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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. Today's episode of the Dad Tired podcast is brought to you by lc Coffee. You may have heard that we have a dad tired blend. Now through our partnership with our friends over at lc Coffee too. The coffee is amazing. Quite literally, I'm not exaggerating. Uh, a lot of people have been saying this is the best coffee that they've ever had.
We went through so many different rounds and blends. I even had tried different coffee shops before. But I went with lc Coffee because one, I love their values, they value people over product. And so I just wanted to work with a company that really loves everything down from the farmer to their employees, to the community, and then obviously makes great coffee and that's what they do.
But we created a, an amazing blend of coffee and did it specifically for the Dad Tire guy. So if you go to dad tire.com, click the shop tab or go to shop.dad tire.com. You can see our partnership there. When you get a bag of coffee, you'll learn all about lc Coffee and all the values. You can go to their website, you can sign up for subscriptions or get any more of their products through them specifically, but I'm just such a huge fan of them.
Again, these guys are dad tired owned company. What I mean by that is they are guys who, the guys who own the company are dad's hired listeners. They're part of our community. These aren't just some random guys. That wanted to partner with DA Tire. These are actual DA Tire community guys and uh, they make a great product.
But again, their biggest thing is they just love Jesus. They love people really well, and they make a really, really good cup of coffee. So thank you lc Roasters Coffee Company for uh, sponsoring today's episode. Thanks for putting together a great DA tire blend. Again, go to shop.dad tire.com. You can pick up a, um, bag of lc Coffee with our Dad Tire Partnership and then learn all about them and what they have going over there.
Alright. That being said, let's dive into today's episode.
So I'm doing this little series, I don't even know if it's a series. I don't know how long we're gonna talk about this. This could be the last time. But last week I mentioned that I wanted to talk about the qualities of a healthy man. Some of the qualities, and by the way, I, I said this last week, and I'll say it again this week.
These are some of the qualities we could go on for, you know, we could write entire books about all the qualities that a healthy man would possess. But I'm just naming some of the qualities that I think a healthy man should have. And if you look at a healthy man, you're like, what makes that guy healthy?
Practically holistically, what does it mean for him to be healthy? I think these are some of the characteristics that you would see if you pooled a bunch of holistically healthy men, and you ask them like, what are you doing that makes you into a place where you're emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, in a healthy spot?
I think if you polled a bunch of those guys, you'd probably see some similarities. So that's what I'm trying to talk about today and over the last couple weeks, is what are the similarities that we see in holistically healthy men? So anyway, last week I talked about sleep and silence. As a very, very quick recap, the ability a healthy man has the ability to sit in silence.
Uh, unhealthy man can't stand silence. He has to numb it out at all costs because he's afraid that. If it's silent and he's left alone with his own thoughts, that the real him or the things that he's been trying to push down are going to come up to the surface. And so an unhealthy man has to constantly stay mentally stimulated or physically stimulated, however.
They can get their brain to push down the things that are subconsciously trying to rise up, bubble up into their soul and into their conscience. And so, um, an unhealthy man is addicted to things. An unhealthy man drinks maybe too much or looks at pornography. An unhealthy man overwork, an unhealthy man, can't set his phone down.
He has to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, or buying and buying and buying. Any way that he can just keep the noise of his brain and his soul and his conscience, the volume of his soul up so that he doesn't have to sit in silence because he's afraid that in the silence something might come up that he's not really ready to deal with.
And so a healthy man has the ability, the discipline, to sit in silence, to be able to sit in his own thoughts and to think, what do I really think about these things? Or more specifically. What do I really think about what is going on in my own soul? A healthy man has the ability to sit in silence and to ask himself and God, is there anything in me that offends you?
God? And then has the guts to sit and listen. I. And to address in his own soul whatever thing comes up. That's hard to do, bro. Like that's hard to do. But that's why there are very few healthy men and there are a lot more unhealthy men. 'cause most guys don't wanna do that. It takes a lot of guts and humility and self-awareness to just sit in the silence and say, all right, Lord, whatever you want to do here.
I'm willing to listen. Are there things in me that you want to deal with? But dude, that guy, the healthy man, is able to deal with it in his own soul, in the quiet places. And he does it consistently and often so that when the stuff hits in life, when the things, the hard conversations come up. He's been there.
He's been there mentally, he's been there spiritually. He's gone through that stuff already in the silence, in the quiet places. So, uh, he can handle the real world and all that that has to offer. So that's what a healthy man does. He also is able to sleep well. Like practically, A healthy man takes his sleep well.
Now let me just say this very clearly. Can you be a man who loves Jesus and who is saved and leading your family well, and you're on a terrible sleep schedule for sure. Dude. Some of my best friends are first responders and they got crazy schedules and they're working graveyard shifts and they're constantly physically tired and they're great dads and they're great men and they're doing a good job.
Is that the ideal? No, for sure not. They would tell you. That this is not ideal, that they don't feel like they're at their peak best mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, if they're not sleeping well. And so when we're talking about what does it mean to be healthy, we're not talking about perfection.
We're just talking about these are the the things that we want to grow in and get better in so that we can become more healthy in all the ways. Now all that being said, as a little recap from last week, if you haven't listened to it, you should go back and listen to that episode. But as I say all that, and I recapped those two things, I'm laughing to myself because bro, I could not be more exhausted today.
Everything in me did not wanna record this podcast today. Everything in me, I am so tired. In fact, so, you know, I told you last week, I'm trying very hard to take my sleep hygiene seriously. Have a good sleep rhythm. Go to the bed at the same time. Don't look at screens. I don't have my phone near my bed.
Try not to watch tv. All the things to have good sleep hygiene so that I can be the best husband, father, disciple that God's created me to be. So I went to bed at like a, a embarrassing hour to my 20-year-old friends. I was like in bed 8 45 at night. Snuggling up, had the window open. It was cold, it was rainy.
I, there's a thunderstorm, it was romantic, but my wife didn't think so 'cause she fell asleep and like was snoring. So that didn't turn out the way that I wanted to. Sorry babe. Sorry if you're listening to that. Anyway, uh, it was, it was romantic by myself. That sounds so weird. There was a storm and it was cool.
The lightning was shaking, the thunder was shaking our windows, and I have such terrible a, DDI go off on terrible tangents, so it's, I got the window open. I'm in bed in an early hour. I probably fall asleep, I don't know, nine 30. I'm like actually asleep. I've been tracking my sleep on my, uh, on my watch. I go to bed like nine 30 and uh, two in the morning.
My daughter, who, my 2-year-old who we are still, she's on like the tail end of potty training. She does great during the day, but at night. We're trying to get her like completely potty trained, no accidents in bed. So she wakes up and has to go to the restroom. So at two in the morning, bro, every light in the house is on.
Just somehow her little 2-year-old body sounds like a herd of elephants just running through this place. And for some reason, she also needs every single light on to go to the bathroom. So she comes in, barges into our room, turns on every light, and just. Pitter patters her way. There's a bathroom closer to her bedroom, but for some reason, ours seemed like the best one, and to let us all know what she was doing seemed like a better idea to her.
So she turned on all the lights and did her thing. And I was able to go to sleep until she came back in at two 30 in the morning and repeated that entire process. So I have been up. I was not able to go to sleep that second time. So I've been up since two 30 in the morning. It's 1230 now. I'm not trying to be a baby.
I'm not trying to get sympathy or pity from you. I know you're all tired. Dad, but I'm just saying, dude, I'm like super tired. If you're watching this on YouTube, you might be able to see that the bags under my eyes just are massive because I'm so tired. You know when you're so tired that like you can feel your brain trying to think like create a pathway in the moment.
Like I know there's something going on over here on the right side and needs to get over here to the left side, and it's like, it's just. Trudging through mud to try to like make the thought mid-sentence. I'm like, okay, where's this gonna go? Where? How are we gonna end the sentence? Truly no idea. 'cause I can't even see the finish line here.
That's how tired my brain feels. So all that to say, I'm trying to be a healthy man who has good sleep habits and good sleep patterns, and sleep hygiene, and I'm just utterly exhausted. That being said, today, I wanna talk about two other qualities. When it comes to being a healthy man holistically, and that is, I'm keeping with the cheesy alliteration here.
So last week was silence and sleep. And today I wanna talk about friends and fitness. Just churches, love Christians, love cheesy alliteration, and I'm all for it today. So we're just gonna stick with the cheesy alliterations we could. Is that an literation? Yeah, that's an literation. I was thinking of, uh, what's it called when you do like, uh.
Like when you spell out fear, like the whole sermon is like on fear faithfulness, extraordinary anti-Christ spirit. I don't know where I'm gonna see, that's one of the examples of my brain not knowing where we're going at the end of that. That's not called alliteration. What's that called? I don't know.
Email me, tell me what it's called. So friends and fitness is what we're gonna call today. So last week I talked about silence, and some of you listened to that episode on silence, and you probably thought to yourself, dude, that's really hard. I can't sit in silence. This is, how am I gonna get rid of all the distractions?
So that was a challenge for you. Others of you listened to last week's episode and you heard about silence. Maybe you're listening to my introduction. Or my recap of last week, and you hear silence and you're like, dude, that I'm all for it. I'm a tired dad. My house is crazy. There's kids running around. I got my wife always talking to me about stuff I need to work on, and I would love nothing more than silence.
Give me all the silence. Gimme just years of silence. I'll sit in it forever, dude. I'll take naps. In that silence. I'll think about all the things. I'll go to the depths of my soul. If you just gimme some peace and quiet, maybe that's you. Maybe you are naturally bent to be an introvert and you think to yourself, dude, like that, Jared, finally, you're saying something that I can resonate with.
I would love me some silence and I can sit in it forever. Here's the thing, bro. Silence is good for sure, in short periods of time. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour maybe. Maybe your commute. You just turn off this podcast, you turn off the music, and you just sit in quiet and silence, and you pray, and you ask God to reveal things in your soul.
God, is there anything in me that offends you? That's all good weeks of silence, days of silence, years of isolating yourself. Really, really unhealthy. I think I told you guys this, well, I know I've told you this. I've written about it in the dad tired books and I've shared it many times on this podcast.
But there was that time in my marriage that was, we were just like falling apart, dude. Like falling apart, brink, a divorce. Really, really bad spot. And I noticed in hindsight, looking back at that time of my life. I was purposely isolating myself. I did not want to be, I knew I could have gone to some Christian buddies.
I knew I could have gone back to some friends from the church or some older, wiser men, but none of me wanted any of that. I just wanted to be by myself. I was like looking for every possible way to be by myself. And when you're by yourself, man. Like I said, for the first 10, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, it's good.
It's like, all right, especially if you're intentional, you're not just sitting there kind of like numb, just staring out into the distance, which I know our wives think that's like what we're doing, but if you're intentional, you're asking yourself some intentional questions. You're praying, it's so good.
It's good for your soul. It's good to do that on a regular basis, but long term. Silence that leads to isolation, not good. And that's what I was doing. I was pushing everybody away. And when you do that, when you start to isolate yourself, and I'm not talking about just si obviously I was talking to people during that time, but like I was purposely kind of pushing people away.
And dude, when you're starting to live more in your brain, more in your thoughts than you are in the real world, you go to some weird places, dude, and you know that. You know that like if you're a man and you try to convince yourself that like you're a pretty normal guy and you try to convince your wife, you're a normal guy, and everyone around you like you're just like the average Joe.
But bro, you know, Paul Washer said this at one time that if we just took. The thoughts that you've had in the last 24 hours and we were able to project them on a screen for everybody to see you would be mortified. You would run out of the room embarrassed because dude, you think some weird stuff. Uh, 'cause we all do.
I. We all think some weird stuff. And so what we don't want to do is get in a spot where we're isolating. We're spending so much time in silence. And by silence I mean like we're isolation. We're not having good, thoughtful conversations with the people that we love around us. Our brain goes to really weird places, and that's what I was doing, man.
That's the reason I was contemplating divorce. I contemplated other things to say that I, this is really vulnerable. I don't know if I've ever shared this, but, you know, suicide came into my brain during that time. I was like, I'm failing as a husband and as a dad, as a man. I was in ministry and now I'm, I'm not doing that anymore.
Like I thought, I didn't know what God's call was on my life. I didn't even know, like, is does God even have a call in my life? My life just feels really worthless and it's failing and I, I feel like I. Would rather give up at this point, if I'm being totally honest, those were some of the thoughts I was thinking.
My brain went to weird places. I was not in a healthy spot because I was isolating myself. There's this verse in John chapter three that says, for everyone who does wicked things, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. Whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
That's John three, chapter three, verse 20 and 21. Dude that I relate to that so deeply, I was in sin, I was far from God. I was thinking some weird stuff, and I was, all I wanted to do was be in the darkness and I did not want to be around the light. Now the scriptures refer to Jesus as the light, the light of the world, so we know that Jesus.
God is the light, and then he puts his light, his spirit inside of us. Now, think about that song and all the scripture that backs it up. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. That comes from the passage where Jesus says, shine like a, like a city on a hill. Like you're, you're bringing light.
Your salt and light, you're bringing goodness and light to the world, A dark world. And if you just think about our world, it's like super dark and there's, there's some wicked evil stuff out there. And so when God, the light himself, revelation says that we won't even need a son when Jesus comes back, we won't even need a son because his glory.
We'll be so radiant. It will outshine. It will, it will replace the sun. So when we're talking about light, we're not just talking about physical light, although it seems to be that impression that the glory of God is light, but it's also this, this goodness, this beauty, this, the kingdom of God is everything.
Against the evil, everything against wickedness, everything against the schemes of the enemy. And so God puts that light in as himself light inside of his believers. And he says, go be a city on a hill. Go be salt and light. Salt meaning like you're gonna add flavor to the dull world around you. Be light.
And so you as a person who might be isolating or feels like you're deep in sin or far from God and you, you're living in darkness or you have dark parts of your soul, the last thing you want is to be around people who are carrying the light inside of them. And so you try to isolate yourself from real friendships and from real near believers.
It's just easier to go be with the buddies and watch a game and have a couple beers, or be around your work friends or whatever, because the light isn't gonna expose you. And you're not super worried about it. You're not worried about the shadows of your soul. But for a man who's healthy, as verse 21 says, but whoever does what is true, another way you could say that is the healthy man.
Comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. I'm okay being around people who are carrying the spirit of God in them because I, I don't wanna hide. I'm not afraid of what's going on in my life. I don't have these shadows. That's where I want to be as a healthy man.
That's where. I hope, and I imagine that's where I imagine you want to be as a healthy man, is the ability, the calmness, the peace to be able to walk into a room full of Christians and not feel guilty by the light around them or in them. You feel a sense of like, no, I'm, I'm okay being in the presence of God.
'cause I know I'm a, I'm un delighted in sun, um, redeemed. God is taking my mess, the shadows of my soul, and he's making them brand new. And so. As I was coming out of that really terrible place in my marriage, one of the first things I wrote about this in the, the first Dad tired book, but one of the first things I did was I told Layla, we just need to have more people in our house.
'cause I know I've been isolating myself so that at that time she bought me a Polaroid camera so we could take pictures of people that came over. Some might have to explain a Polaroid camera to some of you young guys listening, it's like a camera that. You know, you push a button and a picture comes out.
Super cool technology. Anyway, we would take these pictures of friends that came over to our house for dinner and we put it on the wall. And that was a reminder to me that dude, if I am by myself, if I don't have Godly people around me, people around me who are gonna be the light, my brain will go to some dark places.
And so what does it mean to be a healthy man? It means to come outta the light and have friends. Where you can be around the light. So you may have heard me, we've talked about friendship on this podcast before. I've written about it. You've probably heard about it. And if you've been around, dad's Tired.
We talk about friendship a lot. We want to be, have real friendships. I can't stand being part of these church groups that we just talk about cheesy stuff and like, what do you do? What do you do? How was your week? Good, bro. Did you catch the game? Crazy weather this week, dude. None of us have time for that, bro.
Like we're trying to. Win a race. We're trying to live in a world that's just amongst an, an evil and an enemy that hates you and hates your marriage and hates your kids and wants everything possible to destroy your soul. And we're gonna talk about the weather. I. Like, bro, we need to have much deeper conversations.
I need to sit with a bunch of guys and not talk about the game. I need to sit with a bunch of guys and say, dude, I am struggling deeply with this and I need your help to hold me accountable. Shine the light on the dark areas of my soul, because if the dark areas. Overwhelm me. I'm gonna go to a really dark place mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally.
I'm gonna go to a dark place if these shadows start to consume the whole house of my brain and soul. So please, brother, be real. Don't talk about the game. Shine the light, bro. Be a city on a hill in my life so that you bring salt and light to my life. Brother, I need you. We cannot have these like surface level shallow conversations.
So we talk about this in the dad tired community a lot. Talk about that on the podcast a lot. And maybe you're thinking to yourself like, dude, that must be nice. Like, yeah, I would love some friends like that. I'm gonna give you one thought here. As we start to wrap up, I think most men, most likely I'll talk to you specifically, you probably already have a best friend in your life, in your existing circle.
The kind of friendship that you're longing for probably isn't external, outside of your current network. I bet you for most guys, for you listening, for most of you listening, the kind of friendship that you're longing for. Where you can be honest, fully known, fully loved, confess all you're sent to, share your struggle, share your junk.
Like just be completely honest and real. I bet you that kind of friend is already in your circle. What's happening is somebody is lacking some intentionality, and I've got a group of guys who I meet with regularly every week. Now. These guys have been in my life for the last couple years, and they're dude, solid friends, closest friends in my life, but in the last.
Couple months we've been sharing stuff that we haven't told anybody else in our lives, and our friendship has gone to a whole other level, like deep, deep friendship. And the healing that we're experiencing here is just like I. Unreal unheard of. The only thing that changed, it wasn't that I had to go meet new friends or go find new friends or go like, put an ad on Craigslist.
Nobody uses Craigslist. That's weird. Put an ad on Facebook like, Hey, in search of a friend that I can be vulnerable with, you know, hit me up. It wasn't that it was just taking my existing network of guys, guys that I already like. I respect this guy. I like this guy. And us being willing to share some, be vulnerable with each other and share some stuff with each other.
And you guys know this, like you know this in your head. But usually when there's one guy that shares something that he's really struggling with and he confesses and he is honest, it usually breeds authenticity within the rest of the group. And then you just take shovels and you dig way under the surface of each other's souls and everybody walks away healed.
I was telling one of those guys. The confession of sin to God. Roman says, if you confess your sins to God, he's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Praise God, dude. Like you're a forgiven man. You could be an addict. You can be addicted to things. You could be sinful. I.
You could be tripping up over the same sins. You could have a short temper and deal with lust and all the things, and you confess your sins to God and he's faithful and just He will forgive you of all that. You can die an addict and still go to heaven because God has forgiven you. It's not perfection.
He no longer sees you in the midst of your mess. Now, should we be working and striving towards holiness? Absolutely. That's part of the discipleship journey, but you won't be perfect and you're gonna die a sinner full of sin and habitual sins and all that stuff. And if you do, God still, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your unrighteousness.
If you trust him as savior, that's really good news. But a lot of dudes are forgiven. You're walking around forgiven, but you're not actually healed. Because James says, if you want to be healed, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you might find healing. And this is just a God being gracious here.
He's already forgiven you, but now he wants you as his son to experience healing. And so I just don't know of a truly healthy man. Who doesn't have a group of friends around him like that who are actually healthy, who are actually confessing sin to each other? I can't imagine saying that you're healthy and not having an outlet among brothers where you're being honest.
I. I could be naive in that, I could be wrong. There's probably exceptions to that, but for the most part, if you are like, dude, I want to be a healthy man, holistically healthy for the sake of my own soul, for the sake of my marriage, for the sake of my kids, I want to be a healthy man. I wanna be on a deathbed when I'm old, and to be proud of the race that I ran.
I don't know of a guy who can do that. Legitimately without having solid dues around him who he's honest with. Because if you're not, you find yourself isolated and just swimming in the darkness and in darkness, your brain goes to weird places and sin festers, and bitterness festers and pride festers and lust festers, and all the things that you're chasing after in your own flesh grow.
But when you're near the light, you start to become more like Jesus, AKA. You start to become healthier. So do you wanna be a healthy man? It's going to take having a couple, not a hundred, not 500, not a dozen. A couple dudes around you, 2, 3, 4 guys around you who know you and love you. He's probably already in your network.
He's probably already in your circle. It's just gonna take a little bit of intentionality. Hey, let's meet together every week. Let's share honestly the things that we share. Let's keep it in the circle. Nobody knows. We don't have to go share and gossip and you know, tell everyone else about this. This sticks between us, but this is a safe space where we become the men that God is calling us to be so that we could be healed and become the husband's healed, husbands, fathers, disciples that God is calling us to be.
I'm not sure how you become a healthy man without that, and so maybe you pause right now and say, I need that. I need to be that friend to somebody else, and I need that kind of friend in my life. And so, God, and I'm, I'm challenging to you to quite literally pray this right now. God reveal to me who that guy is if he's in my life.
Like, just show me who it is, gimme clarity on who it is, Lord, gimme clarity on what I need to cut out of my life in order to have a deeper, more intentional friendship with this guy. Is there someone or something that I need to cut out? Work buddies, habits, fantasy football. Whatever the thing is that I need to cut out to shave off some time in my schedule so that I can spend more time with this guy or these group of guys, and then give me the courage Lord to actually be bold, to confess sin, to share, vulnerably to be honest, and give them the courage, God to.
Reciprocate that, that they would be bold and courageous and share honestly as well. I'm gonna take a quick break here and tell you about something really cool, but before we jump or when we jump back in, I'm just gonna spend just a couple minutes talking about your fitness, which some of you just cringed at that like, oh, Jesus.
Don't stop the episode now. I promise it will be helpful. Hang with me. All right guys. I do wanna spend a minute on the back end of this podcast episode talking specifically about what it looks like to be men who are physically healthy. So that we can lead our families well. But first, wanna tell you about a really cool opportunity for you if you've maybe been thinking about starting your own podcast.
I know a lot of you listening have toyed around with the idea. Maybe for your business, you run a company and you think a podcast might help you get more leads or more sales, maybe your pastor or work in ministry, and you wanna figure out how your church can do a podcast that reaches people in your church and beyond maybe in your community.
Maybe you just have a hobby. You like talking about sports or you know you wanna start one with your son or your daughter or your wife, and you have no idea where to begin, but you'd love to learn. I am personally walking through 10 people every month, what it looks like to start their podcast, to grow their podcast.
And if it makes sense for you to monetize your podcast, we'll cover everything from editing, logistics, how to set up interviews, how to get brand sponsors. All the way to how do you conduct an interview? What do you say during an interview? How do you stay consistent when you feel fatigued of doing too many episodes?
Or how do you come up with new content? How do you title your interview? All of that stuff. We cover everything. And again, I'll hold your hand through that entire process. If you've ever considered starting a podcast, I would love to help you do it. You can go to pod to finish.com. Again, that's pod to finish.com, POD.
To finish.com and you can sign up to join that. Alright, let's jump back into today's episode. All right. As we dive into the last couple minutes of our time together today, I wanna talk about physical fitness being physically healthy. Now, I just wanna preface this by saying I am not, you've taken our family leadership program.
You've probably heard me say this. We have a whole lesson on this. Uh, I have a morning routine where I do some like stretches and pushups and things like that. I'm, dude, I'm not a fitness guy. Like, I don't know anything about fitness really. I'm not like a fitness, I'm not trying to be a personal trainer or tell you all the cool diets that you should be taking.
I have no idea. This dude. Talking in this microphone right now will slam a sleeve of Oreos. Like, dude, I'll go into a competition and do it. Seen that hot dog eating contest where they dip those hot dogs in water and then they just shove 'em down, like swallow them whole. I could do that with a whole package of Oreos, no problem.
So I'm not Sounds good too, dude. Like even me just saying that, I'm like, okay, I might need to hit that up after I'm not your fitness guy. All right. So I don't, I don't really know what I'm talking about. But I will tell you this, when I take my fitness, my physical health seriously, I become a more healthy guy.
Holistically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, all the things, not just physically. Let me tell you a couple of my motivating factors for. Staying physically healthy, and if these relate to you and you want to catch some of these, you know, feel free to do that. But again, I'm not a fitness guy. I'm just telling you where I land on this.
I currently work out every day. I, I haven't worked out every day of my adulthood. There have been many, many seasons where I don't and haven't, but right now I'm in a routine and I feel like I'll just share, honestly, I feel like I'm in a healthy spot in all those categories that I've. That I've mentioned emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally.
I feel like I'm in a really healthy spot and this is what what's prompted me to wanna talk about these things with you guys. 'cause I, I feel like I haven't always been in a healthy spot and I've trying to make some changes in my life by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit helping me to become a more healthy man.
And I'm just trying to encourage you as a friend to take on what you can take. So there's times in my life where I have not been physically healthy many times, but right now I'm working out every day. Not a ton, 20 to 30 minutes every day. I set time aside in the morning to do that. I did it today even though I didn't sleep last night, been up since two in the morning.
Last thing I wanna do is go work out, but I, I'm just trying to. I know that the impacts that it'll have, not just physically, like if you're watching this on YouTube, you're, you're like questioning like, bro, you work out every day. Look at you, you look like a the green bean. I'm not a Jack dude. I'm not super buff, you know, like, but I feel like I should be, 'cause I've been hitting the, you know, my little home gym every single day.
Um, but that's not really the point. I didn't hit it up today because I thought. You know, I'm gonna get jacked today and I'm gonna look super good. I hit it up today because I knew that if I didn't mentally I'd be in a bad spot. And even spiritually and emotionally and relationally, and I know that might sound weird 'cause you might not always connect those dots, but here's the key with working out and physical fitness.
It's the ability to see something that sucks that you don't want to do and you do it anyway. Which bro, that is essentially. The kingdom of God and a really micro level that obviously isn't the whole kingdom of God as they're, you know, working out. But the practice of saying, this is really hard, I don't want to do it.
But I'm gonna do it anyway. Reminds me a little bit of when Jesus says, count the cost. Do you really want to follow me? Because it's gonna be hard. Would somebody go into war? Jesus gave the parable. Would somebody go into war without really counting how many soldiers might get lost or what, or, uh, die or, or what it would cost 'em?
Would somebody build a building before counting the cost? There's this idea that Jesus was constantly bringing up to his disciples. He wasn't just, he didn't lower the bar super low and say, anybody wants to come in. Come in, it's super easy. Jesus said, anybody wants to come in? You can come in, but it's gonna be really hard.
Are you sure you wanna do it? Count the cost before you say yes to this, because they're gonna be really hard moments. As a Christian, you're gonna have hard conversations with your wife. He's gonna get into the shadows. Of your life, there's gonna be hard conversations with your boss. It's gonna mean you saying no to things that you want to say yes to.
Often you live in a whole different kingdom. You're part of an entirely different ecosystem, spiritually speaking now. And uh, it's really, really hard. And so micro. Way to practice that for me is to daily go down into my garage and lift some weights and do some cardio and things that I don't want to do, but mentally that's helping me practice spiritually.
It's helping me practice so that when the bigger things hit in life, the bigger moral decisions. The tough decisions, the tough conversations to have with my family. My tendency as a selfish dude who loves to be comfortable is to see something uncomfortable and be like, nah, peace dude. I don't wanna have any part of that.
A hard conversation with my wife. No thanks. A hard conversation at work. No, thank you. A moral decision, nah, I'll take the easy way out. All of that is real life. Those are the big things of life that help you run the race well. And so to go down in the gym and say. This sucks, dude. Like the last thing I want to do right now is lift some weights and break a sweat and run.
The last thing I want to do is not eat that entire sleeve or whole case of Oreos. I want eat the whole thing. I want have a ton of ice cream with my kids. I want to eat the donuts that I just gave with my kids. I want to eat that whole pizza. But the discipline of saying no is actually helping train my soul to say no to the bigger things of the flesh.
That's me personally. That is my motivation for working out. It's not so that I can be some jack dude. So when summertime comes, I take off my shirt and uh, you know, I feel good about myself, whatever. But what I really want is to look at things that suck, look at things that are really hard and to say, I'm gonna do it anyway.
And that kind of mental toughness. Carry you into or carry you through a lot of spiritually hard things. I think that's, you know, that's part of the reason Jesus teaches us to fast to say no to our flesh. When our flesh is begging for something, we say no. Uh, because we're not ruled by our flesh. We are not ruled.
By our flesh and blood, but by the spirit of God within me, as Jesus said when he was tempted, and that's what I wanna say about myself. Like I'm not ruled by my flesh. I'm ruled by the spirit of God that lives inside of me. And so I say yes to things that suck. Yes to things that are hard on a micro level daily.
And this could be working out jujitsu bike ride, going on a walk, going on a run, lifting some weights. Do something that's hard that you have to say yes to, even when it's hard because it will train your soul to do the same in the bigger things. And then lastly, do it. I also, I. You know, speaking specifically of physical health, I wanna be around by God's grace for my great grandkids, for my grandkids.
I mean, as much time as God gives me. I don't wanna be in a bed, and obviously I, I don't have complete control of this just by working out every day and trying to eat healthier, but to the best of my ability, I wanna, this is the body that God gave me. I wanna treat it as such. Use it as a temple of the Lord, as the scriptures say.
You know, I just wanna be healthy, man. I want Jeremy Pryor said recently on Twitter. He's been a guest of ours and such a great thinker in the fatherhood and man space. But he said, you know, taking care of your physical health is an investment into your grandkids. Uh, something like that, I'm probably butchering it, but that's the idea, you know, that like I'm down there in the garage working out on days that I don't want to because I want to be able to run in the backyard with my grandkids.
And so I'm, I'm making an investment now. While I still can. And so I know it's unpopular in the Christian world to talk about like faith or talk about fitness and like what you eat and how you approach your fitness. But dude, this is, everything's spiritual man. It's all spiritual. How are you gonna say yes to everything your flesh wants all the time?
And then expect to get yourself in a, in a situation where you want to discipline your soul and all of a sudden you're gonna have tons of discipline. I just, I don't know all that to say. Healthy men that I know when I'm in a healthy spot, I'm taking my fitness seriously and I'm taking my friendships real seriously.
And I would encourage you to do the same. I love you guys. We will, uh, continue the conversation next week. Alright. See you.