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0:39
This is Undaunted Life, a Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:51
Let's get into it. All right, guys, we are coming down to the very, very end of the year.
0:55
So we've got a couple of, well, actually a few really, really awesome episodes here
0:58
toward the ends. We're going to do our best books of 2022. We're going to do our best
1:02
podcast of 2022. And then later on this week, probably Friday, we're going to do a wrap-up
1:07
of the entire year. But today, we're going to focus on the best books of the year. But before we
1:10
get into that, just want to remind you, please leave us a positive five star rating. If you love
1:13
the show, guys, if you've never given us a rating, whether you listen to us on iHeartRadio or Spotify
1:18
or Apple Podcast or whatever, make sure that you were giving us a thumbs up or five stars or whatever.
1:22
And leave us a few senses, letting us know why you like our content. And then also,
1:25
and what you guys keep on Dontalife in mind with your end of your giving. Because this is that
1:29
last week where you can do your end of your giving. I know that's on the tip of everybody's brains.
1:33
You know, we're after Christmas now and all those different things. You're looking at New Year's.
1:36
You're looking forward to 2023. We would just love for you guys to keep us in mind. We do have a
1:40
donation page on our website, undaunted.life/donate. That is in the show notes. Undaunted.life/donate.
1:47
It is in the show notes. Guys, we've gotten some very generous gifts this year and everything that
1:52
we do cost money and everything that we're looking to expand and do next year, which I can't tell you
1:55
about yet, but we're getting there. We need funds in order to do all of those things. So that is a
2:00
great way that you guys can support us. But another great way that you can support us is by supporting
2:03
the companies that support us. So the main company I want to talk about today is OriginMaine. We've
2:07
talked about them a lot. So originmain.com or originusa.com. Guys, they make the best jiu-jitsu keys on the
2:13
planet. They make work boots. They make jeans. They make hunting gear. That's something new they're
2:17
doing this year. But also on the jaco fuel side, they've got jaco go, the energy drinks. They've got
2:21
supplements. They just release creatine. You can check all that out there, guys. And if you want to
2:25
try out that material, if you want to try out any of the things that they make, go to their website
2:29
and check out. Make sure you put in the promo code undaunted, right? So if you can search our name,
2:34
you can spell it. Spell undaunted. Get 10% off your order at originmain.com. That is in the show
2:40
notes. But guys, we're going to do the best books of 2022 right now. I'm very, very excited to bring
2:44
these two guys. As I read books throughout the entire year, I'm thinking about this particular
2:48
episode. Like literally, it's like, okay, I can use that quote whenever I talk about this book later
2:52
this year. Hey, I wonder if that's going to be in kind of my final books of the year list.
2:56
But this was actually the most prolific year of my entire life for reading. Okay. I read 54 books
3:04
in the first 11 months of this year, because in December, you know, I was working on some other
3:08
things. I'm reading through a book right now, but I probably won't finish it before the end of the
3:11
year, but 54 books read in 11 months. Last year was my previous most prolific year personally,
3:17
and that was 45 books in 12 months. And so to be honest with you, that's probably going to be my
3:22
high watermark for the rest of my life, because, you know, it'd be a lot easier if I said, yeah,
3:26
these were all like kids books or something. But no, these books were between 200 and 500 pages
3:30
long. These were actual, you know, full on tangible books, mainly nonfiction. But I just don't see that
3:36
being possible moving forward. I mean, the amount of reading I did this year to the detriment of
3:40
almost everything else, because whenever I read these books, it's mainly for interviews. But I'm
3:44
reading every word that this person has written so that I can have that information at my disposal
3:49
when we go into the interview. But next year, we're going to be doing a little bit less on
3:53
interviews. And so I'll explain that later whenever we get more to that. But yeah, very, very good
3:57
year. In terms of how I read, basically, I read everything on a device. And so like tangible,
4:02
physical books, they're great. They look great on a shelf. You know, I'm going to show you a
4:06
bunch of them here in a second. But that is harder for me to read. Because a lot of times I read when
4:10
everybody else in the house is asleep. And so like having to have a lamp on or something like that,
4:14
as opposed to just having the screen dimmed on what I'm reading. But I typically just read on my
4:18
iPad and I just have everything right there. But also when you have it available to you in digital
4:23
form, you basically have it in your pocket at all times, you basically have it around you at all
4:27
times where it's not always as convenient to take your book physically with you. And one thing that I
4:31
always kind of make sure whenever I talk about the best best books of the year is I'm preaching
4:35
to an audience here that is mainly of readers. But I know there's a large segment of all of you
4:39
that don't read at all. You know, you're one of those guys that, you know, the last book you
4:43
read was in high school or something like that. And you look at everybody else and you're still
4:47
that 16 year old kid making fun of the other kid in class for actually having done the homework,
4:50
actually having, you know, studied for the test, actually having read the book. But guys, one of
4:55
the best ways that you can, you know, stave off mental deterioration over your life is to read.
5:01
And not just read, you know, fantasy football statistics or read, you know, blogs about your,
5:05
your favorite sports team and what, you know, 17 year old kid committed to play for them in the
5:09
fall, like those, those things are fine. But that's not reading like reading a book is, right?
5:14
Reading through an article in your favorite news site is not the same as picking up a book
5:19
and digging through it because typically a book has a narrative structure, especially if it's a
5:22
literature or fiction or something like that. But then if it's nonfiction, there are tangible
5:28
bits of knowledge in there, whether that's biography or history or, you know, some other
5:31
philosophical book or something like that, you're able to reckon with the material that is there
5:36
on the page. And it is sharpening you mentally. So when I talk about spiritual, mental and physical
5:40
resilience, one of the easiest ways to cultivate mental resilience is to read and not just read
5:45
books that agree with your sensibilities, but read books that come from a myriad of different
5:48
worldviews. And in subject matters that you're not terribly familiar familiar with. And so again,
5:53
what a great quote from a friend of mine was there are two types of people in this world.
5:56
There are people that read, and then there are morons. And so I wholeheartedly believe that
6:00
guys, please do not be a moron. So this is how I'm going to approach the best books of 2022. I'm
6:05
going to do a little bit differently than I've done other podcasts in the past. So most of the
6:09
books that I'm going to be talking about are from 2022. Some of them are from past years.
6:14
And so I'm going to talk about the best books that I read in 2022, even though most of them are from
6:18
this year. And if one is from a different year, I'll make sure to give you that year. Normally,
6:23
whenever I've done this particular episode, I've had categories, right? So here's the most exciting
6:27
book I read and the most challenging book I read and the most of this or that. I'm just not going
6:31
to do that this year, because there were so many ones that I wanted to bring to you that I couldn't
6:34
think of a pithy category or something like that. So I'm just going to give you a rundown of the
6:37
best books that I read in 2022. And then at the end, I'm going to give out some actual specific
6:42
awards. I'm going to give out an award. I guess you can call that for the worst book of 2022.
6:47
My almost best book of 2022. And then my pick for the best book of 2022. So we'll spend some
6:55
extra time on those guys you want to most certainly stick around for that for sure.
6:59
But basically all the books that I'm about to mention to you, all the ones that I mentioned
7:03
today, except for the worst book of the year, which we'll get to these need to be on your
7:08
to read book list. Right? You need to buy these and put them on your shelf. You need to download
7:12
them on your phone or wherever you read stuff on your on your Kindle or something like that.
7:16
These are all books that I basically give my full endorsement. Now I'm not endorsing every
7:21
single thing that is written on every single page of these books, but certainly the concepts,
7:26
the overall idea I'm totally here for it. Okay. So drink of water, let's get into it. So the most
7:33
read books are the must read, not most read, but the the must read books that I read in 2022.
7:39
I'm just going to give them to you in the order that I read them. And again, we're going to
7:42
spend a lot more time towards the end. So the first one is this one here. And if you're watching
7:45
this on rumble rumble or on YouTube, I'm actually showing them on the screen. But it's this book,
7:49
The Intentional Father, a practical guide to raise sons of courage and character by John
7:54
Tyson. This was actually released in 2021, but I read it like at the very, very beginning of this
7:59
year. And so if you want to know a little bit more and a lot of these people I actually talked
8:02
to on the show this year, thankfully, but 282 episode 282 of this podcast, that's with John
8:07
Tyson, it's called The Intentional Father. That will be in the show notes. You guys can check that
8:11
out. But this literally, like in the subtitles says it's a practical guide. But for the fathers
8:16
out there that don't have rights of passage that aren't following organizations, you know,
8:20
like ours will be eventually where we provide you these rights of passage materials.
8:24
This book has a ton of tangible content in it for you to take. Now, there are certain things in
8:29
this book that I certainly am not going to do with my sons, but they're still good ideas.
8:34
And the thing about it is like you can use this book as a starting point, as a jumping off point
8:39
for building something for your sons. Because again, it's not just about getting your sons raised
8:43
and out the door alive. It's literally making sure that they are courageous and character-filled
8:48
human beings. And so I think John Tyson did a fantastic job of that. Then this book, again,
8:52
guys, put this on your list, The Intentional Father, a practical guide to raise sons of courage
8:57
and character. Alright, the next one is with this is another one that was from 2021. And this one's
9:02
called The Comfort Crisis. Embrace discomfort to reclaim your wild, happy, healthy self by Michael
9:08
Easter. And so we had Michael Easter on episode 285 of this podcast that will be in the show notes.
9:12
But this details a, you know, he basically got to a point in life where, you know, he was drinking
9:19
a lot. He didn't really like himself. He wasn't working hard on his body or any of those types of
9:23
things. And we look at kind of how everything coalesced to him eventually going on a very,
9:28
very weird thing for him, which was a hunt. And he went on a hunt in Alaska. And this was on a
9:34
caribou hunt and he details the entire thing. But again, embrace discomfort to reclaim your
9:38
wild, happy, healthy self. Now, the subtitle, you might think like, Oh, okay, this is going to be
9:42
kind of self-help to a degree it is. But he really details a lot of stuff in here about how we've
9:48
gotten so comfortable in modernity and how that's still a serious to us, not only individually,
9:53
but also as a culture. Okay. So guys, if you have not read this book, it is an absolutely
9:58
fantastic read and it will motivate you to get up and get off your rear end. So again,
10:01
the comfort crisis by Michael Easter. LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small
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10:33
Okay. Next one here. So we had him on the show as well. This is going to be a trend. But this one
10:39
is uncanceled finding meaning and peace in a culture of accusations, shame and condemnation
10:44
by the one and only Phil Robertson. So he was on episode two 80 of this podcast. It's called Jesus
10:49
ducks and living uncanceled. So we spend, you know, a little bit of time, you know, digging into the
10:53
specific points of this book. But the thing that I want to point out about Phil Robertson and his
10:56
books, because at this point, I think I've read three or four of his books. It's simple.
11:00
Now, some people write simply because they are simple people and that's all they're capable of.
11:06
But if you sit with Phil Robertson for any length of time, whether in person or listening to him,
11:10
almost, you know, on someone else's show or something like that, so kind of being like a fly on the
11:14
wall, you know, this guy is a simple man, but he is not simple minded. Okay. There is a ton of wisdom
11:20
in this very, very short book about how you can operate in a world that wants to cancel you for
11:25
having biblically based opinions. And if you go back to episode two 80 of this podcast, again,
11:28
all these will be in the show notes. You just watch a man that has the Bible sitting out there in
11:32
front of him and he just thinks of something and he just flips over to that page of scripture and
11:35
starts talking about it because the man is marinated in the scriptures. And that comes out in everything
11:40
that he does. And so when people are pushing back against culture, but they don't have a biblical
11:44
foundation for that, it becomes fairly vapid. And so that's why I would highly recommend a
11:49
book like this. This is a book that if you have someone in your family, that's not really a big
11:53
time reader, but maybe they watched up dynasty before, this will give you the you kind of a good,
11:57
I guess, entry point, even to having a gospel conversation with these things.
12:01
Because that's one thing, no matter what Phil's talking about, no matter what he writes about,
12:05
the gospel is certainly going to be a part of it. So guys, uncanceled by Phil Robertson,
12:08
you should pick that up. Put it on your list. All right, next one here, the way forward,
12:12
master life's toughest battles and create your lasting legacy by Robert O'Neill and Dakota Meyer.
12:18
And so they were on back to back episodes to 86 and 287. Robert O'Neill, this is the guy that
12:23
killed Osama bin Laden, you know, former seal team six member, then Dakota Meyer, retired marine,
12:28
who won the Medal of Honor. And guys, I did this book, but I also read both of their
12:32
autobiographies again this year. And so into the fire by Dakota Meyer and then the operator
12:37
by Robert O'Neill, those are a couple of extra bonus ones that you should certainly put on your
12:40
list. But this book has a lot of the same stories. And Robert and Dakota kind of go back and forth,
12:46
they switch off chapter by chapter. So this one is a very approachable book. It's not going to
12:50
strike you as kind of a military memoir. This is mainly like leadership lessons that come from a
12:55
couple of guys that did some pretty crazy things when they were in the military, some pretty impressive
12:59
things, but have continued to do those things after they left the military, not the same types of
13:05
things, obviously, but they've been able to continue their leadership journey and to spread
13:09
their message to people all over the globe. I have a ton of respect for Robert and Dakota.
13:14
I've actually been able to spend quite a bit of time with Dakota when I was down in Texas a
13:17
couple of months ago, but a fantastic, fantastic read. So the way forward by Robert O'Neill and
13:22
Dakota Meyer. Our next one here, this is a very unique book because it's really the only book that
13:26
I've read like this ever in my entire life. It's called black ops, the life of a CIA shadow warrior
13:31
by Rick Prado. And so Rick Prado was on episode 312 of this podcast. It's called the life of a CIA
13:37
shadow warrior. And the thing about this is, this is a guy that is one of the most respected people
13:43
in the intelligence community. And now he's retired from the CIA, but he's still in the
13:48
intelligence community. He's just a deeply respected man, because this dude was about it.
13:53
Like anytime there was something crazy, it didn't matter how potentially hot the circumstance or
13:57
situation was going to be. This guy was in the middle of it. And this detail is not only, you
14:02
know, growing up, you know, poor in the United States as an immigrant and kind of what it was
14:06
like whenever he left his family, you know, his mom and dad for the first time and what it looked
14:10
like, you know, as he kind of found his way to the CIA. And I really enjoy talking to him about it.
14:15
And he and I've had a couple of phone conversations even since then. But it's a very, very unique
14:20
book to put on your shelf, because a lot of you guys have read a lot of the military men wars,
14:24
especially from the global war on terror. But this is something where you're watching a guy
14:28
that his his career, you know, spanned certainly the global war and terror in 9/11 and all that,
14:34
because way back to stuff that was happening all over the world and things that you certainly
14:38
have heard about. So this book is definitely worth your time. I think Rick absolutely knocked
14:43
it out of the park with this. So Black Ops by Rick Prado is another one. So gonna take a little break
14:47
here. Got to have a sip of tea. I tell you guys I have voice problems. This is how we keep it going.
14:53
So the next book here is by the one and only John Eldridge is called resilient,
14:57
restoring your weary soul in these turbulent times. He was on episode 317 in this podcast.
15:02
I think that was a fourth appearance on this podcast. Again, that'll be in the show notes.
15:05
But this is a another very short book by John Eldridge. And the thing about it is he's very
15:12
attuned to things that are happening in culture that are on kind of different wavelength than other
15:16
people. He's attuned to kind of the the emotional changes that are happening in people. The almost
15:22
the feelings of different people like something that, you know, a guy like me maybe has a little
15:27
bit harder thing realizing or looking at. But he saw what happened in 2020 and not just with the
15:32
things that happened in our government and things that happened all over the world. But
15:35
what that did to people and what it revealed about people and it did make people very, very weary.
15:41
And again, resilient resilience. Those are my like my favorite words in the English language.
15:45
This is a book that kind of helps you understand, okay, this is the time that we're in. Nothing's
15:50
slowing down. Things are only getting more complicated. Things are only getting more difficult to deal
15:55
with. But that's not an excuse to tap out. Like this is your excuse to overcome and to be a
16:01
resilient person. This is why I talk about spiritual mental and physical resilience all the time.
16:06
He didn't write a book called strong or strength because he knows better. He knows that that is
16:11
something that will wane over time, regardless of who you are and how well trained you are.
16:15
Resilience is something different. That is the ability to bounce back. We talk about it all the
16:20
time. So guys, you should definitely check this book out resilient by John Eldridge. Okay, next
16:24
one here. So the next one is a one that I actually don't have a physical copy of, but it's called
16:29
the manliness of Christ, how the masculinity of Jesus eradicates a feminine Christianity.
16:35
And this is by Dale Partridge. So he came on episode 321 of this podcast to talk about this
16:40
particular book. This book is really, really small. I mean, of all the books that I read this year,
16:43
that wasn't a book that I read to my kid. I think this was the shortest book. It was I think it was
16:47
under 100 pages, but this details the overall concept of the manliness of Jesus Christ. Now,
16:52
this is something that I talk about often. And I'm invited to come and speak to men's groups or
16:57
to other organizations or something like that. I talk about the masculinity and manliness
17:02
of Jesus Christ. That is something that I talk about often. I try to make people understand
17:07
that when they're worshiping at the feet of Jesus, they're worshiping at the feet of a very,
17:11
very manly man. And not how we've defined masculinity and manliness in modern parlance,
17:15
necessarily, but in a lot of different ways in the perfect ways, because he is the perfect,
17:20
you know, you know, one third member of the Godhead, as you could call it, but Dale Partridge did a
17:24
great job on this book. I think he was a little surprised at the reception that a God, how positive
17:29
it was received. He had to do, you know, multiple more printings of it and get it out to even more
17:34
people. But it's certainly well worth your time. And again, it's a short read. This is a good book
17:39
to buy for somebody in your life that, you know, you might buy a copy of what a heart for, right?
17:43
Maybe this is a person that feels a little bit uncomfortable at church. And I've gotten some,
17:47
you know, reviews recently by women that listen to this podcast or people that like they don't
17:51
understand why their man's not really into church that much. Why he doesn't really like the sermon
17:55
content, why he doesn't really like the description of Jesus and how he's portrayed in songs and
18:00
artwork and something like that. I think if you buy him this book, that it's going to give you a
18:04
little bit of a hint as to why that is. So again, guys, the Manliness of Christ by Dale Partridge.
18:08
So next one here, this is probably going to be an annual thing here, but it is in the blood
18:13
by Jack Carr. So this is the fifth of his James Reese novels. That's episode 309 to this podcast.
18:19
He came on to talk about in the blood and a bunch of other things. So 2022 was a banner year for Jack
18:24
Carr. I mean, big time banner year for Jack Carr, because not only did he release another successful
18:30
novel, you know, he's a number one New York Times best selling off for author multiple times over,
18:34
but they released a terminal list on Amazon Prime with Chris Pratt. And it's my understanding that
18:38
it was one of the most viewed streaming anything of the year. It just did incredibly well. It was a
18:45
very, very rough and dark series. And I think that lent itself to the content. But basically,
18:51
Jack is finding ways to push the character James Reese without turning him into Superman,
18:56
because this is supposed to be just a normal guy. This was a guy that was a navy seal that is
19:00
now no longer a navy seal that is going through all these crazy circumstances. Again, no spoilers
19:04
here. But if you followed along with with what we see here, what you've seen with a lot of other
19:09
series is where you have these people that are, you know, they start out as a green beret or they
19:12
start out as, you know, retired this or that, then they they kind of turn into a superhero. They're
19:17
doing things that are just so crazy, things that they would have never been trained to do in the
19:20
military. But magically, they know how to like stop a nuclear weapon from exploding or something
19:24
like that. But that's one thing about Jack Carr is he's pushing the James Reese character along.
19:30
He's pushing the narrative along, but you can tell he has an idea of where this is going. And we
19:33
spent a lot of time in episode three, and I'm talking about that specifically. So guys, every
19:37
year that he releases a novel, which is basically once a year, it's probably going to end up on this
19:41
list because, you know, he's seemingly getting better out of every time he writes one.
19:44
All right, let's go to the next one here. So this one is from my buddy,
19:49
the one and only Eddie Penny. And so it is unafraid staring down terror as a Navy Seal and single dad.
19:56
So I got to be on his show, the unafraid podcast earlier this year where we talked about this book,
20:02
and he actually gave me this signed copy with this coin and everything in it. So challenge
20:05
coin. So that's a pretty awesome thing. He came on our show to talk about it. We did a double
20:10
episode with him. So episode 336 and 337 to talk talk specifically about some of the stuff in this
20:15
book. I really like this book for a lot of different reasons. It's a very raw book. He doesn't always
20:20
portray himself in the most positive light, which is always refreshing for a memoir, which, you know,
20:25
we'll get more into another example of that a little bit later. You know, I mentioned in this as
20:29
somebody that he says, it's kind of helped him towards Christ. And you know, he kind of goes
20:34
into all those those different characteristics here. But the thing about this book that I like so
20:37
much is that Eddie Penny is a very exceptional guy. He's done some very exceptional things in his
20:42
career. Again, he was a member of development group, which is the top tier, you know, top one
20:46
percent of the Navy SEAL community to even get into that community is a fairly, you know, ridiculous
20:52
order. It's a very, very tall order to get into that. But he did that for a very long time.
20:56
And he was able to keep his family together. He was able to still have a relationship with his
21:01
kids. He goes into some craziness that happened with, you know, the mother of his children and
21:06
some things that go into this book. But every time I hear the guy talk about his life again,
21:10
this is one of the baddest dudes to ever walk the face of the earth. Okay. But even in that,
21:14
he's telling you where he went wrong. He's telling you where he made mistakes. He's telling you where
21:19
he doesn't come off looking real shiny. Because that's one thing about some military memoirs that
21:23
I've read that I haven't mentioned on the show and haven't mentioned on purpose is that these
21:27
people always come out looking like the hero. Like they never come out where they made a mistake,
21:31
where they missed the shot, any of those types of things. But Eddie is very, very apparent in,
21:36
you know, you're not having to surmise or read between the lines on the stuff that he's doing in
21:40
terms of, Hey, they're here are the mistakes that I made. And here's where I've messed up. And this
21:44
is a guy that when he speaks, he can almost never get through his speech without crying because he's
21:48
not because he's a was obviously, but it's it's literally because he's done some things in his life
21:52
that he still feels shame over. But he also understands the grace of Jesus to an almost
21:57
extreme degree that most people don't quite understand. So this book is certainly well worth
22:01
your time, unafraid, staring down terror as a navy seal and single dad by Eddie Penny.
22:06
All right, next one here. So this book, if I would have had the category, the most challenging book
22:11
that I read in 2022, this is certainly going to be it. Now this is actually a book from 2021.
22:16
It's called the rise and triumph of the modern self cultural amnesia, expressive individualism,
22:21
and the road to sexual revolution by Carl Truman. So Carl came on this episode or on this podcast
22:26
rather on episode 347. And we talked a lot about this book. Now guys, I've said before it is just
22:31
kind of a joke. But if you know my intellect, intellectual ability was a toaster, I couldn't
22:35
lightly toast a piece of bread. I'm not sure I've ever read a book where I felt dumber afterwards.
22:40
And that is not, you know, a day gone, Carl Truman, it is meant to be a compliment about his book,
22:45
because this book is incredibly dense. This is a book that you could spend all year on,
22:50
literally, you could just reread chapters or reread individual segments of this book and just
22:55
chew on it. I think this is a book that Ben Shapiro has said is the best book written in the last
23:01
10 years or something like that. And it's certainly one of the best books that you will potentially
23:05
ever read. It is on our book list on our website, the 100 books. Every modern Christian man should
23:09
read lists. And so the and it's for good reason, because this is going to push you. But it's also
23:14
going to go way farther back than what you realize, because for a lot of us were like, Oh, you know,
23:18
there's this craziness with LGBTQ and the normalization of pedophilia and all this woke stuff and the
23:22
drag queen story hours, all these different things. And we assume that that's a new thing.
23:26
We assume that that just happened within the last couple of election cycles. But he details
23:32
how far back it goes. And it goes back farther than you can possibly imagine. Guys, this is not an
23:38
easy book, which should encourage you to want to read it just because it's a hard book doesn't
23:43
mean you should avoid it. Okay, because if you're going to do that, just read a bunch of, you know,
23:46
goosebumps books from like back when you were a kid. But this book is well worth your time,
23:50
but it will take some time. Now I had to read it fairly quickly, because you know, I had a deadline
23:55
for my interview with Carl Truman. I want to have him back on. We're working on that to have him
23:58
back on because we didn't even scratch the surface in our interview, really about some of the tangible
24:02
things about this book. But guys, this book is well, well, well worth your time, the rise and
24:06
triumph of the modern self by Carl Truett. All right, next book here, Shane by Jack Schafer.
24:12
So this book was written in 1946. Okay. Now, as I tell you guys all the time,
24:18
I basically read nonfiction. Okay, fiction, you know, it's harder. It's hard for me to follow,
24:23
typically, especially the really complicated fiction where there's so many different
24:27
characters and different timelines that are moving around. And it's just like, you know,
24:30
I can't really get into that. It's not really for me. I'd rather watch a movie or, you know,
24:34
a short film or something like that, if I just want to be entertained or something like that.
24:37
But every year I do read a handful, I can count on one hand the number of fiction books that I read.
24:42
But I saw a gap in the book list that I have. So I have a literature, you know, page. I didn't
24:48
have any Westerns. I didn't have any books that were kind of Western in nature. I guess the close would
24:52
be, you know, the adventures of Tom Sawyer or something like that. And I had heard that Shane
24:58
was the best Western, the best book, Western book that you could possibly read. Okay. So I was
25:05
sold on that, you know, in the last several years, I've gotten very, very much so into Westerns,
25:09
not really old Western movies, but kind of the new modern Western movies and just, you know,
25:13
organ trail and different things that kind of went on as we expanded out West.
25:17
This book is absolutely fantastic. Okay. Now, as I tell you all the time, fiction is great for
25:23
audio books and, you know, or you can just read it yourself. But this is one that I listened to on
25:28
audio because when I'm listening to a story, it's a lot easier for me to keep the people straight
25:32
and kind of keep the story straight and where we're going. Very, very simple read or listen,
25:36
very, very fast, but Shane by Jack Schaeffer, you guys should definitely check that out.
25:40
All right. Another one that I listened to this year on audio that I think is well worth your time
25:44
is one that's been on my book list for forever, but I never got around to it. And that's endurance.
25:48
Shackleton's incredible voyage by Alfred Lansing. And this is from 1959. And so this goes specifically
25:55
into the voyage to the South Pole that Ernest Shackleton did and goes into how he recruited
26:00
them in to go down there when their ship got stuck in the ice. Basically, when they had to leave the
26:05
ice, how they were able to keep each other alive, you know, the different rescue missions that they
26:09
went on. And gosh, it is you listen to a book like that, or you read a book like that, and you realize
26:14
how exactly soft you are. Now, you might do jujitsu and you might know camp a few times a year,
26:20
you might work out what is cold outside or any of that. But then you listen to what these men did to
26:25
try and survive. And you realize, wow, I suck. I'm the worst. Like, I'm basically a child.
26:32
That is what this book will do for you. But it's good to also remember that even in a bygone era,
26:37
there were men that would do things to just push the boundaries of understanding so much so that
26:42
they would risk their lives in order to do it. Guys, endurance by Alfred Lansing. Well, well, well,
26:47
worth your time. All right, let's get back to the ones that I physically have in front of me.
26:50
Christianity and wokeness, how the social justice movement is hijacking the gospel
26:55
and the way to stop it. This is actually from 2021. Owen Strand was on episode 361 of this podcast.
27:01
Very, very well received episode. We'll certainly talk more about that episode when we talk about
27:04
my best podcast of the year. But there's a lot of confusion within Christendom about wokeness
27:10
and about how much of wokeness should be embraced by people, how much of it should be
27:15
used as a lens through which we view the world or something like that. But one thing that people
27:21
need to understand and one thing that Owen Strand points out is that Christianity and wokeness,
27:25
they are oil and water. They cannot be mixed together. You cannot use wokeness, which comes
27:31
from an atheistic ideology. Ultimately, and he details that in the book, it does not jive
27:36
with a Judeo-Christian ethic. And it certainly does not jive with the gospel. This is another
27:41
difficult book, but it's a short book, but it gives you some of the language around like,
27:45
okay, how did we get here? Why are people saying the things that they're saying right now?
27:49
Certainly, certainly well worth your time. Again, guys, the book is Christianity and wokeness
27:53
by Owen Strand. Now, we're going to get into another great book that we had this year.
27:58
One that I actually don't. Okay, I don't have a physical one of this either, but this is well
28:02
worth your time. Letter to the American church by Eric Metaxes. Actually, I do. I just left it
28:07
over there on that shelf, but I won't leave. I won't get it. You guys can check it out yourself.
28:10
It is in the show notes letter to the American church by Eric Metaxes. So episode 364 of this
28:15
podcast, we talked to Eric about this particular book. And so this is a great book for you to read
28:21
after you read Bonhoeffer. Okay, now you can read this as a standalone, and I certainly would
28:25
recommend that you do so. But if you read his biography of Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
28:30
which is on our 100 books list on our website, this is like almost like a capstone to that book
28:36
about basically what happened in the 1930s in Germany that allowed the Nazis to rise up. And
28:43
yes, I do mean allowed because that party was allowed to come to power because people look back
28:51
at the World War II era. They look back at the time in between World War one and World War two,
28:55
and what was going on in Germany. And they just assume that, you know,
28:58
Hitler basically did a bait and switch and he rose to power and people could have stopped it,
29:04
but you know, maybe they didn't. But one of the things that he points out that is absolutely
29:08
haunting in this book, again, it's very short read well worth your time is that there were a few
29:14
thousand German pastors, okay, leaders of churches that had they stood up against the Nazi party,
29:21
the Holocaust would have never happened. World War two would have never happened.
29:27
Now we can't know because we don't live in a parallel universe, we can't know what would have
29:33
happened had the Nazis not risen to complete power and began to push all over Europe and all
29:39
those different things. We can't know what would have happened. But there's the potential that
29:43
if a few thousand, just a few thousand of German pastors that had the stones to stand up to the
29:50
pressure from the Nazi party, that tens of millions of people would not have died.
29:56
Tens of millions, because that's how many people died during World War two, tens of millions of
30:02
people. And then from there, maybe we don't get the USSR. Okay, maybe we don't have the Maoist
30:08
revolutions in China. Maybe Pol Pot's not really a thing. But because of World War two, and because
30:14
people were following the Nazi playbook, this is basically what happened. This is essentially
30:19
where this level of power was shown to have worked to a large degree that other people
30:25
should try and do it. And so Ergmatax is sounding the alarm for people, especially in the church,
30:30
that are just asleep at the wheel. These people that are using critical race theory in their
30:34
sermon preparation saying, yeah, you know, I know it's, you know, fruit of the poisonous tree here,
30:38
but we should just use it as a lens through which to view the plight of the American Black
30:43
man or something like that. Or, you know, they're like, yeah, we need to be, you know, nice to our
30:48
people, right? Even if they use pronouns that don't align with truth, we should just use those
30:53
pronouns because it's nice and it's neighborly of us to do, right? And Ergmatax is basically saying,
30:58
if you do that, you were doing exactly what these supposedly Christian pastors in the 1930s in
31:05
Germany were doing. They were just whistling past the graveyard. So guys, you should certainly pick
31:09
up a copy of this letter to the American church by Ergmatax. Now, another book that's kind of in
31:14
the same vein of the endurance book that I talked about earlier, which is another book that I
31:18
listened to on audio this year is Skeletons of the Zahara, a true story of survival by Dean King.
31:23
This was actually released in 2004. This is another story of unbelievable survival. So I guess I
31:29
covered both spectrums. I have people trying to survive in the desert than people trying to survive
31:33
in the Antarctic. And so the thing about it, that is so interesting about this book is this book
31:38
presents a story of these American sailors, these white American sailors that were enslaved by
31:43
Muslims in Africa. Okay, so there are their ship crashed off the coast, the west coast of Africa,
31:50
and then they're captured and slaved and sold around and, you know, traded for camels and
31:54
different things like that. But it's another thing that shows you how just unbelievably weak you are
31:59
and how you would probably not have survived if you were born, you know, 100 or 200 years ago.
32:04
But it's just an interesting thing to see how stealing the resolve, especially of the captain
32:09
of the ship that went down, how his resolve kept him going through this entire situation.
32:14
Okay. And I'll basically leave it there. That's another book like endurance. That's
32:18
another good one. That would be a good one to listen to. Because typically when I'm reading books,
32:22
I'm, you know, taking notes or highlighting. But on that one, you're just basically following a
32:25
narrative of people that are doing everything that they can to survive. So skeletons on the Zahara
32:30
by Dean King again, released in 2004. All right, the next one here is one that I actually
32:36
lent out. So I have somebody borrowing it right now. But it's the boy crisis.
32:39
Why are boys are struggling and what we can do about it by Warren Farrell? This is from 2018.
32:44
So Warren Farrell was on our podcast episode 376. And we talked about the boy crisis. We talked
32:49
about what's happening with young men in our culture, how they're being othered, how they're
32:53
being put in these separate categories, how we are basically not catering to the boys in our
32:56
culture. And we're assuming that our culture will be able to survive. Okay. Now, if you listen to
33:01
interview, I did with Warren Farrell. And anytime that he's talked, you know, whether he's been on
33:04
Jordan Peterson show or anybody else's show, he's, he's trying to be a blinking neon sign saying,
33:09
you've got to stop this. You've got to turn things around. So there are certainly things
33:13
inside the book that you can look at and say, okay, this is why this is happening. But then
33:17
he's very prescriptive, not just descriptive about what we should do if we want the boys
33:22
in our culture to grow up to be strong, morally good boys. It goes back to the thing that I was
33:27
talking about with the intentional father with john Tyson is a lot of boys just don't end up
33:32
being courageous and having character. It's something they have to be taught. And if they're
33:36
not being taught that because they're worried about so many of these other different things,
33:39
or if they're being encouraged to become girls, which is what's happening in a lot of our,
33:44
you know, government run schools right now, that's something that we need to absolutely
33:47
fight against. And again, this book was written in 2018, which seems like ancient history,
33:51
especially when it comes to the transing of our children and the normalization of pedophilia.
33:55
But guys, again, that book is well worth your time again written in 2018, the boy crisis by Warren
34:00
Farrell. Another one that I would recommend to you is seasons of sorrow, the pain of loss and
34:05
the comfort of God by Tim Challeys. So he was on episode 379 of this podcast. So this podcast is
34:10
basically a book where he's detailing the things that he was writing in his journal for the first
34:16
year after his college age son suddenly died. Okay, so I think even to this day, they don't know
34:21
exactly why his son, his son's heart stopped beating and he just, you know, didn't start beating again.
34:29
And but he's going through everything. And as a father of two young sons, I mean,
34:33
multiple times I was reading this book, I was just crying, just sitting there in the floor of my
34:38
office just crying at the thought of what this man is going through, losing his son. After he spent
34:44
all this time and effort getting him to where he's basically an adult that loves Jesus, he was engaged
34:48
to a young lady at the time. But this gives you some insight into what is going through the mind
34:53
of a dad that is mourning at that exact time. So guys, well, well, well worth your time. Tim Challeys
34:58
seasons of sorrow released this year. And then there's another book that Tim Challeys was a part
35:03
of this was back in 2019. It's called a visual theology guide to the Bible. Seeing and knowing
35:08
God's word, this is by Tim Challeys and Josh Byers. So this is, you know, I'll just kind of show a
35:13
little bit on screen. You can kind of see it's like one big long infographic. Okay, so there's a bunch
35:18
of, you know, really awesome things. But I will tell you, for somebody that knows quite a bit
35:23
about the Bible, which I do, as I'm reading through this, I was like, holy cow. And again,
35:28
this is like an infographic. Everybody's read an infographic or a white paper that you can dig
35:31
through. And it's very visually appealing. But this book has helped has helped me learn so much and
35:37
respect so much more about what the Bible is, how we got it today, and also to have even more
35:42
reverence for it. Because we live in a culture where we have a stack of Bible sitting on our desk or
35:46
some bookshelf somewhere that we don't even read. But to understand the plight that people
35:50
went through just to get the Bible and modernity, it's incredible. So you should know about it. So
35:54
again, guys, a visual theology guide to the Bible by Tim Challeys and Josh Byers. Now, the last one
36:00
I'm going to talk about before we get into my worst book, the almost best book and the best books
36:04
of 2022 is The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. And this was released in 2001.
36:10
So this is on our book list on our website. But it was another book that I hadn't really gotten to
36:15
just something that was recommended to me. And I just got to tell you, it is one of the most
36:22
incredible books that I've absorbed in my entire life. So I listened to the audio on this when I had
36:29
a bunch of long drives and some travel that I needed to do. And so I was able to knock that out
36:32
because I think it was like 22 or 23 hours worth. But you know, I do listen at two time speed. So I
36:37
was able to chop that in half. But Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most incredible human beings
36:42
that's ever existed. I truly believe that certainly don't cosign everything he ever said and did.
36:48
But if you were to just take out a year, any year of his life that he was alive,
36:52
in that one year, he will have lived more than the majority of people on the planet will live in
36:57
their entire life, 60, 70, 80 years plus. He tried to cram and did cram so much living into a very,
37:04
very short period of time. And so this is part of a three book series by Edmund Morris.
37:09
But this basically goes from the birth of Theodore Roosevelt to right before he ran for president.
37:15
Okay, and you might think to yourself, well, you know, I want to know about President Roosevelt.
37:18
Well, there's another one I think that's called Theodore Rex and Colonel Roosevelt. There's a couple
37:23
more in this that I haven't gotten to quite yet. But if you like American history, if you like
37:28
Americana, if you like American presidents, if you like stuff about the 18 or the 1800s or the 1900s
37:35
or something like that, like this is so unbelievably for you. Like, if you're a good American,
37:40
you can't be a great American unless you read this book or listen to this book. So the rise of
37:44
Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Okay, so guys, as we work towards the end here,
37:49
we're going to get into my three actual and actual like named awards here. But the very first one,
37:54
and we just got to kind of get this out of the way, it is the worst book of 2022. And if you
37:59
guys have been listening to my show this year, this is not going to be a surprise to you at all.
38:03
That book is attached to God, a practical guide to deeper spiritual experience by Crispin Mayfield.
38:10
So I'm actually going to read the description of the book here. We all experience moments when
38:14
God's love and presence are tangible, but we also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God.
38:19
Why? The answer is found when you take a deep look at the other important relationships in
38:24
your life and understand your attachment style. Through his years working in trauma recovery
38:28
programs, extensive research into attachment science, and personal experiences with spiritual
38:32
striving and abuse, licensed therapist Crispin Mayfield has learned to answer the question,
38:38
why do I feel so far from God? When you understand your attachment style, you gain a whole new paradigm
38:43
for a secure and loving relationship with God. You'll gain insights about how you relate to others,
38:48
both your strengths and weaknesses, the practical exercises you can use to grow a secure spiritual
38:52
attachment to God, how to motive it or how to move forward on the spirituality spectrum and
38:57
experience the divine connection we are all created for. You'll learn to identify and remove mixed
39:01
messages about closeness with God that you may have heard in church or from well-meaning Christians.
39:06
With freedom from the past, you can then chart a new path toward intimate connection with the
39:11
God of the universe. So one of the most talked about episodes that we did this year was episode
39:16
284 of this podcast with Crispin Mayfield, where we dig into this book. Now, the reason why this book
39:22
is terrible and why it's the worst book that I read this year is because when you read that,
39:26
that general description, there's a few words in there and phrases that you're like, that's a
39:30
little bit weird. But when I was pitched this book, I was like, oh, there's probably enough there.
39:34
I never really thought about my attachment style. I don't exactly know what that is.
39:37
So I'll give it a go. But the thing about this book is this book is basically a magnum opus from
39:43
somebody that has allowed what he deems to be abuse, which, you know, I guess the jury's out onto
39:49
whether or not he was actually abused growing up, but to allow your abuse to define who you are,
39:54
but also to constantly be depending on other people's feelings about you for you to feel
40:00
worthy yourself. Now, if we were to take this just in the realm of humanism, right, if you're
40:06
constantly looking to family members, coworkers, loved ones, friends, acquaintances, to validate
40:13
who you are as a person, that's dangerous. But especially if you claim to be a Christian,
40:17
if you allow those things to define you, but then extrapolate that out to the God of the universe
40:22
and feel like the God of the universe is constantly mad at you and it's making you sad and all these
40:26
different things. Man, that is just that's crazy. That is literally crazy. Now, this guy is very,
40:33
very left wing. I think his, you know, the church he goes to is in Portland. There's a female pass
40:37
for the church. This is a guy that, you know, has his pronouns in his bio has, you know, LGBTQ flag
40:42
in his bio and all that says he's LGBTQ affirming and all that. So, you know, you can kind of get
40:46
an idea of who who he is, but doing the interview, and I'll talk more about this on the next episode,
40:51
but doing the interview, it's like, okay, I'm trying to traverse and understand where this guy is coming
40:55
from without just filling in all the blanks with stuff that I assume. And that's what I tried to do.
41:02
And unfortunately, it just, I thought it went well at the time, but didn't go well afterwards.
41:06
And if you go back to episode 284 of the podcast, at least listen to the intro because I get into
41:10
that, but I want to do my favorite quotes from all these different books. But this is, I guess,
41:15
my favorite quote, because it just points out some of the heresy from this nonsense book.
41:20
Okay. So to set up the short quote, he talked about in the book about waking up one day feeling
41:24
like God was disgusted with him. Okay. So could that possibly not be coming from God?
41:30
Is it potentially that that Satan is telling him, oh, I'm disgusted with you or something like that
41:34
more on that in a second. And then his wife, which poor lady, you know, she brought this on herself,
41:38
I guess, she suggests that he go to a nearby Catholic garden, a Catholic church ahead of garden
41:43
to clear his head. He sees a statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus in this garden. And then he says
41:49
that God spoke to him and said, and this is a quote from the book, that's like you and me.
41:54
You can cry on my chest whenever you need. Okay. So seems fine enough, right? You know, the God
42:00
is the God of comfort. That makes perfect sense. But then he claims that God told him this again,
42:04
quoting from the book, I'm your mother now. And you can cry on my chest whenever you need.
42:10
I know you're so tired and sad and feel so bad about yourself.
42:13
So as I pointed out in the interview to him, it's deeply heretical to talk about
42:20
the God of the universe as a sheet. Now, obviously, we know that God is outside of labels, you know,
42:28
right? So he exists in anything and everything. So to reduce him to a he or a she or whatever is
42:33
kind of silly. But every time that we see God described in the Bible, he's described in a masculine
42:39
way and with masculine pronouns. And if you think that, you know, Jesus is the son of God,
42:47
right? Then then you have to assume that there's a bunch of maleness happening in that moment.
42:52
And as I said in the interview, I said, is it possible that you weren't hearing the whispers
42:57
from God in that moment? But you were hearing the whispers of Satan. That Satan could potentially
43:01
be telling you, Hey, God's just your mother now. Because that's just a little lie wrapped in some
43:06
other truths, right? You know, you wake up feeling like God's disgusted with you. Is it potential?
43:12
Is there some potential that it's Satan that gave you that idea and not God that God's not actually
43:18
disgusted with you that he sent his son to this planet so that you could have a way to the father?
43:23
Is that even possible? So on no planet and under no circumstances, do I suggest that any of you
43:31
read this book attached to God by Chris and Mayfield is easily the worst book that I read this year.
43:36
Now, there was a running gun battle for a second there between him and Ryan George,
43:40
and you know, for for worst book of the year and worse, you know, podcast interview experience of
43:44
the year. But you know, far and above, far and away, attached to God by Chris and Mayfield,
43:49
worst book of 2022. So now I need to do my almost the best book of 2022. And so here's the thing
43:55
these last two books is for the last several months, I knew these two books were in a and we're
43:59
basically going to be one or the other was going to be my favorite book of 2022. But I can't stand
44:04
when people ride the fence, I can't stand with people like, Oh, this is my one and this is my one
44:08
B, but these feel like one A and one B to me, but I had to pick a favorite. And so I went ahead and
44:12
did so, but this was my almost the best book of 2022. And it's if the tomb is empty, why the
44:17
resurrection means anything is possible by Joby Martin. So I just got to tell you right from the
44:21
jump. And obviously I've talked about him a lot on the show. And you know, I've told you that he
44:24
and I have become friends, but he is one of my favorite people that I've met and be friended
44:28
because of the show. Maybe my favorite person I've ever met, they'd be friended because of my show.
44:33
But let me go ahead and read a description of this book and then we'll get more into it here.
44:36
The son of God was crucified, died and buried and he lay in the tomb for three days until he walked
44:41
out shining like the sun in a culture in which history is erased or rewritten at will, the existence
44:46
of an empty tomb matters. Why? Because if the tomb is empty, then anything is possible. In his first
44:52
book, Joby Martin, lead pastor of the church of 1122 dives deep into scripture and traces the story
44:57
of salvation by highlighting the seven mountains throughout scripture where God manifests himself.
45:01
As he describes each encounter with God, Martin shows us how the interaction on each mountain
45:05
laid the groundwork for the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary and shows what God revealed about himself
45:10
in the process. He illuminates seven familiar passages unveiling how God's plan for Christ's
45:14
sacrifice is threaded throughout scripture and shows why Christ's resurrection impossible,
45:20
unbelievable means that nothing is too hard for our God. Ultimately, he asks readers,
45:24
do you live every day of your life as if the tomb is empty or as though Jesus is still hanging on
45:29
the cross? Written with New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin, if the tomb is empty is an
45:33
insightful and spiritually rich examination of what the miracle of Christ's resurrection means
45:37
for all of us. So go back to episode 307 of this podcast that was Joby Martin's first appearance on
45:42
the show. And guys, every time I'm pitched a book, every time I'm pitched an interview, I take the
45:47
pitch seriously. And you know, as years have worn on, I take less and less of those pitches or I
45:53
accept less and less of those pitches. But there was enough in the pitch for Joby Martin. I can't
45:57
remember who sent me the pitch initially. There was enough enough there to where I was like, oh,
46:00
this might be fine. And then it turned into one of the best interviews that we've ever done on this
46:03
entire podcast. That's episode 307 of this podcast, Joby Martin, if the tomb is empty. But why it's
46:09
the almost best book of 2022 is because I learned so much while reading this book. And it far exceeded
46:16
what I was expecting. Because what I was expecting is a mega church pastor book. Because Joby Martin,
46:22
as we've talked about, certainly on on my first interview with him, but then a lot on my second
46:26
interview with him is he is a mega church pastor. He's a he's a lead pastor of an enormously big
46:32
church that by by all, you know, measurements and whatever could be considered in the category of
46:36
mega church. And if you've read any books by mega church pastors, my goodness, like they're
46:42
based their self help books. It's very much so like their sermons, right? You know, it's these Ted
46:46
talks. It's these, you know, these you can do it and God's for you. And you know, you can do all the
46:50
things you want to do just because blah, blah, blah. And then they just sprinkle a few verses
46:54
on top and then they call it good. And they're vapid. They're largely meaningless. You're not
46:59
learning anything. You just have a couple more quotable things that you can throw out the next
47:02
time you do brunch with somebody and you're, you know, having a discussion over avocado toast,
47:06
avocado toast. But the thing about this is that's not what this book is at all. You get the practical
47:11
nuggets, you get the practical knowledge. But the level of stuff that I apparently miss when I read
47:16
the Bible is astoundingly high. And Joby basically smacked me across face with it. And I never thought
47:22
about the mountains of scripture. I'm a mountains guy. I don't want to ever see a beach again for
47:27
the rest of my life. The sand is stupid and the sun lives there and I'm going to get sunburned
47:31
and I don't want to go, right? I want to be in the mountains. I want to be with the evergreens. I
47:34
want to be with the wildlife. That's where I want to be, right? And so to kind of bring these very,
47:39
very important mountains from scripture and to break the book down that way and to understand that
47:45
this sacrifice that happened thousands of years before Jesus is the same mountain that Jesus was
47:50
crucified on and like, I don't want to give away too much. I do want to get into some of my favorite
47:54
quotes. I couldn't find one favorite quote. So forget you guys. I know I just said, you know,
47:58
you can't, you know, be on the fence there, but I'm going to be on the fence. I have three quotes
48:00
that I want to go through here. So this first one is from the prologue. So let me press you. This
48:05
is a gut check. Do you live every day of your life is just the tomb is empty? Or as though Jesus is
48:10
still hanging on that cross? Okay. So obviously you heard that from the description. But reading
48:14
that in the prologue, I was like, okay. Okay. Like I like when people, because how many times
48:20
does someone say this is going to be a gut check? And then what they ask you is not really a gut
48:24
check question. It's just like super basic down the middle, but it's like, okay, here's your gut
48:28
check question. Then it was like, Oh, and then I'm like, crap, do I live like the tomb is empty?
48:33
Or do I live like Jesus still up there? Yeah. So that's tough. And that from the very beginning,
48:38
you're kind of being put on the defensive like, Hey, I really need to think about this.
48:41
Now here's another quote from chapter four. This is called this from the chapter of Mount of the
48:45
Beatitudes. Our problem is that we don't understand what the word means. It rhymes with week. He's
48:50
talking about meekness here. It rhymes with week. And it's usually used in the phrase meek and mild.
48:54
So we don't understand it. But the word meek in Greek means a bit bridled horse. It doesn't
49:00
mean weak at all. It means guided strength. A big powerful horse is not weak. He's just handed
49:07
over the reins to his master. The horse yielded his will to the will of the one who can direct his
49:12
energies for his purposes. Now, guys, I'm obviously obsessed with the original understanding of the
49:19
word meekness. When I talk about the masculinity and manhood of Jesus, I talk about meekness
49:24
often. And so this is probably the best paragraph, you know, summary of why we got the word wrong
49:32
over all these years, but specifically what it's meant to be. So I love that quote. And the last
49:36
quote will go through here is from chapter six, the Mount of Transfiguration. Here's the quote.
49:40
Well, you should write this down, especially if you're a millennial or younger, which, you know,
49:44
guilty millennial here. Fairness is not a biblical value. God does what he wants with whom he wants
49:51
when he wants. Why? Because he's the sovereign king of the universe. That reality should comfort
49:57
you more than it ruffles you because he is good. I mean, dude, you could do an entire sermon just on
50:03
that right there. Because again, you're speaking to the young people, you're speaking to genziers
50:06
and millennials, right? You're talking about fairness and where we don't get this concept of
50:11
fairness from the scripture. Again, a lot of very unfair things happen to followers of Christ,
50:16
right? A lot of very unfair things happen to the, the people of God happened to the Jews and the
50:20
Old Testament, like a lot of unfair things happened. But God is for him. Again, the Bible's not about
50:25
you. The Bible was given to you as a gift to where you could understand God kind of, right? So where
50:32
you can understand the sacrifice of Jesus as a propitiation for your sins, right? But you don't
50:38
understand God. But the thing that you do need to understand, because you can't understand him
50:42
in his totality, is that he is good. It goes back to, you know, what C.S. Lewis wrote in the
50:47
Chronicles of Narnia, where they're talking about Aslan, who is the God figure of those novels,
50:50
where it's like, you know, is he safe? It's like, no, he's not safe, but he's good. And that's what
50:55
you want. Like you want cheap dogs around you, you want a bunch of guys around you that are very,
50:59
very unsafe guys, but are good to go back to the quote from chapter four, they are meat
51:04
individuals that they have their energies and their aggression and their everything yielded
51:10
to the will and the purposes of the father. That's what you want. So guys, again, I cannot recommend
51:15
this book anymore. It was almost the best book of 2022. Again, this is my one be if I were to do
51:20
such thing, if the tomb is empty by Joby Martin, the almost best book of 2022. But now we've made
51:26
it all the way in. We're almost an hour in at this point. Here's your payoff. This is what I
51:30
consider to be the best book of 2022. And it is scars and stripes, an unapologetically American
51:36
story of fighting the Taliban, UFC warriors and myself by Tim Kennedy and also by Nick Palmishano.
51:42
So as you guys know, if you followed on, you know, our social media, or if you listened to us for
51:47
any link to time, you know, I've talked about Tim Kennedy and the friendship he and I have been
51:51
able to forge and also with Nick Palmishano, you know, Diesel Jack and those different things. But
51:55
fantastic book. Let me go ahead and read the description to it here. Tim Kennedy has a problem.
52:00
He only feels alive right before he's about to die. Kennedy, a green beret, decorated army sniper
52:05
and UFC headliner has tackled a bull with his bare hands, jumped out of airplanes, dove to the
52:09
depths of the ocean and traveled the world hunting poachers, human traffickers and the Taliban.
52:13
But he's also the same man who got kicked out of the police department, fire department, and as an
52:17
EMT before getting two women pregnant four days apart and finally been beaten up by his special
52:22
forces colleagues for quite simply being a selfish a-hole. In scars and stripes, Kennedy describes how
52:28
these failures shaped him into the successful businessman and devoted husband and father he is
52:32
today. Through unbelievably vivid wild anecdotes, Kennedy reveals all the dumb, violent, embarrassing,
52:38
and undeniably heroic things he's done in his life, including multiple combat missions in
52:42
Afghanistan, building a school in Texas for elementary kids, and creating two multi-million
52:46
dollar businesses. You will learn that failure isn't the end. Rather, it's the first step towards
52:51
unearthing the best version of yourself and finding success, no matter how overwhelming the
52:55
setbacks may feel. So I talked to Tim about this particular book on episode 316 of this podcast.
53:00
That's actually a part one. And yes, guys, we will eventually do a part two because there's
53:04
so much in this book. But why it's the best book of 2022? And what kind of broke it for me?
53:09
As I think the first time we did a books of the year, I gave the book of the year to a memoir
53:15
called The Phenomenon written by Rick Ankyl. So that is a former baseball player who got the yips,
53:21
he basically forgot how to throw even though he was a pitcher and he kind of details all of it.
53:25
Now, if you're a baseball guy, the book's for you. Certainly, if you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan,
53:30
the book is for you. But if you're neither of those two things, the book's The Phenomenon by
53:35
Rick Ankyl is still for you. And the reason is is because you deal with psychological trauma,
53:41
you deal with an unending psychological problem, you know, that they're calling the yips.
53:48
It deals with his relationship with his father and kind of how he even to this day is not
53:53
forgiven him. Like, there's so much packed into a book that I was expecting to just read about
53:58
a guy that, you know, got sent to the miners as a pitcher and then came back as a as an outfielder
54:02
in the ho, hey, look, he's a hero. Similar to this book, if you like military memoirs,
54:07
his books for you, if you're a big fan of the UFC and of the middleweight division and, you know,
54:13
Tim Kennedy, when he was fighting at 185, this book's for you. But it's also about everything else.
54:18
Again, it detailed there in the introduction for this book or the description of the book.
54:22
Dude, he's made a bunch of mistakes and probably more so than any memoir that I've ever read.
54:29
And I've read quite a few. He is very upfront about how stupid he was at different points of his
54:36
life and the decisions that he made, not just, you know, I zigged when I should have zagged.
54:40
And here's the 10 things I learned about myself in the process. No, no, no, no, though, completely
54:44
selfish, horrific things that he did talking about wanting to kill himself and basically swimming
54:50
out into the middle of the ocean and almost dying, you know, almost basically pulling that off.
54:56
It's really a, it's a spellbinding book because again, if you are into MMA, if you're into the
55:01
early years of MMA, like the real early years, this is for you, the military stuff is all there,
55:05
but you're getting a guy that a lot of people that you'll hear them talk all night, like,
55:09
ah, Tim Kennedy's a [inaudible] needs this and that and all he's soon super in himself and blah, blah,
55:13
but he even says in his books, like, yeah, I'm a cocky guy. I'm a very confident guy.
55:15
But then to say that, to mean it and then write a book basically detailing in stark detail,
55:22
the horrific mistakes you've made, that is an incredibly humble thing to do because he could
55:28
have written a book talking about all the fights he won and, you know, talking about all the military
55:33
achievements and talking about how hard it was to get through the Q course, but he did it because
55:37
he's awesome and all those different things, but that's not really it. Like, that's not what this
55:41
book is about. Now, there's a lot of stories in this book that would be worth talking about.
55:45
There's a lot of great things to talk about. There's funny things in here, certainly,
55:48
but I'm going to get into my favorite quotes here and it's all about one, you know, particular
55:52
instance that he had in his life. He was on a resupply mission to a firebase or FOB or forward
55:58
operating base anaconda. So I'll read in and out and I'll kind of get into the story here. So
56:02
here's a quote from the book. It's one thing to kill a man who is actively shooting at you,
56:06
or even to shoot a leader responsible for atrocities. I never lost any sleep about those shots,
56:11
but these shots were awful. There was no satisfaction. There was no rush of knowing you
56:16
quieted the gun that was hunting for American lives. There was just killing with every trigger
56:20
pull. I lost a little bit more of my soul, but the target calls kept coming from the RG and I had
56:26
a responsibility to keep my team safe. So they're in the middle of it right now. They're in the middle
56:32
of a crazy firefight and there's so much killing going on. You're seeing this guy this this military,
56:37
this top tier of the military guy talking about how he's losing parts of the soul every time he
56:42
pulls his trigger. And as you're reading the book, again, that's just a quote that I pulled out,
56:46
but as you're reading it, you can feel it. You can feel like, Oh, man, he's he's actually losing
56:51
a part of himself here. And during the firefight, you know, another firefight on that same mission,
56:56
Tim Kennedy, who is a tremendous athlete, but very much so says, Hey, the one thing that I was
57:00
never good at in terms of athletics was throwing things like he just couldn't throw. He couldn't,
57:04
you know, throw a spiral, it can throw fastball, it couldn't throw anything.
57:08
But somehow during this firefight, he was able to throw a grenade like lace a grenade
57:13
into a window over room that he thought was full of enemy combatants. And so I'll go back to the
57:18
book here. A grenade going off in the movies is very different from what happens in real life.
57:23
It's not this giant fireball. It's not dramatic. It's a hollow thud. It's that late night sound
57:28
of opening the refrigerator, see what's in there and the watermelon rolls out and hits the ground.
57:32
That's all a grenade is after you throw it, a little hollow pop. And after you hear that
57:38
pop, you either want to hear nothing or you want to hear men screaming. You do not want to hear
57:44
women or children scream. You absolutely do not want to hear that yet. That's what I heard.
57:50
And so he's talked about this a couple of times on the Joe Rogan experience. We talked about it on
57:55
our show. And when you read this in the book, even knowing that it's coming, the moment that he
58:00
started describing, you know, how much he sucks at throwing, I knew what was coming. It's rough.
58:06
But it's way rougher than you can even imagine because in the hospital room,
58:10
he describes this in the book. He's in the hospital room with one of the little girls with a little
58:17
girl specifically that was hurt by their grenade that he threw. Okay. So he's about to be on his way
58:21
out of there, right? And he spent some time with this little girl. And this is probably the most
58:28
moving part of the entire book that's full of great stories and moving parts. But here we'll go back
58:32
to the book. I don't know if I ever moved slower. I picked her up so gently because she was in so
58:37
much pain and had so many little holes in her that all that any sudden movement sent her into
58:42
fits of sobbing. I had not moved this slow since sniper school. I just didn't want to inflict any
58:47
more pain in this tiny little baby. I wanted to make her feel better and wash away all her suffering.
58:53
After what felt like an hour, I finally had her cradle in my arms. I lowered myself into one of
58:57
those tiny metal chairs the army seems to buy in bulk that no actual adult can fit in and rocked
59:03
her and talked to her. I sang lullabies lullabies. I told her stories. She finally fell asleep. And
59:09
for one moment, that beautiful little girl looked just like any happy baby I'd ever held.
59:14
My legs had gone numb, but there was no chance that I was going to risk moving her or placing
59:18
her down. I wanted her to stay in this comfortable baby baby sleep for as long as she could. So I
59:24
didn't move for six hours. I cramped and I hurt, but it was my mission not to move.
59:31
Eventually, everything went numb except my shame. When she woke up, I knew I had to go.
59:36
I gave her a tiny kiss on the forehead and looked at her for one moment more. Then I turned,
59:41
clapped the ginginator on the shoulder and walked out. I knew I would never see her again.
59:47
If I sat on that emotion long enough, it probably would have ripped me apart,
59:50
but I had to shut down that part of my brain and go back into green berry mode.
59:54
It was time to prep. I would be leaving in the morning and I would not be doing so on a helicopter
59:59
like my boss wanted me to. So just a little background on that. The mission going into the
1:00:07
forward operating base didn't go well. And then basically his boss said, we're going to bring
1:00:11
in a hilo. We're going to get you out of there. Well, we're not going to let you drive back
1:00:14
and go through the crap again. And he said, yeah, basically screw that. I'm going to do that.
1:00:18
So much there. So much in this book again, guys, even if you're not into the military,
1:00:23
if you're not into the UFC stuff, if you don't like Tim Kennedy or any of those types of things,
1:00:26
this is still worth your time. And so this is a good time to also announce that both if the
1:00:32
tomb is empty by Joby Martin and scars and stripes by Tim Kennedy and Nick Palmishano have been added
1:00:37
to the 100 books that every modern Christian man should read list. So guys, if you want
1:00:42
more recommendations like this, because you know, I only do this this episode once a year,
1:00:46
go to undaunted dot life backslash book list. Okay, so w w w dot undaunted dot life
1:00:52
backslash book list. And you can access the 100 books every modern Christian man should read list.
1:00:57
This this list has a bunch of different categories. So there's literature, there's
1:01:00
biographies, there's history, there's Christian, there's theology, there's all these different,
1:01:04
you know, categories that you can kind of pick from pick from. But again, we've added Tim Kennedy's
1:01:08
book and Joby Martin's book to the list. We're very, very happy to do that. It is a rotating list,
1:01:13
right? So every time we add a book, we have to take books off. And I was just telling Joby this
1:01:17
week, I was like, man, when we take a book off, like it hurts now. Like in the first few years,
1:01:21
there were some books that I was like, Oh, how the heck did that book end up on there? But now
1:01:24
it's like, man, we're having to make some sacrifices to put new books on there. But every year we will
1:01:29
replace, you know, somewhere between five and 10 of the books with other books that we've taken in,
1:01:33
maybe not quite that many, maybe like three to five books or something like that. But we were
1:01:36
very, very happy to put scars and stripes. And if the tomb is empty on that book list. All right,
1:01:40
guys, thanks so much for listening to this show. But we are going to do a quick resilience boost
1:01:43
before we let you out of here, add a dog to life or mission is equipping men to push back darkness
1:01:46
with content that for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience. So I've got a link to the
1:01:50
origin website so you guys can go pick up the jeans, boots, protein, geese, energy drink supplements,
1:01:55
all that stuff. Make sure you use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. I've also
1:02:00
got a link to the donation page on our website. Again, guys, end of year giving, we would love to
1:02:03
have y'all support what we're doing here to equipment around the globe to push back darkness. But again,
1:02:07
right there, we've got the link to that. And then I've got links to everything that I talked about
1:02:11
in this podcast. So I've got a link to every book that I've mentioned, right, I'm pretty sure.
1:02:15
And then I've got a link to any of those podcasts that were with the author where we talked about
1:02:19
that book. So this is probably the most links that we've ever had in a single show. So you can get
1:02:23
that in the show notes and check that out. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to the show.
1:02:26
We do appreciate it. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate leave us a positive
1:02:30
five star review. If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email
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to info@undontadotlife. That's I N F O at undontadotlife. Follow us on Instagram and like us on
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like this coming your way. Just go to www dot undontadotlife. And also we want to thank the band August
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Burns read for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song
1:02:51
cutting the ties which is off their 10th anniversary re recording of their album Leveler. The links are
1:02:55
in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging
1:03:02
spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:03:32
[Music]