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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. Today we are highlighting the hardest hitting moments of 2023 on the podcast. So if you missed every episode, which I'm sure many of you did, I'm gonna pick some of my favorite moments throughout the year. Things that stuck out to me and really helped shape me as a man I know shaped a lot of the guys in our dad tired community.
So we'll be sharing those. Before we jump in, I, I wanna give a really exciting update for years. I have dreamt about what it would look like for us as a ministry to have our own coffee. It just makes sense. A lot of guys are coffee drinkers. The name is Dad Tired. We drink coffee to not be so tired, just felt like such a right fit.
Was never able to make that happen. And I was, I said something in passing on the podcast one time, this was months ago. I said something to the effect of how much I try to find sponsors that align with the dad tired brand. And so we try to find sponsors for every episode, and I spend a bunch of time throughout the week just trying to find brands that make sense for our audience.
Oftentimes I'll find brands that are really excited, they're like, dang, this is a big podcast with das and man, this seems great and we'll talk about it. And then they find out that we are. Gospel centered, Jesus loving Christian guys, and then they just ghost me or they completely fall off the radar. And so it is hard to find like a like-minded, cool products, cool services, but also are in alignment with us as a ministry and not ashamed by the fact that we love Jesus and we're Christian dudes trying to fall more in love with Jesus.
So anyway, I said that kind of in passing on a podcast and these guys reached out to me and they said, Hey, we're part of the dad tire community. We're dads. We listen to the show and we also own a coffee shop and we would love to support you. Which that alone. I was like, this is amazing. That sounds great.
Absolutely. I'd love to get your guys' coffee in front of our listeners. And then we started to dream about, well, what would it look like if we had a dad tired coffee? And so we dreamt about that. We worked on it for months. We tried all kinds of different blends and recipes, and we finally landed on a recipe that we're super excited about and we haven't actually.
Dad tired branded coffee, which has been a dream of mine for years. I posted on Instagram some teaser shots and some photos of like the coffee that we have and so many of you're already messaging me like, how do I get this asap? So if you go to shop.dad tire.com, you can order a bag of coffee. Not only is it cool that we have a dad tired coffee, but I'm also like, I'm really, really excited to be partnering with lc Coffee specifically.
These are just really good guys. Lc Coffee actually stands for La Cocha. I'm probably saying that wrong. Uh, even though my last name's LOEs, I probably just butchered that. A lot of people assume I speak Spanish. I don't. I wish I did. But anyway, that word means. The harvest and they got that from Galatians six, nine, which says, let us not become weary and doing good for at the proper time.
We will reap a harvest if we do not give up. And that really is the ethos of what these guys have created in lc Coffee. Like they're, what I love about them is they said, we are more passionate about people than we are product. And we just use coffee as a way to connect with people, to love on people.
Everything from the farmers, all the way down to their staff, to the customers, like the whole process. Their goal is to love people. Well, it was important for me when we're thinking through a partnership and having a dad tired blend that we do this one, we want amazing coffee. Like, let's be honest, we all wanna drink really, really good coffee.
And they, they hi. They hit that well. You can see their reviews, like people love their coffee, but I also wanted people who resonate. With exactly what their mission is. And it's like, do we wanna love people? Well, we wanna use coffee as just a blessing and a way to connect people and love people really well.
So anyway, I could not be more excited about this partnership. Again, if you go to shop.dad tire.com, you can pick up a bag. I. Over there. Before we jump into these hardest hitting moments, I just want to give you a really, really quick recap of what happened in the dad's hired ministry over this last year.
We had over a million downloads on this podcast, which is just insane. We had thousands of guys attend, our dad's hired retreats. We had hundreds of guys make a first time decision to. Follow Jesus. At our live event, we had thousands of guys join our free online community. I, I, it's just an incredible year.
I heard so many testimonies of men coming back to Jesus and as a result, leading their families well. One of the guys who was part of that, who just felt like his life has been changed through Dad tired. He said, I wanna make a massive donation because I believe in this ministry. He didn't use the word massive, but it was massive to, to us as a little organization.
But he said, I'm willing to match up to $30,000 of anything you're trying to raise. I. At the end of the year, which is just, I blows my mind to that kind of generosity and so I put that out to you guys. Over the last couple weeks, we've been able to raise 25 of that $30,000, 25 ish, so we're $5,000 short.
If this ministry is helpful for you, love what we're doing here and you feel like you want to be generous and partner with us to that, we would love to have you do that. You can do that by going to dad tire.com. Slash donate to help us keep doing this podcast and these live events, our family leadership program and our retreat, and the online community, all the stuff that we're doing to try to point guys closer to Jesus.
Alright, let's jump into these hardest hitting moments, which just, there's some really, really good stuff. At the beginning of this year, in 2023, Chris, who comes on the podcast often and he speaks at our retreat, he shared with us. About how important it is for us as men to create, to talk about the things that God has been doing with our kids.
Oftentimes they just kind of, we assume that they know we love Jesus and we go to church and like they just know we love Jesus. But he was encouraging us like, no, we need to like set up these memorials, these stones, these. These visual and audible ways of saying, listen, you guys do not forget the ways that God has been faithful to us.
And so at the beginning of 2023, he shared this message with us that I felt was really helpful for us as dads, and it's especially helpful for us now as we're about to jump into a new year, listen to this, how much more important it is. Is it for us as fathers to regularly tell the stories that present the character of our father properly?
The stories that we tell about someone become the very character that the next generation understands them through. And I think we as men need to do a better job in saying, I haven't done great in telling you the stories of my savior. I haven't done a great job in telling you the stories. Like even with my kids, like, man, I wish I could tell you guys the stories of how faithful your mom was or, or, or how present God was throughout our marriage or the difficulties that we walked through, but that God was faithful through and.
Part of my personal testimony is having older people tell me how in love with Jesus they were because of what he had done in their life. It's what the revelation says, that we're gonna overcome the brokenness of the enemy by the power of the word of God, the blood of the land, and the testimonies that we share.
And I think maybe because we are a visual generation, we don't, we're not very good at telling stories. And maybe that's part of our calling as dads, maybe part of our calling as dads is to be better storytellers of the faithfulness of God in our world and in our lives. And so that's my challenge to us as we kinda head into this week, as we talk through these things.
And it's, it's a conversation to have with our wives. It's a conversation to have personally, just to say, where am I making plane? Where am I demonstrating the help stones? Where am I clearly broadcasting to my family? How faithful God's been to us. It might not feel important today, but I promise you in different times in your life when you feel God absent, when your kids feel like God's abandoned you, or you're just recounting how bad your year has been, looking back on those physical, tangible examples, those Ebenezer and those help stones might make all the difference.
I think one practical thing you could do this week as the year wraps up, is you could sit on the bed, maybe put the kids to bed, or if they're old enough, you can have them participate in this, but just write out together individually. Just write out all the ways you saw God. I. Move in you, uh, in your marriage, in your family personally with the kids.
Just all the ways you felt like God showed up for you guys this year. And don't, you know, maybe it's one thing, maybe it's 10 things, maybe it's 30 things, it doesn't matter. But just try to reflect back on all the ways that you felt like God was faithful to you, to your marriage, and to your kids and to the people around you.
And then crumble those up or fold those up and just put 'em in a jar or a hat or somewhere. And then individually just kind of pull them out and read them to each other again, if your kids are old enough, I think this would be super cool to have your kids involved with that, or just do it as a couple and just reflect back like, man, God has been so faithful.
Let us not forget, during this year, I had Ken Harrison, which is the president of. Promise keepers, promise keepers his back and doing some really cool things. But he, in our interview, shared something that I thought was really powerful. He talked about a, an incident that he had when he was in his thirties, which is the age that, you know, is close to the age of many of us who are listening to this podcast.
And so I just wanted to share this part of the interview with him that really stuck out to me. So now I get hit by a jet ski. I'm in the hospital. I broke all the ribs on the right side of my body. The doctor walks in and says. Dude, and I'm not kidding you, he called me, dude, you know I'm laying there. He says, you ruptured your liver.
So here's the thing, if you've ruptured less than 40% of it, we're gonna light flight you to a trauma center. Cut it out. It'll grow back. If you've ruptured more than 40%, you got five hours to live. Oh my God. So I said, well, how do I, I die? He goes, what do you mean you don't have a liver? I go, well, yeah, but what kills me?
Well, your body will poison itself to death. Okay? So I'm waiting for the results to come back from the CAT scan, and it took about an hour. This is back in the late nineties. So it took about an hour, me laying there on this gurney and thinking, am I dying? Like, do I feel myself poisoning? Right? Hmm. The whole time I'm thinking if I die and go see Christ right now, what am I gonna say?
Like, at that time I think I was 30. What are my Lord Jesus's gonna say? I gave you a very specific birth in, in this time in, in the United States of America with a great education in a Christian home. What did you do with what I gave you? Hmm. And you know who was clothed because of you, who was saved from hell because of you.
Who was fed because of you? And my answer was gonna be nobody. No, but I mean, I lived a nice life. Jesus. I was a cop. I was a good husband. I never cheated on my wife. Basically. I was a nice American Christian. Went to church most Sundays unless there was a good football game on, or the surf was good. So I thought when the doctor came walking in and he goes, Hey, good news, bro.
Uh, you rupture your kidney, not your liver. You just lacerated your liver. So you're gonna piss blood for a few days and then you're gonna be in a lot of pain, but you'll live. Seriously. That's how he talked. And, uh. I peed blood for like a week and, uh, you know, the, the ribs recovered and I thought, I'm never gonna end up in that situation again.
The next time I'm facing death, I want to be able to say, Jesus, I can't wait to walk into the throne world with my head held high because I've accomplished everything that you wanted. Man, what a powerful thing to consider. I mean, just think about that for yourself. If you were to face Jesus today, what kind of emotions go through your mind?
What kind of thoughts run through your mind? Is that something you're really excited about? Do you feel like you'd enter into that day? Now there's all kinds of theology of what Jesus will think that day, but just for you, like if, if today was it, you know, and you were to go face Jesus today, what kind of thoughts run through your head?
A lot of you guys know that I moved from the west coast over to the east coast over the last year and it took us a long time to find a church and we finally found a church that we love and the pastor there, Caleb, he taught at our last dad tired retreat. Man, this guy, I told him at that retreat actually, I'm like, dude, you are a friend that I didn't know I needed.
He's just been such a gift to me. And uh, we spend a lot of time together and he's just turned into a real dear friend. I respect him a ton. He's teaching me a lot, like he's teaching me a lot about the word of God. And anyway, I could go on and on about how much of a gift he has been to me. But he came over and we recorded this podcast and we're talking about spiritual warfare, which.
I told him, like I think about spiritual warfare sometimes when I go speak and every time I go speak, I always feel like my marriage gets all weird and Layla and I get in a big fight right before I'm about to go teach. And I'm like, there's gotta be something more. Like there's gotta be some spiritual warfare happening there.
But I hadn't really thought about it in the context of my kids and that there's actually an enemy who hates my kids and is actively like doing things to try to disrupt their spiritual journey. And so he and I talked about that a little bit and he just shared this little, just this real short little.
Thought that really punched me in the gut. Listen to what he said. And I do think, man, I may be talking above my pay grade here, but so many of us, when we talk about our upbringing and our, like all of counseling to some extent is trying to talk you through your childhood trauma. See? I know. And so you think that way, like, oh, like maybe the enemy really tries to mess us up in our childhood years.
Mm. We're a little more immature, we're insecure, we're developing, and as parents, it's probably wise to go, wait. These years are really crucial in the spiritual development of our kids. Mm. Let's be intentional to do our best. To not let the enemy have a heyday in their minds and in their hearts. Think about what he said there for a second.
Most counseling revolves. Around what happened in our childhood. So why would we not assume that the enemy is going over time to try to mess with our kids? And it just forces us as dads to say, I need to be praying more. I need to understand that my child's behavior, their fears, their attitude, all the things that are going on in their life.
Obviously there's all kinds of things developmentally and physically happening, but also there is a spiritual war. There is an enemy who hates them and we need to be praying on their behalf. That really, really stuck out to me. Toward the end of this year, I had Justin Whipmill Airly on the podcast, and he talked about friendships, and he framed the context of what it looks like to have these gospel centered friends, these type of friends that you share everything with, that you have no secrets with, that know all of who you are and love you anyway, and how that impacts you as a husband and as a father, and as a disciple.
He really framed this in a way that I'd never thought about before. Listen to what he said, but I would just encourage people literally to try to put the courage in them. I would encourage you to say. This is what you are made for. This is what you are longing for, and also this is what the other people around you are longing for.
For somebody to finally say, can I just say what's really happening? Yeah. That's the beginning of. Every good relationship. Yeah. And so much good will come from that. And really it's the way we practice the gospel by saying, I know that Jesus knows me fully and loves me anyway, but do I believe it enough to actually be fully known in this relationship?
Mm. And when you do that, you're like doing dress rehearsals of the gospel over and over and over, which is. The idea of becoming more like Jesus. I tell this little story in the book, but it was so powerful to me. My wife, this is recently actually just a couple months ago, rolled over in bed. We were about to just turn off the lights and asked me out of the blue, Hey, are you keeping any secrets?
Which is a wild question to be asked that like, oh, there was 11:00 PM We just shut, shut out the lights with no context. And I later found out it was because. She had just heard about a fairly close but old friend whose husband had left them and many of their children, all because of a secret that he had kept that just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew.
Mm-hmm. And you said it a second ago, Jared, the weight of secrets, the burden that you carry when you are fighting, whatever that struggle is, and we all have them. Mm-hmm. When you are fighting it alone. Yeah. It's so. Heavy and it was an amazing moment, I think, to be able to roll over and look my wife in the eye and say, no, actually for you and for our boys, I do the hard and yet freeing work of not keeping secrets.
It's hard to explain like how light I feel. Not because I'm good, like I've got like everybody here knew my secrets. It was like, ew, we don't want to know everything, you know? But a couple friends, Steve and Matt, knowing my secrets, like I feel strong going out into the world because I feel known and loved anyway.
And I think that is the power of Jesus, and it's the power of friendship, and it's why we need friendship If we're gonna be more like Jesus. I want you to think about what life would look like for you if you could live a secret free life. How much burden would that take off of your conscious and your soul?
How light you would feel if that were true about you? And if you have friends that God has brought into your life to think about what would it look like to be more intentional with those dudes so that I can have these kinds of honest, real friendships, intentional friendships, where I'm fully known and fully loved?
So that I can be the man that God's calling me to be in my marriage and in with my kids. If you don't have that man, just right now, stop the podcast and just pray. God, would you bring those kinds of guys into my life? There's a lot of dudes who are like-minded. Who long for that in our dad Tired community.
If you just go to dad tired.com. Click our community tab, it's totally free, and you will meet other guys like that. You'll meet guys like that at a retreat or at our events. So I, I think that there are guys who want to be those kinds of friends for you and with you if you don't have those guys already.
I had Sissy Goff, who's a counselor, and she's been working with children and families for years and years and years, and I was asking her like, what's one thing you would say to dads? What's a unique perspective that you think we have or an advantage we have as. Dads that we can give to our kids. Her answer really fascinated me.
I had a girl years ago that I was working with, she had anxiety and I. Brought her dad in because she adored her dad. I mean, he was absolutely her hero. And this girl out of her anxiousness was putting a lot of pressure on herself to do everything perfectly. And I said to him, I want you to start to talk about failure around your house.
I want you at the dinner table to say, I did the dumbest thing at work today, or I really botched this, or I think I really hurt this person's feelings. Because when she knows that you as her hero fail, it's more okay for her to fail too. And she's aware that she does. And I think there can be so much pressure to be a perfect dad and to for her to see you as her hero all along the way.
And in fact, what's gonna happen is if she can still see you fail, and I would say even fail and laugh at yourself in the process, she's gonna be able to accept herself. More when she gets to that place. And I had another conversation with a dad where I was saying this because of the same reason, and I'm particularly with girls.
I'm seeing girls more perfectionistic than I ever have in my life in every area. Sports, grades, friendships, I mean everything they're doing. So I said, because this guy was her hero too. I said, I want y'all to do something together as a family that no one does well. If you're not athletic, I want you to go to the batting cage.
If you are not artistic, I want you to go paint pottery together and I want you to laugh at yourself while you're doing it. And this dad said, really, you're telling me for all of us to go do something together that we suck at? And I said, yes, that is exactly what I'm telling you. And. Again, I think perfectionists don't laugh at themselves when they fail.
And me being one, I wish somebody had taught me to do that when I was eight years old or 15 years old. And as you lead the way as the father, I think what a beautiful gift for you to give your kids, not just girls, but boys too, because I think girls, sometimes it manifests as perfectionism and boys, it's gonna manifest as competition a lot of times.
And how are they measuring themselves? And so. All of us need to be practicing those ideas together. I think one of the coolest things about the idea of failing in front of your kids is you constantly point them back to the idea that Jesus is the hero, not you as the dad. And so when your kids fail, like sissy was saying, like when your kids fail and instead of letting that crushed them, they can look to you as an example and said, man, even my dad fails.
And you can show them like we should be showing them constantly. Look dad fails, and that's okay because I am not the hero. Even daddy needs a savior. Even daddy needs a hero. Even daddy needs somebody to come alongside and redeem me. My identity is not based on all the things I can accomplish, and so I fail and I laugh at myself, and then I give my freedom, or I give my kids the freedom to fail and laugh at themselves because they too need a savior.
And there is one willing. When I heard her say that, it reminded me of the conversation I had with Micah Tyler, where he just shared this. Gut punching Reminder to us that as dads, we so often think that we need to be perfect and have it all together. Listen to this really powerful scriptural reminder that Micah gave us in John.
Jesus says, Jesus throws down a haymaker and it's one line and it has two very distinct promises in it, and one should crush us, and the other one holds all things together. Okay. In this world, you will have trouble. Like that's a guarantee from Jesus. This is not a fisherman who became a disciple. This is not some guy who's just spouting off of the mouth that you, this is Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith said.
In this world, I promise you, you're gonna come against hard times. You're gonna battle fear. You're gonna battle stress. Things are not gonna work out. The car's not gonna start. The cancer's gonna come back. Like these things are going to happen and that should crush us. Except the same guy with the same breath, in the same sentence, with the same voice says, but you take heart because in this world there will be trouble.
But take heart because I have overcome. Wow. He literally sets it up on a tee for us to be devastated and then just knocks it outta the park. Mm. And says, Hey, you get to share in this victory with me. If you look at the story in David and Goliath, a lot of people think that we're supposed to be David at the bottom of the hill holding our little stones ready to take on the giants.
Guess what? That is not us in the story. We are the damals in distress. In this hero and villain story, we're the Israelites on the top of the hill who are too scared to come down. That's right. Who are too weak to face. The giant who had the armor strapped on, but could not defeat it, and needed a shepherd to come in their way and knock out the giant for them.
And guess what? The great shepherd of Jesus descends the hill on our behalf. He slings the stone. He slays the giant. Here's the thing. In that story, lemme tell you what my heart's been before Jared. There's times where I'm on top of the hill and I see God topple a giant for me, and I stand up there and I feel ashamed 'cause I didn't do it, or I feel jealous.
I, I could have done that myself. Why wouldn't I just be strong enough to go do that thing? I would feel the shame of feeling like I messed up because listen, for days and days and weeks and weeks, the Israelites stood on the top of the hill with a giant down there yelling up and saying, who's gonna come down?
Who wants to come and fight me right now? Where's the Lord at? If he's on your side, bring him down too. You know? Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden, this boy comes down and one stone slays the giant, grabs the giant sword. I. The enemy soared the weapon that was formed against him and knocks off the head. Guess what?
Jesus comes down the hill. He stands there in front of the giant. That is our sin and death. He takes the weapon that was formed against him of a cross, and he uses that thing to defeat our death, and the giant is slain. And the Israel could have stood up there and said, gosh, why didn't we go down there and do that?
Why we're so ashamed, we're so mad, but that's not the story. The story says all of a sudden they come running down the hill because they get to share in the victory that was given to them by the shepherd. I. And who are we to stand back? That's why we boast all the more in our weakness, Jared. That's why we say in this world there's gonna be trouble.
But I take heart because Jesus has overcome and we share in that victory. That's incredible. That is like, that's the reason we raise our families the way that we do. Yeah. It's because we share the victory of Jesus in your deficiencies. He has made strong and what a gift that in the places we need somebody to be strong.
There's strength there. Amen. Even if it's not our own. Man, I've listened to that a bunch of times and I still get goosebumps every time I hear that. It's just such gospel truth that sums up the dad tired community so well. A bunch of dudes who don't feel like they are perfect, who don't feel like they have it all together, and instead of feeling like we aren't good enough, Davids to beat Goliath.
We say, Jesus. Will you? Can we rest in your victory that you are the one Christ who went and won the battle for us? Because we are not strong enough to do it, and it's only by your spirit now in us that allows us to live this life, to raise our families well, to love our wives. Well, it's not because we have it all together.
We're super brave, tough, macho. Crazy guys. It's just men who are humble and dependent and repentant guys who say our victory is not found in our strength. Our victory is found in Christ. In Christ alone. I absolutely love what Micah said there. I wanna remind you that you do have what it takes to raise your family, to love your wife well, to finish the race well.
Because the spirit of God lives in you. It's one of the things I talked about just a few weeks ago on the podcast. I know this resonated with a lot of you guys, but I wanted to remind you guys what would it look like for you as men if you took seriously that role or that that call, that promise that the spirit of God lives in you.
Uh, here's what I said. You have to assume. The spirit of God is working all throughout the earth and I don't know where he's pursuing and what's happening in these people's lives, but I do know that what Jesus said is true and that his spirit is in me. And so when I walk into the room, Jesus walks into the room, the Holy Spirit walks into the room, and so I'm just gonna assume the guy behind the rental car counter.
God's pursuing him. And I'm gonna try to throw some bait out there and see what happens and see if I can water that seed or throw some seeds or see what the Holy Spirit wants to do in that man, or at the deli counter, or at the pool, or at the waiting room in the hospital. Like I just wanna live a life in such a way where everywhere I go, Jesus shows up.
And so I'm asking you as a man listening to this podcast, what would it look like if you really believe that? If you really believe that wherever you go, the spirit of God is going. In your marriage, like what does the spirit of God wanna say to your wife today? What does the spirit of God wanna say to your kids today?
What does the spirit of God wanna say to your neighbor today? And do just be bold for the glory of God because it's not you speaking, it's the spirit of God in you. Maybe you hear that and you think to yourself, man, that I want that. I want to live my life as if Jesus were living my life. I want the spirit of God to work me.
I don't want just me to show up. I want the God of the universe to show up into every room I walk in. But maybe you're still being lured by all the temptations and the. Things that this world is offering to satisfy your soul. Maybe you're still convinced that if you just had a little bit more money in your bank account, or you had a few more toys, or if your wife was a certain way or your kids behaved better, or whatever the thing is that you just are really convinced down in your soul that, man, I just need this.
If I just had this one more. Thing, then I'd finally be satisfied. I want you to listen to these words that John Mark Homer shared on the podcast about the cost of not following Jesus. You also have to count the cost of non discipleship. Yeah, yeah. Right. So it costs you to follow Jesus. It costs you to live a holistic, embodied, emotionally informed, like relational apprenticeship program to Jesus that you follow until you die, but it costs you even more.
Yeah, to not live that. To live the American way of life and think about the things that people sacrifice for. They sacrifice for money, for wealth, for career advancement. For nicer houses, for newer cars and shiny toys. For new marriages, for, you know what I mean? They sacrifice their children. They sacrifice their bodies.
They sacrifice their mental health. They sacrifice millions of dollars over a lifetime. They sacrifice years of their life and blood, sweat, and toil, and often chronic overwork. And for what? Is that really better than becoming a person of love and the deep community of love under Jesus? So you're going to disciple under someone or something.
The question is not, are you discipling? Are you following? It's who or what are you following? What are you giving? You're giving your life to something. You're sacrificing your life. You're spending the precious resource of your life on something or someone. Yeah. The question is who or what. And is Jesus, is Jesus a better option?
Last night, as I was laying in bed, I was praying a prayer that I pray often, and it was just, God, would you keep me close because I want to finish this race well and finishing the race well for me means that I have faithfully raised kids to the best of my ability, who know and love Jesus. It means having a wife who I've been faithful to and in our old.
Age and wrinkly hands and gray hair. We're holding them and we have deep joy in our hearts as we watch our children and our grandchildren, and maybe by God's grace, our great-grandchildren try to follow the ways of Jesus. This is what it means for me. This is the prize at the end. That I've been faithful, that I've gone, uh, I've ran the race well, and so for you brother, that's my prayer for you, is that you would throw off all the things that so easily entangle you and you would run after the prize that has been set before you, that you would recognize that man, you are being discipled, you are a disciple of someone, or something you are following, and you just have to ask yourself like John Mark just said, is it better is what I'm chasing after actually.
Better than Jesus. And I pray that you choose Jesus. And one of the episodes that we talked about this year was, is God annoying you? God has the right to say yes. You may have been saved at a young age. Maybe I did something cool 10 years ago, but even today, I am still asking you, are you all in? Do you still want to follow me?
And as this year comes to a close, I pray that you would look Jesus in the face and you would still say, I'm all in. I'm all in. I wanna run this race. Well, God, would you keep me close to you so that I can do that? I love you guys. None of this would've been possible without you. We are a nonprofit, and so we are primarily funded by your donations.
If you wanna see the ministry continue to grow and grow, we would love to have you support us. Again, go to dad tire.com/donate. I cannot wait to see I've, I have so many exciting things for us in 2024. God's just gonna do some really, really big things, retreats. Anyway, I'm not gonna get into all of that right now 'cause I, uh, it will take too long.
But we got some really, really exciting things coming up this next year. I love you. Thanks for being part of this community, and I'll see you in the next year.