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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 DA podcast. I apologize in advance for my voice. Uh, we just got done doing a stop behaving conference, which is one of our dad's hired conferences, one day conferences. We were in New York, and, uh, halfway through that I could tell I was losing my voice, so I apologize for sounding like death.
I couldn't even laugh. Sound like an 85-year-old. Chain smoker. Anyway, uh, I'm glad that you're here. Today's gonna be a great episode. A lot of good nuggets. I do recommend that you listen to this with some headphones on. Maybe just by yourself run quiet. We talk about some heavy things or maybe some things that might not be good for young kids around.
So just keep that in mind as you're listening to today's episode. I do want to thank my friends over at u Blockout for sponsoring today's episode. You guys know. I've been talking about this a lot, but I've been trying to get more serious about my sleep. I think healthy men like healthy, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, all that, they sleep well and it's hard to be healthy like in all those areas, emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, without sleeping well.
It's not impossible. A lot of guys just can't get good sleep for whatever reason, work or whatever, but man, if you can control your sleep. And how much sleep you get as a tired dad, my 2-year-old last night was in my bed multiple times because of just not feeling well or dreams or whatever. So I get it.
It's not always possible, but if you can control your sleep, you want to do it anyway. One thing I've done when, when I was trying to take my sleep health really seriously, when I was getting serious about that, I invested in some blackout shades. I got 'em specifically from my daughter's room, so she would sleep well.
They say that, you know, if you want your kids to sleep well, it needs to be. Pitch black in the room and then I ended up just loving them. And I've got 'em for different rooms in our house, but they're amazing. There's a company called U Blockout with just the letter UU Blockout and these things. You can get 'em automatic.
They can do manual shades, but you can get 'em automatic too. So I have mine set to, at sunset they go up, and then at Sunrise they come down. But during the night as you're sleeping, they are legit 100. Percent, no light is coming through these things. I mean, you are sleeping in a cave and you will find that your sleep improves.
So whether you wanna get 'em for your room or maybe your baby's room or a young child, just so that light isn't waking them up and will help them go to sleep faster and stay asleep longer. This is definitely a product that you wanna check out. They've sponsored the dietary podcast. Again, it's you blockout the letter U.
blockout.com and you can get more information about that. Hey, if you haven't picked up a copy of the New Dad Tire Children's book, I highly recommend that you do. It's about to come out, we're just weeks away. Amazon gives you that price guarantee, so whatever the lowest price is before it releases, you will get that lowest price.
But it's called My Daddy's Hero. And it, the goal of the book is that it gives you the tools and the language to point your kids to a better hero. Jesus. So many of our kids think that we as dads are the hero of the family, and you know. And I know that we're not. We fall short of our own standards. We fall short of God's standards for us, and so our kids need a better hero than us.
If you wanna point them to the better hero, you can pick up a copy of My Daddy's hero. Wherever books are sold. Again, Amazon will give you that lowest price guarantee. That being said, let's dive into our podcast interview with John Tyson.
John, so excited to have you back, man. I just wanna say from the last time you were here, I started. The primal Path stuff with my son. My son is turning 13 next month and so, oh man. I love to hear that. That is so good and uh, so good to be with you again. Yeah, it's, your stuff has been so good. I don't, for the guys who have never done it before, which I highly recommend that they do, you make us as dads go through really some pretty intense stuff.
Uh, on our own before we even start doing any of this stuff with our sons. And, uh, bro, it's been a challenge, man. Dad's, I've had one dad write a letter to his dad and he wrote Dear Dad and put it in a drawer for two years. Yeah. Because he couldn't work through it. And then two years later he got it out and finished it up.
So yeah, there's a lot, uh, in the front end of that book, uh, intentional Father that is for men's hearts to process on their own. Yeah. Well, let me just say two things and I'll try not to take us down a unnecessary rabbit hole here. Yeah. But so I didn't have a close relationship with my dad at all. In fact, just this week we did a podcast episode together because he came to visit my family for the first time ever.
Wow. This last week. And my plan was to hand him a letter as he got on the plane, and I couldn't do it, man. I like was writing, I mean, I sat down to write it and it was so emotional. It was much more emotional. Than I anticipated it would be. Wow. And so I like that man, have paused emotionally, but I do plan on doing it.
I want to do it. I wanna honor my father, I wanna write him a letter. But man, it, it hit me. Uh, it hit me hard. Yeah. So that, well man, thanks for leaning into it. I mean, it is, our relationships with our fathers are very complicated and they cast a real shadow over our lives for our whole life. Yeah. For good or for bad.
Yeah. So, yeah. Thanks Rod. Doing the work and leaning in, man. No, well I appreciate the resources you've put out specifically on that. Yeah, it's been helpful. And the other thing I'd say on that is you had us watch the work, which was, that'll mess you up. That dude, that messed me up a lot. And you know what happened is, I, I watched the work, have you seen the documentary on Netflix?
I think it's called Unlocked. About. Oh dude, okay. So you, I'm not even, gotcha. Yeah, you, you refer to. And then Netflix has a docuseries called Unlocked. Really fascinating and it's in the similar vein of, of the work. But all of that led me, man, I, those two things combined. I really feel like God has put prisoners like inmates on my heart and these men who, who have been dealing with fatherhood stuff.
So quite literally, I've spent my morning today. Signing up to be a volunteer at our local prison, and I called them and said, Hey, can I just talk to the guys come in and process fatherhood stuff with the guys at our prison? And they were like, we desperately need that. So I'm starting that like. All of that has been, you just, that's amazing.
My, my brother-in-law is in prison. He is been in prison for 30 years. Really? I've preached in prison with God behind bars. Yeah. And it does something in your heart. It touches you. Maybe it's Matthew 25. I don't know what it is, but it really gives you tremendous compassion. And I think a lot of us would just be like, Hey man, different circumstances that could be me in there.
So yeah. I love, I love that you are, uh, something's happened in your heart and you're, you're taking action on it, man. That is so rare. I love it. Uh, I need you to stop making content 'cause you're just messing up my life in all kinds of ways, probably. Alright. No, it's all good stuff here to help. It's all good stuff, man.
Speaking of resources, you're putting out a new book with Jeff Bethke, who I'm gonna have on in a couple weeks. Yep. But you guys wrote a book together called Fighting Shadows. That's correct. I'm so excited about it, man. Tell us a little bit, like high level overview and then I wanna dive into some of the specific stuff that you wrote in there.
Well, uh, this book came along. Uh, I had written the Intentional Father, all the Primal Path stuff, and I kept getting the same question from men, and that question was. It's too late for me. Where was this when I was younger? And do you have anything for men? And so that caused us to launch a ministry called Forming Men, where we basically, we try and do that, we try and help men move out of brokenness and, uh, reach their full redemptive potential in the image of Jesus.
And in our conversations with hundreds and hundreds of men, we kept bumping into these themes that were sabotaging men's, uh, spiritual formation. And so we said, Hey, let's try and do something about this. Uh, we came across this. Central metaphor, which is, uh, about the idea of an eclipse. Satan says to Jesus, I wanna sift Peter.
And Jesus tells Peter, uh, I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. That word that's used there, fail is the word where we get the word eclipse from. And I felt like in it. That was Satan giving away his strategy. Uh, an eclipse happens when something blocks out the sun. It gets between you and the sun, so it looks like the sun is gone.
Satan wants to put things in front of the face of men, so it looks like God has gone. And then we feel like we're in alone. The light's gone and we're stuck in the shadows. So this is sort of the seven core shadows that we, in our experience, which is neither of us have a PhD, but I've been pastoring a long time, just been doing in this space for a long time, and.
We've read widely and, and worked honestly with thousands of men. And, uh, we see these themes come up and so we wanted to put something out to give them power to fight the shadows and step back into the light. Yeah. Uh, the eclipse analogy is so, uh, tangible. This, you know, 'cause we're recording this right after there's a major eclipse.
We just had that it's a bit of a non-event if up in Buffalo where you said you just were, that's where the totality was. And I hear it. That was amazing. In New York City where I was, I was on 75th Street. It was a bit of a non-event. Yeah. It was actually more interesting watching the people watching the eclipse than the eclipse itself.
Right. Totally. Well, I was in Oregon at the last one where it was full totality and that it, dude, it's eerie. It's like nature goes quiet. Yeah. The, the animals that come out at night start making sounds. The ones that are day quiet. It's weird, man. Yeah. And then I happened to be on a boat on this last one in South Carolina, and it was like 73%, which was, it was interesting, but it, it wasn't like full totality.
Yeah. But I will say this, going back to your analogy, uh, even being on the boat, it feels like somebody puts some glasses on, like sunglasses on you. Yeah. Yeah. And it darkens your view. And so I think that that hits your analogy, which is you're not viewing the world as it's meant to be viewed. Uh, you're not living life as it was meant to be lived.
And I think that's why it's so important. I, I love that analogy for what you're talking about here. What are the shadows? I think you, you guys cover seven of them, is that right? What are the shadows that you see men facing? Yeah. We talk about the shadow of loneliness. I mean, there's an epidemic of loneliness with men today.
Mm-hmm. Men are isolated. It's affecting their mental health. Number one. Cause of death amongst men outside of heart attack, like is, uh, deaths of despair. I mean, men are literally just feel isolated and alone, like they have nothing to live for. Talk about the shadow of shame, obviously. Can I pause? Can I pause you for on that one, that loneliness one?
Yeah. What's interesting about that? 'cause I, I, I'm working with lots of guys every week as well, and outside of maybe one time ever heard a guy use the word. Lonely. You can see loneliness all over his life. Yeah, totally. But he doesn't use, he doesn't tie those dots like, I'm doing this. This is my behavior, this is my thinking, and I tie that and I'm, because I'm lonely.
What are you seeing that made you say, oh dude, you're actually lonely. I mean, we're pretty straightforward. We just say, how many of you guys are lonely? And like everyone raises their hand. We just ask the questions. Yeah. So part of it is, um. These people would say this, you know, I feel isolated. I feel like I can't connect.
They're, they're using secondary terms for a primary experience. Right. And I don't even think there's. Perhaps a shame in loneliness. I just think that we don't even know how to diagnose it with ourselves because we're surrounded by people. We're more connected than ever on social media. All of these platforms we're interacting all the time, but there's a big difference between being connected and feeling seen and known and loved and cared for and that sort of stuff.
So yeah, the first one's loneliness, and then it's sort of. Got a little thing in there on how to build a brotherhood. How do you begin to step out and address that? We talk about shame, the shadow of shame. This is obviously huge. Guilt says you've done something wrong. Shame says there's something wrong with you.
An internalized view. Shame's. Internalized view is just, it's a voice of accusation. It's pointing out the deficits, continually critiquing yourself. That's, uh, we see that a lot in our world today. Shadow of lost. This one's obviously huge lust functions a little differently than I think perhaps, uh, people think shadow of ambition, shadow of work, which is sort of futility.
How do you get a sense of meaning in your life? Yeah. And then apathy, what do you do when you just, you couldn't care less and you feel like there's nothing out there. So these are, these are sort of, there's more, but we kind of felt like they fit into sub themes underneath these things. So yeah, we, this may change over time, but we felt like certainly for the.
Last season of what's up ahead. These are major things that men are wrestling with. Can we tackle a few of these while, while I have you on? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, okay. So let's tackle, uh, start with apathy. Yeah. Which I think I, I have heard a lot of guys say that. Like, dude, I just feel apathetic towards everything.
Yeah. You just feel kind of numb towards everything. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? James Hollis, who's a a psychoanalyst, says every day that a man wakes up, there are two shadows standing over his bed. Uh, one is fear and the other one is what he calls lethargy. And lethargy originally has the idea.
It was one of the, uh, the rivers. Hades in Greek mythology, and when you took a a sip of lethargy, it, it produced a numbness and loss of motivation. Mm. And that's what I think a lot of men feel like they, they have no passion. They lack motivation. This happens, I think, for several reasons. Part of it is cultural changes.
Part of it is I think a lot of young men in particular we're not given enough. Sort of feedback for what happened in COVID and Gen Y guys who were in college, guys in their first job who were just shoved online for a couple of years, have really struggled to sort of get their traction and figure out how to build their lives.
And so, yeah, this is helping men get a vision of moving beyond themselves into the purposes that God has for the, so see, it's a little bit about, um. Being called discerning your calling, what it is that God has for you. Paul calls this the upward call. Mm-hmm. So it's not a horizontal call. What does the world offer me?
It's really getting in touch with who God is, why you were born, why he's put you here, and then moving towards that purpose. So got a little bit of a. A soldier metaphor in there from Second Timothy two, trying not to get caught up in civilian affairs when you're actually needed. And so it's, yeah, it's just basically how to identify who God's made you to be, how to get back in the fight and why you're actually needed in it.
And that's one of the biggest lies we're apathetic because we think we're not needed. Yeah. And a lot of times men can feel like society's saying What's wrong with the world is men. And you are not needed in your world. So there's so much in there. But when a man has a why, he can handle any what Che.
Mm-hmm. And I think that's really true. So it's sort of a vision of helping men get the why. Of their life aligned with why they were born, what God has for them, and sort of empowering to move out from there. I love that. I think that there in my just kind of self-reflection as a young guy, you're just kind of always thinking about the future.
So yeah, first girlfriend. I'll get a license, I'll get my first job. I'll move out of the house, I'll go to school. Yeah, yeah. You're just all like the next, the next, the next thing. And it kind of drives you that internal stuff or the external stuff drives that internal motivation to keep going. And then you, like, for a lot of the guys listening, you get married, you know, you look forward to getting married, you get married, and then you look forward to having kids and you have kids and then you, you got the job, which is supposed to be kind of the stable job to provide for the family that you now have and everything that you were like looking forward to.
You hit, and this usually it feels like happened somewhere in your thirties or maybe late twenties, early thirties. And then you get to the point where it's like, what am I chasing after now? Like, what am I supposed to do now? I noticed this in my own life and I've, I've certainly seen it in other guy's lives, but it's like you find guys who are just like hungering for some kind of next thing or adventure, whether it's like the job, I'll climb the, the career ladder, or this is why I see like my peers gets ridiculously into fantasy football.
It's like, yeah, something to win. Or even destruct the things like pornography or chasing after affairs or some, just something to get the soul like riled up, you know? And I've talked about this before, but our churches, you know, they offer like, okay, come part of this kingdom adventure. There's a kingdom adventure, and you and the guys are like, okay, I'll be part of a kingdom adventure.
Like, what does that look like? And it's like, well, can you set up the chairs or can you make coffee? Oh man, 100%. I just watched a movie recently called One Life. It's Anthony Hopkins. Mm. Definitely worth your time. A bit of a weep fest at the end. Just gotta warn. And it's about when he was a young man, uh, he saw all of these Jews who were being pushed.
Just Czechoslovakia Hitler was coming and he was just taking over country after country and he was able to rescue, I think 668 or 69 kids, uh, before they were taken into camps. And then the people are challenging him when he is in his twenties saying, how are you gonna do this? You're a nobody. And he said, that's what the world needs.
And the army of ordinary, nobodies. And I just love that vision because here's a young man in his 20 who just does something to follow Jesus. In the best sense of the term is an invitation to adventure. What if Peter had said, I think, you know what, I'm just gonna, I appreciate the offer of Jesus. I think I'm just gonna stick with fishing and, uh, I love your idea of being a messiah and the kingdom, and I think I'm just gonna live a small life.
Just get married, have a couple kids, just keep fishing and I just, whatever happens with the Romans is whatever's gonna happen, right? He had no idea he was gonna travel the world. He had no idea that you could be so filled with the spirit of God that your shadow would heal the sick. He had no idea he was gonna end up in Rome, crucified upside down as an enemy of the state.
He had no idea the legitimate adventure that he was gonna be called into. And so. Again, there's a big difference between come to a life of adventure and serve in nominal ways In the church, the kingdom is not synonymous with the church. The kingdom is bigger than the church, and men need to get to the redemptive edge, to the point where there is brokenness in the world.
They need to put their body in between the brokenness of the world and the coming of the kingdom of God. Yeah, and give themselves. It could be as small as like you are saying, I wanna go in a prison and talk to people. Right. You have no idea what that's gonna do in your life. Who you're gonna meet, what that's gonna unlock in you when I walk through.
New York City on my own. Just saying, father, who do you have that needs, encouragement, love. I've never know what a day's gonna bring me, right? If I have to break up a fight, if I have to share the gospel with someone, if I get to pray for someone. So again, we gotta make sure that we do paint an accurate picture of the kingdom and call men to it, not just to to.
Small volunteerism in our programs. Yeah, man, that's good because I think, I mean, part of me even wanting to do the prison thing, 'cause I'm, I, I got a lot going on too. Like I'm a data four and running history stuff. Part of me wanting to do that, I. Is truthfully, if I'm being honest, I kind of want to be scared a little bit for like God's glory.
You know what I mean? Like it feels kind scary. Yes, yes. And I wanna step into an environment where it's like, this is gonna be bigger than me. It's gonna be scary. And uh, let's see what God does. But yeah, I think, well, I think the church has an opportunity here. Because it's true, and midlife psychologists will tell you, you know, that's the challenge of late thirties and onwards.
You've met all of the cultural markers and more of the same is not gonna bring more life. Mm-hmm. I remember very clearly working with a guy on Wall Street who wanted to get a bonus of a certain amount, and it was one more zero than he'd hoped for, and he finally got it. He remember him saying this to me.
I thought it would feel better than this. Yeah. So here's a guy working his brains out. If he can finally get one more zero on his bonus, and he is like, I just thought it would feel better than this. So what you have to do then, I mean, psychologists will tell you, you have to invent your own milestones.
And that's why you know, a lot of men do midlife marathons or they start doing all these other things. Christians have a slight advantage, and that's because the kingdom of heaven is breaking in. If we're paying attention. Yeah, that's good. And we don't have to invent. Little hobbies to get us through the long desert of midlife because you never know when God's gonna break in.
I always say if you dunno what to do, the best thing you can do to get your heart. Sort of called into something is mentor people. Get outside yourself and give life. I mentor a few young guys and it's the most meaningful thing. Yeah. That I'm a part of. I still mentor my son. He's 23, he's about to get married in June.
Wow. And that he's, the last comment he said to me last night was, we're talking about we're wrapping up taxes, and I said, this is the last year. You're a dependent man. Next year you're filing as a married man. And he said this to me, it was really, he just said, dad, I just want you to know there's gonna be all of these things that.
I need a face as a man. And I'm just wondering if you can just keep speaking into these because I'd still need that wisdom and advice. It's like young men ache for input and mentoring and coaching. Yeah. And I see if you don't know what to do, man, go volunteer and uh, shape some middle school boys or some high schools and give back.
And I think you'd be amazed at how meaningful that can be. Yeah. I mean, a lot of guys are already doing like you're already coaching, but if you just shift your mindset like I'm coaching as a missionary for the glory of God. Yeah. You know, like that, that could be a whole shift in like that adventure, you know?
Yeah. Like I think this can kind of bleed into the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is I. Like I was just saying, some of these guys are looking for adventure in destructive places. Sinful places, not just like meaningless hobbies. It's sinful pornography affairs, things like this. So you have a whole section of, one of the shadows is lust or sex.
Yeah. I mean, we're a bunch of men here. Like just talk to a straight bro. Yes. What, what do you guys, well, I mean, one of the things we have to examine, which is we are not very good at. Examining our desire. How does desire work? What are we hoping to extract from the experience? And then how does this meet the core needs of our heart?
So desire sort of basically works in such a way. It's a series of stages. Stage one, something gets your attention, so you pay attention to something. Second, you begin to orient yourself towards it. There's a sense of the will where I want to unite with that. Third is the participation in the thing. Sex affair, masturbation, whatever it is, like you are connecting yourself to the experience and then you're extracting your connection to it is to extract something from it.
And then afterwards you should evaluate like, did that meet the desire that I had? And here's the answer for the vast majority of people, no it does not. Yes, we, you can't sever that little pleasure principle. That's not how God has designed human sexuality. So when you slice it up and you sort of commodify desire to a pleasurable experience, not only does it deform you, but it doesn't even satisfy over the course of time.
So part of it's just having an awareness of how one satisfying this stuff is, and then actually using sexual desire as a tool of spiritual formation, how we orient our desire. So in in the book, I basically say there's two approaches. You can repress your desire. And this is very ineffective, or what the world says is you can release your desire.
Yeah. Which means you just go do whatever you want. Right. But the Bible's using our sexuality as a tool to redirect it to helping us become like Jesus, which means, um, we've gotta learn to restrain our desire, when to hold back, how to treat people in such a way, using as a tool of formation, because sex is such a dominant part of a man's life.
If you don't have a theology of sexuality and see it as one of the primary ways that you are formed spiritually, you are gonna miss out on discipleship in one of the biggest areas of your life. So this sort of takes it outside the moral category, though it does have implications from, is this sinful or not sinful?
To who am I becoming by what I'm doing? What am I doing with my sexuality? And the goal is to become a man of integrity and a man that women can trust. This to me is so extraordinary. Jesus was a man that women could trust. Mm-hmm. Women felt safe around the person of Jesus. Yeah. I always think about that encounter with a woman who comes to Simon, the Pharisees house.
This is a sinful woman, meaning she's probably a prostitute sex worker. Think about the amount of shame there was in Jewish culture and yet. Of all of the men on her horizon. She says, the one person I've gotta find is Jesus. She's willing to embrace the shame of going into a Pharisee's house. She comes to Jesus' feet, washes his feet with her hair and tears, which is weird in any culture.
And then when the Pharisee wants to rebuke. Her and Jesus, Jesus rebukes him back. And I just wanna say, what sort of emotional field or atmosphere did Jesus have around him? Where the most guilty women felt safe to find mercy and not shame? Wow. That's gotta be our vision of the kind of men. We are not predatory men.
Not men who com modify women, but men with integrity. That women can be around and find relief from the sexual chaos, uh, that is around us. So part of it's having that vision of becoming a man like that and then utilizing our sexuality, uh, in a direction that helps us become like that. Geez, man. That's so good.
That's so good. And I, and there's something I think in every man's soul that's like, I want that. Like I, yeah, I want to be that kind of man. You've said multiple times in that answer about it, it form being used as a tool to form our spiritual identity. Like that feels really foreign to most guys. Like, if anything, I, when I'm thinking through, like me as a believer in Jesus as a man, you think through, okay, I just gotta suppress, suppress, suppress.
That's what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. Just suppress, suppress, suppress. But you're saying, okay. How do I actually use this as a way to form like part of my discipleship journey? Can you gimme the guys? Like what does that look like practically day to day? Because like you said, sex is such a big part of every man's life.
So what, what is this? Well, I mean, I mean, I don't How freely can we talk? I mean, I mean I to like begging to that, that we can talk freely. I mean, CS Lewis. Has a, in a letter to Jack, has a, a section on masturbation. And in that section he says, the problem with masturbation is that it turns us inward and short circuits our instincts and practices to help us actually become the kind of man that a woman wants to be with.
Yeah. And so he talks about creating a har of the imagination, where in our mind, the women, we don't, the women require nothing of us. In porn, the women require nothing of you, right? When you're masturbating the woman, nothing is required of you. It's just selfish gratification, right? In real life to win the love of a woman, you're gonna show up, you're gonna level up.
You've gotta provide a living. You've got to care. You've gotta be confront your childishness and your selfishness, and you have to become the kind of man that a woman says, okay, I wanna be with a man like you. That brings us out of ourself into real life formation. Where CS Lewis's argument is that masturbation takes us inward to an imaginary Harlem that stunts our development and growth as a man.
So, yeah, I mean, and then he's written more on that, which I, I won't get into, but. Because it'll forever change the way you read CS Lewis. But I, I, I do wanna say that. And he uses the language of like, it retards our growth. It, it inhibits or shrinks our growth back. And so I think the goal is to channel that energy into the real world, to doing things that make you the kind of man that could attract the woman, or is a woman will desire.
Yeah. So that's a huge part of it is like using the energy to become the kind of man in real life that. That women will want rather than just, you know, exploiting women in your mind. Second thing I'll say is it's fighting shame. A huge part of it is just having integrity within yourself. This is not about your standing before God.
That's done through what Jesus has done on the cross, but this is about your confidence. This is about living out your actual sense of identity. So. The reason so few men lead and level up is because they're crippled by the shame of lust in their private lives. Yeah. They don't wanna criticize, they don't want, they're like, Hey man, I'm still dealing with my stuff.
And so if you want to be able to show up in the world with confidence, asking God for grace to overcome lust in private, I think the reward of it is a deep, not self-righteousness, but confidence. So all of us know in our world today. That you can't say yes to your desires all the time without it destroying and deforming you.
We know that. Yeah, we know that. So all of us have to come to terms that a part of what we are gonna do is learn to discipline our desires in such a way that they lead to life giving pursuits. And that is small, simple, practical. Steps. You've gotta have a vision of what it is. You've gotta have a desire in your heart to become like Jesus.
You've gotta have accountability and an awareness of the things that sort of trigger you in your small practices. You've gotta get performance out of it. And in your mind think, is this gonna bring me closer to becoming the kind of man I want? Is it gonna drag me further away in the book, uh, the 12 week year?
They just have a little simple concept I love and this is what it is. Greatness is in the moment. That's the key to life. Greatness is in the moment. Greatness isn't some huge thing you do. It's a small sacrifice of love in any given situation. So most of what men think is irrelevant or unimportant is what the Bible declares is greatness.
Listen, lemme tell you what's great. A man who chooses not to masturbate. To become a man of love is greatness. In the modern world, we don't think of it like that, but those small steps of formation, rewire the mind change how a man approaches women, changes how he acts in the world, and then gives him a vision of having, you know, a life of love to offer others.
So it really plays itself out in, in many real ways. Man. I appreciate you being honest and raw in your answer. 'cause I think that's really helpful for guys. In my personal experience, I've never seen a guy do this alone. What's your experience do? Oh man. The key to shame is being alone. I mean, all of these shutters require Yeah.
Isolation. Yeah. And so it's so important that that men. Get a few brothers. It doesn't take many. You don't need a tribe. You just need a few close friends that you can be honest with. Uh, it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy how not complicated that path towards healing is, and yet how effective it is because there's so many guys who are gonna hear what you just said and will think I can do this on my own.
I'll just fight these battles by myself. Nobody has to know about this, and they will continue to live in shame and in their self-destructive habits over and over and over. Yeah. Yeah. And yet, I mean, I talk about it so much on the dietary podcast, but confess your sin to God. He's faithful and just to forgive, praise God.
We stand before God, like you said, righteous. It's not a heaven or hell issue. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And yet God in his grace said. Confess your sense to one another that you would be healed. And so many guys are just not healed. They're forgiven. They'll be with Jesus forever. They're just, they don't get to experience a life of healing.
And that path to healing is not really that complicated. Like I've seen dudes get healed and it didn't take like a six year intense, like a therapy session, you know? It just took like getting together with like-minded brothers, confessing sin consistently with accountability, and they're actually walking in freedom and healing.
I totally agree, man. The relief. So number one, this is the enemy strategy for your life. You are the only one. Yeah, totally. Nobody else thinks like this. Nobody else is struggling like this. If people knew what you were really like, they would reject you. Hey, listen, you need to go in with the assumption that everyone's struggling with lu, that everybody is lonely.
You seem to assume that because it's true. Totally. And uh, when you, when you get those different assumptions. It does require a little bit of courage, but we just, we tell people, Hey, listen man. A great path to healing is buy a fire pit. Put it in your backyard. Yep. Get together with a few guys. Refuse to talk about banter.
Yep. Get past sports. Get past personal problems. Financial stress, stress. In the workplace and then get to the core issues of your heart. Yep. Where you know, and when it doesn't take much, it takes some courage, but it doesn't take much else. Yeah. And you just like set a time, set a place, resolve to be ruthlessly honest and to support one another so you can move forward and become like Jesus in your everyday life.
If every man had a community like that and a time and a place where they could be like that, we would be living, I. With a different church in America and a different world today. A hundred percent agree. So I just would urge men, just some go buy. I mean, we, we like fire pits for many reasons, but one of was, 'cause like, it's hard to sit in a circle with a cup of tea and share.
I'm not saying that some men can't, but like there's something about that that sort of gives you space to be honest, and it may not take more than that. One thing that we've, I've been talking about is, uh. I've seen from my life and, and for some guys we call 'em garage groups where guys just get lawn chairs.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. And get in a garage. 'cause there's something about a garage. It just feels like a man's space. But I think it's the same thing as a fire, you know, it just doesn't feel, it's not as stuffy as a church, you know, or as a, you know, coffee shop or something. Well, yeah, and I was gonna say, there's a key factor.
I believe very, very much that we have lost and need to recover same gender spaces for spiritual formation. Mm. Because it's very, very hard for a man to confess in mixed company the deepest details of his heart without, he's gonna feel like it's gonna lower his social status, it's gonna lower his, how people perceive him.
They're gonna remember the sins that he confesses. He's gonna restrain himself to some degree. He's gonna be performative in some degree. But when men have the space to just be. Truly present and free with one another. I think there's something deeper that gets released. Yeah. Okay. And I think that's why like a garage or a fire pit.
Backyard, it could even be on the side of the sidelines of a supports game. I don't know where it is, but like it's just men being together. I think we've lost that and we've lost it to our societies deficit. Mm-hmm. And we're seeing a huge recovery of men getting together. And just saying, let's go deep.
Let's be honest, let's be vulnerable and let's reach our full empty potential to become like Jesus in the very life is given us. So I'm, I'm actually very. Inspire. It's, there's a tremendous amount of need, but I'm very inspired by how I'm seeing men really rise up with a vision of becoming like Jesus.
Yeah. And, uh, the courage to gather a few people and be disciples together. Yeah. As we, uh, wrap up our time here, can you just kind land the plane, and I may be asking you to do too much here, but on your, your thoughts on ambition. I really wanted to get to ambition. I know we're low on time here, but. This being one of the shadows.
Can you kind of tie the dots for guys, the shadow being this, this topic of ambition for us? Yeah. Some men deal with apathy and other people deal with ambition, and a lot of times at different seasons of our life, we wrestle with both ambition. I mean, what do you do with ambition? Donald S. Whitney says, one way to clarify your spirituality is to clarify your ambition, which means really getting in touch with what you want and what dries you, tells you the state of your heart, the vision of your life.
In this chapter, I'm really focusing on Nehemiah. And I wanna contrast worldly ambition with holy ambition. Mm-hmm. Worldly ambition is about beating others and being recognized for your eliteness. So it's very competitive and it's very, very formative. Right. And, uh, James three says that, that where there's selfish ambition there, you'll find.
He says it's, it's, it's demonic, earthly, and unspiritual. Wow. And so there's a culture of ambition in our world fueled by selfishness, that unleashes disorder in every evil practice. And that's so much of the life hacks and the optimization is really just attempts at, uh, fueling worldly ambition. Right?
The alternative is to think ambition is unhealthy, then. That is another mistake because the most ambitious people run history and I'd say Jesus was a man filled with holy ambition. So I, I sort of talk about the keys to moving from worldly ambition to holy ambition through the life of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is just a man working for the government who asks a question, the kind of questions you ask. Determines the life you'd live. And Nehemiah asks a question and he gets an answer that enables him to see beyond the horizons of his own concerns, to genuinely get a vision that draws him into, you wanna talk about an adventure mate?
Like a genuine kingdom adventure. Nehemiah is used by God to rebuild the walls so the city can prosper, Jerusalem can prosper, and he does more in 52 days in the previous 52 years of apathy. And that's when a man has holy ambition. His life will begin to move forward in accelerated ways because God always anoints holy ambition is a tool for change.
So it's, yeah, it's how to sort of examine the ambition in your heart and how to ask God to convert that, to redeem that to holy ambition so your life could be driven forward. And I, I try and make the case that Jesus. Had the most holy ambition of any man who's ever lived, and if we're following him, we're gonna be discipled into his ambition.
So it's really how to recover it and, um, how to channel the ambition you have into a, a redemptive purpose. Man, I'm so excited about the book. I'm excited for our guys to get it in their hands. I, I'll just say this, I, I wanna say to the guys directly, like. There is healing. Like I, there's one of the lies that I think stops so many guys from actually moving toward that, those courageous conversations and the healing is the thought that nobody really gets healed from this.
And you haven't probably experienced lots of guys in your life who I'm speaking to you, the listener, like you may have not experienced a lot of guys who have found healing from this. And so the, the enemy is using that same lie, like, oh, there's nobody re, everyone struggles with this. There is no healing.
But bro, I would just say yes. So many guy I heard a. Statistic that is totally fake, but 99% of men struggle with pornography or lust or something, and then 1% lie. Like everyone essentially, yeah, totally deals with this in some shape or form. But don't let that stop you from also believing the truth that that there are actually a lot of guys who have found healing in Jesus and through your spirit.
Yeah, man. So we've got this one scene. And this is what we want to cultivate. This is a resolve we're trying to build. When men read this book in community together, there's a scene of Alexander The greats conquered the known world, Alexander like, like most cultural elites, cultural elites care about people that don't care about them.
When everyone's in awe of you, you get used to that. But when there's people who don't care about you, like, why aren't you impressed with me? So Alexander the greats on a worldwide tour and he comes to the city of Corinth and he is looking for a man named Diese. Diese, uh, is a wild character. But DEO is just not impressed with anybody or anything.
And uh, so Alexander Great is at this big parade and the whole time he's asking where is deo? And, uh, people say to him, Hey, uh. He didn't come to the parade. And Alexander's like, what? So he goes out to a suburb in Corinth and Dey is sunbathing, and Alexander stands over him when he is sitting there in the sun and says, Dey, it's me, Alexander.
Is there anything I can do for you? And DIY says, yeah, you can get out of my life. And I just love this vision of becoming men who don't care what the world offers, the shadows they bring. We have a defiant response that says, you've got nothing for me. Get out of my light. Yeah, I'm committed to living in the sun.
So that's the vision we're trying to stir in the hearts of men when last, loneliness, ambition, futility, when they try and crowd us out, it's that stirring spirit that says, get out of my light. Yeah. So that's the heart of the book. And hopefully, uh, by men reading it, I feel empowered to, to get that defiant cry.
I love it, bro. Thank you so much. Uh, I always appreciate picking your brain and, uh, you've helped us a lot, man. Thank you so much, mate. Always a joy to, uh, chat on the podcast. Thanks so much.