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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. As you know, we are a ministry that is trying to equip men to lead their family well. We've been about that for over six years, seven years now. That's the heartbeat behind what we try to do, man, and even with all that, I've spent the last six, seven years of my life just focused on that and pouring into that.
Even with that, I still every day feel like I have no clue what I'm really doing. But one of the things I've been trying to do is just like. Come back to the basics, get back to the fundamentals. And so I've just been reading the Bible with my kids. I've talked about that a lot over the last several weeks and months.
Like just one chapter a day with my kids, with my older kids, I should say nine, 12 year olds. The younger ones, I read them Jesus Storybook Bible at night. But just trying to like get back to the basics, man. Just to like read the Bible with my kids. Let the word of God transform them as we read it. Then we, we think about it all day.
We try to figure out how does this look like? What is the application of the word of God throughout our lives and weeks. But the other thing I've been trying to do is also memorize scripture. We've been talking a lot about that with our kids recently, is just getting the word of God, meditating on the scripture day and night.
Like all the things that we let inside of our eyes and ears. I. Which is not pure and lovely and good and honorable and praiseworthy, like none of these things, it's just, it's, we let so much garbage. This is true for us as men. It's true for our kids. There's just so much stuff that goes into our eyes and ears on a weekly basis.
That's not great daily basis, hourly basis. So we've been trying to memorize more scripture in our house, and so I literally just Googled. I'm like, are there resources out there that help people memorize scripture better? I'm not very good at it. I have a terrible memory, and I've always used that kind of as an excuse to not memorize enough scripture that I want to.
And so I just Googled to see if there were any resources out there, and I found one. That I love. It's called Dwell Differently or Dwell. What they do is they do either stickers or tattoos, temporary tattoos, and we're not really tatting up our kids over here. Temporary tattoos are stickers that you can just, you put on your arm wherever you wanna put 'em, and our if, if you go sticker route, we did the tattoo route 'cause our kids.
I think that's super fun. All of them think that's really fun. But if you go the sticker out, you can put on water bottles or backpacks or whatever school stuff. But essentially what it is is that it gives you a verse every month to memorize as a family. And it takes the first letter of every word in that verse, and it uses that as a way to prompt your memory, to memorize the verse.
And we've been able to. Dude memorize a lot of scripture in a very short amount of time. Even my little ones, like my 4-year-old can recite scripture by memory based on these prompts, these letter prompts and the tattoos are really cool design. They're like, it's not just letters, it's uh, they just have a great graphic team over there that.
Makes it look really cool. Anyway, all that to say, I'm talking longer than I planned to, but I just really, really like this company. Uh, I reached out to 'em, I'm like, Hey, we have a podcast for dads. We're trying to memorize scripture. We're trying to be the spiritual leaders of our homes. We wanna partner together.
And they were like, they loved it. They loved the idea and they were all for it. So they put together a deal for you guys, which is just, they're so gracious. Again, I was like a customer, just using them. I love them. But now they are a partner of the dad tired ministry and I'm really excited about it. If you go to dwell differently.com and use the promo code, dad tired, you can get a year membership for 10% off.
That's what we did. We just got it for a year. That way we can just have 'em delivered Every month. They come with a ton of stickers or a ton of tattoos. They also have all kinds of, they have like coloring pages and a bunch of like digital stuff. They have a podcast, all kinds of great stuff. But if you just, if all you did was just put these stickers or tattoos, you're gonna step up as the spiritual leader of your home immediately.
Your kids will memorize scripture and you'll be able to talk about it throughout the week. It's like really quick feedback loop when it comes to spiritual. Some of the stuff we're doing, we're not gonna see the fruit of it for 10, 15, 20, maybe ever as dads. But this, you're gonna see the fruit of it like this week if you implement it.
So anyway, go to dwell differently. Dot com, use the promo code Dad tired. When you get an annual membership, that'll give you 10% off that annual membership, and I think we should just do it together as dads go into our free community and say that you signed up for it, and let's together as dads encourage each other to memorize scripture and to get our families to memorize scripture.
Really, really cool stuff. If you've been listening to the podcast the last couple weeks, you know I've been. Struggling through all kinds of stuff and uh, I was really open last week. Still feel a little bit vulnerable sharing all the stuff I shared with you last week, but you guys were really gracious in your emails and responses to last week's episode, but the last few weeks, one guy said like, the last three episodes prior to this one could feel almost like a series I.
Because they all just kind of seemed to tie together. That was not intentional, but it just seemed to kind of work out that way. So I'd, I'd suggest going back and listening to the last three week episodes. They kind of feel like they all have the same theme. And again, I think that was just the spirit of God.
I didn't plan that. But that being said, just as a dad, like just. Personally as a dad, not like Jared, the podcaster or pastor or whatever, just Jared as a dad, just feeling like, man, I wanna, I don't want to give up. I don't want to start running slower at this. Or, I just really, really want to do this thing.
Well, when it comes to being a man and being a father and a husband, and so I went back and listened to, uh, an episode from over six years ago with a guy named Paul David Tripp, who's just kind of a champion. He's like a hero in the. In the parenting space. He's been for a long time. I interviewed him six years ago.
I went back and listened to it. Me interviewing him was a little bit painful 'cause I was just getting started and I didn't really know what I was doing. Still don't feel like I totally know what I'm doing. But, uh, really didn't know what I was doing back then. But somehow got him on the podcast way back in the beginning.
And I went back and listened to that episode again just as a dad. Like I'm, I know he's got so many like gems. And I'm like, dude, what did he say? What did I ask him? And what did he say? My kids were super young back then, and I listened to it again and I'm like, holy cow. Uh, literally every answer that he gave to a question I asked was just pure gold.
And I thought to myself as I was listening, like, I need to come back and listen to this every six months because it's just so, so helpful. My kids are literally twice the age they were. My son was six, he's 12 now when I did that interview. And so I'm just like, I need to just listen to this every six months because it's just really, really good stuff.
And then that prompted the thought of like. I'm guessing most of you haven't listened to that episode 'cause it was six years ago and I just now realize this. Sorry, I'm rambling. Forgive my, this long introduction, but I just now realize a lot of the podcast platforms, if not all of them, delete, they only allow you to have 300 episodes.
I just realized this, this week, they'll delete every episode past 300 from from the beginning. So we have like. A year's worth of podcasts that are no longer available for you to listen to. So there's probably a ton of episodes back in the day that you never even heard. This one I think is still up, but it's about to be deleted.
So I thought I just posted again 'cause I need to hear it. I think you'll probably get a ton of value out of it if you listen to it six years ago. You'll get a lot of value out of it again today if you've never listened to it. I think you're also gonna get, just take out a notebook, dude. Like pull out your phone, pull out the notes and just take notes.
Listen with your wife. Listen every six months, bookmark it. This is just, he gives a lot of good stuff for us as parents. But anyway, I rambled way too long. I love you guys. Listen to this episode from six years ago 'cause the wisdom is still as relevant today as it was back then.
Paul, thanks so much for being on the show. I just give you a short introduction, but in your own words, tell us who you are and what you're up to these days. I'm Paul Tripp. I've been married for many years, have pro grown children, and my mission in life is to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.
But I call the now wisdom of the gospel, and I do that through writing and producing resources and speaking someplace around the world. Yeah. So you just recently released a book called Parenting 14 Gospel Principles that can Radically Change Your Family and And I can attest to that. It's been super helpful for me as a young dad.
One of the questions I had as I was reading through was I was thinking that. As a young parent, I, I've got a four and a 6-year-old. We have a lot of young listeners, a lot of, as far as parents go, a lot of young dads listening in and, and we get so caught up in the details of the day-to-day parenting.
There's a lot of us who just feel like we're trying to survive. We lose. The overall story of what God's doing. Like why are we even parents? Why did God invent parenting? What is our mission as parents? What's the purpose of this whole thing? Can you kind of put into words for us, as followers of Jesus, what is our purpose?
As parents, your purpose is to function as God's representative. God's ambassadors. The goal of parenting is not to produce what I want in my children and what I want to get from my children. The question. Of parenting is what does God want to form in the lives of my children and how can I be, be part of that?
And so it really is functioning as an instrument of what God wants to do in the lives of our children. And you really have to keep that big picture in view. If you don't do that, what you tend to do is you load the entire burden and welfare. Of your children on your shoulders every morning, and if you do that, no wonder you're exhausted and frustrated and discouraged.
What I wake up in the morning knowing is that I have no ability to change my children, none. It's not my job. I am bought an instrument in the hands of the one who has the power to change my children. I. And so I don't have to carry that burden because he does. And I wanna ask the question every day. What is it like today to be God's tool in the life of this child?
I. Yeah. I love that. And one of the things I was hoping for, like a lot of young dads is I, I really wanted a lot of practical help. You know, when reading through the book, but you talk about, in the beginning of the book, you say, before we can get to any practical advice, we must first understand God's grace in our own lives.
Explain that to us. Why is understanding God's grace so important? There's two reasons for that. First, no one gives grace better than a person in no scene needs it himself. The more that I am. In tune with my own daily desperate need of grace and that I have a wise heavenly father. Who patiently doles out that grace to me, the more I realize I'm more like my children than I'm unlike them, the more I'm going to be a tool of God's grace in their life.
I'm gonna find joy in giving grace. The second thing is that I'm gonna mess up. I'm gonna say things as a parent that I shouldn't say I'm gonna do things that I, I shouldn't do. And it's so wonderful to know that. The message of the gospel is a message of fresh starts and new beginnings. God doesn't mock me in my failure.
He doesn't turn his back on me. He's not disgusted, but he, he greased me with rescue and transforming grace, and so that means I can face failure. And continue to move on. Yeah. And that idea is huge because I feel like, um, one, one of the things that I've, that has stuck out to me as a new parent is thinking through, I'm trying to raise kids who fall in love with Jesus, who are faithful followers of Jesus.
And yet my junk has never been more real to me than when I got married. And when I had kids, my sin was never so obvious to me as until I got married and had kids and I realized, man. Like, man, I'm, I'm trying my best to help my kids fall in love with Jesus and to be obedient and faithful and understand his gospel, and yet I don't feel like I fully have my stuff together.
Like, what would you say to that? The dads that resonate with that thought? I think what you have to say is that's, that's God's plan. That's not a mistake. It's exactly what God wants to do. He wanted to use broken people to rescue broken people. He wanted flawed moms and dads. To rescue flawed children because when I am comfortable with that, then I quit making about me about what I want and my little sovereignty and my plan and my comfort and my ease.
I realize about God and, and we together are in desperate need of what only he can give us. That brokenness is not a mistake. It's exactly what God had in mind for you. Hmm. So in that moment, you trust him. Not yourself. You talk a lot about in the book the difference between parenting the heart of our kids versus parenting their behavior.
All of us can relate to just constantly trying to manage the behavior of our children, which seems exhausting and never ending. But you talk a lot about like that behaviors simply an indication of what's going on in the heart. Can you give us some examples of what it looks like to parent the heart versus simply parenting behavior?
Sure. Let me just give you the overview first. That. If you really believe that your job is to control and regulate behavior, then what you will tend to do is ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish. You will think that parenting is about setting up a neat set of regulations with an accompanying set of enforcements.
And what the Bible would say is if all our children needed were rules and enforcement, Jesus would've never had to come. Hmm. Now the law is important for our children because the law does a great job of exposing sin. The law is a wonderful guide for everyday living, but it has no power whatsoever to rescue and transform your children.
So when little Johnny or Susie, or teenage John or Sue messes up, rather than just going in and announcing wrong. And attaching some kind of punishment to it. I wanna go into the room asking the question, what has God revealed about this child in this moment? What is God seeking to do for this child in the moment?
And how can I be part of that? And so I'm never just satisfied with. Rules and regulations. I'm thankful for rules and regulations. I'm thankful for the exercise of authority 'cause authority's necessary, but it provides me an opportunity to get at issues. Issues of the heart. I. I'm gonna take time to do this.
There are five questions that I tell parents to ask all the time. This is very practical. First question is, what was going on? Just get a sense of the situation. Second question to ask your child is, what were you thinking and feeling that was happening? That's asking your child to look at his heart. Hmm.
You can be a young child and answer that question. That's a good question. For a 30-year-old, what was going on? In my heart, I'm teaching the child that their heart is always active. Third question is, what did you do in response? That's choice is behavior. Why is that the third question, not the second, because I'm teaching children that that response was caused by what was going on in their heart.
Fourth question, why did you do it? What were you seeking to accomplish? That goes after motives. I've now surrounded bracketed behavior with the thoughts and the motives of the heart. Fifth question is, what was the result? Harvest the Bible would call that. Those are five questions the child will never ask yourself.
That directs your child to connect. Behavior to the heart, to the thoughts and desires of the heart, and then to the resultant consequences, results, harvest. Now, the first time I asked those questions, it was with a situation with my 4-year-old and my 2-year-old, and they gave me single word answers, but the answers were actually really pretty profound in their implications.
And what I realized is. I'm not gonna have a finished conversation, but I'm planting seeds, I'm assembling a puzzle for them, and every conversation advances us a little more. I think parents get into the mistaken notion that they have to win every time. Yeah. Winning is not what you're trying to do because.
As God works in our life as the wise Heavenly Father, change is a process of not an event. I know I'm having one conversation of 50,000 conversations we're gonna have in the time you're in my home, and I just wanna gain a little more ground for you and understand the issues of your heart and your need for a savior.
And every situation is another opportunity to do that. Yeah. And I think that it's helpful in that moment. To go back to the first question and what's the big picture of parenting? What's the purpose of parenting? And because most of the time with what you just described, which by the way was super helpful, I, I was like.
Taking notes, even though this is gonna be recorded, I'm taking notes and figuring out I'm gonna use this on my own kids later. But oftentimes for me, it's uh, I'm in a moment where I'm either embarrassed or frustrated or impatient, and so I lose sight of what am I actually trying to, how am I partnering with God and what he's trying to do in my, my children's hearts, and instead I'm just reacting.
Based on their behavior because I'm, I'm embarrassed because they're misbehaving in the grocery store in front of my friends or, or whatever, or I'm just feeling impatient. I'm trying to get something done and, and at that point I just want them to behave and I've lost sight of what God's actually trying to do.
Lemme respond to that. If I could say it a phrase, what you're doing is you're personalizing thing, you respond because you're embarrassed or the child has stepped on your sensibilities or. They've irritated you, and let me explain what happens then. If you see something wrong going on in your child, if your eyes ever see or your ears ever hear the sin, weakness, and failure of one of your children, it's never an accident.
It's never an interruption, it's never hassle. It's always grace. God loves that child. He's put him in a family of faith and he will expose the need of that child so that you can be a tool of God's rescue. And transformation. Now, here's what this means. If I don't get that, what I will do is I will personalize this moment of ministry.
And when I do that, here are four things that happen. First, I will person, I will turn a moment of ministry into a moment of anger. This is a God-given moment of ministry, A moment of grace. God set it up so I can represent him. I'll turn that moment of ministry into moment of anger. Second thing, I will do that because I personalize what is not personal.
Hmm. I make it all about me. Now. My child didn't wake up in the morning, say at 2 35, I'm gonna irritate my father. Right? I mean, that's not what's going on. Third thing is because I've personalized what is not personal, I will be adversarial in my response. It's not me for my children. It's me against my children.
Because I've personalized this thing. And then the fourth thing, and this is really sad, I will settle for quick situational solutions that don't get to the heart of the matter. I will bark, uh, judgment. I will announce a punishment, I'll walk away. And that child is utterly unchanged because I've personalized something.
That whole process goes in a different direction. Yeah, and and part of what I'm thinking there, as you say that is it made me think of in later in the book, you said that it is only rest in God's presence and grace that will make you a joyful and patient parent. I. And when I read that, I felt convicted because I don't feel joyful and patient.
I feel like I'm often, uh, like many parents and many of the dads that are part of our community feel like we're short tempered, we're impatient, we're quick. We're making it about us. We're personalizing that. Can you talk to us about what it. What it looks like to rest in God's presence and grace, that we're not just constantly responding to behavior, but we're, we actually feel rested in grace so that in those moments we can parent the way you're describing.
I wake up knowing that it's impossible for me to be alone in my parenting because God is ever with me. I wake up knowing that God never calls me to a task without enabling me to do. What he's called for me to do. I wake up knowing that of all the things that I could do with my life, there's nothing that's more important or a greater honor than this thing called parenting.
I wake up knowing that I get to be a witness to miraculous things that God does in my children. It's the nature of calling. I mean, think of Moses. Moses' calling. You would look at his. Moses' ministry life, and it was full of trouble, but he got to watch bodies of water park because of the will of God, edible food, fall from heaven because of the will of God.
Rocks give forth water because of the will of God. He got to see amazing, incredible things, and I get to see that with my children. I get to see a child who actually comes to me and says, dad, I'm sorry I was wrong. That's the powerful spirit of God working in the heart of my childhood. What an amazing thing.
And so you gotta force yourself to see the big picture of the glory, the honor, the wonder of what you've been called to do and that you're never called to do it alone. Here's the best way to say it. If you're a parent, you've been called to something you have no ability to do, but you don't have to. God didn't call you to be a parent 'cause you're able.
He called you to be a parent because he's able, man, Moses had no ability to give Israel what they needed. None. But God did. Moses just had to be willing to do what God called for him to do. Man, I mean, when you see that big picture. How can you not have joy in that? Man, I'm, I brought to my eyes are getting teary.
I just hearing you say that and I'm reminded of just how great of a calling it is and, uh, what a privilege it is to, to have God's will I. That we get to have these children in our home and get to point them back to him and watch these miracles every day. That what a huge reminder. Thank you for that. I just started coaching my kid.
My, my son's only six years old, so he's just starting to get into sports and I'm coaching him and I'm finding myself like wanting him to do well and, and not just for, because he is enjoying it, but, but somewhat because of my pride. I want my son to be one of the best kids on the team and I'm watching my.
Other parents as they watch their kids, have that same kind of identity put onto their kids and just sports in general has that, has a way of doing that. But I'm recognizing that this is a dangerous game and uh, uh, as I'm trying to find identity through my son. Can you talk to us about some of the dangers that come along with us finding identity in our children?
Yeah, it's really quite. Tempting. I think probably in ways temps every parent to place your identity on the shoulders of your children. It's a horrible burden for children to have to carry the parent's identity. But you gotta say this, parenting is a miserable place to look for identity. Hmm. None of my children woke up the morning and said to themselves, how today can I give my dad meaning and worth?
Right, right. I mean, they just, they just never ask that question. And when you try to get your identity from your children, you'll be all too focused on success. All too focused on control, all too focused on reputation. This, this last one is really important, more focused on doing than being because you want them to perform.
For your reputation rather than be transformed to God's glory. Hmm. And so you, you, you have to, the only solution to that is to be in a place with your savior where he holds your identity. So you don't go to your children needing them to give you something that they're not gonna give. Listen, asking for your children to give you identity is asking for your kids to be your own personal savior.
Hmm. And they're never gonna pull it off. These are flawed, selfish independence, wanting little sovereigns. And they just, they just will never, ever deliver that to you.
Hey guys, hope you enjoyed that episode. Paul has a book out, it's called Parenting. Uh, he had just released it when we did this podcast, so you can go pick that up. It's really, really good. If you want to get. Just more intentional about your role as a spiritual leader of your home. Probably the most impactful thing we do is called our Family Leadership Program.
We have now had hundreds of guys go through it, and it's been life changing for them. If you go to da tower.com, just click the family leadership program tab. You can get connected on that. We open up. Enrollment for that every month, and then you, then we close it and you join a cohort and you go through that program with your cohort together, and it's just really, really impactful.
It's gonna be an intentional process to help you grow as the spiritual leader of your home, as a husband, father, disciple and worker. Anyway, jump over there, dati.com, click the Family Leadership Program and dive into that. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.