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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. I wanna thank my friends over at Range Leather for sponsoring today's episode. If you have been around me, you know that I am a full believer that you can never have too many hats. I think I'm wearing a hat every day these days. As much as it allows our friends over at Range Leather just dropped six new colors in their hat line.
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Have you ever had one of those days where you are counting down the hours until bedtime? If you are a dad or a parent, you probably have those days, like every day. There are so many days where I'm waiting for the bedtime to come so I can just finally feel like I'm getting a little bit of rest. But I was feeling that especially hard yesterday for whatever reason, I was having a very hard time focusing and my brain, you know how your eyes are, just like, please close, please let me close.
Please let me close. I was feeling that all day. My eyes were just so tired. My brain was foggy and I was just counting down the minutes that I could finally go to sleep. And we were getting the kids ready to go to bed and I was laying in bed and which always frustrates my wife when she's like, why are you laying down when the kids are not asleep yet?
But I couldn't. Like put in my tank was completely empty. I know I'm supposed to be a sacrificial husband. I told you guys this the other day when we talked about loving our wives the way Christ loves the church. You know, I should have been helping with the bedtime routine, but li I had nothing left to give.
My tank was just completely empty. And so I'm laying there. I. As the kids are winding down their teeth brushing and their final bedtime routines, and I'm in that like half sleep phase, you know, that like you're not asleep, but you're not awake. My eyes are closed, my brain is starting to drift off. It's kind of a, it's a weird, like, I don't use drugs, but I imagine, you know, if you use drugs, it's probably a bad analogy, but uh, it felt just kind of, I don't know, like euphoric, euphoric is not the right word, but you're just like in this like weird.
Hypnosis state where I'm present, like I can hear everything around me that's going on, but I'm not, like my eyes are closed and I'm also, I feel like I'm just about to start falling asleep and dreaming. So anyway, I'm, I'm laying there and Layla is reading next to me and the kids are talking to each other.
I have two little girls who are playing school. Together. So my 5-year-old is teaching, my 3-year-old her letters and they're just kind of pretend playing school. And then my older two kids, my 13-year-old and my 11-year-old are talking to each other. And as I'm listening, I'm in that like weird, again, I'm sorry for being like describing this in a weird way, but I'm in that like weird sense where I can, I'm hyperfocused on every single word that.
Each of them are saying, my eyes are closed. I'm not dis distracted by anything. I'm just like in this weird trance where I can hear every single thing that they're saying. And so as I'm listening to them. I just have this like, again, I'm trying not to be, I feel like this started down in a weird direction.
I have this like weird moment where I'm so focused on each of them individually, and yet I can hear all four of them at the same time. It really was bizarre and I thought to myself as I'm listening for many minutes and my wife is probably like, what are you doing? Uh, as I'm listening to them, I'm thinking to myself, do I know each of them?
Individually, I have four kids, and so sometimes you start to play zone defense, you know what I mean? Like it's easier when you have one kid or two children and you can kind of focus on them one-on-one. But after three or more, I. It starts to become zone defense where you're just, you have like a blanket strategy on how to parent all of them.
So when I'm thinking about bedtime, I'm like, I'm demanding. I'm shouting out commands to all of them simultaneously. All of you brush your teeth, all of you put your pajamas on, all of you get ready for bed. It's not this individual. Parenting approach. It's this very generalized blanket approach to parenting from time to time.
And at this moment as I'm in a like a trance, I'm hearing each of them individually. I'm hearing my five-year-old and the way that she talks and I'm hearing my 3-year-old and the way that she responds. I'm hearing the specific words that my 13-year-old is saying to my 11-year-old. And I'm just so hyper aware of where they are individually, and I was just struck by this moment.
Sometimes, man, I feel like God speaks to us in the quiet moments when there is not something glowing in front of our face, specifically a screen. If there's anything that should be glowing in front of your face, that should be a fire. I sat around a fire last night. We did s'mores. I've told you this, if you follow me on Instagram.
I'm a big fan of doing things that they could have done 200 years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand years ago. And so to think that people were watching fires 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, 2000 years ago, people were sitting by a fire. I like that kind of thing. And so I've been trying to do fires in our backyard, and so we were watching a fire last night.
But anyway, if there's something that's gonna glow, make it something that's. God invented, not necessarily a screen. And so when there's nothing glowing in front of us digitally and our brains can kind of shut off, it seems like God speaks to us. So how many times have you asked God to speak to you and then you give him no space to speak to you?
You know what I mean? Like, God, I really need clarity on this. As James says, like I lack wisdom. The Book of James says this, if any of you lacks wisdom, ask God and he's gracious to give you that wisdom. That's a paraphrase. But how many of us want wisdom on something? A decision We're making, a financial thing, something to do in our marriage, a parenting decision.
We lack wisdom, and so we ask God, God, I need your help on this at teach me, give me your wisdom. And then we give no room for him to actually speak to us. When does he speak to us? When does he have the opportunity to actually give us that wisdom? We're not in his word. We don't spend time in quiet. We're not putting our face as, as Pastor Caleb says so beautifully, putting our nose to the carpet, meaning we bow our faces and we just tune everything out and says, God, speak to me.
And so I think so many times God will speak to us as we lay our heads on our pillows at night and the world kind of gets quiet and it's finally an opportunity for our soul. To be ready to receive whatever God wants to speak to us. And so this moment as my head is laying on my pillow and I'm half asleep, I hear my kids in the background and it's almost like God, use this opportunity to just speak to my spirit, to my soul, and to say, do you know your kids individually?
Do you know where each of them are at individually? Do you know what's going through each of their hearts and their souls and their spirits? And as for whatever reason as I'm describing it, it doesn't sound as profound as it felt in the moment, which was these are individual souls that I'm raising. As I heard my three-year-old little voice, like that's an individual soul that I'm raising.
Um, as I listen to my 5-year-old and my 13-year-old and to hear the specific words they're using in their tone of voice and the their personalities, these are individual souls that I'm using that I'm helping to raise. I wanna focus on that for a second. And really the point of today's episode is, do you know your sheep?
And what I mean by that is Jesus had this way of. Specifically and individually approaching the people that were following him or the people that he interacted with. And I think as dad, sometimes we feel led to lead our family spiritually. If you're listening to this podcast, you are motivated to lead your family spiritually, and yet there are very, very few guys who actually.
Have had somebody teach them what it looks like to be the spiritual leader of their home. I did not have that. I'm guessing if you're listening to this podcast, you did not have that. Nobody like sat you down, took you through a class and said, okay, you're a dad now. And not only are you a dad, but you are a spiritual leader.
You are the head of your house. You, your role is to point your family to Jesus and here's how you do it. Specifically. Dude, none of us had that. Like that's so rare. Nobody discipled us in that, and so we're just. We're flying by the seat of our pants, man. We're building the plane as the thing flies, and so we don't really know what to do.
And when we think through parenting, oftentimes it's very general. And I do the, I was literally just describing this to you, but I do this all the time. I think through my family, generally speaking, how is our family doing spiritually? How are we all doing together? Many times when we think through spiritual stuff, it's just us personally.
Like, how am I, am I even close to God? Like, I don't even feel that close to God. And that thought alone kind of paralyzes us from leading our family well, because we don't even know where we're personally at with the Lord. And I don't think that's wrong, by the way. I don't think that, I think that intuition or that natural inkling to say, you know, where am I at with God?
That's a good question. You think through the, the, uh, what they say on an airplane like. Help yourself first. Put your mask on first before you help other people. I think that that's relevant to our spiritual world. You know, our spiritual journey. Like if, how in the world am I gonna point my kids to Jesus if I'm not personally falling in love with Jesus?
So I think that's important. I think it's okay for us to say, I. To be a little bit selfish when it comes to our spiritual journey and say, how am I doing? Is there stuff in my own life? Is there sin in my own life that I need to figure out? For sure that's appropriate and that's okay, but it can't stay there because we are the leaders of our home.
We set the tone. I. I host a co-host, a podcast with Ben Roethlisberger, and, uh, I was telling him on one of the episodes recently, something I'd heard the other day, where they were talking about how a, a man, a dad sets the temperature for the house and the wife is the thermometer, meaning she's gauging the temperature.
So our wives, oftentimes this isn't true for every wife and not true for every husband. But generally speaking, the wife can kinda sense where the family is. She can sense the way that God has wired her. She can just sense something's off. Something's not right with our family, something's off in our family.
And for a man, we actually have the ability to set the temperature. So if something's off, we have the ability as men. To reset things, to turn things up, to turn things down. Our attitude, our own sin, the things that we're chasing after the passions that we have, like we really set the temperature of the family.
Our wives gauge that temperature and can let us know, Hey, we're off here. But we as men, oftentimes, as dads, oftentimes have the ability to set the temperature. And so for us, we want to one, look at our own lives. Am I okay with the Lord? Where am I at with Jesus? But also knowing. I have the ability, God has given me the ability as the leader of our home to set the temperature here.
How's my whole family doing? And so when we think through that, we don't wanna just think through generally, I. How are we doing as a whole family? We really have to know our sheep. How is everyone doing individually? You think through Jesus? Like there was times when I, I think that one of the first things I think through is that that story of Zacchaeus, where Zacchaeus is this tax collector, which is definitely an outsider.
In the Jewish community, the Christian community, because he, he usually, tax collectors are dishonest. It's kind of a dishonest career. They take some for themselves. They rob the people, they take advantage of the people. They are definitely not liked, and Zacchaeus wants to hear about Jesus, and he climbs up into this tree.
He's a short little man as the scriptures tell us. And so he wants to get this, uh, a good vantage point of Jesus as he hears that he's coming into town. And as Jesus is walking out of all the people, he looks up in this tree and sees Zacchaeus and he tells him to come down and then he invites himself over and Zacchaeus response to this really, it, it's compassion.
It's crazy compassion because Jesus should not be hanging out with a guy like this. He's a sinner. He's a tax collector. He takes advantage. It doesn't look good for Jesus's. You know, ministry or reputation that he's hanging out or wants to talk to a guy like Zak's, but he knows a sheep. He knows exactly where this guy is at.
And he calls him down and he invites himself over to dinner. And Zak's response to that is really fascinating. He says he's gonna sell his stuff. If he's ever wronged anyone, he'll pay back twice as much. He has this moment of like, he recognizes the goodness of God, he repents, and then he does something about it.
He responds in faith, he responds in his convictions and he, and he doesn't just like make a declaration of faith that Jesus has changed his life, he life, he actually changes his life. He changes his patterns, his ways, which is such an appropriate response to Jesus. It's not just this emotional feeling, but it's evaluating the things in your life and then saying, okay, I'm gonna change some things.
I've encountered the goodness of God and some things in my life need to change. I think that's an appropriate response. But the point here is that, that Jesus knew exactly where he was at. Like Jesus knew his reputation. Jesus knew his career. He knew where he was, uh, what it would mean for him to interact with him.
And he calls him down and he has this individual response. It's not like. God just walks in and kind of tells the whole crowd. He spots this one guy up in a tree and he speaks to him specifically, or you think about the woman at the well in John four, it's a Samaritan woman, which means Jesus shouldn't have been talking to her.
It's culturally would not have been right for her to talk to this rabbi. And she's at the well in the hottest part of the day, which means she's probably got some shame. She shouldn't have been there at that time of day. She's there at that time of day because she knows that she's not gonna have to interact or she won't have to interact with other people because of her shame.
And Jesus shows up. And what's so fascinating about the story of the woman at the well is Jesus starts to tell her things about her own life that only she knows. Nobody else should know this information. And that's really what compels her to want to know, like, who are you? Who is this man that I'm talking to?
They have this conversation where she's going after water, like actual water. And Jesus tells her, you're chasing after water. Like there's water that will make you never thirst again. And she says, what? Like, I want some of that water. And he says, that water's me. I. Your soul is thirsty because you've been chasing after all these men to satisfy your soul.
You've had multiple men and husbands in your life, and your soul is empty, but what your soul actually needs is me. I'm the only one that can satisfy your soul the way that you're looking and, and God knows her. Specifically, God knows her. He doesn't gather all the Samaritan women together and give this generalized message about what it means to be a Samaritan woman or their generalized sin issues.
He, he meets her specifically at the well, and he knows her. Specifically intimately, knows details about her life and then calls her to action, go and send no more. And so there's this idea that Jesus doesn't just broadly know his sheep. He knows them specifically. He's got a very good idea, and you think through John 10 14 that says, I am the good shepherd.
I know my sheep and my sheep know me. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. That this beautiful idea that the shepherd just isn't tending to a massive flock of sheep, but he knows them individually, their habits. He watches over there. He learns their behaviors. He understands each of the sheep unique needs.
It's really fascinating. You think through Psalm 1 39 that says, David writes this. He says, you have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. It talks about being created in the womb and knowing all the days, and all numbering all the days, and knowing every intricate detail about his children and obviously these passages point to God being God, right?
Like the point of even Jesus talking to this woman at the well and really being able to speak to details of her life that nobody else would know. The main point of that is for him to reveal. His glory that he's God, that he's not like any other man in the world. And so I don't want to take this analogy too far, even the Psalm 1 39, this is God knowing us because he's God, right?
Like, I'm never gonna know every detail of my child's life. I'm not gonna know every thought that runs through their head the way that God knows us. But I think that it is important for us to try to model for our kids the father-like nature of God toward us. I think it's very intentional that, that the scriptures teach us, that God parents, us, that he refers to himself as a father and us as his sons or his children.
And then gives us a model of what it looks like for us as dads to try to love our kids in the same way. I think that's really appropriate. Again, I don't wanna stretch, as Chris would say, I don't wanna make the Bible say what it doesn't say or not say what it doesn't say. And so I don't wanna stretch this analogy too far because the main point is that God is God in these passages.
But also I do think that there is something that we can learn here about the way that Jesus specifically loved his. Disciples that he knew his sheep individually, that when he comes across, even think about like Peter, the multiple encounters that Jesus has with Peter, he knows him. He doesn't just take his 12 disciples and just give blanket statements.
He really. Parents, them. He shepherds them. He teaches them individually. Think about Thomas, who's struggling with doubt. Thomas with, you know, doubting Thomas as we know him. He's struggling with doubt, and Jesus says, touch the holes in my hands. Like he shepherds him unique. Like, what does this sheep need right now?
Or again, Peter was an example of that. You think about John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and so. Jesus knew that kind of the emotional side of his disciple John, and so he let him in close like John got to be in these really critical moments. The last supper, the transfiguration, like he really let him in these emotional moments.
John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, there was kind of an emotional connection there. Some of it's disciples were more analytical. You think through Matthew, the tax collector. Essentially what I'm getting at is each of your children will have different needs, and do I know them individually? Am I parenting each of my kids specifically individually?
Do I know my sheep? Do I know where each of them are at? As I was laying in bed that night and I'm hearing each of their voices and the way that they talk and the words that they use and their personalities, I thought, do I know them? Do I know them personally? Am I investing into their. Their souls individually, not just making blanket statement.
Even for my wife a couple weeks ago, we were talking about how to love our wife the way that Christ loves the church, and part of that is knowing where she's at on her spiritual journey and presenting her like, I'm invested in where my wife is at spiritually. I wanna know where she's at with the Lord.
Do I know her? Like do I actually know where she's at with the Lord? Jesus is invested in my spiritual journey, and then he tells me to love my wife the way he loves me, and so do I know where my wife's at spiritually? Do I know the concerns that she has? Am I aware of her anxieties? I. The things that she's wrestling through and praying about, or her lack of prayer or her, how hard it is for her to pray wherever she's at.
You know what I mean? Like do I know those things? And so my challenge for you as the leader of your home, as the dad is to think through. How do you shepherd your family Well, in the same way that Jesus did with the people that he interacted with and with his disciples. Do you know your sheep? Are you pursuing the sheep in your flock in the same way that Jesus pursued his individually?
I will never be God. I'll never know every thought that runs through my child's head, but I do want to, um, have the same be said of me like I'm trying to search my kids and know them. I wanna know when they sit, when they rise. I wanna perceive their thoughts from afar. Again, this is, I'm not God, so I'm not gonna mind read here, but I can develop an intuition of their patterns because I know them and I study them.
I know that when my son is in certain situations, he responds this way because I study him. I know him intimately and deeply. I want him to know that I'm studying him. For my girls, when they interact in certain environments with certain friends or they hear something, or if they see something that's scary, I know I know where they're at.
I perceive their thoughts because I've studied them. Again, I know I'm beating a dead horse here. I'm not trying to mind read. I'm not trying to be God, but I'm modeling that individual shepherding of each family member. For my wife, like in certain seasons of life, I know the things that are gonna cause her anxiety or stress, the things that she's fearful of.
Do I study her? Do I lead her? Do I give her what she needs in specific moments or in specific seasons of life? Because I've, I've watched, I'm not just concerned with my own spiritual walk. I'm not just concerned with a blanket statement. How's my whole family doing individually? But I'm, I'm concerned specifically with my wife.
What does she need? Right now, in this moment, what does my daughter need right now in this moment? What does my son need right now in this moment? Because I've studied them. I am your shepherd. I know you and you know me. I. I wanna model the best that I can, the way that God loves me, and the God the way that God loves the sheep.
I wanna lead in that same way. I wanna strive to know the sheep that God has given me to lead. And so my challenge again to you is to spend time observing each of the family members in your home and then asking questions that would allow you to kind of get to their heart and figure out where they're at on their spiritual journey.
Here's some questions. I wanna make this practical. So here's some questions I think you specifically could ask yourself before even going to like the family members. Just specifically ask yourself like, what is each family member in my household? What are they passionate about right now? So you could write these down.
I'll try to put these in the show notes for you so that you can have them written out. But if you can write these down, take out your phone, write a note. If you have some pen and paper, you can do that too. But just what does each family member maybe write their name down? Individually, every family member in your house, and what are they passionate about?
Does that relate to their faith at all, or is there anywhere there where there could be bridges to their faith, the things that they're passionate about? What challenges is each family member facing right now? What is it right now? So even with your 3-year-old, so it could be a disobedience issue with my teen.
It could be doubt with my wife. It could be fear or anxiety. So just write down each of their names. What challenges are they facing right now specifically, and how might that affect their spiritual journey? I. Is there something that they're struggling with that might have an impact on their spiritual journey?
How do they respond to prayer? How do they respond? When we talk about Bible or the Bible stories, how do they respond to a spiritual conversation? Are they open to it? Do they want more of it? You know what I found with my son, when I give him one-on-one time, he will fully engage. In spiritual conversations.
If I try to do, we do like family meetings. If I have just like a blanket family meeting or we try to do whole family devotionals, he kind of checks out. It doesn't seem to be the best environment for him to learn. But if I meet with him one-on-one, which I'm doing, we're doing Rite of Passage stuff 'cause he just turned 13.
So we actually wake up early in the mornings. And we go through John Tyson's Rite of passage material, really good stuff. So we're reading the scriptures together. But when he has that one-on-one time with me, he responds so much better than in a group setting. And so I'm just learning that about him. I'm studying him, I'm getting to know him, I'm getting to know his personality, where he thrives, where he struggles.
And so just how is he open to spiritual conversation? When is he open to spiritual conversations? And same with your wife. Think through your wife. Like when, when is the best time to have spiritual conversations? And when I do bring up something spiritual, is she open to that? You could ask yourself, are there any things about God or about faith, about church, about the scriptures that are confusing for them?
Hard for them. You could ask them that specifically. So you've asked yourself some questions to get a gauge of where they're at, and then just ask them specifically like, Hey, is there anything you're struggling with when it comes to God right now? When it comes to church, when it comes to the Bible, is there, is there anything hard for you to understand?
You don't have to have all the answers here. Just even you asking that question and being interested in their spiritual journey is spiritual leadership. You could ask each family member, is there anything you're worried about, again, appropriately for their age? Is there anything you're worried about? Let them talk, hear, listen to them, ask them.
How do you think God feels about the thing that you're worried about? One of the questions I like to ask my kids and my family members are, when do you feel closest to God? I. Is there a time where you feel close to God? Is it at church? Is it when we're home together? Is it when we're on vacation? Is it when we're in nature?
In the woods, at the beach, outside under the stars? When have you felt closest to God? That's just kind of a side note. A lot of these questions I put down in our dinnertime devotional cards, so if you want to pick up a, these are great to do either individually with your kids or your wife or around the dinner table or in the car.
These kind of spur on these, but a lot of these questions I've put in there. Here's where I want you to really take this seriously. As the spiritual leader of your home, I want you to write out, again, this can be in the notes app of your phone or on a piece of paper or in a journal. I want you to write down each name of everyone in your family, every child, and your wife, and then I, under that name, I want you to identify where are they currently at with the Lord.
Are they just now learning about Jesus? Do you have real young ones? And they don't, they don't know anything about, they don't know Bible stories. They don't know about God yet. Are they curious about God? But skeptical? Maybe they're getting to like 9, 10, 11, 12 and they're, you're raised in a family that talks about God, but just, I don't have a lot of questions.
I'm skeptical. Is that where they're at? Are they committed to God? They want to be, but they're just struggling in some ways. They're struggling with some kind of sin or decision making, or the same patterns over and over, whatever it is. For your wife, for your kids, I want you to just write down their name and then under that, just identify the current stage that they're in spiritually.
And then under each specific name, now that you have their name, I want you to write specific goals for each person in your home. So if it's a young child, if you have a real young one, the goal here should just be you want them to learn. Bible stories before bed. I highly recommend the Jesus Storybook Bible.
It's my favorite. I read that with each of my kids when they were young. The Jesus Storybook Bible. So if you go to the Good Book Company, or I guess it's the good book.com, and then they have a series, a children's series of books called I. Tales that tell the truth. There's several books within that series they're very, very good at, at teaching your little ones stories from the scripture.
So again, if you have little ones and you're, the goal here should just be, am I teaching them the scriptures, basic Bible stories, getting them familiar with the scriptures, and then just you're praying for them before bed that identify their spiritual stage. If you have little ones, they're probably young and just they're, this stage is, they're just ignorant.
They don't know. About God, yet they don't know about the Bible yet. They don't know the things of God. And so the goal for them would just be to learn the Bible stories and pray before bed if you have a teenager. So you're gonna identify where they're currently at, and then you want to help figure out what is the action step?
What is the specific goal for this teenager? Maybe it's just to open up. Maybe your specific goal is to get them to share with you some of their doubts or their fears or maybe what it looks like to look outside of themselves to start to serve others. To be part of a bigger picture of God's story for a spouse, you identify where your spouse is at specifically, and husbands, I again wanna speak to you.
God is concerned about your spiritual journey. He's concerned about your sanctification, which means making a. You more like him. He's concerned about your holiness becoming more like him. And then he tells you, love your wife that way. And so you must, as the spiritual leader of your home, be invested in your wife's spiritual journey.
Not just your own, for sure, your own, but not just your own. Be invested in your wife's spiritual journey. And one of the ways you could do that, write her name down, identify where you think she is in her spiritual journey, and then set a specific goal. How can I help her grow a little bit closer to Jesus?
That's how you come up with these goals. How can I help each family member grow a little bit closer to Jesus? For a young one, I wanna just teach them the Bible and I wanna pray for them. For a teenager, I'm trying to have conversations with them that will get them to open up, maybe see the world bigger than themselves First, a spouse, maybe we read the Bible together once a week.
That's our goal. I wanna pray with my wife once a week. I wanna read the Bible together. Once a week, I wanna find some kind of devotional that we can read together. Once a week, but you're setting a specific goal. And then I want you to create a plan for each of your child, each of the family members in your family.
So what is the goal that's going to, you're going to use that specific goal, and then how are you gonna have a plan to accomplish that? So I would say number one. You gotta figure out some kind of one-on-one time to check in where each of them are spiritually. I mean, just check in with their hearts, and this can just be once a month, so just put it on your calendar.
What I like to do is I do daily walks, so I have four kids. Four nights of the week. I'm going out on a one-on-one walk with my kids around the neighborhood, usually 15 to 20 minutes long, and I'm just letting them talk, but I'm getting a gauge of where their heart is and the things that are on their heart.
So that's the way that I accomplish that goal of connection. And then in that goal, I can think through, okay, maybe I can tell them a story. If it's a little one, maybe I can study a story of the Bible before we go on the walk, and I'll talk to them about that story. Maybe it's we pray together as we walk.
For my older kids, maybe I'm just trying to get them to open up, let me in to kind of the deeper parts of their heart, the things that they're fearful of or scared of or have doubt. And then for my wife, we've been doing once a week breakfast dates. I know that's not possible for everyone, but. That's been something we've been able to do every week.
And so in that time, again, my goal is I want to get her a little bit closer to Jesus every time that we interact in that way. And so I've written out a specific goal. What is the thing that I wanna do? Well, I wanna study the scriptures with her. I wanna ask her about her heart, and then I wanna pray with her once a week.
And so how do I do that? Well, I got a plan for that one-on-one connection. When are you gonna put that in? When does it actually hit your calendar? You can say you have a goal of growing your kids spiritually all day long, growing your wife spiritually all day long, but unless it actually hits your calendar, it's probably not gonna happen.
And so put it on your calendar to have that one-on-one time. And then for each of those names that you have listed, again in your notes app or your journal or wherever you're writing this, I just want you to have some specific. Prayers for each of them, knowing where they're at on their journey spiritually, knowing the specific goals that you have to get them closer to Jesus.
Knowing the connection that you've set aside for them. I just want you to spend some time praying for them. Write out a prayer. You can bullet point it if like writing things out is new for you, just bullet point it. What are the specific things that you're gonna be praying for each of your kids, each of the family members in your family?
How will you know your sheep and what specifically are you praying for? And this is really your way of, um, keeping yourself accountable. 'cause I want you to go back to this and just write down under each name, just write down what did you observe during that one-on-one time? I. How did they respond to your one-on-one connection?
And when you try to point them a little bit closer to Jesus, how did it go with your kids individually? Is God answering any of those prayers? Write it down. How did it go with your wife? Was it awkward? Was it, was it great? Some guy just shared in our dad's hired community, we have a free dad, tired community.
He just shared that he had listened to the podcast where we were talking about. Loving our wives the way that Christ loved us. And he really wanted to implement that and to take it seriously and to actually pursue his wive's heart and be invested in his wife's spiritual journey. And so they went on a walk together.
I didn't ask him for permission for this, so I was, bro, if you're listening, I'm sorry. I was just so encouraged by this. I won't throw your name out there, even though I don't think you'd care. 'cause it's really cool what you did. Anyway, he went on a walk with his wife and he said that, he asked her like, how are you doing?
And she's like, I'm fine. Kind of gave the typical, I'm fine answer, but he was committed to really being invested in her spiritual journey. And so he is like, no, babe. Like seriously, how are you doing? I. And just him prodding a little bit deeper and really trying to get to know her and to see where she was at spiritually.
And he told her, I, you know, I wanna pray for you. I want to go to God on your behalf and really bring these things that are on your heart to him. And he said they just held hands and she was squeezing. She like leaned into him. It was just a really deep time of connection. Write that down. Like as you are journaling and observing and having these one-on-one connections, like just write it down.
How did it go? Did she respond that way? Was it a really positive, was she completely repulsed by it? Like, who the heck are you? Why are you talking like this? But just write down your observations and then again, schedule it monthly. Do a monthly check-in so that you can know that it's gonna hit your calendar every month.
I literally have it in my calendar. It pops up every day. Here's what you need to do. Here's who you're gonna take on a walk this day. And then in notes, I just have, here's how we're gonna try to connect. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. You have a group of guys, hundreds, thousands of guys in our dad tired community who are, we're all trying to stumble through this stuff together.
Dude, if you're a guy listening to this, again, none of us really had, I. Anyone teach us this stuff. So we're all just stumbling together. Join into that group. Make sure you share your experience. 'cause when you hear other people's experience, it really is encouraging to the rest of us, gives us ideas. But Jesus knew his sheep, he knew them individually.
And we wanna know the sheep that God has given us to care for. Individually. Don't just see 'em as one big flock, but get to know them individually. Study them, know them. Set specific goals. Know where each of them are individually. Create a plan for connection. Create a unique and specific goal for each of the family members in your home.
And then journal about it. Have some ways that you're keeping tabs. Pray about it. Hold yourself accountable to actually pursuing each person in your family individually and loving them the way that Jesus loved you. I hope that's helpful. I love you guys. I'll see you next week.