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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, uh, Jared here. Uh, it's been several months since I last talked to you and I just wanted to say, um, man, I miss you like crazy. Um, so many of you have sent text messages and emails and you've reached out. I know many of you have fasted and prayed for me and my family, and I'm just, I. Beyond humbled and grateful for the way you guys have loved me and our family during this season of life.
Um, I, I really just wanted to pop on to let you know that next week, Caleb, Chris and I will be on the podcast together, kind of give an update, um, on. Things that have happened in my world the last four months, and then starting the very next week, I will be jumping into the podcast again, um, doing interviews and processing with you guys again, like we have the last, uh, almost decade.
So, uh, yeah, that's it. I don't have any big announcements or anything other than, uh, well, I guess that's kind of a big announcement, but, um. There's, there's no big thing here other than I just wanted to say I love you and I miss you, and I can't wait to see you again starting next week. So you can stay tuned for that.
And I'm looking forward to hanging out with you guys and being with you again. But, um, before that, let's jump back into this week's episode, which is week two of what does it mean to have Biblical masculinity? This is a. Second part of a series that Chris Hiin is doing. And uh, dude, they have just been crushing it.
Caleb and, and Chris. I've been listening to the podcast every week since I've been gone, and I'm, I'm learning a ton. These guys are, we're so, I'm so grateful. We're so lucky to have these guys. So anyway, I love you. I can't wait to see you next week and, uh, let's dive in. Hey, they we're continuing a conversation this week about biblical manhood and basically just summarizing the difference between.
The traditional aspects of masculinity that we might see from a secular perspective. You know, you've gotta be, um, in some cases abrasive and you've gotta be overly assertive and you need to make sure you're lifting weights 24 7. And, but really when you, when you tease it out, God makes mankind in his own image and as he makes mankind male and female, he created them.
As he does, he reflects different aspects of his attribute and his character inside of, uh, every man that is made. And we can reject those things and try to chase things of this world, or we can accept those. And when you open up the scriptures, you see Jesus playing this role of the perfect man and the qualities that he possessed and the the things that he.
Exemplified in his life are ones that we want to be emulating and mimicking. And so, uh, if you're listening to this and, and you're talking, you know, I'm thinking about this with my own son, is how do I start bringing out these concepts? Do I, do I like, make a poster for his room and say, look, every time, every time.
Every time something goes wrong, do I point at one of these things and go, man, this is what makes a man a man. I, I feel compelled to this. I, I feel drawn to the idea of this like more intentional discipleship with my, with my young men that I'm raising. I've got a, a 10-year-old son and then a 7-year-old son, and then a four year olds or 5-year-old son.
And um, but then I also have two girls and. To say, almost wanna put the same poster on their wall and go like, uh, if you are, if the guys that you're interested in aren't making peace, they're not worth your time. If they're not repentant, they're not worth your time. And those are a couple of things we talked about last week about what makes a.
A man, uh, from a biblical perspective, worthy of your time, and also as men, what we should be streaming, what we be striving and aiming for, um, in our, in our own context. And so we're gonna talk more about that today. So I talked about having this kind of, um. This acrostic, which is prime men, P-R-I-M-E-M-E-N.
Prime Men are gonna be peacemakers we talked about last week. They're gonna be repentant, quick to turn and committed to change. And that'll be, um, in what we posted last week. And so we'll kind of continue from there. Hopefully we can get everything done in time. And third one is that they need to be intentional.
A godly man that we see that, that Jesus was such a great picture of this. He was an intentional man. I think about, uh, Jesus and the. Woman caught in adultery in in John chapter eight, where it was not, as you know, he can throw up his hands and go, not my monkey, not my circus. This woman shouldn't have committed adultery.
There's nothing to insinuate in the text that she wasn't guilty of it, but instead, he stands in the gap in the middle of those things. First Timothy three, four through five says, every man must manage his own family. Well. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?
Uh, Ephesians six for fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. So it's not mom's job to train and instruct them. It's not, uh, I, I got that a lot when I was a, a youth pastor, um, for 10 years up in North County, San Diego, of parents who would come in and go, like my kids said this, whatcha gonna do about it.
And it's like, whoa, friend. The father begins the instruction process. And, and even though there's other people who are willing to step in, if we relinquish that, uh, we don't want to give that to them. We, 'cause we're gonna have to be counted faithful in the way that we raise up and instruct our children.
And, and Galatian or Ephesians gives it to us. So when we. Um, relinquish responsibility. When we fail to do that, we are actually sinning against God and so it is our job. Fathers do not exasperate your children. Instead, it's your job to train them and instruct them in the Lord. We must be intentional. He's to direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.
This is what it says in Genesis 1819. And then we found places in scripture where people don't do that. Kind of this masculine failure that is seen over and over again in the text. I think of Adam who stands by passively when Eve is being deceived In Genesis three six, the Hebrew there would insinuate that Adam was right next to her as if standing in and they were as close as skin one to the other.
And yet even though he knew that Eve was being deceived and was disobeying, God, he. Instead chose silence. Um, I think Eli Eli is a Old Testament prophet that had his own set of sins, uh, but his biggest one was his failure to correct his children. In one Samuel three 11, he had two sons, NIAS and Hoffey, and they were eating the sacred things and, and.
Disobeying the law that God had given to the priests and the priesthood, and he didn't say anything and it led to his own destruction and their destruction. Uh, but Jesus is the better. He's the better. Eli. Jesus washes his, his disciples feet. He actively leads them through humble service. He, he feeds 5,000 and takes responsibility for their needs.
He, uh, heals the bleeding woman in. Uh, mark five, mark four, and five. Who needs it? He stands in front of the woman caught in adultery. He forgives actively the sins of the people who are crucifying him. D Moody wrote this, A man ought to live so that everybody knows he's a Christian and most of all his family ought to know.
I think that's a really important idea. Um, John Piper writes masculinity means taking responsibility, not making excuses. So we need to be intentional. So that's the I in prime. The m is probably my favorite characteristic in all of, um, in all of. Maybe just characteristics as they go. Uh, the my favorite human characteristic is meekness.
Meekness, MEEK. And this is the, the best way of under understanding meekness. It's so often I. Is misunderstood to mean weakness that, um, we go, oh, that man's very meek and mild. We tie those together, meek and mild mannered. So he's kind of deferential, oh no, no big deal. You know, everything's really positive in his life.
He's meek. And if someone's like, what do you think about that, um, political statement, he goes, oh, I don't know. I'm not quite sure. You know, like just opinion list backbone, list spineless kind of a thing. But that's not at all what meek means. Um, meek only matters. If there's power to be controlled, 'cause meekness is power under control.
There's a word for someone with no power or someone with no opinions, or someone with no spine, or someone with no authority or no ability to influence. We just call that weakness. But we already have a word for weakness, so meekness does not mean the same thing. Meekness is a father who is playing basketball with his 4-year-old kid, and in order to promote relationship, he gets down on his knees and plays with only half of his size and only an eighth.
Of his athletic ability. And he instead takes the tackling his child and making it a fun experience of connection rather than needing to exert dominance on them. It's the, um, it's the, the dad who takes the loss in, um, the, a situation where he could have flexed himself or it's a dad at a football game where someone, um, nudges him and even though the person who nudged him is small and.
Much less strong and capable. Instead of exerting his power, he instead forgives or turns the other direction and he's, he's difficult to provoke because his power is under control. Jesus writes this in the sermon of amount. Blessed are the meek for theirs will be the kingdom of. The Earth. Proverbs 16, 20 32.
Better a patient person than a warrior one with self-control than one who takes a city. Two Timothy one, seven. God gave us a spirit of power, love, and self-control. So God's spirit was not of weakness, it was power, but. It's control. It's it's motivated by love and it's controlled by self-discipline. Uh, I think about Moses in the Old Testament of, of speaking of men who failed in this category.
Uh, he lost control in rock. He struck a rock instead of speaking to it in the book of numbers, chapter 20, or, uh, Samson in Judges 16. He had power, but no self-discipline. It was to his demise. It literally killed him. So you've got Jesus, man, this, if you wanna find a. A verse in scripture that really just gets you, it's an interesting find that they just discovered, uh, in the last couple hundred years over in the ancient Near East, which is a piece of fragment called the P 52 or the Ryland Fragment, which is one of the earliest pieces of copy that we have of the Bible.
It's from the book of John chapter 18. And the really cool thing about this one fragment of papyrus that we have that is the earliest of all the manuscript copies that we have. The question on the piece of papyrus that we hold is simply the question, what is truth? And it's the question. It's actually written on a part of the Book of John where Pontius Pilate, this Roman prefect in governor who's powerful in his own right as a Roman governor, is talking to Jesus.
And Jesus is the king of the world man. He like made. Um, neutrons and, but, but he invented black holes and galaxies and star formations and the hippopotamus and the duck build platypus and the kroo and all these other weird sorts of animals in the world. And he controls it. Says that he holds all things together and he, he holds 'em in his right, his mighty right hand.
And yet he's got this man who thinks he's powerful, and Pontius Pilate says to Jesus, don't you know I have the power to set you free? And Jesus' response is a hair raising response. Jesus responds, you have no power except for the one that I've given you, and it's only temporary, and then I'm gonna take it back.
And it's just true. Jesus is not weak. He's meek. That's why when Philippians two says, even though he had deity at his control and he could have exercised it at all times, instead he. Made himself nothing, taken the form of a servant fully. God and fully man. Uh, Tozer writes this, the meek man is not a human mouse.
Afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. He's not a human mouse meekness, John Calvin reminds us, restrains the hand and the heart, and they do not seek revenge. It's a true view of oneself. Martin Lori Jones says, meekness is essentially a true view of oneself expressing itself in attitude and conduct worth respect to others.
That's meekness. So we have peacemaking, repentant, intentional, meek, and this next one is. Uh, powerful, especially if you hold a position of authority or as you begin to lead your household or you already are doing so, which, which is the idea of. Um, enduring. If you are a, a lady, a single lady, and you're listening to this, or, um, maybe you're a single mom or whatever it might be, in your thinking, what are some of these qualities I should be looking for or as a dad, what, what kind of qualities should I be encouraging my daughter to look into?
This is one that particularly has escaped a whole generation of ungodly men, but I think you find a lot of godly men in the church who practice this one. I would say that a, a godly man in scripture needs to be an enduring. Person enduring with an E. Uh, they need to be tough. And I don't mean, uh, tough in that they, um, are flexing on people or that they are, uh, they never cry or they don't have emotions.
That's not what the word tough means. It means thick skinned, but responsible. Um, I think of the question that people would ask me shortly after Paige passed away, which is, um, how are you still going? And I remember thinking to myself, I didn't know it was an option. Right? Like, you know, that's kind of what the, the.
The biblical characteristic of men is, um, I'm going to continue to go to work and provide for my family because what else would I do? Um, we talk about like, uh, levels of morality and philosophy and like the lowest moral level is I try to be a good person because I don't like consequences of being a bad person.
And then the next level of like moral change is I wanna be a good. Because good people get rewarded more often, which is good. I mean, it's better than just avoiding consequences. And then the next moral level up is I wanna be a good person because, um, that's, uh, what we've all agreed to. And if I was a bad person, that gives my neighbor permission to be a bad person.
But the highest moral character, the highest moral change order is a man who says. I'm gonna be a good man because I don't know how to be a bad man. I'm gonna be a man that's faithful because that's just who I am at my core. The reason that I choose to do the right thing isn't because the wrong thing has consequences or the right thing gets me rewarded, or, well, I wanna just be part of this social contract so I better do the right thing.
'cause I don't want my neighbor to be stealing my stuff too. The best thing you can figure out is to deeply seat yourself inside of the character of Christ so much that when you're tempted to do something wrong, you're able to say. Guys like me don't do that because we are followers of Jesus. That's just not who I am.
I'm not capable of doing that because I've been built and brought up in the spirit of Christ and that's what I'm aiming for in my life, and that's sort our hope. Proverbs 24, though the righteous fall seven times they rise again. The wicked stumble. As soon as calamity strikes, uh, one Corinthians 16, be on your guard Stand firm in the faith.
Be courageous and be strong. You've got like Ahab in the Old Testament who pouted and sued instead of leading with perseverance. You've got, again, Eli, who doesn't discipline his kids, which leads them to disaster. But Jesus in the wilderness is tempted for 40 days and yet does not sin. Um, carrying his cross up Calvary's Hill in Luke 23 and the power that he showed and the resilience of who he was going on.
You think about Jesus for 30 years was a Jewish carpenter. He was a a quarry worker. He worked with stones and carving out the rocks, and how easy would it have been in that position to just feel like, well, I gotta get my time, my, my spotlight is right now. But instead he recognized. That he didn't need to, uh, flex that at all times.
He, he had a sense of sticktoitiveness. Uh, he was brought up. He grew in wisdom and stature. The New Testament tells us, and so Jesus was, was a patient man, but he endured with great suffering. Those who intended to hurt him. Uh, the world cries for men who are strong, strong in conviction, strong to lead, strong to stand and strong to suffer.
Elizabeth Elliot, after losing her husband, Jim Elliot in Ecuador, to a tribe of people that he was trying to witness to, that's what she writes, which I think is a, a powerful way of understanding the world. Cries for men who are strong, strong in conviction, strong to lead, strong to stand and strong to suffer.
The next characteristic is, um. Moral, uh, this a, a simple way of putting this, it, it fits into acro, acrostic. It's not the best word. The best word would be godly submissive to biblical authority. A moral man. Uh, but, but more not moral in like the, the world says like morality to the common man in our. Um, modern context would be, um, to be of, uh, hyper vigilance in making sure that we don't ever offend anyone, and that's not what biblical morality is.
Uh, biblical morality is submitting yourself fully to God and accepting any consequences that comes with. Any sort of persecution that follows one Timothy four eight. Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things. Holding. Promise for both the present life and the one to come.
Titus two and everything. Set them an example by doing what is good and your teaching show integrity and a soundness of speech that cannot be condemned. I think about, uh, king Saul. One. Samuel 15 rejected God's command and tried to justify his disobedience, or, um, Jesus who succeeded, where others have failed in his godliness, overcoming temptation by quoting scripture in Matthew chapter four, by praying in the Guard of Gethsemane, fully submitted to God's will, even though he's about to take on the cross, he says, but not as my will, but as yours be done.
JC Riel writes, A man may preach from false motives. A man may write books and make fine speeches and seem diligent in good works, and yet could still be Judases Harriot. So it's not just about demonstrating externally. I'm one of God's follower, so was Judas. But when push came to shove, he chose the lesser thing.
He chose what was not virtuous, and we wanna reject those things. Um. So he that, that deep sense of moral conviction, uh, Charles Spurgeon train up a child in the way he should go. But be sure you go that way yourself as his dad. I love that you need to train up a child, but you also need to go that way. Uh, Vodi Baum has one that always just rips me apart.
He writes this, if I teach my son to keep his eye on the ball but fail to teach him to keep his eyes on Christ, I have failed As a father, I. I am gonna say that one one more time 'cause it just wrecks me every time. If I can teach my son to keep his eye on the ball, but I don't teach him to keep his eyes on Christ, I have failed as a father.
Uh, empathetic is the next one. Prime men. So this is the E in prime men. So the second e, the first one was enduring. This one is empathetic. Uh, what does that really mean though? It, it doesn't just mean you're walking around and constantly, um, over feeling, or you are reactively emotional to everything, but instead it means you're protective.
You're a. Emotionally protective, you're physically protective, uh, to your family. You're sex, you're protecting yourself sexually against other people who would try to, uh, ruin your peace in your family, your integrity or your virtue. So you, you're recognizing that your actions have a effects on other people.
So it's another reason why you need to be healthy emotionally. You need to be healthy physically. You need to be healthy sexually because. An empathetic dad is one who says, I recognize that failure in these categories hurts people beyond myself. When I'm choosing what I'm going to do, or what I'm gonna look at, or who I'm gonna call, or who I'm gonna direct message, or whose dms I'm sliding into, I have to recognize empathetically that my.
My behavior and my actions don't just affect me and the person I'm enacting in interacting with, it affects those that I'm responsible to. That's my wife, that's my kids. Um, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. First Corinthians 16 tells us to do everything in love.
Remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your homes. Nehemiah four 14. We have a responsibility from a biblical lens. To be protectors of so many different things that go beyond just physically protecting. Uh, and that's a deep recognition that what I do.
We'll be, I, I just think about like so many of us as dads, um, and I was fortunate to have a great father, but so many of us as dads, we have a father wound that we carry around. And if we don't recognize that we are in the process of either creating a fatherly basis of understanding Jesus and ourselves or, or our, and our kids and them knowing themselves, I'm either doing that a service or a disservice.
I'm, I'm either, I'm increasing the. The difficulty that my kids are gonna have to recognize God is Father, or I'm decreasing the difficulty for them to recognize that God is Father and it's all in the way that I'm acting. So I have to be empathetic in that. Um, Jesus, he's praying for his disciples in John 17.
He's literally interceding for them before he goes to his cross. And it would've been easy for him to just think about himself, but instead through empathy, he's praying for others. Um. Doug Wilson writes this, A man who does not protect his family spiritually, emotionally, physically, is not fulfilling his God-given role.
Vodi Baum, who writes extensively on biblical manhood, writes Biblical manhood, protects it, never exploits. John Piper, finishing up says, the call to manhood is a call to self-sacrificial leadership. Leadership, never a license for selfish authority. And lastly is noble living honorably before God and family, a noble man.
What is nobility and how does it differ simply from, uh, the idea of being moral? I think that the idea of being noble is, uh. You can be admirable by doing all the right things when everyone's paying attention. A noble person is one who recognizes that their internal secret world actually affects their external public world, and they don't just protect what people see.
They protect what no one sees. They protect their hearts when no one's around. They protect their internet search when no one's there. They, it's not just what they can get away with, it's, we don't live in a shame on our culture in God's kingdom where as long as no one's shamed, I'm okay, or as long as no one knows I'm protected.
There is something that is right. Here's what Philippians, uh, Paul writes in Philippians. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy, this is what we should be thinking of. And you go, but no one knows what I think about. Why does it matter? In Paul, what Paul is writing is that in God's economy, even what we think about that no one could ever know affects what we do and affects what's known and actually can be caustic to our souls.
So we wanna make sure that we're being noble in all things. Proverbs 22 verse one. A good name is more desirable than great riches. I, uh, maybe you guys have, have seen the play or read the book called The Crucible. Maybe you just watch the movie. Um, but John Proctor is being asked to, um. Basically call himself a liar.
And so as he's like going under, he's gonna be, um, killed for not relinquishing this truth. And he basically says, I, I can't lie. And they're like, why not lie man, if you lie, you'll get away with it. And he goes, but then everyone think I'm a liar. And they basically say, who cares if they think you're a liar?
And uh, why don't you just say you did it? And then he has this moment in the play. Um, I guess Daniel Day Lewis plays it where he just starts yelling. Because it is my name, because I only get one. Because at the end of the day, if everything else about my life is good, but I've got a bad name because no one trusts me, that isn't valuable to me.
I just, that line has always struck with me because it is my name and if we are willing to say God has made me. Into someone who is an an ambassador. This is what the New Testament, we're an ambassador of Christ's kingdom. I don't just want to be an ambassador for those who see me externally. I want even my heart to be an ambassador for him.
Micah six, eight, he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly. I think of Ananias and Sapphira who lacked integrity and honesty leading to their downfall. The sin of Aiken in the Old Testament, who stole when God said, don't touch anything, and he stole and hid it in his camp.
And the people were hurt in a nice sense of fire, who pretended to be giving more than they actually gave. And for having sold something for a hundred dollars but pretended like they sold it for less so they wouldn't have to be generous with what they had and they were struck down for it. Or King Nebuchadnezzar, who chose pride and to have hidden things, lost his nobility and everything went south for him and he ended up going crazy and.
Losing everything because of that, Jesus instead conducts himself with dignity and truth, even when falsely accused. I think of John 18 where he is again on trial before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate, and they're hurling false accusations at him, and it says it's prophesied thousands of years ahead of time.
They, the prophet Isaiah says. But Jesus is gonna be like a lamb who before its shearers is silent. There's something about lambs when they go to get their wool shorn. Um, they can be quiet. I. And just dutiful, just, okay, go ahead and shave it. I don't like this, but go ahead and do it. And it says, as a lamb, before it, cheers is silent.
So Jesus did not give any pushback to his accusations. Now, when they said, are you God? He said, absolutely. You'll see the son of man coming down the clouds with fire coming down from heaven. So he didn't, he he made no mistake when they said, are you God? He spoke up. But when they said, you are, um, you did this, you did this wrong thing, it's he just sat there and took it.
Because he recognized the importance of the moment to, to bear my cross. He needed to be falsely accused of things he wasn't even guilty for. And then on the cross, Luke records it, but privately he forgives the people for the sins of them nailing to the cross. C. S Lewis writes, integrity really simply, integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
Um, that, that word integrity is an important one. Think about the word integration or the word integer. Integer is a whole number. It's not fractioned. Um, so one and a half is not an integer. It would, it would be a fraction or, um, uh, a part, part of a number. But an integer is a whole number. So having inte.
Integrity is, as a man, I wanna be a whole man. I want, when I'm out in public to be a whole man, when I'm in private to be a whole man, not half of me goes out and half of me stays home. Half of me wants to be a good dad. Sometimes the other half is in my lustful thought life. But it's just saying I want to be integrated.
I want everything to be one, and I want that one thing to be pure in God's economy. The whole idea is that I'm not a separate person. That's where we get the word for. Um, the idea of like, uh, being worried or anxious comes from the idea of being separated or, or torn in half, um, marri now, or this, this term of, um, I, I am two different people in two different places.
The call of the scriptures as for men is to have integrity, to be integrated at all times. John Wesley writes, do all the good you can by all the means. You can in all the ways you can, in all the places you can add all the times you can to all the people you can as long as you can. Nobility isn't just not screwing up.
It is, uh, I, I. You guys have seen the movie Boondock Saints? There's quite a bit of violence in it, but there's one quote from the beginning that pervades the whole movie and it's this. Sometimes the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is when good men sit by and do nothing about it. John Ed Jonathan Edwards writes this resolved.
I've resolved never to do anything, which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. So he said, I, I don't wanna, I don't want to shy away from doing any good thing that I would do so willingly if I was gonna die in an hour. If you were gonna die in an hour. And what. Would you be willing to do that you wouldn't be willing to do right now?
Is it a, an invitation for someone to meet Jesus? Is it to apologize? But you feel, but isn't it so much easier if I said, okay, you're mad at your wife, you're mad at your kids, you're mad at whatever, dad. Okay, kid. But, but guess what? Your clock just started ticking. We just found out there's an asteroid headed to earth, and the world's gonna go dark in an hour.
It's gonna be destroyed in an hour and a half. You think you're holding onto that grudge? I think you're going, oh, no, no. Okay, stop. We gotta solve this. I wanna tell you how much you mean to me. And so Jonathan Edwards says, we need to resolve this as men. Pretend like it's the last hour of your life. What would you do in the noble things that you're called to do if you know I'm gonna meet Jesus in 90 minutes as a man?
These are the ways that I think the, the scripture lays out what it means to be a man after God's own heart, peacemaking, repentant, intentional, meek, enduring, moral, empathetic, and noble. This is not, you know, this is not one of those. Areas that it's like, well, I've made it here. You know, it's quite the opposite.
It's what I want to be, but sometimes we have to lay it out and go, man, okay, these are the things that, and maybe you hear that list and. Maybe this is a challenge. Circle four things that you go, I think I'm doing pretty well in this category. Circle two things that you go, this needs work. And one thing where you go, I'm probably bleeding in this area.
In fact, I think with this one or two, and, you know, maybe take a highlighter to them, print this out and take a highlighter to them and, and, and talk about it with your kids. Talk about it with your sons and your daughters. Even your wives, depending on how far you wanna take this. But just say, am I a man who makes peace?
Am I a man who repents? And allow people to speak into your life and find a godly man in your life who's willing to disciple you if you're able to, and talk through these things. Get someone who can affirm that you are a man after God's own heart. And at the same time, here's places we need to grow. It's, um, with one of the ancient theologians writes this, God loves you exactly as you are and way too much to let you stay that way.
And that's every time we turn into dad tired. I think Jared does a great job of setting that ministry aim for us. I want to feel every time I finish a podcast convicted, but deeply loved. I, why would I listen to anything that isn't gonna challenge the way that I think or experience life or draw closer to Jesus?
Like I, I don't need to listen to a podcast that just tells me to like pat myself in the back. But I also should recognize that in Christ, I'm already forgiven for the areas where I'm gonna mess up this week. So we hold those things in tension. I. I think I'm more loved than I could possibly understand, and yet I'm more broken than I probably want to give credence to.
So hopefully this is encouraging for you and encouraging you once again, whether it's with your sons, with your daughters, and whomever, to take this to the next level and say, I wanna start applying these things. I don't just want good information. I want to change through the power of the gospel, empowered by his spirit, which is not timidity and fear, but people love and self-control.
Hopefully this was helpful for you guys.