Dad Tired is a community of men who are taking their faith, family, and marriage very seriously. We are equipping Christian husbands and dads to lead their family well. Past guests include: Gary Chapman, Cody Carnes, John Mark Comer, John Eldredge, Bob Goff, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Risen Motherhood, MercyMe, Tony Dungy, Paul David Tripp, Louie Giglio, Darryl Strawberry, Lecrae, Beneil Dariush, and many more!
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Is truthfully, if I'm being honest, I kinda wanna be scared a little bit for, like, God's glory. You know what I mean? Like, it feels kinda scary. Yes. And I wanna step in an environment where it's like, this is gonna be bigger than me. It's gonna be scary, and, let's see what God does. But I think it's I think the church has an opportunity here because it's true, and midlife psychologists will tell you, you know, that's the challenge of late thirties and onwards. You've met all of the cultural markers, and more of the same is not gonna bring more life. Mhmm. I remember very clearly working with a guy in Wall Street who wanted to get a bonus of a certain amount, and it was one more 0 than he'd hoped for, and he finally got it. He remember him saying this to me. I thought it would feel better than this. Yeah. So here's a guy working his brains out. If he can finally get one more 0 on his bonus, and he's like, I just thought it would feel better than this. So what you have to do then, I mean, psychologists will tell you, you have to invent your own milestones. And that's why, you know, a lot of men do midlife marathons or they start doing all these other things. Christians have a slight advantage, and that's because the kingdom of heaven is breaking in if we're paying attention. Yeah. That's good. And we don't have to invent little hobbies to get us through the long desert of midlife because you never know when God's gonna break in. I always say if you don't know what to do, the best thing you can do to get your heart sort of called into something is mentor people. Get outside yourself and give life. I mentor a few young guys, and it's the most meaningful thing Yeah. That I'm a part of. I still mentor my son. He's 23. He's about to get married in June. Wow. And that he's the last comment he said to me last night was we're talking about wrapping up taxes. And I said, this is the last year you're a dependent, man. Next year, you're filing as a married man. And he said this to me. It was really he just said, dad, I just want you to know there's gonna be all of these things that I need to face as a man. And I'm just wondering if you can just keep speaking into these because I still need that wisdom and advice. It's like young men ache for input and mentoring and coaching. Yeah. And so if you don't know what to do
Deciding not to be a musician. Mhmm. And give yourself to god. I said, if my son can devote himself something bigger than him, I wanna be like my son. And you had to write a letter. Do you remember that? No. I have a terrible memory. Yeah. You I I have must have been young. I have a high school or or, I mean No. You were in Portland, Oregon. Really? As a youth pastor. Oh my gosh. I'm surprised I don't remember that. You remember pro taking my restaurant. Right? Yeah. Okay. Let's not throw anyone on the bus in case there's millions of people listening here. We don't want to. Okay. But after she took my restaurant, my best friend Calvin, who lives in Reno, he decided because my restaurant was so good. That lets us do another one. So we worked on it. We worked on it, and I couldn't get a liquor license because I had a record. Mhmm. But the record was expunged, but they were playing a hardball with me. And I told him, I I went to the lady in charge of a licensing alcoholic beverage. And I told her, I says I've changed. And I said, I changed because of my son. And she asked me, well, if your son will write a letter for me. That does sound vaguely familiar. Yeah. I do remember that. Yeah. If if my Yeah. If you would write a letter and say, you know, My dad's been a changed man. Yeah. They gave me my liquor license. Yeah. I do remember that's, like, vague now that that now that you say that. Just to give some the listeners context, especially if you're just jumping into that entire podcast for the first time and you you haven't heard my story. So when my dad's talking about seeing me with my kids. We've never really spent a lot of time together. You've never stayed at our house. The longest that I have memory of us being together was actually maybe 3 or 4 years ago when I was speaking, and you came with me. You traveled with me and to to those speaking engagements. And that was, like, the most we had spent time together since I was a a real little boy. And then now you're you're staying with our family. You're here in South Carolina visiting with
From a ministry perspective. I just love your guys' hearts and what you're doing to get the word in people's hearts and minds and, quite literally, on their arms and, you know, the tattoos and stickers. And but before I we jump into all that fun stuff, you know, right before we hit record, we were talking about what life as a parent. And I think there how many 5, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12. We've got 12 kids, I think, represented between the 3 of us, all under, you know, 19 and under. And so right before we hit record, we just prayed and asked beyond all of the things that we're gonna talk about today, ministry and all this, that we just really want our kids to know Jesus. And then we hit record, and, Natalie, you've already got tears in your eyes. So I'd love to, like, just what what, yeah. Let's just dive in right away. Like, what what nerve did that prick? You know? Like, what emotions did that hit as we're talking about god saving our kids? Yeah. I mean, I think that's so much of my heart for all people, but the people that I love that are my people, my little people, you know, my burgeoning big people. So I'm the old person in the room with the 19 year old. But I also have an elementary age son, and, I kinda have the gamut there. And just kind of having that perspective of what does it look like when one of your kids launches and the amount of faith that it takes, I think, to I mean, I think we're always, as parents, relinquishing control and saying, he's yours first, Lord. He's yours first. You know, he's yours mostly. You know? Yeah. I'm a steward. I'm a a renter in the house of of God. I'm not you know what I mean? I'm not when it comes to my kids, their primary parent is god himself. He's all of our fathers. And so if he's their parent, but I'm kind of like a sub parent over here on the earth doing the thing. They're the people that I love the most and
You could make the case that divorce is excusable, appropriate, but there's nowhere I can find in the scriptures in which God initiates a divorce, but rather says that he hates divorce. Moses gave us divorce because of our hardness of hearts. Probably the only caveat I would give, and this is totally from a pastoral perspective, and you guys push back on me if you disagree because I'm just, you know, thinking out loud here. I've seen an instance timer a time or 2 where I'm dealing with a an individual who's, like, in a codependent, marriage who's being physically abused, the husband's absent, sexually immoral, but the woman is emotionally codependent or doesn't feel that she has the strength to leave even though she's literally being beaten up and is in danger. And I think if that woman said to me, like, I feel a peace about divorce or I feel like God's even prompted me to leave, I don't know. I would probably say that, biblically speaking, if you're in harm's way on a regular basis, that the idea of the image of God that you're created with value, I probably have some room for a place of there's serious abuse, harm here, and I feel like God may be prompting me to leave. Now you could still delineate, and maybe you should, between separation and divorce. I think as ministers, sometimes I'm usually way faster to encourage separation and separate counseling and, hey. Let's take 6 months and breathe and talk and then I am to encourage a divorce. But does that make sense? Do you guys have any room for that? And you're thinking of there may be the spirit of the Lord prompting someone who's steadily abused to to separate? Yeah. I think there's so much nuance in what you just said that I I'm inclined to agree with what you're saying. Almost everything when you put such a blanket statement, like, no, God never prompts divorce. It's dangerous because then you can think of the really interesting outlier situation. Here's what we know to be true, that marriage is meant to reflect the relationship between Christ and his church.
Pressing and he keeps pressing and he keeps pressing to the point where I'm like, I just get so frustrated. He said he made some comment about his watch not being good enough. I'm like, dude, you are being so spoiled. So I'll just be honest here. I'm like, dude, you're being such a spoiled brat right now. I didn't have a phone until I was, like, in college. You have a perfectly capable expensive watch that I saved up and bought for you. That's totally fine. And I just kind of went off on them, like, quietly. We're in this barbershop and I'm trying to have a, you know, good day with my family. And I'm just like, I'm all my frustration, I'm just getting so frustrated at him. And I just kinda I give him this long rant, and, he's now kinda shells up in his he can tell I'm really, really mad. So he shells up in this massage chair, awkward place to be shelled up in. But he shows up in this massage chair. I'm sitting in this massage chair, and then it just gets, like, super quiet and awkward, and he's now not talking to me. He's clearly frustrated at me. I'm clearly frustrated at him. The whole vibe of the day in that moment just changed. And so my brother ends up getting done with his beard trim. Again, this is 4 years. Like, this is a monumentous day. I keep feeling like I'm making up words here. I don't know if that's work. It's a big day. And, he gets up and now I'm like, I wanna stand up and have full joy with him in this moment because I know he's feeling all kinds of emotions of just trimming off his 4 year old beard. And so I stand up and I just put on my happy face and I celebrate with him. And it was just such as weird in that moment, there's like this juxtaposition. Dude, I don't know what's going on. I don't know if it's the coffee I drink, but I'm trying to throw out these words that I truly am not qualified to be throwing out. There is this big gap between me sitting next to my son and being, like, 10 out of 10 angry, it felt like. Probably not 10 out of 10, but big time angry. And then to stand up and try to give my brother-in-law full joy so quickly. I mean, within seconds that happened. And I remember thinking to myself, in that moment, you know how what you just have all
