What Are You Bowing To?

Josh and Matt sit down to walk through the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—and the moment where everyone was expected to bow.

But instead of just looking at the story, they bring it into real life.

Because today, we’re still being asked to bow—just not to a statue.

It can be our kids’ sports. Our teams. Our jobs. Our reputation. Even our families.

In this episode, Josh and Matt talk about how idols aren’t always obvious—and how easy it is to give something good a place that only God should have.

Living with Boundaries is a podcast for dads who want to lead their homes with clarity, conviction, and courage.

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Strong families don’t happen by accident.
 They’re built with intention — and boundaries.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, Matt. Josh, what's going on? How you doing this uh the spring day? You know what? It's it's I think it's gonna be hopefully the last cold day of the spring. I think they're saying a high of 42 today.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

I'm not I'm not kidding you. I I love the cold weather. Yeah. I think it's fun to be out in the cold and the snow and all the things, but I feel like it's been a long winter. We haven't had a ton of snow. It just feels like it's April and we have not had a string of nice warm days to kick off this spring yet. So I don't know. You just got back from a cruise, man. How was your spring break? It was much needed.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Much needed, thankful. Great time with the family. It was different because our two oldest didn't come with us this time. So that was an adjustment for the first time ever. I only had two of the kids, two of the four kids. Um, we had a good time. It was just when you're used to two being there, they're not there. It's like, well, this is a little different.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, I we we did a cruise a little over a year ago, and I just we had a great time too. But it was so much like a Las Vegas hotel on the water. That's what they just seems. I mean, you have people, you've got you got family environment, and then you got just crazy people. Yeah, and it's I mean, there are and it's everybody in between. Yeah. I thought, I mean, I thought it was a lot of fun, but it's definitely some good people watching.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

And I just laugh because there's so many different body types. I mean, I'm just like, God, you really were amazing at how you created us so different. Sure, sure. But it was it was cool, it was it was fun. Um, I'll admit, man, last two spring breaks we've gone somewhere. The weather hasn't been great for us. Yeah. Not horrible, it just hasn't been exactly how you'd want it. But yeah, it was a fun time. Kids had a fun time. Again, it took me about two days to probably like when I say this disconnect, means I was just sitting there thinking about something all day with regards to work or whatever else I'm doing. But at the same time, as a business owner, I bring my work with me every vacation, and I'm checking everything every day, no matter what. It's just some days I can go check it, and I'm done. I go about my day, where it took like two days to finally get my brain off of stuff. But once I did, man, it was it was nice. You know, that's good. Yeah, and then you look at your wife, you look at your kids, you're like, man, I'm so glad to just be here with you guys, just spending this time with you guys, because it's going super fast.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah. We uh our kids have a couple different spring breaks. I don't really like spring break. I think it's it I have such a weird mentality on certain things. It's a it's a false reality of the real world. I mean, like all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it just everybody just stops what they're doing and leaves for a week in the middle of the spring for it's not really the reality of uh maybe it is the reality, maybe it is like what adults are supposed to do, but I just never understood. Let's flock to where everybody else is going for a whole week and just stop what we're doing. It just well, I don't know. I got I got a weird mentality towards spring break. It doesn't make sense to me. Just like I don't even believe in summer break. We like all of a sudden teach our kids that summer's time off and it's uh no, you pretty much have to work through summers too. Like that doesn't make any sense. I think we should go to school year round and have breaks more often, but shorter breaks. Yeah. Um I don't know why why am I on that?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

You're on that case. Who cares? But obviously, here's the deal the reason why we have this, from my understanding, is back in the day when we were more of an agricultural society, you know, farmers, stuff so forth, we had to have spring break. It wasn't to go hang out and have fun, it was to go work to get ready for the spring season to plant. Oh, see, now that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah, and summer break was so you could go home and work on the farm, you know, manage the crop.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Totally makes sense now. So this is where the system So our kids, when they get out at school uh in in in late May, early June, should just go to work. Yes, but this is actually this is going down the path we want to talk about today.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Here's why. Here's what I've realized. I've really questioned, we're gonna talk about idols today. Like, what is an idol in our life? And I want to make sure everybody understands kind of where I see things right away. I think sports can be a huge idol in people's lives. But I also will say this I am thankful today that we don't have to plow fields, we don't have to plant fields, okay? That we have the ability to go play sports, to participate in sports, because that's what we're choosing to do now in our leisure time, right? Than having to work and constantly you use our hands to feed ourselves, basically go hunt.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

So I want to make sure that's first and foremost out there. But beyond sports, then if you're not playing a sport, you're uh participating in a sport, a lot of people are watching a sport, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

And then that can be or gambling on a sport, gambling is sport or pretending to play a sport with fantasy football.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Exactly. And these are all things that I believe are becoming bigger idols in people's lives going forward, you know, that we need to address here.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Well, let me, I I guess you made a comment just a minute second ago that said bigger idol. I almost relate that to like, oh, I'm a better Christian now. I'm not sure, like you're either a Christian or not. It's either an idol or not. I'm not sure it's bigger idol or littler idol, or it's kind of like it's a sin or not. Now, the consequence of your sin or the consequence of the idol in your life can vary depending on how much you allow it to influence you. At the end of the day, an idol is an idol. And basically, if you if you look in in the Old Testament, you'll start seeing things, especially around the Ten Commandments, whereas do not have any other gods besides me. And well, what is what is a God besides me? Well, what is it that you're putting in your life before your relationship with God? And that is really what the definition of an idol is. And so when I examine my life, I think of things like, well, I I probably sometimes put my marriage before God. Uh I sometimes put my children before God or my business before God.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Can you expand on that? Like, what do you mean by putting your marriage before God?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I just uh I'm more concerned about the way that maybe I'm relating to my wife than the way that I'm relating to God.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

So it's an intentional pursuit of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, it's all not only intentional, not only an intentional pursuit of Christ, but am I spending time with Christ? Which in today's day and age is not going to the prophet or a pastor and just listening to a pastor teach you about Jesus. It is, am I sitting reading God's word? Am I saying, God, let this word sink into my heart, into my mind? God, once I let, once I read, am I gonna sit in quiet time and just say, hey, Jesus, what do you want me to learn here? And here's the problem is there is so much going on in my brain because I have idols in my life, that when I sit in my quiet time, these things are entering my mind that are not related to God. Now they're not in and of themselves are bad. Yeah. But I mean, I'm I'm really calling myself out here. So as we go into this discussion about idol worship and specifically kind of around relating our modern day Babylon, America here, um, and it just modern day Babylon, America, that's where we live. We live in we live in the Western suburbs. We live in Babylon. I mean, the reality is, but there's other places, there's other places around the world that are acting like Babylon too. But um how are we listening to what God's word says? And then how are we relating that to our own lives in our hearts and our minds and saying, God, what do you want me to do with this? And oftentimes in that quiet time, I'm thinking about work. I'm thinking about, you know, Lenne and I bickering the night before. I'm thinking, and the reality is, is if I would just focus on my relationship with God, all those other things would start to take care of themselves. Yeah. So um, man, what's Daniel say? What's the what's the book of Daniel? I mean, you you wanted to bring that up today. So, you know, tell me a little bit about the book of Daniel.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah, so so obviously searched, you know, looking at doing some research on idol idolatry, idols in the Bible, and you know, obviously directing me to Daniel 3, the story, story of uh Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Great story. Love the story. And it's funny when you read the Bible, you've read stuff so many times, and all of a sudden, like God just like boom. Here's a whole different way to look at it. I'm reading the chapter, and basically it's you know, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar made a image of gold, and I'm sitting there, it's describing the height, you know, the width, all that stuff. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, replace that for a jumbo screen or a TV in your house instead of a gold, you know, statue. And then basically he summons all the important people. And today you can replace those with the president, uh, celebrities, CEOs, you know, all these people on the screen, major media personality, major media, judges, exactly, everybody, Supreme Court, politicians.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah. Anyone that's a we call them a talking head. I actually call them self-lip licking ice cream cones. People that that well, this is a term I heard and when I was in the military. And it's it's someone who literally just thinks so much of themselves that people want to hear their opinion on everything. Self-licking ice cream cones. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

This is what I love about being friends. It's not bringing up something.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

They they violate rule number one, and I'm sure we all do to a certain extent. And rule number one is never believe in your own BS. And, you know, um, and it's it's it's just true. Like, and and I think the point with this podcast is not because we're theologians or not because we have a whole bunch of, you know, maybe we've got some wisdom and knowledge with life experience, but really it's to get your gears turning on what does this look like in your life. Matt and Josh are not here trying to preach to you. Um, yeah, we want to relate it to God's word, but this is this is to drive conversation in your home, around your dinner table with your wife, in your own mind, not just listen to Josh and Matt's opinion, although we'll give it. Yeah. And if you find value from it, fair enough. But it but it's really just to get you individually thinking because we're not theologians. We're we're a couple of dads uh in our mid-40s, western suburbs of Chicago, small business owners, and we're just relating what we read in the Bible to everyday life and how we navigate through that. And idol worship is a major problem. We see it all the time. People worship their children. People worship their work. Yeah. People worship their dang March Madness brackets. I mean, it's it's it's and I didn't do a March Madden March Madness bracket on purpose. I actually got asked by a kid, I don't remember where we were going, but boys had a birthday, so maybe it was one of their buddies. And he said, Hey, how come you're not doing a March bracket? And I said, Because I don't want to make an idol of March Madness. Okay, well, let me push back on that though.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

I made one. Fair enough. Yeah, I made one. And here's the deal. I made it, I said it. No, and I checked it, I think, once a weekend, every time the tournament was on. Now, my am I bad for making a bracket to check once a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I'm not asking you to justify your behavior with March Madness. Listen, I just I can tell you this the way I am. Yeah. If I fill out a March Madness bracket, I'm gonna be wanting to check the scores, I'm gonna be wanting to do all this other stuff. I'm gonna be able to compare it to everybody else. I'm gonna be in a pool with somebody. Yeah. You know, it's not, I mean, and I just I just said no.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So so here's where I I kind of come from it at because this is where you and I don't always see eye to eye, right? We're not the same guy. I I always look at stuff in my life that I participate in. And I think the biggest thing I ask myself when I'm participating in anything, it could be coaching, it could be March Madness brackets, it could be fantasy football. I play with my neighbors in fantasy football every year. Okay. Now, here's what I here's what I will tell you. When I was younger, I probably paid way more attention to fantasy football and way more attention to March Madness brackets than today. Today I can go, I can draft my fantasy football team, I can pick my March March Madness bracket, and I can basically check it once, maybe twice a week, and I'm good. Okay. Part of that's just experience. Part of it, I don't have the time anymore to check it as much. Um, but I think the biggest thing I have to ask myself is if I am checking when back in the day, fantasy football, here's where it started becoming idle. I didn't want to leave my couch because I wanted to watch every football game on TV because I wanted to see what guy was going to do what in my fantasy football game.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Okay, here's here's what happens. I just talked about this at my um my family hosts a Sunrise Easter service every year.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Uh this is a lot of I wanted to be there to see hope, but we didn't get back to the end.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

We had 45 people in the backyard.

unknown 13:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

But it was a good turnout. Yeah. And we talked about this idea of hope. An idol at the at the end of the day is what is it you're putting your hope in? Yeah. Um we all have temporary feelings. We all have things that motivate us, we have a passion for things. None of that I think is wrong. Yeah. But what is it you end up putting your hope in? Where are you putting your money and your time and your energy? Yeah. And if we are not making a conscious decision to put some time, money, energy, passion into a relationship with God, then I would tell you we have too many idols in our lives. Totally. So I believe that the only true hope you can have is a hope in the God of the Bible. And so Daniel, thinking back through that, again, not a theologian, just going off really what we've been taught. Our church does a great job teaching God's word. The Jewish people were taken off into exile from Jerusalem into Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem. And they're living in Babylon, and God is encouraging them to live a life. If you were looking the book of Jeremiah, it's go live, make babies, uh, marry your daughters, find daughters for your boys to marry. Marry off your daughters, not actually marry your daughters. Well, yeah, marry off your daughters. Yeah, thank you. Uh build houses, build farms, like, but then the Babylonians are saying, no, we need you guys not to worship the God of the Bible, we need you to worship our God, which is this Nebuchadnezzar statue of gold, and then people are being punished for that.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

But I don't know how you put your hope in flawed things and people. Yeah. NFL football is flawed, people are flawed, our children are flawed, youth baseball, i-9 flag football, high school flag football, high school track, high school football, uh fantasy football. Even our marriages are flawed, our wives are flawed. When you put all of your hope in that, we are going to be severely disappointed. And our emotions are going to ride that train.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And the reason I know that is because not only do I see it, but I feel it in my own body. Yeah. And so is my hope in life, in the performance of my kids on the youth football and baseball or in the pool or track, like that's that's ridiculous. Is my hope in how well my fantasy football team does. Is my hope even on how well the Bears or the Cubs or whatever team you follow does during their season? Yeah. Like it sounds when you actually put it that way, it sounds so shallow, but it the reality is, is we actually live that out. Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

I mean, I I think parents, when it comes to kids' sports, they're a lot of them are downright nuts nowadays. And I and I was one of them for a while. I know I was one of them for a while. Um I'm just sitting there thinking, where where did again you talked about your children being flawed? When did it not be okay for our kids to fail? When did it not become okay for them to not succeed and have to learn how to work harder?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I I I think we've talked about it on this podcast, but if you've never read the book Counterfeit Gods, I think Tim Keller wrote it. I gotta read it. Literally, he mentions in there in there would you survive the loss of a child? Would your marriage survive the loss of a child? And if your reaction to that is a little bit morbid, like, oh my gosh, I can't even think about it, um, maybe you're making an idol of your children. I mean, I'm telling you, it is if we are not thinking deeply and having these hard conversations, because reality is, and I'll have to double check this, but I think eight, 80% of marriages that experience the loss of a child end in divorce. Yeah. Um, and that's not to say that's not a struggle, and I don't know, this is not like a counseling place, and I probably shouldn't even have made that comment. However, it is a place that we want to challenge you on what are you making an idol of? Yeah. Yeah. And when we read through Counterfeit Gods in our in our uh community group, it really hit a lot of us right in the face because we had we had made idols of our kids. And it's it's really thinking, I I can never live without this. Yeah. I can never live without my childhood home. I could never live without my pet or my morning coffee or my evening glass of wine. I could never live without my job or my work. And it's like, man, I've been, are we putting our purpose and our hope into something that's flawed? Yeah. Or something that's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah. This always, these conversations always take me back to after my divorce, called her up, said, Hey, come take whatever you need to have the whatever you want out of the house. And I just remember sitting there thinking, it was just that moment in my life where I just completely just said, I'm letting go whatever I'm hanging on to, and I have nothing at this point, but yet I was so free, right? And I and I just look at everything I do in my life, and I always kind of ask God, like, God, okay, you put me here to do this, great. I want to do it 100%. I want to be sick, I want to be successful at it, I want to do a great job at it, so forth. But then I think in the back of my mind, I'm always asking myself, if this is taken away from me, am I okay with it? And the answer, if I'm not okay with it, then I gotta really question, should I even keep be keep doing this then? You know what I mean? Because I I believe we have to be willing to walk away from something that is becoming a God in our life.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

We have to. Man, that's uh I I I would just, if you're listening to this podcast right now, I believe it's because God wants you to hear it. And maybe there's something in your life that has taken over. And you need to look at either one, getting rid of it, um, maybe it's an inappropriate relationship. Maybe it's a and that when I say inappropriate relationship, I'm not just talking about potential infidelity. It could be lust, it could be an inappropriate relationship with your work. Yeah, it could be an inappropriate relationship with, you know, your device with your TV.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

I gotta get home to watch the Bears or the Cubs because I can't make it.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

It could be an inappropriate relationship with exercise, Josh.

unknown 20:04

It could be.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Because all of our hope is being put in how our bodies perform. And the next time you sprain an ankle or you've got a bad back or you fall on the ice rink as you're going down into uh to to hang out uh on your cruise. Well, that didn't happen. Uh and and your body feels terrible, like do all of a sudden you lose hope? And these things are are real. And I I want to challenge you to to ask yourself that question and to continue to ask yourself that question. And and at the same time, give yourself grace. Yeah. Where where you need to give yourself grace, but it's also a challenge, just specifically to us men. You know, we're we're the ones that have to lead from the front, and we're the ones that have to take ownership of this and look our wives in the eye or look our kids in the eye and say, hey, dad's messed this up in the past. And yes, I want to win and I want to perform well and I want to see you do well, but I don't love you any more or less if you perform well.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

And, you know, honey, I don't, you know, I I need to I need to apologize where I've made an idol of our relationship and I'm holding you to a standard that um is unfair and not biblical. And some of these, some of these conversations I think we shy away from because we're either uh too proud, or maybe we're embarrassed, or maybe we're so distracted that we've just never really thought about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah. I agree with all those. I know as a sports parent, I don't know how many times I'd get in the car with those those kids and just start getting on them. Like, oh, you should have done this, you should have done that, you should have done this. And then just see them just kind of like, oh, dad, just stop. I mean, dad, just stop. Man, I look back. And I'll admit it's hard. You want to see them do well. I think the intention was good, but really the rowdy was I was putting their sport and their performances in God.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

100%. Yeah. I've done the same, same exact thing. And you know, sometimes, sometimes um we have to maybe experience that for ourselves to come to the realization that we're actually broken. Yeah. And we need to be, you know, we need that healing power that only Christ can give us and that conviction. And that's why really staying in God's word, uh, being in corporate worship, being in a men's group, uh having conversations like this is part of the accountability process. Yeah. And so if you're a dad, a husband, or just a man that's that's struggled with an idol in your life, man, turn turn the boat around. Yeah. Go the opposite direction. And I mean, give yourself grace and find accountability and and let's go, let's go be the men God has called us to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

And I just to add on that real fast, when it comes to turning the boat around, all right, to me, it's what I try to do with my kids now. Here's what I tell them. I go, there's there's there's dad and there's coach dad. Okay. Dad's proud, like after the game's out, my dad's proud of you. Dad's so thankful for you. It's a lot of gratitude. It's a lot of, I'm so happy, I gotta go watch you play, I gotta see you compete. So happy to be a part of this. And then there's coach dad. And I said, and when you're ready to talk to coach dad, let me know. But that's on your time. And if you don't want to talk about it, which is really hard for me to sometimes not talk about it, yeah. I'm like, okay, you let me know. But at least it's on their terms, yeah, not mine.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah, there's there's a whole another conversation around uh the good that can come out of sport and the good that can come out of you know some of these things we've been talking about. Um, and that you know, it's it's character development, it's work ethic, it's how to be a great teammate, it's humility. Those are all good things.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Let me stop you right there, though. That a lot of that stuff's gone today in sports. It is all about winning. It is all about I need to win. I could care less who I hurt, what I do, who I talk about, and I think that's a big issue. And I and I and what I want to get back to as being a coach is pointing out, hey, well, how can we learn from this? How can we grow from this? How can we become better teammates, better individuals through this? That is going to be one of my main focuses going forward, helping my kids coach. Helping coach the kids.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

That's a great point, Josh. Yeah. That's a great point.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Because I see too many parents just sitting there, getting on their kids after games, paying money for this training, that training, this training, that training. When does your kid have time to be a kid? You know, when do they have time to go live their life a little bit? Or are you making sport their God? And then what happens with them? All they know is sport, and then all of a sudden the sport ends at some point. They don't know who the heck they are. You know? Because everything we we put them in a situation to fail.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yeah, I would I would say I can definitely relate to that. Although I wouldn't, I wouldn't say my I mean again, I grew up in the 90s as a teenager. Um, but when sport ended for me, it was it was largely my own doing. I wanted to do all that. It wasn't my parents really forcing me. I think I think there is more parent force. Oh, there's so much force parent. But at the at that back in that day, I I thought my entire life was sport. Yeah. And then I went to the military and I thought my entire life was a military. And so when when when combat ended, um, I did three combat tours uh back in the mid-2000s, one to Iraq, two to Afghanistan, uh in some ways I was disappointed because it didn't satisfy. And it was, it was, I I think I put my hope in this idea of going off to combat, and it was gonna be this big grand event. And it was in some ways not only disappointing, but disturbing. And I had to wrestle with that. And put putting your trust and hope into things that you think are going to satisfy you is just gonna it's gonna fall on deaf ears. And I think that's when really God got a hold of me and said, No, Matt, you need to put your faith and trust and hope in me, and I will show you what true peace and purpose looks like. And um it's really the start of my testimony and my my growth and faith. I we don't have time to get into it all today.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

I definitely want to get there someday, though, because I think your story is really cool. And I'll admit that's very interesting to me what you just said about it wasn't as good as you thought it was. Dude, you got shot at, if I'm not mistaken, right? Uh yeah, several times. Like that wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Uh yeah, I mean, and I don't uh I good enough is, I mean, you got to understand the Marine Corps mentality. Again, too long of a conversation for this, for this time around. We'll save it for another time. But um, yeah. It's uh, but I'm grateful to be here. And I'm grateful, I'm grateful that I did it, but I'm grateful that uh that I'm I'm where I'm at today.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Yeah. Awesome. Matt, it's always been a good, always a great conversation. Good stuff, Josh. Great to see you. All right, man. We'll see you next week. You got it.