[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the intentional fatherhood podcast where we give you a strong biblical framework and lots of practical ideas on how to live intentionally as a father and a husband.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brooke Moser and I'm Justin Whitmore Early and we're your host to guide you through the many roles and challenges that God is calling you to to live intentionally as a father.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're following a visual framework that you can check out at intentionalfatherhood.org and it's going to help you break down fatherhood into eight columns.

[SPEAKER_04]: And in each one, we're going to talk about how God made you to be a father and what practical habits you can start trying today in order to live intentionally into that home.

[SPEAKER_01]: So come along with us as we follow Jesus on this journey towards being more intentional fathers.

[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the intentional fatherhood podcast, Justin episode three episode three we're laughing we're feeling good this morning, lots of laughing lots of laughing, okay, let's just let's just get right into it, we are an episode three, we are transitioning in some of the stages that we've been talking about we have this framework.

[SPEAKER_04]: go to intentionalfatherhood.org, check that framework out.

[SPEAKER_04]: That will be helpful.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have the framework from season one, and then we have the next part, which is for this season specifically about basically the formation process of becoming a man and a father in all the different ways that we, that happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the first two episodes specifically, we're on giving your, or getting your life together, getting your life together, getting your life together, and now we're transitioning [SPEAKER_01]: an episode is five and six.

[SPEAKER_01]: We go to giving your death away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Which is very fun and I can't wait to get into the the bulk of today.

[SPEAKER_04]: Have to just say thank you for everybody who sent in questions.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is great.

[SPEAKER_04]: We love the questions.

[SPEAKER_04]: So fun.

[SPEAKER_04]: So just a reminder if you haven't had a chance to send in any of your questions or if you have them, simply just record a one minute voice memo on your phone and then email that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's know your first name and where you're from and then email that [SPEAKER_04]: And we would love to respond to your questions for this season be super helpful and then also want to let you know if you haven't rated or subscribed You're left a comment.

[SPEAKER_04]: Why haven't you?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but when what are you doing out there?

[SPEAKER_04]: So helpful to do that and I know we mentioned it at the top of every episode and that's because truly it's that helpful We give it priority space to say like if you can just rate it or even leave a comment it helps so much get the word out to other fathers So thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone has done that [SPEAKER_04]: giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: What a fun topic.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, so exciting.

[SPEAKER_04]: So exhilarating.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but actually, you know, I think they're, this story is, it actually is.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, all jokes aside.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of laughter inside me still from that, um, from that review.

[SPEAKER_04]: But that said, I really think that we have to start at a place of why, like, because I think it's really easy to actually miss the point of, well, why do we, why do we flourish when we give our life away?

[SPEAKER_04]: Why is the goal to get our life together to give it away?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think there's there's a lot on that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Why don't you start as Justin with, you know, obviously the idea of our home is monastery.

[SPEAKER_04]: We've talked about that.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a great book domestic monastery.

[SPEAKER_04]: Great quick read, fathers.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you're here, mothers, if you're listening, like very, great read.

[SPEAKER_04]: But let's just talk about that really quickly.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about some of the why.

[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, we have a lot of there's so much biblical context.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_04]: But like, maybe Justin started today with some of the videos.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you think about getting your life together, what we've talked about in the past two episodes, and no one really asks the why on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's intuitive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody in your life is telling you, get your life together, become this, or do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of natural incentive for men to, I want to accomplish this, I want to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So generally, we need a lot less instruction on the motivation to get our life together.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need instruction, but we don't need as much [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it comes with a shock to us that actually in this Christian paradigm that we're going over, you get your life together in order to give it away.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it does require a lot of why.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember, we're basing this framework as we mentioned off some of Roll Heiser's work.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's written some wonderful books.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the first one I ever read, that was so helpful to me as I was writing Haps of the Household was the Domestic Monastery.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've mentioned it before.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this story was so helpful to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He opens it with this little anecdote of a monk who retreats to the desert to pray for years, only to emerge and realize that his mother is still more patient, much less selfish and far more loving with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember reading that.

[SPEAKER_01]: My kids were, you know, two months, two, four and six at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it struck me like a bag of bricks, but in a really joyful way, because, you know, if you were call some of my story, I used to be a missionary in China.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like plugged in the campus ministry in college.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was so much of my devotional and spiritual life that was formed in the get away from the regular world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Going to retreat, go to the mission field.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, even retreat to a coffee shop and have a two hour quiet time, like a wonderful practices in my 20s.

[SPEAKER_01]: But had become completely infeasible in the age and stage of young children.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had lost the central place of spiritual formation that I was going to have to wait until I got out of these young years of children.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that story from Rollheiser hit me in such a big bag of bricks encouraging way because I realized two things.

[SPEAKER_01]: One that this was possible now.

[SPEAKER_01]: The house was my monastery.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was the place where Jesus was going to make me more like himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: And two, that was going to happen by continual self-emptying.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that made so much sense of what it felt like to be in that early 30s stage of life where it seemed like everything was constantly being asked of me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was always giving up my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was always sacrificing everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I interpreted, I had interpreted so much of that as disappointment and frustration and my dreams were slipping away and nothing feels like the way it should feel.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized, oh wait, maybe just maybe.

[SPEAKER_01]: this is exactly how it should be because God wants to make me more like him, which is self-emptying.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we thought Philippians, too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: One through 11 might be a good biblical anchor for this, because I want to make sure you know we're not just pulling frameworks out of [SPEAKER_01]: You know, thin air and thinking, hey, this is a good way to think of Fatherhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, this is a biblical.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a biblical, deeply rooted.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can look at so many places to see this trajectory of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Philippians, too, is a great one to look at, where Paul describes Jesus as being and very, being in very nature God, did not consider a quality with God, something to be used to his own advantage, rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, [SPEAKER_01]: And being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.

[SPEAKER_01]: That movement of Jesus going down in order to go up is the inverted movement of the Christian life that we suffer, we give up in order to gain and be exalted.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what better place than young fatherhood to start to learn to give your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the thing comes in my mind.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well said, by the way, you're good at talking.

[SPEAKER_04]: Did you just recently read your whole book out loud?

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't do this to me.

[SPEAKER_04]: Don't do this to me.

[SPEAKER_04]: What a radio voice you have.

[SPEAKER_04]: You don't like public compliments.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, get very uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to make the reviews.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm going to praise you.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll praise you more later.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think it's important to like this is a design situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think this really connects with my mind.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it probably connects with a lot of them in listening.

[SPEAKER_04]: But like when things are being used in a way they're not designed for.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they just break down really quick.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, I mean, and this is like, I don't even need to use the application.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's in thousands of examples that we interact with every single day.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, I'm thinking through that, like, whether we like the language of this or not or fully even accept it, the truth is, at the core of who we are, when we give our life away, we experience things that we can't really understand until we do it.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's hard, like, [SPEAKER_04]: I love, like, when people say, hey, you know, I have a dog or a cat.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like having kids.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's not.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I understand what you mean.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I understand for caring something and then you have to clean up feces.

[SPEAKER_04]: I get that.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a shadow.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm here to that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and there's no shade on people are like, [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I have some relatives that couldn't have kids and they're like, Mike Pat's are my animals.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, that's beautiful.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, what a gift that that's fulfilling some part of their life.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now that said though, there's two things in the world that are not like anything other any other thing in the world, then that's marriage and parenting.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's so good.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's very, very, very clear.

[SPEAKER_04]: They're their own isolated situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: So until you have kids, you just don't fully know because there's all of these things that you can't even understand and name until you're in it and same with marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: in both of these, you're truly stuck, which is, you know, there's one way to put it.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the other way, put it as you're lovingly committed.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think, Lauren, he loves you from what I understand.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we, when we, when we do marriage and family in the Christian paradigm, we have renounced our ability to leave.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, so we've said to death to us part, I'm sticking together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we say to our children, and I hope we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will never leave you, just like God said to us, I will never leave you, never forsake you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're bound, we're stuck, we're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not true of a pet, that's just not true of many other obligations in life.

[SPEAKER_01]: For years, you really, yes, it would be breaking a covenant to leave.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: the so many glorious of that right but before I think we see the glorious to it we feel the difficulty of it which is why so many of us like me look up in our young 30s and realize this is scary that I don't know this is what I bargained for and I feel stock even trapped yes anxious angry all these things of war yeah we'll get to talk about [SPEAKER_01]: But that's because that's what it feels like to go through that downward path of commitment in order to find the upward path of Exaltation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's hard before it gets good.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's so true.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I want to mention one thing on marriage one thing on disappointment.

[SPEAKER_04]: Can I do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, the idea of nothing is like marriage and parenting.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's interesting because in the idea of finding a spouse, I've heard it said, can't remember where I read this, but it's basically the idea, like there's three different types of, like, let's just use husband's marrying wife.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's three types of different women you could marry.

[SPEAKER_04]: Someone who's like a spark, like, there's a lot of excitement.

[SPEAKER_04]: You just like, there's a lot of great excited.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're just like, really excited.

[SPEAKER_04]: The thing about a spark is it's pretty quick.

[SPEAKER_04]: You can go out pretty quick.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's [SPEAKER_04]: The other example is a flame, like a candle flame, like, it's not crazy, but it's, you know, there's warm there, but it's like, but it's going to go out eventually.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, it's not like a lasting thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: The analogy that is most representative healthy relationships that is the long for the longest lasting thing and the thing that we actually are drawn to the most in a relationship is actually not a spark or a candle is actually a mirror.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a mirror.

[SPEAKER_04]: And marriage is a ruthless institution because you can't escape yourself.

[SPEAKER_04]: You're being followed around by a mirror constantly reflecting back to you who you actually are.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's one of the reasons why [SPEAKER_04]: you can't, like, you can't escape yourself.

[SPEAKER_04]: So when your marriage is really hard, honestly, the first thing to do is go, what's going on in me?

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I mean, it's really, the doesn't mean your spouse is like innocent here.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm saying like, it is, it is such a mirror.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm giving that analogy to just simply say, [SPEAKER_04]: you are drawn to the thing that is best for you and a mirror is not the most convenient.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not as exciting as a spark.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not even always as warm as a flame, but it will make you the best version, not only currently, but also in time to come to not only have the flame and the spark but the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just this unique thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: So when we say marriage is like nothing else, like [SPEAKER_04]: It will shape you like nothing else just like giving your life away to your wife and to your kids will shape you like nothing else Disappointment can we talk about that for a second yeah, and you know it's on marriage you seem like you want to say something But I don't want to pitch you off.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, you've gone okay [SPEAKER_04]: So disappointment, I think one of the things about giving your life way, I know we were just talking about this just in, but one of the ideas about getting your life together and giving your life away, and we're going to talk about the transition in just a second, but there's a lot of disappointment that comes as you get older and as you become an adult and as you begin the process of giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: What I mean by that is if you think of your spirituality and your stages of life as like one through ten, right, if if life is on a scale from age one to a hundred, you know, we could say each decade represents, you know, one.

[SPEAKER_04]: you know, in theory, if you're 40, I'm 40, almost, were in stage four.

[SPEAKER_04]: When you think about that, that's very beginning.

[SPEAKER_04]: That we're still at the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's a very early, like when you think about four out of 10, you're like, let's still pretty low.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not even halfway yet, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, we don't all live to 100, no, there's all those things that break down.

[SPEAKER_04]: But when you think about the stage of the life that you're in, maybe some of you were in a stage two and a half or stage three or three and a half.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you're expecting this certain kind of life already where you get this stuff in it's happening.

[SPEAKER_04]: But like, can I just highlight?

[SPEAKER_04]: It takes a lot of time.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then the disappointment piece, so much of my 30s has been accepting the reality of why I actually am, not who I dreamed I could be, if that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_04]: in our idealism, in our energy, in our excitement of life, as men, especially, we can dream sometimes far more than we can actually live into.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think a lot of us, as men, not all, this isn't the case for everybody, but there's a lot of men that I know, especially men and women, who have been able to dream this beautiful life for themselves, that is not actually connected to who they fully are because they don't know who they fully are yet.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then they get to maybe life stage where you're married and then you have kids and then there's responsibilities and then there's necessities that you have And you start to realize like who I was dreaming to be right I think may never come and this is honestly in my personal opinion the hardest and the best place to be [SPEAKER_04]: It's really where you start to actually begin to be excited or can be in time.

[SPEAKER_04]: It takes time to give your life away because your life isn't about your dreams and your excess and your successes.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's now about how can I give my life away and it becomes richer, deeper, fuller.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I have to say that process is so hard and disappointing and sad and it has to be mourned.

[SPEAKER_04]: You have to mourn the fact that who you dreamt to be or thought that you might be [SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes it works out great, some people are very connected with who they are and it works out perfectly.

[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a good majority that don't.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I know we're going to talk about transitions.

[SPEAKER_04]: I want to talk about that, but that is just something that was like, the disappointment piece has been so huge for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really helpful, especially the framing time of the, you know, one, two, three, four.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because this season is about framing time.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about trying to name stages to help you understand why it feels the way it feels.

[SPEAKER_01]: And often the hardest thing about time and stages is those transition points.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where you are waking up to a new stage and just in this jarring back and forth, I thought I was trying to get my life together and now something I'm giving it all away.

[SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really helpful in the name because we said this at the outset of the season, but I want to keep coming back to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's this idea that we used to see men, probably our father's generation, we're familiar with this in movies, experiencing that midlife crisis later in their 40s and 50s.

[SPEAKER_01]: transitioning from giving their life away, you know, working their life away to now giving their death away and realizing, oh my gosh, I don't have that much time left.

[SPEAKER_01]: What am I doing?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the latter against the wrong wall.

[SPEAKER_01]: All that stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now mostly what I see is young men like myself struggling in that transition from getting life together to moving towards giving it away.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking more like late 20s, early mid 30s, crises, and I actually had [SPEAKER_01]: And so I can't, you know, I'm not a counselor.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't vouch for this as professional advice.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, he was saying that most of us don't have what we would call, you know, real mental disorders in terms of severe depression, severe anxiety.

[SPEAKER_01]: Something that is truly, you know, bound up physically will always be with us, knees probably serious medication, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of us, though, and many of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: have real transition disorders, where we are struggling with anxiety or depression, largely because of a life circumstance move or something that happened to us in a transition.

[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously not for everybody, but it definitely was made.

[SPEAKER_01]: I shared my anxiety story in the last season and you know, I've written openly about it in many places, but for me, transitioning from my late 20s to early 30s was a crushing time of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: where I woke up and was like, what happened to that happy like go get her energetic stress free always the life of the family and the party like the sky is the limit we can do anything what happened to him because now I am [SPEAKER_01]: Exhausted, nervous all the time, starting to struggle with anger at a lot of things, wanting to withdraw, not feeling that dreams are attainable anymore, like I'm stuck here, everything's always being taken from me and I really, really struggled in my early 30s and either was anxiety, there was a lot going on this physical unhealthy was lots of bad technological habits, but I just I'll sum it up this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: it was jarring for me to make that transition and a lot of my 30s was figuring out how to embrace the joy and the sanctification that waits for you in giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And trying to reframe, oh, wait, wait, just like you said a minute ago, bro, you know, my dreams are not coming true, wait, what if [SPEAKER_01]: What have God has a better dream for you?

[SPEAKER_01]: What if the person that you dreamed yourself to be was actually kind of flimsy and ego maniacal?

[SPEAKER_01]: And actually not that useful to the world, but God has a dream for you to become someone who is like him that loves, that serves, and that is strong and authoritative in his ability to love and serve and guide and give life away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, [SPEAKER_01]: that is so hard and we want to devote most of this episode to talking about the struggles that prevent you from doing that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was so confused.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I used to be up late at night in my 20s because I was struggling with lust or excess or immaturity and dealing with my obligations.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now, and this is like this week, you know, if it all all over the seasons of my 30s, to 40s, now I'm up late at night because I'm wrestling with anger, anxiety, or juggling too many obligations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just different.

[SPEAKER_01]: The struggles are different.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if we don't have a name for, oh, these are the struggles we encounter in getting our life together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And these are the struggles we encounter in giving our life away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And many times they're quite different.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I think we need to name more.

[SPEAKER_04]: What does it look like to struggle with giving your life a way so that we can break through and actually learn how to give it away very well said, and I think it's a reminder, we can't fix everything, but we can name anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like this tagline, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't fix everything but you can name anything.

[SPEAKER_04]: You can name anything and and when you name things it loses it's power Over you not fully.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll never forget.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll just share this before we get into our menu We have another PDF.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's another free download.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did you see this coming another visual for us?

[SPEAKER_04]: There's another PDF download it We'll take it out.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have a menu for you, but I'll never forget some of my first therapy sessions with them just this guy's an absolute master of his craft [SPEAKER_04]: But I mean, he's also like 76 now, and he's had 40 plus years of experience and education still learning actively.

[SPEAKER_04]: So sharpen his mind.

[SPEAKER_04]: Also, like, has counseled some of the most insane people in the world, not not insane, like literally insane, like [SPEAKER_04]: Some of the most famous people in the world like he was he can't even fully tell me I've just been the same there.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've just gotten some of the same sayingly successful people And we all need it But anyway, just a very accomplished and his field person and I knew that going in so I'll never forget Some of my first therapy sessions he him saying to me really briefly and and you know kindly as much as he could [SPEAKER_04]: He listened a lot and I was expecting some advice.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, can we advice one of my supposed to do?

[SPEAKER_04]: And he almost never would give advice and he would say things like, I almost never give advice.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, and I'm like, what are you talking about?

[SPEAKER_04]: And what I didn't realize he was doing, the whole time for me was he was naming to me what was happening in my life and what had happened.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, dude, this is some mumbo jumbo stuff like you aren't joke.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you know, you just don't know your, your naive, you're unaware.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I could not tell you how life changing, naming the experience was.

[SPEAKER_04]: So again, our hope right now, we have a menu.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about it.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to talk about, you know, obviously, where's the contrast with getting your life together and giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: And really, what does it look like, you know, on one side with getting your life together and what it can look like now?

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe explain a little more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and, you know, go to the website and download the menu of struggles.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's so apt to struggle menu.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the spirit of, in the spirit of trying to name the struggles so that you see what you are wrestling with, you're going to, you're going to be an over, most of our listeners will be in an overlapping period where there are really some struggles of still trying to get their life together and some places.

[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of you will be in a new territory of struggles of giving your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll wonder what, you know, I used to wrestle with this, but now I'm wrestling with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So here are some examples to help you name.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to read a lot of them and then we'll dive into some of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: In getting our life together, there was a struggle to leave home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now, in giving our life away, it is the struggle to make a home, build a home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: now we're struggling to learn how to grow others and raise others and that's a hard one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of us spent a vast majority of our energy in our 20s and 30s trying to control our desires control our energy control our loss.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now some of us are going to be trying to refine that energy, trying to access it, where's the passion?

[SPEAKER_01]: Even even trying to access your sex drive again, maybe feeling apathetic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now again, many us will be overlapping.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, many of us will still be struggling with, as I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of lust, lots of struggle, lots of passion.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, many people are going to, at this age, can be starting to try to find it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where is that drive?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I'm not just talking about sex drive.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about hunger for life, all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Passion.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're 20s.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might have been wrestling with the devil a lot in your 30s and 40s.

[SPEAKER_01]: And beyond, hopefully you're starting to wrestle with God a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll talk more about what that means.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we struggle to give up things, maybe give up something, give up that bad habit and our 20s and the struggle to get life together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're being asked to give up everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's nothing that we're not surrender in everything, we need it initiations.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need people to call us forward and getting life together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we are the ones to initiate others.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to start to learn how to look back.

[SPEAKER_01]: We used to struggle to become a man where we were a boy and a man's body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're struggling to figure out what does it actually mean to be a man?

[SPEAKER_01]: Two more.

[SPEAKER_01]: The opposite of faith used to be hedonism.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now it seems like the opposite of faith is anxiety or anger, as in we used to be struggling with just trying to get pleasure everywhere we turn.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're struggling with not being cynical, not being joyless, not being anxious, not being angry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is that we could probably spend mostly up so just dwelling on that one actually because that there's classic struggles of giving your life away feeling like it's mature or normal or this is what life is now to be cynical bit of joyless that so yeah maintaining joy is a great struggle and then finally struggles of getting our life together it used to look like making the big choices who are gonna marry are we gonna have kids where we gonna live [SPEAKER_01]: What are we going to do with our life?

[SPEAKER_01]: That was the struggle where we're going to root big choices, which are great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in giving your life away, it's much more about healthy habits, it's much more about very little choices that aggregate in a very big lives, so that's your menu.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's more on it and they're worded slightly better than I just gave them, but let's fix what resonates with you on that menu.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you see your struggles and giving your life away now?

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I mean, the lust and anger are huge, I think I want to talk about that one.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, just on that one, there's a father Maccario story.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's such a helpful.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You tell it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's, it's a simple story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'd actually kind of encapsulates the difference between wrestling with.

[SPEAKER_01]: the devil and wrestling with that is kind of the paradigm here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and all the story is well-known, but to paraphrase for anyone listening, it's essentially a desert monk of, you know, would pray almost all day.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, that was the whole point of the idea, like you're going away to pray to be with God.

[SPEAKER_04]: And a young, you know, a apprentice comes to him, just eager to learn, and eager like just so like totally getting his life together.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, eager, big dreams.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm ready.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, man, what is it like, you know, like, to wrestle with the devil?

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it was the kind of his idea.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, oh, you know, young boy, I don't wrestle with the devil anymore.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now I wrestle with God.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, oh my gosh, he's like, what?

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes, he goes, well, how do you hope to win?

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes, I don't.

[SPEAKER_04]: I hope to lose.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's so good.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think there's a lot more of that story.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think it just takes a second to highlight the juxtaposition that sometimes feels like what you hope to lose wrestling to God, isn't it about winning?

[SPEAKER_04]: Isn't about domination?

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, no, [SPEAKER_04]: It is about surrender.

[SPEAKER_04]: It is about losing your life to give it to others.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that story also helps talk about when we were young we did wrestle with the devil.

[SPEAKER_04]: When I was young I did.

[SPEAKER_04]: I wrestled with the devil in so many ways.

[SPEAKER_04]: But now that I'm old I'm wrestling with what God has asked me to do and called me to do and requires of me to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: and of course the enemy is still very real and your demons are still very real.

[SPEAKER_01]: The stage is overlapped, you know.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but I do think that the greater struggle is living into the man that God has invited me to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, phrasing just came to mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't thought about this before, but I love that story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think of it as that energy of getting your life together is very much how do I overcome all the difficulties and all the struggles, like how do I win?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the challenge becomes how do I let myself be overcome by love?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you used to be trying to conquer this, but now we're trying to let ourselves be conquered by.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: By love.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a surrendering process.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not like winning process.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: being joyful and mellow of spirit is really the goal.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like when I meet people that have walked with God in a deep way for a long period of time, there is a mellowness of spirit that's not passionless.

[SPEAKER_04]: at all, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: But they are so comfortable in their skin and who got's made them to be and what they're called to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I always, like, emelonist doesn't mean lethargic.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it means that they have a lot of those youthful passions in their proper place.

[SPEAKER_04]: And they've been able to move to that, I think even another, you know, so I think anger is huge and actually in our next episode, we want to talk about, we'll get very practical about like, what are some things we do to deal with our anger?

[SPEAKER_04]: Because I know for me, I'm similar to you in that space, like, anger is a huge problem for me, because when my kids do things, it triggers stuff in me.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, your kids poke your wounds, and the hard part is, if you're not aware of that and know how to deal with that and know what is going on, it can really cause a lot of damage.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, unintentionally, it's not your desire even.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you have said, you, let's go, I feel like dwelling on anger is a good one for a moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you have said that you struggled with anger in your 20s and your early life stages?

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that the answer is no, and what's interesting is I was more similar to you always life of the party, always the extrovert running from problems.

[SPEAKER_04]: My greatest need is to avoid pain, so as much as I could avoid reframe, get out of the deepest parts of pain, the more I was happy, you know, like I felt that way, but I'll never forget [SPEAKER_04]: What the thing that has been the most helpful for me and my personality set specifically is to experience pain that I can't reframe in my life with my wife and with my kids.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have experienced deep pain that I can't reframe.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I can't reframe my daughter's health situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: I can't reframe my wife's health situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: I can't reframe the challenges and the complexities that that's made in our home.

[SPEAKER_04]: I can't reframe it no matter how hard I try.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, most of us would think, and I would think, too, that that is the most challenging, terrible thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: And for a personality like mine that always needed fun and distraction and reframing to deal with my life, [SPEAKER_04]: to find pain that I couldn't reframe has actually been the biggest gift to me to accept reality, to step into this place.

[SPEAKER_04]: Another part of that, though, and if I'm being really honest, there's parts of my heart that have instead of growing joyful, have grown, anger, angry, because it's hard.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's really challenging, and it's sad, and it's frustrating.

[SPEAKER_01]: My pastor often shares an analogy that I think is pretty frequently used that you drop an egg into boiling water and it becomes hard, hard-boiled, drop a carrot into boiling water and it becomes soft.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a reality of our life where we will all encounter suffering and difficulty.

[SPEAKER_01]: And part of this, it just occurs to me that it's helpful to name is you live long enough and you start to pick up sufferings.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, some people will be like, look, my mom died of cancer when I was a teenager.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it began early for me, sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of us will start to aggregate sufferings and problems.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, family disorders, health challenges, deaths, you know, close [SPEAKER_01]: Still, suddenly, not only their joy, but their sense of comfort, the ability for grandparents to be in the picture and suddenly they're just wrestling with constant sadness, bitterness and anger, and that analogy, I think is a kind of silly, but kind of useful question for the Christian life, and that is, is the suffering that you're encountering, making you hard and bitter or soft and loving?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because unless you're embracing the path of Christ suffering and difficulty will make you hard and bitter and cynical.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of the other.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, it's extreme.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like, all be kind of bitter.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like you either become angry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're true directions.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't go north and south of the same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can wander a lot and keep moving back and forth.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they are a polar opposite directions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, do you, I didn't mean to interrupt your story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know no?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you relate to?

[SPEAKER_04]: I was just going to say it's really tricky.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not tricky, but I think it's interesting to answer because it's both.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's parts of my heart that are really sad and angry.

[SPEAKER_04]: and there's parts of me that have been so softened and changed and my wife would tell you how my different person.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: And in a lot for the better, but it's also brought up everything that I've never dealt with.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's this weird juxtaposition.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's this weird like has it made me more angry or to the analogy hard?

[SPEAKER_04]: I think in some ways, yeah, because it's really hard and I don't always know how to go through it.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I have active help with so many other [SPEAKER_04]: Also though, I think it's made me mature faster than I maybe wanted to in certain areas.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's made me, I've accepted as much as I can the invitation to Jesus to allow this to form me not break me.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the only difference maker is everybody suffers.

[SPEAKER_04]: It is simply how you choose to go about it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, do you let it become hard, cynical, angry, bitter?

[SPEAKER_04]: or do you allow it to soften you?

[SPEAKER_04]: I just want to highlight though because we're naming everything that process is not clean, linear or quick.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think the transition, I'm still in the place where this suffering is chipping off the heartages of my life and creating parts in me that are better for the kingdom, better for my family.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think giving my life away [SPEAKER_04]: has been accelerated by the pain.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that for many people, it will, if you can allow it to like, you know, part of giving your life away is accepting your life for what it actually is.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think there's a lot of times where I could say things like this isn't fair.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not, I mean, fair is not really what, I mean, [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think God is always interested in what we think is fair and not.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not really concerned, this is feel fair to you.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's concerned about your formation and bringing you closer to him and the ways our backwards from what culture says and I have to say this last thing because I think there's this lie that in your life your kids and your wife are supposed to make you happy.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that happiness comes for sure in marriage and in parenting in all sorts of ways.

[SPEAKER_04]: Those are not the source of your joy and if they become the only source of your joy, you're going to suffocate those relationships.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you don't have healthy relationship with Jesus, you were made by God, which means infinity, you're an image bear.

[SPEAKER_04]: That means that you have infinity of desire cooked into who you are in your soul, which means the only real thing that can fulfill the full desire that you have, [SPEAKER_04]: is God.

[SPEAKER_04]: You're made to run on God.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the fuel you're meant to run by design.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so if you try to run off the love of your kids or the love of the happiness of your marriage, you will be constantly at a place to use that analogy of fueling yourself.

[SPEAKER_04]: You will constantly be on a place of empty infrastructure.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think for me what I've had to grow and learning, [SPEAKER_04]: Is that what if my marriage wasn't met like we know this let me like we know this phrase I'm about to say if you've read the meaning of marriage great book.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you Tim Keller What a gift that man was to the world.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think Marriage is not for your happiness alone it it is for it is for so much more it's for growth and changed all and all of that But the main thing I want to say is have you considered what if your marriage [SPEAKER_04]: is actually for a greater purpose than your happiness.

[SPEAKER_04]: What if your marriage and the traditional idea of having a normal quote unquote marriage is really not the goal of why you're married at all?

[SPEAKER_04]: And what I mean is, I experienced this with my wife often.

[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like God has led me to my wife specifically.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now I believe that you could marry anybody in the world and you don't just have one person you could marry and there's not just one soul, you know, like there's all this, you know, stuff we can talk about.

[SPEAKER_04]: I truly believe in my story that God led me to this woman.

[SPEAKER_04]: I could have chose someone else, she could have chose someone else.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we chose each other and I am telling you beyond a shadow of any doubt in my soul, God has used my marriage to help me become more like him in any other medium.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I also think our marriage doesn't exist for my happiness or even her happiness.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think our marriage exists to actually be hopefully an example or a blessing or a help to other people.

[SPEAKER_04]: And any time I get lost in the like, well, this doesn't seem fair.

[SPEAKER_04]: And why is a dynamic so hard?

[SPEAKER_04]: And what about this challenge?

[SPEAKER_04]: Every time I have to remember like, [SPEAKER_04]: My marriage is for a greater thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: Therefore, if I reject growing in this area, I'm gonna stunt it, I'm gonna miss it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But if I can accept what Jesus is inviting me into to learn how to basically say, okay, I thought I died to myself, I need to die more.

[SPEAKER_04]: How can I die more?

[SPEAKER_04]: I thought I was dead, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't give you my life way.

[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was dead already, it's like not dead.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, what a great man.

[SPEAKER_04]: You're not dead enough.

[UNKNOWN]: You go.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not all dead.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, Monty Python, Holy Grail.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Jesus, for that movie.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know that scene bring out your dead.

[SPEAKER_04]: What a great, well, anyway, I think the point really is that when we think that we are dying to ourselves, I think there's even layers more that we don't even know.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it's a good question to ask like Jesus.

[SPEAKER_04]: is my marriage for my happiness alone, or do you have a greater purpose for it in my wife and eyes life?

[SPEAKER_04]: Do I need to sign up for any of this stuff?

[SPEAKER_04]: This was not like on my agenda.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like let me help marriage and family and let me do it through the medium of my own life being so freaking hard.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like let me use the examples from my own life and how hard and challenging it becomes to to live these things out.

[SPEAKER_04]: At the same time this is what like the calling piece.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is what I've been called into and it's not always very glamorous and it's challenging.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I also think it's just, I'm rambling at this point, but I just, I feel it's important that when you've experienced a pain, you can't reframe.

[SPEAKER_04]: When you are sitting in the place where you just can't get away from it, yes, it can make you angry.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it should obviously lead you to softness, but the process takes a long time, so be patient with yourself.

[SPEAKER_04]: It is not linear, it is very hard, and often we need guides and models of people to help us walk through it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I know I've needed that more than anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I think that's the center here because when you get into the give your life away season, you're realizing there are intractable difficulties, there are sufferings, there are problems in your marriage and your family, your health, like the things that you name.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think my mental unhealthy would be my big one of realizing that I have limits on my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I run too hard in this direction of work or if I'm not careful with my health, then I could [SPEAKER_01]: And there's there can be a lot of bitterness and frustration there and I think most of us are from know you're with the struggles of getting your life together that is to.

[SPEAKER_01]: um, when we have problems in life or marriage, the typical story of a male or a father, is they run away from them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so like you leave your wife or you run away from your kids, you leave your your kids, you just check out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is possible.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's one route.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we know it doesn't satisfy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also, I don't think it's the route that most people that I talk to are really considering or struggling with.

[SPEAKER_01]: I find more people saying, I'm sticking around, but I am now forever passive.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm now forever bitter, man, now forever quiet.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no longer glowing with love towards my wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no longer pursuing her.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no longer soft towards my children.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we think, and then we start, [SPEAKER_01]: talking to the world in a rough way, like, well, you know, get used to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what reality is like.

[SPEAKER_01]: We start being, you know, refer with our kids and refer with our spouse because we feel like something is a done to us and so we need to help them be a little more cynical and bitter because, you know, toughen up the world is hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I see many more people falling into that, sin, into that sort of, you know, you can take a fork off the road and getting your life together and just dip out and leave and check out.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, completely go to the hedonism route.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's one wrong turn.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see many many more people getting stuck in the kind of cold sac wrong turn of giving your life away, where instead of leaning into these things to grow more like Jesus, to grow more loving, to grow more soft.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, to grow stronger and more fall and more bright and more loving through them, they get stuck in just the bitterness, pull the joyless pull.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sign of that is often joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sign of getting through the struggle is often finding a deeper joy that mellowness that happiness with life.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't mean a lot of dads and their late 30s or early 40s who are just, I would describe this joyful, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean a ton of young 20 year olds I describe is joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the question is, [SPEAKER_01]: is that young 20s stuff really joy or is that just sort of blind excitement for anything that comes?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think real joy is when you can be happy to spite the sufferings and the difficulties.

[SPEAKER_01]: And real joy is when you realize that despite the difficulties God is doing something in life and that brings that sort of holy laughter from real down deep.

[SPEAKER_01]: And these are these are [SPEAKER_01]: These are hard things.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are things you don't get to for a long time, but I talked to learn about this and my friends about this now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 40 this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: My great, actually I'll share this.

[SPEAKER_01]: My friends, when my closest friends, my best friend Steve gave a toast at my 40th birthday.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, my hope for you is that you really practice and find laughter in this next [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think he knows that the easiest thing for someone in our stage to become is more serious and to, you know, maybe more [SPEAKER_01]: contemplative, but kind of in a dark and or way, especially laughing.

[SPEAKER_04]: Especially what we do, I mean, you're, you know, a lot of your job is to think for a living.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, I think for, yeah, this is what I mean, like you thinking you're writing, you're, you're processing, that can be heavy, you know?

[SPEAKER_04]: And so, I think it's especially lean towards that.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think I know for me, I don't always, I definitely have, [SPEAKER_04]: I like humor.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have a very playful spirit in many ways, including when we're at your gym, like yesterday, let's talk about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just and took me to a crossfit workout yesterday.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're trying to learn how to give your life away.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you got to lose it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about that physicality.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're doing, you know, the body teaches the soul.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I got video of Justin's body teaching his soul.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's doing muscle ups and it takes me this class and the trainer who's one of the other owners, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah Ryan dude.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a great dude.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a great coach and the, you know, showing everyone the things, but then like I'm not even going to the gym.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't even live here and he's like pushing me like I loved it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was like this is this is my thing But he was like so good at his form and I just couldn't not compliment.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't like to do this guy's amazing [SPEAKER_01]: You can't not tell you, are you like the kid in the back class who was just talking cousin.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's just one.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, I just mean it's, yeah, I just, you know, if something's too serious, you gotta make it light.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do, I did say I could tell you today, just like watching you interact, like you had little sparks of joy and happiness all over the, all over the place.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, which is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think a lot of us lose the levity, lose the ability to be light and happy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: in your friend group so you're the the seriousness part.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just like the struggle to make it enjoy.

[SPEAKER_04]: Man, so here's a weird thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've been processing.

[SPEAKER_04]: So.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a pretty simple person in many ways and even though I have this parts of we all have these different parts right I have a part of me just like you have a part of you that love to think deeply loves to grow loves to expand also have a part of me that likes a lot of fun and like like I'm on the earth to hopefully enjoy some of it so let's like not be serious to death [SPEAKER_04]: This is a great example.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're just on, we have this thing with our family called camp comers.

[SPEAKER_04]: So fill in Diane, all the siblings, and their spouses and kids, we all get together.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Christmas in the summer.

[SPEAKER_04]: We were at Lake Tahoe just a couple weeks ago.

[SPEAKER_04]: So amazing.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's so fun.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we were getting ready to leave the morning of.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I had bought and some beer for the trip.

[SPEAKER_04]: And there was in the fridge.

[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're a person that doesn't drink or, you know, brutalize people drinking beer, this is not the show for you.

[SPEAKER_04]: You bought it for the road?

[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no.

[SPEAKER_04]: I bought it when I was in Tahoe while we were on the trip at home sitting in a safe place not driving.

[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, the were emptying out the fridge.

[SPEAKER_04]: My brother's a DUI lawyer, so I'm like, oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So we're opening the fridge and we're emptying it out the morning of.

[SPEAKER_04]: And [SPEAKER_04]: And so my brother-in-law, John Mark, we were good friends.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's obviously, he's very, by nature, he's a fun person in the right settings, but he's also a very serious person.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so we've always had this wonderful contrast where I always end up pulling out the fun in him because that's just my personality.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's almost like this subconscious challenge I have every time we're together.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we do, we compliment each other really well.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have deep conversations, but we laugh really hard.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm getting the beer into the cooler because we're trying to just empty out the fridge.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I grabbed one out of like, hey, bro, you want a road soda?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he's just, and his response, like, it was a dumb thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was dumb.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, it was a joke.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he literally just starts laughing.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's like, [SPEAKER_04]: You know, a lot of the time I mock you to your face, but I'm just jealous that I can't that that I can't be as not serious about life as you and I was like, I think this is a compliment.

[SPEAKER_04]: I also think this is a slam.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think to the point, like, we're on this earth to enjoy it and often for me personally, I have had to question myself.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, am I too childish?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, is there too many, everyone's real serious here?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, is that, is that what I should be?

[SPEAKER_04]: Or should I be who I am in this space?

[SPEAKER_04]: And over time, like you just obviously learn, there's a space to be funny.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a space to be joyful in this space to joke around.

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe like at a crossfit class.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then there's places where that's not at all helpful, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: And so I think it's just being comfortable with who you are and who I am is like, I don't like seriousness too much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, I think that's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as I think there's something deeper to it in which is why I'm struggling to pull it out, but let me try again because you said too, [SPEAKER_01]: That childishness, you know, we see in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's his.

[SPEAKER_01]: Come man, his teaching, that there is a wander in children.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And amazement at the world, a posture of openness and receptivity.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what does it mean?

[SPEAKER_01]: He says that, you know, be like the little children.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a lot of things, but I think that's part of it to reclaim the wonder that you think in your middle age or this giving your life away stage that all the good has been cut off, the dreams are slowly dying, that it's all difficulty.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's I think it's a sign of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the Christian life when you're starting to recapture wonder again child like amazement.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's some people call it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the second naivete or the second child who Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what they're talking about.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, child like faith is a very real like it's a positive.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I think there's also something else instructive with with children.

[SPEAKER_01]: in that when children are given gifts or presents, they are usually not prone to, say, thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're usually prone to just be like, ah, that's amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go enjoy the play with it and they like run off, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a sign of true or gratitude, definitely the use of teaching kids to say thank you and an acknowledge it and all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think when we veer off the road in this coldest act of giving our life away resentment and bitterness and cynicism and we're better at being sarcastic than we are at really laughing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, then and we're better at, you know, being ironic than we are just being happy and openly complimenting.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not enjoying the gift.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a science that we actually think life is more of a curse and a burden than a gift, but when we are practicing working at.

[SPEAKER_01]: joy, happiness, saying, you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's something yet worth celebrating.

[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a sign that we understand one that God has given us life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And two that he's going to redeem it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is Jesus turning water into wine stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is him saying, why the heck is the first miracle?

[SPEAKER_01]: a party.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make sense to people who want to get over serious about life and just want to dwell in the bitterness.

[SPEAKER_01]: This miracle does not make sense, but when you see the Christian story in the trajectory of your life as heading towards a party, as heading towards the consummation of all things, as heading towards redemption, as the grand reframing of all struggles, even though you can't reframe the suffering now, like you said.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then suddenly, you're in a world where cynicism and bitterness don't make sense of the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means you're stuck way back there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Practicing joy, levity, laughter, and hope again and refining at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means, oh, now you're seeing that giving your life away is the good stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because on the other side of it is a big party, a great joy.

[SPEAKER_04]: I could not agree more and I think I love what you said and I'm maybe it's important to say like some of us have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's really important that you take God seriously and do not take yourself too seriously.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think nobody is, as impressed with you as you, and it's okay, things are not as crazy or as hard or as serious as sometimes we make them.

[SPEAKER_04]: I do think you have to be dead serious about God, his rules, these rules, meaning like this process of giving your life way, be like so all in with that.

[SPEAKER_04]: But when it comes to your like like we are just not as important as we feel we're not as important as we make ourselves some of us use that idea and it's actually like pride and disguise of you know like trying to feel more important because we don't actually feel important internally and I think it's just important to name that stuff and to remember more than anything like [SPEAKER_04]: as fathers, we emulate parts of the father.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like there's a playful part of God.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a serious part of God.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a, you know, a God that throws parties and makes wine out of water.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like there's all these different parts of God too.

[SPEAKER_04]: And there's a lot of different parts of us.

[SPEAKER_04]: And even individually, like I'll bring a piece that [SPEAKER_04]: that you won't yield your engineering pieces that I've been ever good in.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's beautiful.

[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, I think the main thing we wanted to talk about with this episode before we move into the next one is really some of the things that that why first of all of like why do we want to give our lives away?

[SPEAKER_04]: What is that about and then really where are the struggles?

[SPEAKER_04]: So we would encourage you go back to the website intentional fatherhood.org download that PDF And I would just encourage you just maybe identify maybe you're on every single one of these maybe you're like I'm right in the middle of all these yeah some you're going to be passed right like maybe you've left home you're out of that hope hopefully in that space right but [SPEAKER_04]: how are you doing with making a home?

[SPEAKER_04]: What's that struggle?

[SPEAKER_04]: And then I think just begin to even take your spouse or your friends and be like, okay, guys, like, what are we dealing with on this?

[SPEAKER_04]: And something have been so encouraged by that's just emerged naturally.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's been a handful of people that have reached out to us about this.

[SPEAKER_04]: But [SPEAKER_04]: there's just there's some guys literally I know that have reached out and told me they're like we're going through the podcast listening to you know an episode and then getting together with a group of guys next week and talking about absolute best way to do this yes absolutely and now and also just huge compliment like that's so kind that you guys would would do that [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that it's also, I mean, just such a great idea.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, we're not formally saying, hey, you gotta have these groups and do this group.

[SPEAKER_04]: But like, I think that is a great way to do this in the sense.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like, take it as you said.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you should take the PDF and get your dues together.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you, by the way, some of my best friend hangouts.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love these.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are times where we have said, hey, we're getting together.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to listen to this podcast and then we're going to spend the rest of the evening hanging out drinking talking about it, you know, enjoying us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would be so honored if somebody did that with ours, like kick off a hangout by listening to all, please.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let us know if you do that would be just such an honor.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I do think it's just important to highlight.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're highlighting this and really in the next episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to just talk about a lot of the how like yeah we practice is for breaking through.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes to that life of of joy, maturity, selflessness because these, this is this is a little bit depressing.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about all the things that get in the way, all the ways you get stuck trying to name them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we want to give you practical.

[SPEAKER_01]: things to try in your life now on how to break through and start to give your life away in a holy manner, but that's for the next step.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the next one.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we're especially going to dig it on anger because that's a very common one for humans, but men especially.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think parents, anger is a common one for parents because they're dealing with the stresses of their life, marriage, parenting, the dynamics of all that.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a very easy space to become very frustrated in angry.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so we're going to get into all that, but [SPEAKER_04]: Give your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's the way God designed you to be.

[SPEAKER_04]: Live into your design as a father.

[SPEAKER_04]: Your fatherhood needs you to give your life away.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you will be so blessed for it.

[SPEAKER_04]: You were made for it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Until next time.