issue of sin. And that's his life and death and resurrection. And it's in that context and in that setting that Jesus says to this man who was a religious man who was a good man from what we can tell that he had to be born again which stumped Nicodemus. but then that verse that is so familiar to so many that God so loved the world that he sent his only son into the world to do the one thing that no one else could do and that was to bring us a sense of salvation when we put our faith and trust in him. And so I hope and I pray for our listeners is that there is for them the sense that they understand that Jesus is there every day of their life walking through every moment of their life. You had relayed a story recently about a difficult thing that one of your sons went through and how can I how could you convey to him that Christ was in the midst of all of that even in those disappointments? as we have faced the realities that our health in our 70s is not what it used to be. and there have been difficulties there for Suzi and for me. how can I come to away believing that Christ is there every day because he is walking through that difficulty with me? Well, if I look at his life and understand that he understood struggle and he understood difficulty not of his own doing but because of the world that he came into because God loved us.
What would you say, Jimmy? I'm going to put you on the spot.
Yeah.
What if what would you say if someone's listening and they say, "This sounds great. I want to walk with Jesus like that. I want Jesus to be a part of my everyday life. Not just celebrate baby Jesus at Christmas, but really walk with Jesus." But I don't feel that. I don't feel him present. I don't take any encouragement from the fact that he is a man of suffering and he knows all this pain. It just doesn't seem real.
What would you say to someone like that?
Well, I would say like any relationship, I've got to be willing to invest in that relationship. And I don't mean when I say invest in that relationship, I'm not talking about there's certain things you have to do, performances you have to carry out. But I'm talking about investing in the relationship the way you and I would invest in human relationships.
it would mean spending time with him. and finding the time to spend time with him and reading his word, not because I had to or because it's a checklist thing, but because I really wanted to. it would be like your relationship with Jenny, my relationship with Suzi. I could say all the things I want to say. You could say all the things you want to say, but at some point there has to be an investment on my part of spending time with our wives to be able to really feel like Oh my gosh, there's something that I want to be involved with. And I think that's it with the Lord. We get really busy and I but I believe that there's a sense in which I need to hear him and know him and follow him and that means spend time with him.
So that's what I would say.
That's good.
Well, we glad that you joined us this week and we hope that your 2026 gets off to a good start. What I mean is I hope that you include Christ in the everyday part of your life. Have a great week. We'll see you next week. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.