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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Dad Tired podcast, specifically this new segment on our show called Caleb's Corner, uh, where my actual pastor, Caleb Allen, is teaching us every week. Right now, we're in the middle of a series that he's taken us through called Finding Jesus in the Wilderness of Your Soul.
This is part two of that series. If you miss part one, make sure to go back to last week's episode. Again, these are called Caleb's Corner. And it's every Wednesday he's going to teach us. So make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss anything. And um, we're very fortunate to have him teaching us every week.
Also, this is on Spotify and on YouTube, so if you prefer to watch in video form, you can go on those platforms and watch it on video. Otherwise, I'll step outta the way and we'll dive into part two with Pastor Caleb on finding Jesus in the wilderness of your soul.
All we're back at wilderness themes. I'm trying to. Wrestle through a life when life gets muddy and hard. Remember we talked about the fact that what the patriarchs, early church fathers, many commentators, writers have kind of drawn out is that there's this common experience in the life of a believer in their, in their process of maturation and the process of discipleship where we come to these places on our journey where we feel tired, we feel confused, we feel dry.
We feel desperate and we don't really know how to navigate, how to fix it, and God really seems to be sifting us and growing to the surface purging us. John Cryto said this, the wilderness is a training ground for the soul where one learns and endurance and virtue away from the distractions of the city.
It's in the wilderness that the soul, through deprivation and struggle is cleansed and prepared for communion with God. And then other words, he's saying the, the wilderness. This, this season of feeling confused and tired and empty, dry this season is the training ground of the spirit where he's developing you, where he's a drawing to the surface false ideas and sifting out false expectations.
We see this like in the life of Moses in the wilderness, Elijah in the wilderness. That's really the parallel that they're drawing, right? When, when John the Baptist goes out to the wilderness to be alone, to hear from God, to wrestle, um, the Apostle Paul says that he goes out to the wilderness for a season before his public ministry.
Jesus. In the wilderness, there's this parallel being drawn between what the wilderness brings. Confusion. Trial like the wilderness always brings trial, um, frustration. A, a dryness. I. They're really trying to show that the wilderness is a part of God's plan. It's the most uncomfortable season. It's a really frustrating season, but it is a part of God's plan.
I was, maybe three or four years ago, I was struggling in a season and I got to the point where my wife said, Hey, like you, you're gonna need to talk to a counselor. You need to talk to somebody. When your wife says that, you say, yes, ma'am. And so I call a friend of a friend and he kind of begins the diagnosis process with me and he's saying, okay, how's your marriage?
Marriage is doing great. I love my wife. She's incredible. She's a gift. How are your children? Are they struggling with rebellion? Are you, are you frustrated as a dad? Are you experiencing anger now? My kids are really funny. Like I really enjoy them. I'm thankful to be a dad. And then he goes like, well, what about the church?
Your pastor in your church or a new, you know, a younger pastor. A new pastor? What's going on there? Church is great. Love the people. Church is good. Then he starts like dialing down sin issues. Are you dealing with pornography? No. Are you dealing with materialism? No. Are you living by the ego hoping to be seen and be No.
No. I don't know. Then he's like gets to this place and the conversation where the counselor just kinda says, well, what's wrong? And I'm responding like I, I don't know what's wrong. If I could point to an issue and fix it, I would. What I'm experiencing is not something I can articulate. I can't just say I'm having financial problems because I don't budget, and we overspend and we got ourselves in credit card debt and so now we need Dave Ramsey.
This isn't that. I'm just dry and gassed. And so the wilderness is a bit different, man. It's, it's not, again, something that you fully understand and we pointed out that that. St. John the cross said that the wilderness was something that the spirit led you into, the spirit initiated. It's not something, it's not a mistake that you made in a bed that you're now lying in.
And so as I, as I kind of approach wilderness, last week we talked about the spirits of being dry. And you know, I, I go out on a boat and I feel happy and I go out to the beach with my kids and I feel life. But in the wilderness, nothing really produces. That experience of zeal for life that I used to have.
And so we, we said things like, some of us go out with friends, or you go out and have good food and you do those things to, to really draw, uh, to enjoy life and to, but, but in the wilderness, those things kind of again, dry up. And then you're forced to just keep coming to look at Jesus and saying, what's wrong?
What's happening in me? What am I experiencing? And John of the cross said that this is oftentimes we're experiencing detachment. The, the good food and the friends and the boat and the sun can't satisfy you. Um, you've been distracted with those things. And so God in the wilderness trips him back from you and makes you look at him.
And when I look at him, then I start, come to the place where I realize that, uh, the only fountain I can really drink from is Jesus, the presence of Jesus, the person of Jesus. And so the wilderness, the dryness, actually teaches me to thirst for real water, for living water. Today I wanna approach this idea of this common experience of.
Confusion. This thing that we all experience, we call it fog. We call it confusion, despair. St. Jar of the cross again said that the soul's journey in darkness as in a wilderness, feeling lost and without the light of direction. This darkness is a trial where one feels abandoned and uncertain as though in a fog, abandoned and uncertain as though in a fog, the fogginess.
Lack of clarity, the lack of discernment, the lack of perspective can be really, really frustrating, especially for men, right? If I can understand it, I can fix it. Um, but there's this fogginess that comes and, and it is, there are times where sin brings you to fogginess. There are times where, um, the enemy brings you to fogginess, but then there are times where you stumble into these seasons and God allows you to sit down in uncertainty for a season to teach you a few things.
I was talking about a couple weeks ago. CS Lewis' book, the Problem of Pain. The Problem of Pain is this really articulate description of the way in which God allows and redeems suffering. And CS Lewis really wrote it in it season of his life that was pretty healthy. But later in life, his wife, joy Davidman who.
Had cancer, he was in remission. They really thought things were going well. She eventually passes of cancer and he writes a book called The Grief, observed the Grief. Uh, a grief observed. A grief observed is is not clear and concise and articulate. It's emotional and it's kinda shaking his fist at God.
And he says things like, no one ever told me that grief feels so much like panic. So he is saying there's anxiety and there's this stress and there's this fear that I'm experiencing. Um. You really see why a delineation in the way that Lewis articulates suffering when he's thinking clearly and the way that Lewis articulates his suffering in his trial, his grief when he's living under a fog.
And so there are just a few things that, that I wanna show you from scripture and and from some of the church fathers that I think would help us when we approach this idea of fogginess or a lack of clarity when we get into these kind of wilderness seasons. One. Oftentimes what what really, um, shows up in my life is that there's, in the wilderness, I realize that I have put some false expectations on God, and I've begun to relate to God as if he is kind of a divine vending machine.
Okay? And so if God's a vending machine and I put in my tithe and I put in my service, and I put in my showing up to church, then what I should get out is. Comfort and joy and peace, but in the wilderness I'm putting in and I'm not getting out what I wanted to get out, and so now I'm left feeling confused.
But the confusion's actually not this lack of understanding and fog. It's what's actually happening is I've been living on false premises and now all of a sudden there come to the surface. So God blesses us because he loves to bless us, but for seasons, it feels like he withdraws his hand to force us to look at his face again.
And that really matters because the entire Christian Gospel is built on the premise not of works, right? Like, I don't earn God's favor. I don't earn God's love. Am I showing up to church? Because I think that in showing up to church, God will have to gimme peace. If I've begun to relate to God that way, I've slidden into a strange workspace life, and I, and I've forgotten Ephesians two, that this salvation is by grace.
Through faith, I've, I've forgotten that Jesus bore the penalty of all my rebellion and that there's nothing I could do to earn God's love. There's nothing I could do to lose God's love. I've begun to treat God. Like we're in a contractual relationship and not a kind of covenantal, intimate relationship.
So the first thing I would say is that oftentimes we have this, these weird false expectations we put on God. And what comes to the surface is I actually treat you like a vending machine and not like a father. And that helps to settle down and just to come back to the place where you say, God, the cross is enough for me.
If I, the business keeps failing and my relationships are in turmoil and nobody likes me and I feel gross and tired, whatever, the cross is enough, and I love you. I love you. Even when I don't feel like you're giving me the things that I want you to give me, I just love you too. So we have these false expectations on God that, that sometimes he closes his hand to force you to look at him again.
He's going to bless you again here. The season stops, wilderness stops. But he does want you to remember that, that, that he's a father who loves you and, and the cross did everything, not your work. And we show up to church and we give, and we tithe, and we serve the poor, not because we're trying to earn God's favor.
We're for lack of better words, like we're not operating in this kind of Mormonism, Harmon system here. We show up and we give, and we tithe and we love and we serve out of a heart of thankfulness. Right. All the Christian life is an expression of thankfulness. Thank you God for the cross. And when you get that twisted, God will dry everything up to bring you back to stability, back to a place where you remember that it's all by the grace of God because of the cross of Jesus.
Okay? Two, I think especially as men, we need to understand, okay, and we need God to operate by means and in ways that we understand. When God quits doing that, we get flustered. Um, and what I wanna say, like really quickly is that God's ways are higher than our waste. One. God is two. God is not responsible in any way to explain to you or to articulate to you why he's doing what he's doing when he's doing it.
God, God, you, you are not God's kind of IRS. Uh, you're, you're not God's check. You're not, you're not. God's audit is the word I'm looking for you. You don't get to audit God. Um, he, he gets to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He has an, like an autonomous will. He? He is, and he's, and he's sovereign.
And not only is he sovereign, but he's omniscient. And so he, he knows what he's doing and no matter how much you want to pretend like this, three pound hunk of matter in your skull is able to explain to God what you need him when you need it. It's just not the case. And so when we come back to this place of God is a father who never allows us to go through pain or lack without purpose, then we begin to trust his character as father more than our own understanding of what he's doing.
Um, would say this, sometimes he would say, um, he says, this isn't a grief observe. He said, I never understood why people would say they, they would never fear God because he's good. Haven't they ever been to the dentist? In other words, um, the dentist is good. He's still gonna drill in your mouth. Um, and, and God, God, God is that he, he is good and everything he does refer us, shapes us, and, and it's leading towards our christlikeness.
But he doesn't always feel good. Not only does it not always feel good, but I don't always understand it. And so when we come to the wilderness, we have to trust God's character and not our understanding of how God's operating. I'm gonna trust. His heart and quit looking at what his hands are doing. Three Lied.
His steadfast love endures forever. That's kinda resound of the psalm, the resound of Moses' life. He'll never leave you nor forsake you. You have got to settle into this truth. He is with you and he is for you even when you don't feel it. Okay, so the third thing I would say is his presence is near. So in your thinking, in your confusion, when you start to hear and start to believe God's abandoned me and God's left me, and you have to retreat to the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.
He never leaves nor forsakes. He is for me. And, and there I'm reminded that no matter what life feels like, the truth is that he's with me. And maybe six months ago I was sitting in a prayer meeting and just kind of felt God's. Do you know? Um, not, it's not like I heard God audibly, but just kind of a thought rushed into my mind.
Caleb, I'm with you and it shocked me. Caleb, I'm with you. And almost immediately after that I started going through some real trial, some real frustration and some real insecurity, and that, that, that line that I heard. Caleb, I'm with you and I'm looking, obviously that's in line with scripture. Um, I don't leave you my stead love endures, um, um, for you that, that those ideas had to carry me.
That God is near, God is with me. I, I didn't earn his love and I haven't lost it. I just have not lost his love. It's secure. Jesus says, uh, and John, no one can pluck you from my hands. No one plucks you from my hands. And so in your confusion in your spare, don't allow the enemy or your own kind of faulty thinking.
Convince you that because you don't understand what's happening, God must be distant, not true. The last thing I would say, and this isn't profoundly helpful, but it's helpful when you are wrestling through the wilderness, is this, today you might feel confused. Today, you might feel foggy. Today, you might feel like you're living in a dark cloud.
Perspective is coming. You will in time be able to look back on the timeout of your life. And understand what God was doing, especially in glory. In glory. When we're finally with you, you'll understand all of the bruises and the bumps. Again, no father allows or, or initiates pain or lack in the life of the children without purpose.
I don't put, you know, string around my daughter's tooth and yank the tooth out because I wanna see her cry, but the tooth needs to come out. And so in the same way, you'll understand what God's doing later. And so sometimes you have to rest and that maybe friends is the most frustrating thing about the wilderness.
Everything seems to be going wrong and everything seems to not be right, and God keeps looking at you and saying, can you rest in me now? Can you rest in me now? Can you trust me now? Do you love me now? And I would say that rest, settle down. You're going to understand what he's doing, but probably not today.
So to kind of back up and, and re-articulate the, a couple things that I think would help you is confusion is sometimes a part, right? God's not the God of confusion. The confusion is usually mine, not his. Um, but he doesn't always fix it for me right away. Confusion seems to sometimes be a part one.
Sometimes the confusion is because of my false expectations. I expect God fix everything from me all the time, and he's not doing that right now. And so I'm frustrated. So sometimes I need to reevaluate my expectations and I need to come back to the place where I just say, God, the cross is enough. What you've done for me, this far in life has been beautiful and profound, and I'm so grateful.
And if you never do anything else for me, I'm gonna keep giving, serving, showing up, loving the poor, caring for the orphan anyway, because you have been that good to me. So, um, you fix this, kind of the first thing you have to do is fix this kind of transactional relationship that you've built in your mind.
I put in good works. God gives me out comfortable life, and you return to the place where God is the loving shepherd, the Father, the master of my life, who has the right to poke and probe and shift and change and refine me. So first I rebrace that, that God gets to refine me and he's not a vending machine.
Second, I trust his character more than I trust my own understanding. I understand that he does not have the responsibility to explain to me what he's doing and why he's doing it. When I can't see his hand in my life, I trust his heart. Third, I believe his presence is with me always right? Sometimes I have chill bumps and I just know he is in the room and it's awesome, and sometimes I feel dry and tired.
He's still in the room and he's still awesome, and so his presence is near. He never leaves me or forsakes me. His love is steadfast. It pursues me. It ease for me. I didn't earn it, and I'm not losing it. And the last thing I would say is that perspective is coming. This too will pass and you will eventually understand that God is shaping you.
So I love this and we'll get into this more in the future. Think of John the Baptist in the wilderness. Lonely, right? He's clearly that. It's clear that he's experienced some loneliness. Um, he's kind of locked in on the whole idea of detachment. He's just living for God alone. He's gonna preach hard messages.
He, he really doesn't care about the opinions of man. But think of him coming out of the wilderness. And when he comes out of the wilderness, he's kind of baptized in power. He's blazing with authority, he's preaching, he's on fire with purpose. Okay? And so remember this, the wilderness feels awful, but when you come out of it, you're gonna come out with a greater measure of understanding, a greater measure of Christ's likeness, a greater sense of call.
Um, it's it. When it's all said and done, you'll say, God, thank you for what you've done in me, even when it hurt. Alright. I hope that's helpful. Keep leaning, keep pressing. Jump in with me next week and we'll, we'll tackle a few more concepts of what do we do when life feels dry and tired and gassing and, and, and you can't fix it.
What do we do when the spirit seems to take us to the world? Alright man. Love y'all for you. I'm in your corner, praying for you here. Talk to you soon.