Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
Challenges of Modern Fatherhood Through Biblical Principles
TJBHpodcast@gmail.com
We dive into the complexities of balancing work and family life, especially in dual-income households. From personal anecdotes to thoughtful reflections, we discuss how fatherhood shapes identity, imparts core values, and provides stability and courage to the family. Embrace the idea that purposeful actions in parenting, like surgery, are vital for growth, while also learning how to cherish family moments over maintaining a perfect home.
Book Reference: Family Sheppard, Future Men, Federal Husband, Meaning of Marriage, Masculine Christianity
what's up guys? Welcome back to navigate.
Speaker 2:I'm with justin, oh yeah I am, I'm back, he's back. And in the uh, the week that I was gone, the president almost uh, well, the former president almost died. Uh, kamala is the new Democratic nominee. And something else weird happened. Oh, yeah, yeah, I can't remember. I was like there was another weird thing. I was like I can never step away from the podcast ever again. Things went south the second I walked out. Everything went down. It obviously had to do with this podcast, it's all right.
Speaker 1:We had AJ feeling for you. We did. Song of Solomon.
Speaker 2:Dude, I love AJ man. Yeah, Guy is not me in the best way. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:He's not a lot of people in the best way. Yes, full of energy, that guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, and it's like it's not slowing down, no way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's pretty good. Well, what's up, my man? What do you got for us?
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought we'd do kind of go back to the family. Okay, with this one. I want to start with fatherhood. Okay cool, let's talk through it. Godly fatherhood.
Speaker 2:Man, there's a lot to say on this topic, man. We'll see. We may have to spread this out into a couple of podcasts, sure, but let's talk about it. What's on your mind?
Speaker 1:What about it there's? Put it to you this way, man when my wife was pregnant, we didn't find out the sex of it. Yeah, I was 100% sure it was going to be a boy, and that made me excited. But then I started thinking about it. I'm like this isn't this is actually nerve wracking. Yeah, this kid's going to blow up his life. I'm not good, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, um, I'm, I'm kind of amazed man at, uh, how humbling, humbling being a parent and being a father actually is man. It can, it can do, it can do a lot to you really fast. Here's a quote, here's the quote of the day for you, George Frederick Watts there's no circumstance so dire that your unique skill set couldn't make it worse, I feel like that's about right, that's awesome awesome.
Speaker 2:No, I mean it's a daunting thing. Stepping in and being a dad, I feel like, is I mean it's not for the faint of heart, yeah, I still love you know Doug Wilson's definition of masculinity, the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility, stepping in the gap and saying I'm willing and will joyfully take responsibility for what's going on here, what's what's happening in this environment, and I'm going to champion it and grow it and cultivate it and raise it up. I mean, it's a it's a crazy. It's a crazy thing, but it's also, I think, one of the single most important things to any man's life. And I would go so far as to say you are, unless called specifically not to have a family, missing your calling and not totally growing up until you have one. Yeah, you have to go through this process of finding a wife and raising kids before you even fully understand who you are and what God has called you to. So maybe it's good to start here. Fatherhood is incredibly important, and I'm not talking about to kids or to families at this point, I'm talking about for men in general. You are missing out on, I would say, a giant chunk, or perhaps the most significant part of your calling as a man in being a father.
Speaker 2:God the Father creates, built, you know, he speaks into existence and does all this stuff, and then he places Himself in a position where we're to understand Him as a Father, and I would say we are supposed to imitate that at some level. Not God, but this masculine. I have your back, I'm going to protect you, I'm going to be with you and I'm going to help grow. You understand who you are and what you're to do. You should then be starting to realize oh, that's my calling as a father to my family, to my kids to become this person that can help other people understand their identity and a good father like God. The Father isn't necessarily safe, but he's good, right, he's like Aslan.
Speaker 2:It's a scary thing to have a good father, because he's going to make you do stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want to do and you're going to be terrified, but he's also going to have your back the whole time. You know what I mean. One glance in a difficult situation if you see your dad is there suddenly, you're going to calm down. You know what I mean. It's this immense responsibility to try to do something. That is incredibly scary, but it also turns you into something very quickly that is both hard and soft, you know, strong and weak.
Speaker 2:It's this, it's this incredible dichotomy of how in the world do I do all of this at the same time? And God is. God is built into us as men, this identity we're supposed to have, where we're supposed to step into families and be what he has been for others, be what he is for us. And whether you have a dad or you don't have a dad, god, the Father, is modeling for us and showing us what that's supposed to look like and who we're supposed to be, and I think that's incredibly important. One of the first stories in the Bible is the kids screwing it up. You know what I mean and how God immediately is a covering for them and it's, I mean, man. We could get into it. We can get into so much there.
Speaker 1:We talked about it in the marriage thing. We did too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just the identity of being a dad, guys. I mean it's so important. Some of you may listen to this podcast and you're not a father. You a father? Uh, you're, you're not interested in being part of a family, or maybe you have a wife but you don't have kids yet, or you're not sure you want kids. I would say you are punting on a central part of who God would want you to be and call you to be to raise up, multiply and bring the next generation up in a way that honors him. Um, big deal, big deal.
Speaker 1:How involved do you need to be as a father? Cause we hear it all the time. Like you know, if your wife has to work or whatever, or you're the provider and the protector, you know basically you're providing right.
Speaker 2:But if you're a guy who works all the time, you know you have a different calling in that aspect too, dude, it's so complicated. Here's why, like, let me give you a biblical answer that's like a flannel graph answer and then let me give you a lay of the landscape for where we're at. Is that fair, okay? So biblical answer is this you want to be involved in every aspect of your life, and what I mean by that is you are modeling who you want them to be and what you would want them to do, what you would want them to do. And so some people are like I'm going to punt on most of my job at work or building a future, doing most of that stuff, because I need to spend time here with my family and functionally be a mother. And I would say, well, no, part of you being a dad is modeling. We go to church on Sundays, we worship, we evangelize, we take time, we go out of our way to make this a priority. We take it very seriously. And then there's a, there's another side of you that needs to realize um, at the same time, man, I need to be home and I need to show them that there is a priority here in what we, what we do, how we're building the house how we're setting rules and standards and um put in the kitchen. We would call me some. Plus getting everything in its place. Um, you're, you're to do that. You're also, you know, to express who you are in fun. There's no laughter in the house if the dad has sucked all the joy out of the house. You know there's no, it's an incredibly important position. I mean, if you go into a room full of young kids and ask them to draw God, most of them are unwittingly drawing something that looks like their dad. And if you ask what God likes, they're probably going to say a lot of things that their dad likes. You know what I mean. And when people read the Bible, when you're a young kid and you tend to read what God is saying, you tend to hear your father's voice. I mean it's an incredibly impactful thing that you're doing.
Speaker 2:So if you're asking how involved should I be, I'm saying whether you want to be involved or not, you are entirely involved. What you're not doing speaks. What you are doing speaks. It is everything. Your family then becomes an extension, or at least an amplifier, of who and what you are, and so in that sense, I would say, yeah, I mean it's in everything that you do you're involved. If you're talking about, you know, with my wife and this and that, should she work, should she not work, I'd be like dude, yeah, I mean, I would. I'm always going to look to the Bible and say, hey, yeah, your wife is should primarily be working at home. That's her domain. She should own that.
Speaker 2:And if God has called 50% of the you know of the population, or 50% of the gender spectrum, to the home, it must be incredibly important to him, it must be a huge deal to him. It has become increasingly hard for men to be outside of the home working, providing, protecting, modeling what it's supposed to be like and have their wife at home leading, loving, nurturing, caring for the kids and raising them up, helping their husband in that endeavor. Because of the you know the, the place where we find ourself. Feminism and, um, let's say, the 19th amendment, have created a world now where women are pushed into the machine that is the workforce, um, and it has destabilized the home and marriages and relationships with kids and everything else in an incredibly damaging way. You have and man, again, I'm trying not to go down the wormhole here, but you ask all the questions you want. I just think when we started putting women into the workforce in a unique way, what immediately happened is that wages for men dropped because more people are in the pool to get these different jobs, so the demand isn't quite as high. It's easier to fill at a lower wage for a lot of women who would come in and work for less.
Speaker 2:I think birth control we cannot overstate the dramatic effect that it has had on our nation, where this protection over reproduction has created an environment where you know you can have sex without consequences, right, whatever that means. I mean obviously no, everyone knows that it's not without consequences. The consequences are very clearly seen in our day and age right now, where infidelity is at a crazy high, you know, abortions at a crazy high. You have all these people who are hooking up and families are not being supported, kids are not being supported. The government has basically set itself up as a great opportunity instead of a husband. So if you get pregnant with some guy and if you stay with the guy, you won't get benefits from the government, but if the guy leaves, then you'll get benefits from the government. So we're incentivizing single motherhood at some level.
Speaker 1:I actually tell my wife that all the time it's like we should just get divorced by the manager. You get paid a lot more money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get a lot more from the government, and one of the reasons why I mean like childcare and daycare and stuff like this is such a is a government issue is because they're still trying to take those people and put them back into the workforce. Let's get single moms who have kids. Instead of raising your kids, we'll put you back into the workforce and we'll find a way to take care of your kids for you, so we'll be your provider and protector. We'll be the husband that you need. We'll help raise your children for you and you come, serve us and do what we want. I mean, you can just imagine how much that's broken up the family.
Speaker 2:Transportation has made it really crazy, so people are able to go long distances. They're able to screw things up a lot faster through on the internet, which is like how 70% of infidelity begins at this point, because we have tons of people online comparing, looking, thinking that you know, there's better fish out there, there's a better situation to look and everybody else's life is happier, and women in general struggle with that particular aspect more even than guys do in the comparison piece I mean. So it's a mess. It's a freaking mess. I throw in the fact that sex has become such a normalized thing at this point that the average person trying to find a spouse is just screwed. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And everybody's got baggage and it's messy, I'm throwing all of this, it doesn't take a lot to find love online. That's been a problem. We could discuss that sometime else.
Speaker 2:I'm throwing all of this out there just to say, when we read the Bible and we're like, have your wife work at home, raise the kids, men, go to work, you know, crush it as a man, come home, provide and protect it's like dude. I wish it was that simple. The reality is is, at this point, if you decide I'm going to be a stay at home dad, you are almost. Or if you're deciding your wife's going to be a stay at home dad, you are almost. Or if you're deciding your wife's going to be a stay at home mom, you're almost. Deciding that we're going to take a massive pay cut and really struggle for the right reasons. It's going to be really freaking hard to make this happen and it may be impossible.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I talked about, tim, with a lot of people jumping into the workforce and kind of this feeding of the machine, is that now you know housing prices and everything else are skyrocketed. You know it's really hard to live in an environment now as a single income household. It's almost impossible because we're trying to again, I keep saying it feed the machine right. So you're like we're in Colorado, right, prices for houses are pretty high. But even just across the nation. In general, prices for housing are pretty high and if you're trying to figure out how are we going to make this work with our kids, how are we going to pay for education and insurance and all that everything's going.
Speaker 2:It can be incredibly difficult, and so then we put our wives into the workforce and we're trying to do both kind of things. It's messy, it's very messy kind of thing. It's messy, it's very messy. So, being a fatherhood now, being a father now, and fatherhood now, is this complicated process of working towards what God has actually called you to do, and it's not easy, I would say. You're going to need to be very cautious and very thoughtful about the woman that you find yourself with. You're going to be still needing to know I cannot be afraid of having kids or raising babies. You're going to have to be okay with not necessarily living out the American dream the way that you think it might work out.
Speaker 2:You're going to look different, you're going to have to run at things differently. I mean, even our school system now is pretty messy, right. So it's like, well, how do we raise our kids in this environment, especially if both of us work? Great question A lot of people think about relocating to different areas and going to different places. And how do we make the traditional biblical family model work in a society that has incentivized the exact opposite of all of the things that the Bible is telling us to do from a family perspective, and that's hard.
Speaker 1:That's very hard. I'm in that circumstance now, like my wife went back to work. She does evenings, so I get off work and then I go home, and then now I have two babies. I got a two-year-old and an infant, right.
Speaker 1:I hated it in the beginning with my first, my two-year-old, when she was a baby. I hated it because she wanted mama all the time. You know I just. But eventually I got a rhythm and I I enjoy them now. Yeah, because I get this time with my daughters that I wouldn't, probably, most guys probably wouldn't have, and I'm seeing her develop now in a way that I feel like I'm raising her as a boy though, so I've recognized that a little bit. Yikes, raising her as a boy though, so I've recognized that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's awesome you know, but we get to hang out and have experiences, though, too, which is so when it comes to trying to teach her right and wrong. Now it's kind of easier, but it's also I don't feel like there's a whole lot of like the discipline area there well, tell me what you mean, like how do I discipline my kids?
Speaker 2:or like how do I raise my kids?
Speaker 1:like how do you discipline a child who doesn't have the bandwidth to know how to eat with a fork? Yet you? Know, what I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll tell you what. From a distance it will be really hard, but the more you get to know your kids, you know who they are and you know when they're crossing a line, and usually they do too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you don't, she's in those rebellions now. She knows it's wrong and she'll just look at me and do it anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. They stare you in the eyes and start to do the thing that you're saying no to. They know. They know we usually started like slowly or working at disciplining our kid right around. I would say 18 months, something like that. Sure, maybe even a little bit sooner, but you can start to see that. Look in their eye, you know what I mean. Then you start to think through okay, we actually need to respond to this. They're going to you know. They swing at their mom. You're going to slap their hand a little bit. You know, hey, no, get your life together. Rethink what you're doing here.
Speaker 2:No, but I mean it's raising kids and being a dad and a lot of it is just thinking through okay, how do I instill who God has called me to be? What am I supposed to bring out of this child that God has already placed there? It's less like what you're putting in as much as what you're pulling out that God has already placed there and then helping them grow in an environment that's safe. Man, this is a whole other topic too. I'm just thinking about risk. Me and my wife have these conversations all the time Like we have this trampoline right now and there was like this whole cage around the outside of it. We were having this conversation about it because she's like listen, it's great, because it's less hospital bills, it's good, it's safe.
Speaker 1:You're not going to die out there.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm laughing, I'm like, listen, if they don't learn that if I jump off this trampoline, there is no net that's going to catch me later on in life it's going to be something way worse and you're going to lose your ability for risk assessment. You know what I mean. Like it is a good thing for kids to find out. Oh, that hurts when I do that now and be more careful so they understand what it looks like later. Like there was this study done with playgrounds. These playgrounds from the 1950s created this environment where it was like kids learn quickly. Oh, I'll hurt myself this way and would be able to self-manage better in the future because they had learned risk assessment early. A lot of the playgrounds that are made now are everything's lower, everything's shorter, everything's softer, so if you fall and hit your face, you don't come away bloody with a broken bone. You think it's fine and you'll get back up and you'll keep playing and you'll do it again.
Speaker 2:The problem is is life isn't like that. Life is really hard and it's really difficult and we're actually creating fragile people. We're creating a fragile generation that is plagued with anxiety and fear and worry and all this stuff because they never learned risk assessment and never learned. You know how to walk through actually hard things that do hurt and process that stuff early. So we have a giant fragile you know fragile group of people coming up that are paralyzed with all these different things. We're like I don't understand. We did everything that we could to cushion it. Yeah, actually strong bones are grown. When you break them you can carry a lot more with a bigger frame, but the more you baby something, actually the weaker it tends to become.
Speaker 2:That being said, I want my children to live and not be paralyzed, and so my wife's also got a point there. But that, I think somewhat of that man is actually the father in me the desire to like, listen. If I don't Like, if you don't hurt yourself a little, I mean life's going to suck, like you're going to have to get strong and you've got to grow up a little bit. And again, just thinking about what God, the Father, does for us, it's like, hey, I'm going to have to put you through, you're going to have to go through the desert. You're going to need 40 years on the backside of this desert. You're going to need to get out the fire with Shadrach Meshach, I mean, god is kind of constantly calling us into frustrating environments that we don't feel great about, so he can show us that good things come out of that.
Speaker 1:But when does that frustration start to aim at your kids?
Speaker 2:Well, I think when it's done from a place of anger or frustration, well then you're no longer actually trying to help raise your kids. You're showing your own immaturity right. Anything done in love, with the desire to help grow somebody, is way more intentional. Anything where you're just pissed off or being frustrated or intentionally trying to be malicious, that's something else. Surgery is cutting somebody open. You know what I mean to get work done. Violence is cutting somebody open because you just want to cut them open. There's a difference. One has a purpose and is going to bring healing and is going to be healthy.
Speaker 1:The other is a maniac and a masochist or whatever, Because I know I have those moments. If I'm trying to watch something or read something and my kids are going crazy, my wife's going crazy, I get so irritated and mad and frustrated and it comes out right and I realize it's because I'm not being allowed to do what I want to do right now and you're keeping me from doing that, yeah, yeah, that's your kid raising you. That's my selfishness coming out in a way. That's yeah, I should probably get up and go help.
Speaker 2:There's no better way to learn about how God views you as his kid than having kids and be like, oh, that's what I am. That frustration out of your oh yeah, and God's like, yeah, yeah, see how he's not listening to you See how he's not paying attention, and it's not working out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's you. You're that right. Yeah, I mean, dude, it's a crazy thing being a dad. It's a crazy thing trying to model what a father is, obviously, like I said, modeling it from God, the Father and other godly men, and then also incorporating the reality of your own father and your own upbringing, which maybe you didn't have a dad, maybe you did have a dad that wasn't great. Maybe you had a dad that was great and you're struggling to live up to that. I mean, no matter what, uh, you're a by-product, at some level, of what's happened before you and how that is being translated or understood in your current environment. Um, and, like I said, if you know, your dad was a grew up in the 1950s and sixties. It's a different environment than where you're at now and you know, in some ways it might be easier. Some ways maybe not easier, but whatever it is, you're going to have to learn how to translate what that looks like in your current environment without sinning or walking against what God has called you to do, and that takes a lot of.
Speaker 1:You have to be careful, you have to be thoughtful doing that stuff, that's tough man yeah, my brother told me this once and it always helped me was uh, as a guy, you have two shifts. Yeah, what you first shift is your work life, all that. You second shifts when you get home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a way to look at it. I think that's um, I understand where he's coming from. I just think it's all life.
Speaker 1:Even in your own job, if you're a man, you're probably acting as a father. Yeah, right, I think it's more of how I took it was. If I'm working on exhaust and I get home, it's like I don't want to deal with cooking or kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna sit here. You know it's not gonna work yeah, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we I mean I, I brought it up before but I often will pull up at home and just say a quick prayer and ask god to help me to care for my wife and my kids and not just go through the motions. I had to have a conversation with my wife probably two years ago. I was like listen, here's where I'm at. I was like either I get home and I jump in and I'm cleaning up and doing this or I'm doing that, or I'm coming home and I'm paying attention to you and the kids. I don't have the ability to do both. I can't like go into, um, help, do all this stuff and pay attention to hearts. I have to pick one. And we kind of got to this place where it was like okay, I'm going to pick the kids, we're going to just. It just makes more sense right now to pick the kids and if it's a little bit messy or if it's a little crazy, I'm going to spend some time pouring into them and encouraging them, and that was a conscious sacrifice that we were going to make. Now, I'll still do the dishes here or there, I'll still mop or clean up or whatever, especially with a company coming over. I'm always going to help, but what I've noticed is that I can't keep up the house and care for the kids at the same time. You know, uniquely, with the attention or the couple hours that I have, you know what I mean when I get home and it's better to pick the kids, you know, and we work together at finding those rhythms and figuring that stuff out and how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2:But, dude, it's so important that you understand what your priorities actually are and what you're focusing on and why. Because all of your life, whether you're at work doing stuff or whether you're at home doing stuff, you're always in an interpretive conversation, trying to decide what the most important thing is to do next. And there's hierarchies in every system. If you're a father, you're supposed to be the head of your household. You're supposed to lead and be gracious and be kind, but also be responsible and be firm and be thoughtful and biblical. And in the workplace it's the same way. You've got bosses and you've got people working for those different people and where you are in that structure. But I think life is relationships and being a father, being a man. That translates the same way, kind of across the board. It's just who you are in different environments. So I don't know that I see it as different shifts as much as just walking in with a different emphasis.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when you're an employee, you're working, functioning one way. When you come in to your house, you're more like the CEO and you got to function in a different capacity and you need to know. You know what. What's the part that needs to come out of you in this moment? How do I navigate that?
Speaker 1:What are some things maybe you could pick up and share with us man, of some good habits or routines or something you've kind of picked up to help nurture your kids' hearts a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, first thing that I'm always going to say is your relationship with your wife is, hands down, the most important thing. So if your relationship with your wife is really really, really bad, no matter what, you're going to damage your kids because you're teaching them dysfunction in your family right off the bat. They are learning from you and your wife more than they're learning from just you, and they're learning how to be married from you and your wife and they're learning from just you and they're learning how to be married from you and your wife and they're learning how to parent from you and your wife. And if you are pushing that aside or dysfunctional in that area, it's not working out. In that place. They're learning how to do that instead of how to actually be married.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would say, if being married is something that 99% of people are going to have happened to them at some point, then you're probably going to want to make sure that they get that right. So I would say, the most important to your household is your marriage between you and your wife, and God being at the center of that and thinking through how that needs to function. So I would say get that right first. Kids come second.
Speaker 1:Do you have any presets when it comes to honoring your wife in front of your kids?
Speaker 2:Things that we should do apologize in front of your kids to your wife if you're dumb. We don't do disrespectful or nasty things. We would be very cautious about how we say what we say. I'm basically going to take my wife's side with most stuff and she's going to take my side with most stuff. We work really hard to make sure that we're united front and the decisions that we make, how we make them Um, we talk through things like civilized people.
Speaker 2:Some people are like if you're going to have a big blow up fight or something, go into a different room so your kids don't hear. I'd say how about you don't have a big blow up fight? How about you learn to have discussions? And if you're going to fight, if it's going to be frustrating, sure you might want to like find an environment that's helpful for that, but man, I mean, get it under control. I would also say this you should not have people over at your house or host people until you and your wife are in fellowship with each other. Make sure that you guys aren't pissed off and whatever else, and then learning to fake it in front of other people. That is not healthy or good.
Speaker 1:Trust me, it's very awkward to be invited to a dinner, and you could tell there's irritation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, kidding.
Speaker 1:In fact, just because we're talking about you, this is a long time ago. Years ago, man, when you first got married, your first apartment I came over to help you move furniture and we moved the couch like six freaking times because Tiffany kept like you know what couch like six freaking times because tiffany kept like you know what, no, and that sounds about right.
Speaker 1:Like you were, you didn't lash out or anything, don't get me wrong, but your face, man, was just like. You've got to be kidding. I'm just like, I'm just hungry. I heard there was gonna be food, yeah there's supposed to be pizza.
Speaker 2:Why are you doing this to me? Yeah, um gosh, I'm trying to think I'm I'm like. There's so many things that I could tell you on this topic that I feel like you'd have to narrow it down maybe a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I guess one thing I do with my wife is when we eat at the dinner table, nobody starts eating until my wife's ready to eat, because she'll take care of the baby or the two-year-old, and then we all come together right. So that's one thing I kind of do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean going to bed together is important. I would say the dinner table should be a sacred space, and by sacred I don't mean quiet and respectful and everything is perfect. I mean it's something that we do as a ritual together, as a family, and sometimes that's my son, knox, crawling up onto the table and climbing across it to grab, you know, my daughter's glass because he's more interested in that one than his own. You know what I mean. And we put him back down and we worked through that. But like it's a crazy thing raising kids, it's crazy and you kind of have to embrace a lot of it and laugh so that you chill out and enjoy it for what it is. Something that I've been pondering a lot lately Tim is pictures. So I just had my daughter's 10th birthday and, man, when I look back on pictures, it was yesterday, right 18th. So when I look back on my son's birthday, Sons oh, you said daughters.
Speaker 1:I got it backwards.
Speaker 2:Scarlett's was yesterday, scarlett's was yesterday, yeah, yeah, and then my son's was on. It was the same one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was 18. I'm sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we, I've been looking back on pictures and every time I look back on it, tim, I have this like longing, this aching in my heart, where I'm like, oh my gosh, you know and I've always, for the longest time, perceived it as sadness yeah, I'm like to wrap my head around it. I think I finally figured out what's actually going on. When I'm looking at these pictures, tim, I'm longing to soak up what was there, like that moment, like I'm trying to like ring every ounce of how wonderful it was out of it. You know, I just I want to go back there and I'm like I'll just hold them in a little longer or do this, you know, and it's like, oh, you know, we want to make sure that we've lived every moment and soaked up all the good things that were actually there. And I just keep thinking about needing to do that in the moment, not looking back and wanting to do that, but actually spending time right now working hard at doing that. And it's like we look back with these little kids who are crawling across the table or whatever, and it's like you can either spend a lot of your time in anger and frustration or you can enjoy that right now.
Speaker 2:I would tell you this most people that look at it with anger and frustration in the moment look back at pictures and they're like, oh, it was so wonderful, it was so good One of the ways. And they were like oh, it was so wonderful, it was so good. One of the ways that you can honor God better than anything else is by enjoying the season and the time that he's placed you in now. And if you only enjoy the good work that God did, in hindsight you're probably being a really crappy steward of what he's given you in the moment. And something you don't ever see in the Bible, tim, is that sentimentality, like you don't see that Nobody in the Bible is like looking back longingly and the Bible is like this is a great thing that they're doing. Yeah, you don't see that. You see them like looking back and saying this is how we're supposed to go forward. Looking back at God's faithfulness is a thing Building an Ebenezer to remind people how we're supposed to move forward in the future, what God has done but you don't see people looking back longingly on what I used to have or how things used to be or whatever. In fact, the Bible kind of openly warns you against that. As a dad, you should be helping set the tone, for we choose joy in this house. We choose each other before we choose everything else. We're going to choose real relationships with each other and growing together in Christ before we choose our.
Speaker 2:You know our home looking this way or being put together this way. I mean, I've said it before there's a lady that I counsel. For a long time Her home was kind of a mess and she was like the hero in her neighborhood for always having you know, having the best cookie recipe and the most put together house and everything else. And she broke down. She said I spent 20 years trying to keep my carpet clean. She's like I missed all my kids. There was bitterness and frustration because she wasn't really there. Why? Because she chose looking put together over actually having relationships. And so me and Tip talk all the time about signs of life together over actually having relationships. And so me and Tip talk all the time about signs of life the crap, you know the macaroni on your wall.
Speaker 2:Choose that if it means choosing time with your kid and teaching them about the word and teaching them about Jesus and laughing together and doing lightsaber battles and whatever else that you need to do. At our house we love, you know movies together. We pile up on the couch and we'll watch stuff. We do art together. We'll watch Bob Ross and then we'll go try to paint. We'll go outside and we'll play. My daughter loves to sing opera. We read poetry together. We do a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you this, tim, I'm a pretty busy guy. My schedule is pretty crazy. I've got a lot of different things going on, a lot of different areas, and I enjoy it. God's really blessed me with lots of opportunities. I want to be careful how I say this. Your busy schedule is not an excuse for you to not spend time with your kids. Your busy schedule and all the things you got going on is not an excuse for you to ignore your kids or to not spend strategic time with them.
Speaker 2:Even every Friday in our home is like Bible study day and we talk about Jesus, we pray, we bring up the Bible all the time. But Friday is like we sing doxology together, we pray together as a family. We're going to get into the word together. We're working through Romans currently and just learning about the Bible and growing in that, asking questions, helping them honestly just catechizing our kids, you know, helping them, teach them what the Bible has to say about what's going on. They need to know. And they need to know not just in passing conversations, although those are great. They need to know in a solid place where we're coming together at home and doing this. It leads to a lot of conversations that I think are incredibly important. My oldest daughter just graduated and now she's joining us in our cadre, our small group.
Speaker 2:You know that meets in the house, and so she's joining in and grabs her Bible and comes and brings her notes and sits and listens and it's fun watching them grow and get that and I don't want them to just learn you know some kind of you know moralism. Do good things and good things will happen. Do bad things and you know bad things will happen.
Speaker 2:I want them to learn that it's in the messiness and the adventure of life that all this stuff happens. Listen, here's a recommendation, for if you're a parent, don't manage your kids' behaviors. Shepherd their hearts. There's a big difference, big difference between you actually caring for your kid and where they're at and where their heart's at, as opposed to just trying to get them to do the things that you want them to do. One is for you and one is for them, and I think a lot of fathers would do a lot better if they were seriously considering how am I helping, shepherd my kid in this moment and lead them up, rather than just produce the behavior I want? Because if you shepherd behaviors, then you create liars and kids that will hide their heart from you, but it'll do the thing you want them to do and then, as soon as they're out of the house, they're going to do whatever they want to do.
Speaker 1:How do you go about doing that.
Speaker 2:Oh man, leading through moments by thinking through why the kid is doing what they're doing and how to help navigate it with scripture and being like Jesus.
Speaker 1:Right, so you're supposed to have that kind of answer. Yeah, Navigate it with scripture and being like Jesus?
Speaker 2:Right? So you're supposed to have that kind of answer? Yeah, you got to help navigate why it's happening. Look, it's as simple as this. Okay, kids crying. Do I tell him to stop crying or do I ask him why he's crying? Yeah, there's a difference, yeah, right. Okay, you're throwing a fit, right, yeah, cool, and you already know the reason. You've got to clean it up. So I'm going to trust you, but you should at least understand what's happening in this situation rather than just trying to get what you want. If the goal is, I just need them to shut up. Right now, you are totally missing what's happening. You're trying to manage behaviors, not shepherd hearts. You've got to raise your kids, not just get them to conform.
Speaker 1:I guess, going back to what I said in the beginning, is that possible with like a two-year-old who freaks out if I take the sippy cup away, or she goes to take a drink and freaks out because it's empty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think your behavior at that point is teaching your kid right and it's okay to start talking to them now. It's okay to start, I mean, pray for your kid now.
Speaker 1:She doesn't listen very well when she's screaming. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I kid now. She doesn't listen very well when she's screaming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you didn't either. I uh, one. One thing I'll do, like right now if my kid's throwing a fit and I know he's throwing a fit I'm going to take him and I'm going to put him in a room where it's nice and safe. I'm going to close the door and I'm going to let him work through it and I'm like I'll come get to a place where he can calm himself down. And when you learn to calm yourself down, I'm so excited to invite you back out so you can be a part of what's going on I had a proud father moment because I did that same thing with my daughter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when she freaks out, I'm like you don't stop crying, going to the room and after 50 times she was freaking out. I'm like you don't stop throwing you in the room and she's like throwing you she stopped, like instantly, she's like oh, okay, this worked.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're so good. Yeah, you can calm yourself down. Yeah, I mean, if you're the person that's always taking the problem away, then they're never learning to solve the problem theirself, right. And again, that's being a dad and being like Jesus and helping them learn. You got to get to a place where you can do this. Yeah, I mean, we're, we're in the weeds a little bit, and that's not a bad thing. I mean, it's a, like I said, this is a massive category and I feel like we should probably carve it up into a couple of sections. One would be what does it look like fathering a family with your wife? What does it look like being a father in general If you don't have a spouse? What does it look like being a father that leads his kids spiritually? How do I functionally raise my kids? I mean, all of these are kind of topics that we could cover. And one is how do I hold my family together and live a biblical marriage? In the current environment, that is actually, like, diametrically opposed to us raising kids the way that we want to, and all of those things are hard. So here's what I would say when you read the Bible, there's a lot of things that are stated in there that feel at some point it's impossible to do in our current cultural climate, and I would say the goal wouldn't be for you to excuse yourself from those things. The goal would be for you guys to accept that it's something that you need to work towards and have a plan for how you're doing it.
Speaker 2:I have a good friend that I love. His wife works, he's got a job, she's got a job, they got a couple of kids. And you know he had a good conversation with me. He's like look, man, I don't know what to do. He's like I know I need to bring her home. I want her to be home. I want to be able to cover and make this thing happen. You know, I just we literally cannot afford it. I afford to know how to do it and I said, hey, man, I get that this is what the Bible says. I also want you to know that God's not asking you to destroy your family in the name of trying to structure it exactly this way. You're going to have to work that direction.
Speaker 2:When the Israelites lived in Babylon, it wasn't perfect. They didn't have a temple to worship at, they couldn't make sacrifices the way that they normally would, not everything that God had told them to do, were they able to accomplish exactly that way? They had to work to a place where they could actually make that happen, you and your family, wherever you find yourself, whatever difficult circumstance you're in maybe your wife is making way more than you are you guys are going to have to think through a way to actually get to a place where your wife can prioritize the home. You're going to have to think through that. What does that mean? I don't know. Look at your own finances. Decide are we spending more money working on? Well, we have to have these two cars and we have to have this house and we have to have this amount of land. We have to have the dogs and this education and all that stuff. Maybe not. I mean, the goal is heaven, not Harvard, for your kids, right? The goal is to raise your kids in a God honoring way, and I'll tell you what your kids, your kids, will definitely remember the sacrifices that you made and the things that you thought were valuable over the. You know, the larger TV you had in, the nicer living room you had and everything else. And it's like what are you actually teaching your kids, because if you didn't have all of those things and you were able to explain to them why, I think it'd go a long way. And so, like I said, if you currently, right now, if your roles are reversed in the home and your wife's, you know, crushing it and bringing home more money cool Then you guys should start talking about how do we reverse that? How could we make that happen? What would we need to change?
Speaker 2:Some of you guys might be out there right now and you're like man, I'm working hard at this, but in reality, we have a ton of debt that we can't get out of right now. So I don't want to have this until I have that. Great, then quit taking vacations, quit eating fast food, quit doing all this stuff until you get a place where this is under control so you can honor God, because right now, it's disobedience in this area that's making you disobedient in this area, too. Some of you guys might be like well, we have to have two cars. Do you Do you actually, or is one car fine so that you can get done what you need to get done? There's a myriad of questions I would want to start asking to think through. Is it actually that I can't do this or is it that I have a conflict of interest and I feel like I can't do it and do what I want to do? Those are different questions.
Speaker 2:The second thing is this Some things are legit. I don't know how to do this. You might be a single mom and you're like I don't know how to homeschool my kids instead of sending them to public school for this kind of education and work at the same time. I don't know how to do it. Totally get that. You're in a place where you're going to have to work through some stuff. I hope there's a church in your life that can maybe help with some of that, or some family. I hope your relationship with your father is in a good enough place that maybe they can help out.
Speaker 2:Some circumstances are really hard and you're going to have to think through what it looks like to raise your kids in Babylon. What does it look like to you know to figure this out when, when I'm not in a position to actually do everything God is calling me to do, or the circumstances just don't work, we'll do the next right thing and try to be faithful and continue to work towards what God has called you to do, in whatever circumstance you find yourself, and that's hard. And I would say this for men, that means you should get married. God says it is not good for man to be alone, and that sucks, because it's really hard finding I feel like a good wife right now. It's really hard finding a husband right now as well, but I mean, I mean it, tim, if that's what God says, then at some level we have to land there, and I think there's a lot of guys right now that are part of you know MGTOW men going their own way.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of people that are like I'm not getting married ever because you know something like 80%, 85% of divorces are, you know, are started with, you know, women and all the laws help women, not men, and it's just too risky. It's too risky. I'd say it is a, it is a mask of risk already getting married because you're putting yourself in a crazy situation. It is doubly so in a world that incentivizes her and tells her oh well, if you know, if you're not happy, find somebody else. If you're not making, oh, find somebody else. Oh, your husband's not doing it for you. Here's 36 other guys online that'll be happy to tell you whatever you want. You know what I mean. Or, oh, why are you having kids and doing that? No, no, you need to be empowered. I mean, the whole world is set against the thing that you're talking about. So if your wife is not a solid believer in Jesus Christ, you are a crazy person for even considering marrying somebody like, or the girl that you're into or the guy that you're not into.
Speaker 2:You are going to have to have a really strong marriage. You're going to have to have by that I mean a really strong relationship with Jesus. So your marriage is based on that. You're going to need to have a really strong church community that is holding you guys together, and you're going to have to make decisions to be fundamentally different than the world. Or you are going to be in a world of hurt and unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of people not do that. They're like it'll be fine, we'll work it out. No, you won't. I mean you're not going to magically come out of this Like it just worked out. We, you know, we did what the world did and add it peppered in a little bit of Jesus and it worked great. No, it's not.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to look different than the rest of the world is, and it's not going to be sexy. You know, it's not going to be the American dream that everybody feels like they're owed at this point. It's going to look more like living your life in exile, because I I think that is, as a Christian, what you are right now. You are not in a Christian world, you are in a post-Christian world or you could say it this way, a pre-Christian world. If you're positive, right, maybe it'll turn around and get awesome, or maybe this is before we have a great revival.
Speaker 2:But you're going to have to look differently and I think that is going to mean you're not going to be as prosperous as you could be if you did it the world's way. It's going to be a lot harder to find somebody who wants to do something that the world would say is not going to lead to immediate happiness. Yeah, it's going to be a lot harder. It's going to be hard to find somebody who wants to raise kids the way that God tells you to raise them, because most people don't even want kids, don't want to raise kids and would rather get rid of kids and just travel. Right, I think there's more dogs than kids in Seattle. You know what I mean Literally, and I think we're going that way and a lot of way in Colorado, right, I believe it.
Speaker 1:Well, cool man. Yeah, this will be kind of a mini-series, like I did with David but a little specific with fathers.
Speaker 2:So yeah, guys, I'm sorry I was all over the map today.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's a massive topic and we probably need to jump in more, so but I would encourage you guys to send in some questions.
Speaker 2:I think it'd be good. If you want to talk about fatherhood, I'd love for you guys to send us an email, hit us up on Facebook, drop some questions there if you want to, or wherever you think is convenient. I would. I recommend a couple of books that I think would be helpful to you as a father. Specifically, votie Bauckham has a book called I think it's called Family Shepherd. It's super good. Doug Wilson has a couple of books. One of my favorite books for raising boys is called Future Men. It's really good. He's got a book called Federal Husband that I think is incredibly helpful as well. I like gosh.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of some of the books that might be helpful on this. I actually like Tim Keller's book on marriage. I would recommend that I don't recommend everything Keller does now. The Meaning of Marriage book, the Meaning of Marriage, is super good. That I don't recommend everything Keller does now. The Meaning of Marriage book, the Meaning of Marriage, is super good.
Speaker 2:Zachary Garris has a book called Masculine Christianity which I would highly recommend. If you're thinking through roles in the household and in the church, I would say this the church historically has kind of tried to separate the home from the church and the home and the church from like the you know, let's say, the workplace, and I would say we should not do that. What the Bible says is true about men and women and those roles and how that's supposed to function should be across the board or not at all, and where we've blurred the lines, we've made it incredibly complicated. I would highly recommend those as just a starter. There's lots of books on marriages, lots of books on fatherhood that I could recommend, but those would be a good place to start for anybody who's interested in learning a little bit more about, I would say, my perspective on some of this stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll throw them in the description so anybody actually wants to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah give it a go, guys, Send us some questions and let's jump into this and have some fun over the next couple of weeks talking about being a father, being a man and
