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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 Tire Podcast. One of the greatest gifts you can give your family is the ability to be self-aware to the best of your ability to be able to say, uh, to look in the mirror and to say, man, are there areas in my life where I'm falling short, where I know that I need to grow as a husband and as a father to address certain topics in your life that are probably hard and scary to address?
Uh, I just finished a new book that addresses some of these. Big questions about fatherhood, including issues that most guys are thinking about but probably are afraid to ask. This is the kind of stuff that you're not gonna hear preached on a Sunday morning, and you maybe won't even hear it discussed in your men's accountability group.
And so, uh, it covers everything from how to maintain intimacy with your wife after pregnancy, to dealing with your anger and all the other important issues that all of us as guys are facing. If you have questions about how to be a better dad. If you're like, man, how can I be self-aware? How can I. Look in the mirror and say, God, where do you want me to grow?
I mean, you've got questions that you really want answered, but you are just afraid to ask them or you don't know where to ask them or process them. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of the Dad Tired q and a Mix Tape book, and I also recommend that you go through it with some friends. There are discussion questions at the end of each chapter, which are gonna help you unpack some of this stuff that may be buried deep inside of you.
You can get it wherever books are sold, or you can go to tha tire.com to learn more. With that being said, let's dive into today's episode.
Alright. I'm so excited for today's episode. Um, today I have in person, normally we do our interviews via. Video, but today I have my pastor Caleb. Dude, it's kind of weird saying that to be honest. Yeah. Because you've been on leadership for so long and Yeah. Before we jump into all the good stuff, I wanna jump into with you.
I was telling a buddy this last night that this is the first time in my life where I feel like I can say confidently I love my church. Mm-hmm. Amen. Amen. It's weird, bro, because I like. I've been on staff at churches, right. Been in leadership. I've heard people on staff at the churches that I've worked at, be like, or as I was on staff, I heard people in the congregation be like, I love my church.
And even then I was like, uh, I don't know if I love my church, which is a ter, that's a terrible feeling. Right. You know? But I. It took us a long time to find a place where we could feel like we call home. Yeah. Here, I just really love your leadership bro. I love I on Saturday. I am like excited to wake up the next morning, be part of it.
You're just doing a really, really good job, so thank you. You're a dad. Yeah. A lot of kids. A lot of kids. Tell us about your family. Yeah, so I have seven kids in my home. Two adopted teenagers. One foster placement, who's 16? So I have a 17-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 15-year-old, and then four biological nine, seven, almost five and three.
Yeah. So a house full of kids, man. So many kids. How's your day-to-day life, man? Are you surviving that you feel like? Are you, is your soul? Yeah. Tired. Are you Tankful? You know, we've developed such a, by we, I mean primarily my wife, such a healthy community of believers around us. Yeah. Like even just shuffling the teenagers to work and to football practice.
And there's just so many kind of brothers and sisters in the world who jump in and hey is, you know, I'm running across town. Do you need anything? And yeah, so we just have a good community and at this point in our lives. My parents live here and my wife's parents live here. Mm-hmm. Which we've never had, you know how that is.
Yeah. Never had family support before. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we're surviving. We're good. Yeah. We're always asking the lord show us more places we can put our hand to the plow. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So serving kids, particularly kids in foster care, is a big part of what we're doing right now. Pushing for, really praying into, like, asking the world that there'd be no kid in our community without a bed mm-hmm.
Without a family and. Um, we foot call to that. So it's good. God gives you grace where he calls you. Yeah, that's true. I talked to a couple recently who lost their child, almost two years old, and they were saying like, had you told us five years ago all the things we would experience over the last three years, we just would, we would have said, there's no way we can go through that.
Right. Right. And yet somehow God's grace is sufficient for them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, so good. Yeah. Dude, you, I was texting you last night and you, I was like, bro, I need to have you on the podcast and tell me some ideas, and you shot me some ideas and, uh, I wanna talk about one of those ideas Yeah. That you, that you shared.
You mentioned the idea of spiritual warfare in our homes. Right. Which. Some people hear that like, oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah. There's two sides of that spectrum. One side is gonna be a group of people who are like, yeah. Like everything that, you know, I'm, I'm asking God what to eat today. Yeah. And, uh, the devil better watch Disney.
We gonna catch some demons. Exactly. Exactly. There's that side and then there's people who literally, they're never even think about it. Right. Right. And so maybe just walk us through, bro. Like, what are you thinking? When you think through Yeah. Spiritual warfare in our homes with our families. Yeah. The way I kind of stumbled into this thought and thinking this way is as I transitioned into senior leadership at the church, I felt a little bit more spiritual warfare just in my life and in relationships and what I learned and, and honesty.
So much of this is having good elders who taught me some of this. But what I learned is as we pressed into evangelism, or pressed into worship, or. Prayer people in our body who are a little bit more new believers, spiritually immature, new believers. Yeah, maybe. Maybe they just struggle naturally with anxiety and fear a little more than others.
They would act out, so we'd be pressing in the prayer, and then I would have 3, 4, 5 people kind of flesh out. Want to talk to me. Maybe I didn't hug 'em in a hallway. And they read that situation wrong and they would get real frustrated and flesh out. And while mature believers may use language like I'm feeling foggy or I'm feeling tired, what I learned was, Hey, sometimes there're just seasons in the life of a church where the enemy's pressing us a little harder.
And in my leadership, I learned not to respond to the spiritually immature believer with a ton of frustration or angst. I just kind of had the grace to say, all right, this is a season. You're feeling insecure. Let's talk this through. So I was in a season like that where there was a lot of warfare in the church.
I was feeling a little discouraged myself. Mm. And I went home and my kids were totally acting out. Mm. And for the first time it kind of clicked. Like I think the same thing that's happening in the church right now is actually happening in my house. Mm-hmm. And so my girls who are a little older. I'm super to a fault.
I have that like in tune with emotion. If there's someone in the room who's left out, like I'm in tune with that. Yeah. Yeah. That's just the way God's wired me. Yeah. It can be a strength and a, and a curse at the same time, right? Yeah. Just in tune with that. But I have a daughter who's that way. She's real sensitive emotionally, and so I was in a season where at church all the people are fleshing out.
Some people are saying, when you say fleshing out, unpack what you mean by that. Oh, gossip, slander. Yeah. Maybe we painted the kids' room. Someone wants to have a full heated conversation about, and it's like, okay, in reality, this is a very simple change, right? And something that needed to happen. The way that you are reacting is beyond right natural frustration.
Mm-hmm. So I'm in that season at church and then it happens at home, and I started to realize that I don't think our kids are exempt from spiritual warfare. Mm-hmm. I do think that as parents we can create a covering. We can cover our homes in prayer. We can plead the blood of the lamb over our children.
But I had a daughter, one of my daughters, she's a little more sensitive. She said to me one day, she's too young to say this. She said, dad, I feel like trash. She said, I feel unloved and I feel unworthy. I feel like trash. Wow. And I thought, dude, you're way too young to be having these kind of thoughts. She says that to me, kind of in confidence and then.
She acts out and she's throwing stuff, fighting with her siblings, totally out of character. I started to wrestle through this idea of like, okay, we do see kids demonized in the gospels, right? Like you see demon possession with kids. Obviously, I don't think our kids are demon possessed, but the idea in Ephesians six of we wrestle not with flesh and blood.
Yeah. But with powers and principalities. I think as young, immature believers, our kids start to feel some of that wrestling. Mm-hmm. Some of that. Mm-hmm. So anyway, I started pondering that, thinking about that and as a thought and prayed, there's some really good man, the Puritans, like William Gun Raw is, I think, how you say his name wrote this like incredible.
It's called The Armor of God, like six, seven books deep. Some good teaching on spiritual warfare. There's lot of wacky teaching obviously on spiritual. I started reading some of that, pondering some of that and trying to carry that in my family life of like, how do I engage my kids? Aware that all of their reactions are not always flesh.
Mm-hmm. So sometimes we end discipleship and discipline. It's like we all have flesh. My kids are angry right now. I need to discipline them on the basis of, you gotta control your emotions, but to help them understand that sometimes the enemy frustrates us, confuses us. Mm-hmm. You're feeling insecure the way that a parent needs to take that into account.
Mm-hmm. So anyway, that helped me some over the years. You just gave me like a summary of that thought in text last night and I was brushing my teeth and I was like, I don't know why. My mind was like blown over that. Like what feels like really simple truth, but Right. I've talked about spiritual warfare when I go and speak at conferences.
Right? I've talked about spiritual warfare. When I think about my marriage, yes, the enemy is attacking us. We need to pray, but for some reason, I hadn't thought of it right enough. About my kids. Like there's an enemy who hates my kids. Yeah. Yeah. And part of it I think is really natural, right? Like, I want my kids to gaze upon the cross to love Jesus.
I want their focus to be on God's love and compassion and, and joy over them. Yeah. But at some point in their development, they do need to become aware that they have an enemy. I don't want their focus to be on the enemy. Yeah. I don't want to create an environment that. Uh, is fear driven. Like if we see this on TV or hear that word, then the enemy's gonna assault us.
But I do want them to become aware as they mature. Right. As they develop. Yeah. If there is an enemy who wants your soul. And I do think, man, I may be talking above my pay grade here, but so many of us, when we talk about our upbringing and our, like all of counseling to some extent is trying to talk you through your childhood trauma.
Yeah, I know. And so you think that way, like. Oh, like maybe the enemy really tries to mess us up in our childhood years. Mm. We're a little more immature. We're insecure, we're developing, and as parents, it's probably wise to go, wait. These years are really crucial in the spiritual development of our kids.
Mm. Let's be intentional to do our best. To not let the enemy have a heyday in their minds and in their hearts. I don't know why, like when I was thinking about this last night, I was thinking like, why did I subconsciously assume that there are rules of warfare when it comes to spiritual warfare? Yeah, yeah.
Like that the enemy doesn't, I. Yeah. Like he would honor the kids would be off limits. Kids are off limits. Like in normal battle you wouldn't necessarily go for kids. But yeah. So I was thinking in that thought, thinking about how many times kids are demonized in scripture and it's like, no, he hates all of us.
Mm. Maybe even kids more in the sense that like, they're so precious to Jesus. Right. Bringing me the children. Yeah. I, I think that's worth pondering and thinking again, I don't want my 3-year-old to have a full dissertation on Demonology. Right. Like I want my 3-year-old to sing. Jesus loves me this. I know.
Yeah. But my 9-year-old, it's probably time to introduce the idea that when you say to me, I feel like trash, that may be a thought that's demonically inspired, and we need to have a little conversation about your identity in Christ and what it means to take captive thoughts that aren't from nor. And so yeah, it's a part of everyone's discipleship and I think for our kids who come to Faith Young, yeah, it's a part of their growth that we need to help 'em in.
Maybe we should rewind back a little bit for some people, like even, even the conversation about demons, demonic things. Yeah. It's like it can feel scary, overwhelming, right? You're like, I don't really, I. I know I read about in the Bible, but is that like still a thing today? Yeah. You know, maybe just like, can you give us a kind of overview of like, you used the word demonic, like how do you know, like as believers, how do we know the difference between like, oh, I ate lunch and that's not setting well.
Right, right. Versus like the enemy is like actively attacking me here. Yeah. There's some discernment that I think we mature in. I think in prayer we start to, so Paul will say at some points, like I. We know the enemy's wiles or ways like we mm-hmm. We become more aware of how he works and operates. So, on one hand I'm with you, like some days I just wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
Yeah. Right. I didn't sleep good. I'm frustrated. I do struggle with insecurities in my flesh naturally. Mm-hmm. So on one hand there's never a perfect, I know that. I know that. I know that this is demonic influence. Yeah. But on the other hand, I am taught that believers are going to wrestle. And so there's just some discernment that takes place.
I think we discern well in the presence of other believers. Yeah. Mature believers. Yeah. Again, I really stumbled into some of this thinking by having conversations with my elders. Mm. I'm feeling insecure, I'm feeling frustrated. I'm dealing with these conversations and my elders who walked with the Lord for 50 years saying, okay, well this is probably a plane of the enemy to try to distract.
Yeah. And so I think discerning in front of people Yeah. Is smart. It's fine to say. This may be an attack. Let's pray and approach it as if it is right. But you're totally right, like basic diet and exercise can really mess with your emotions. Yeah. And so trying to have a holistic approach to, to life and to parenting, I think is important.
Yeah. I, and again, I, you start to kinda learn the tactics. I mean, the enemy is so clever. Yeah. He's so clever. But his tactics are the same. He's been using the same tactics from day one. Right. Right. And so you can kind of pick up on patterns. Yeah. Even though they're super effective. Right. There are some patterns.
I notice every time, almost literally every time I go to speak, like the day before, the two days before, there's some kind of thing Yeah. Happening in my marriage at home. Totally. And I've just gotten used to like knowing before it was like, hey, me and my wife would fight. And then I get on a plane, try to go speak about Jesus.
Right. And then you start to learn like, oh, that's a pattern. Yeah. And, and so you, I pray, I'm like, well, you know, something comes up with, with Layla. I'm like, okay. Well, that we clearly can see now. Yeah. The enemies, there's a couple of things. One, if I could say this without being too critical, the Western Church is way too.
Dependent on our strategies and not on prayer. Totally. And so like we need to get back to prayer being the foundation, but two, what the idea of wrestling, not with flesh and blood, right? Like we wrestle, one of our guys at the church is incredible wrestling coach, like kind of nationally known. He's incredible.
But I've talked with him about this some, because wrestling's actually a really old sport, right? Mm-hmm. Like you get into Greek and Greco style wrestling. But the idea of wrestling is that like you're gonna have moments when you're pinned. When you're in a hold that you don't know how to get out of, and the way that people act when they're in a pen is telling to what's going on.
So for me, and I'm obviously still growing, I'm such a, I'm young, naturally, and I'm, I'm not there yet, obviously, but I've learned over the years that when I'm pinned, when I'm feeling frustrated or insecure mm-hmm. I know how to act in maturity, which would be to call a brother. Mm-hmm. To call an elder.
This is how I'm feeling. Help me see wisdom. But my 9-year-old, when she's feeling pinned, she acts out differently. Mm-hmm. And so it's the idea of like one of my kids, none of my kids swim. Well, it's super frustrating to me. I grew up in Florida, we swam nonstop. They just don't swim. So one of my kids had a life jacket on and she got scared in the deep end and she started flailing.
So, you know, when people think they're drowning. They act crazy, right? And it's like I'm having this conversation with her like, breathe, slow down. You have a life jacket on. Chill out. But it's that idea of like, how do people act when they're pinned? Mm-hmm. When they're frustrated and those responses look like gossip.
Mm-hmm. Look like frustration, look like dude, insecure leaders can start to point fingers at mm-hmm. And accuse everyone else's leadership. So you kind of learn to diagnose the responses to being pinned. Mm. Mature believers are in a hold and confess in one to another. Mm-hmm. Get good counsel. Mm-hmm. Just openly have conversations.
Yeah. But immature believers will still act out. So it's with our children. I guess that's what I'm trying to say, is my kid acting out, throwing stuff, having a tantrum, she's feeling pinned in her soul. She doesn't know yet how to respond to that. Well, and part of discipleship is I need to teach her. Now, we were talking about this earlier, but.
I don't wanna teach my kids, the devil made me do it. Yeah. Like the fact that you threw something at your sibling is still sin that needs discipline. Yeah. But at some point, and, and it might not even be right away, but at some point we can have a conversation about, okay, you are feeling I. Frustrated, insecure.
You were feeling bitter. Yeah. Are those things, godly thoughts that the scripture promotes are, those are things Jesus says about you, and so discipline still needs to take place. In the same sense, if you're tempted to commit adultery and you like, it's, it's on you. Right? You made the decision. Right, but the way that I help them mature through the warfare is really different.
Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense, man. And I, I think, you know, one thing that we've talked about at Dad Tired is. We don't want to just discipline behavior, which is I think what all of us as parents, right. Naturally do. Yeah. You're being loud, you're being disobedient. Like stop doing that.
Right? Get to your room. You're in time. Whatever the mode of Yeah. Method of discipline is that typically will just lead to. Quick behavior change. Yeah. But never real heart change. Right. And that's not how God disciplines us. Yeah. Thank God. Totally. He's so long suffering. He's after our heart, you know?
Yeah. So we, we talk about, okay, what does it look like as parents to discipline the heart? And so, and not just behavior, but I think what you're describing is like taking that even to the next layer, right? So I want to get after their heart, like, and I want to correct heart behavior, but I also want to realize again.
Is there something deeper happening here? Yeah. And, and the Bible just teaches that there can be demonic pressures. Um, the enemy wants to create scenarios where your kids begin to embrace thoughts about who they are, their worth. He wants to devalue. I was thinking. On the way over. Driving over. I can remember being in middle school and being embarrassed on the school bus.
Like I said, something that embarrassed me. Mm. And I can remember making a conscious decision that I was just going to sit and be quiet and I wasn't gonna try to make friends anymore. Mm. I wasn't gonna like engage anymore. I was just gonna sit to my, I made a conscious decision to not engage with friends.
Wow. To, to be secluded. And that seclusion, I told you my story. 10 years later was major depression and major suicidal thoughts and tendencies. I think there's a major element of warfare of the enemy wanting me to come to that place and make that conscious decision. And if we can promote in our kids, Hey, you have an enemy who will try to lead you to these kind of heart postures, these ideas to bitterness, I think they can learn to start to rise up.
And I. Not that we ever want to promote. Like name it, claim it, I'm gonna have perfect, you know, I'm not, I'm not really into that, right? But for our kids to rise up and say, Hey, in Jesus name, I'm a son and daughter of God, right? No matter what you think about me, I'm loved. And I think that promotes spiritual health in the long run.
And we do those things right? Like when I'm feeling insecure. You know, maybe I preached awful on Sunday or someone came at me. I'm like, all right, I'm I'm loved and I'm not gonna perform perfectly every week. And God doesn't approve of me on the basis of my performance, but on the basis of Jesus' performance.
Praise God. Yeah, praise God. So we do those things right? And instilling those things in our kids, I think helps them combat the demonic chaos. That's what I was gonna say, like, how do we as parents. We want to be disciple makers. We want to be, especially, we're talking to a bunch of dads, like we wanna be protectors of our family.
And the protector is, you know, part of that protection is I've got a security camera on my front door, right? And, uh, we live in the south and I have a gun. You know, so these are some, but there's way more attacks on my kids, right? That are happening outside of just physical attacks. And so I wanna be a protector of my family.
So how do we protect our kids in this? Is it just like. You know, we're not performing exorcisms here every day. No, no. When my kids are not sharing a toy. So I was thinking like part of that protection is one, teaching them how to gospel themselves. Yeah, exactly. Which I think was a huge one. I think another one is what, or I guess I, I would toss it out you to hear your thoughts, like how much of it is letting the enemy.
Uh, for lack of like better word, like kind of a cheesy way, but like through the front door, through the things that we led into our home. Yeah. And that I, I don't want to, I'm gonna let my charismatic show a little bit, but for all of church history, the church has always acknowledged demonic Yeah.
Entities, powers. It's just thoroughly biblical. So Yeah, like on, on one sense, one hand, as parents, we do need to guard influence and like I said, I'm not gonna do. All right. If you watch that Disney cartoon, you're gonna catch this demon. I'm just not gonna do that. I'm not gonna promote that kind of fear.
Yeah. But on the other hand, like we don't do horror movies. And my kids will say, dad, why can't we watch a scary movie? And I'll say, because you're gonna cry all night and get in my bed and like, I wanna sleep, dude. Yeah. Um, so I might, I might even promote it in a lighthearted way. Yeah. Create those standards.
But we do need to create standards. Right. Dude. And, sorry, I keep talking about my girls today, but. When you talk about like image and what's beauty. Mm-hmm. And if we're allowing MTV, that's what my childhood, there weren't really any standards on what we could watch MTV discipled me. Yep. In a lot of ways.
Yep. Yeah. I wanna be careful about what is beauty and what is valuable. And so we do wanna guard influences for sure. I would say the big thing that we don't do again in the west is, man, make a habit of praying over your home and praying over your family. Yeah. I was talking to a guy yesterday about like.
Man, just standing in your house and saying in the name of Jesus anything, any strategy plan of the enemy must be thwarted because of the blood of the lamb. Like just basic prayer like we belong to Jesus in this house. I think those things are really healthy. So there's an element of us protecting, and then there's an element of us teaching our kids to, like you're saying, gospel themselves.
What I was gonna say is one of the things that's helped me, like we just talk about straight practice. And I'm actually gonna start teaching this a bit in our altar ministry of the church because I think as it pertains to the demonic spiritual warfare, we get way too complicated. It's like you've gotta buy my six series workbook to understand, right.
How to teach your kids to, yeah, to engage. One of the things I'm really teaching my kids right now, my old age appropriate, is to pray the word's prayer slowly and to embrace the ideas. So. I'm praying with my, my 9-year-old, our father. Okay. We're, we're Gospeling ourselves right there. You are a daughter of God.
Yeah. You are bought and purchased. So in the Lord's Prayer that they've memorized it and in their Sunday school class we're starting to flesh out. Okay. We're bought and purchased. How would be your name? No idolatry. We worship God alone. Hmm. When we get to like. Forgive me of my trespasses. Alright. Is there sin in your life right now We need to repent of?
Mm-hmm. Is there any way that enemy's engaging in your life? Then when we say as we forgive those who trespass against us, I'm teaching my kids to not live in bitterness. That's a major door, right? Yeah. Where the enemy plays. Yeah. So I'm just teaching them like, alright, is there anybody we need to forgive right now?
Mm-hmm. Like, let's just think that through and then as, as you just kinda work through the Lord prayer slowly, what you begin to realize is that Jesus actually gave us a really. Tight, straightforward way to pray, steward our hearts and to shut doors. The end of the prayer right, is like lead me not into temptation and deliver me from the evil one to shut doors to demonic activity.
And it's really simple. It's straightforward. The church has prayed it for thousands of years. Yeah. It's not, you need to go it online and find this eight part series. Right, right. And so I'm just doing that with my kids. I'm actually gonna teach that in altar ministry. We get people who come. You know, their marriage is distraught or they're having night terrors, and we pray like you know anything the enemy's doing in your life, we break right now in Jesus' name and they'll feel some liberty.
But oftentimes people will stumble right back into the same problems. Right. It's like a lot of freedom, a lot of discipleship you can find in that prayers praying daily, Lord, wash me of my iniquity. If there's sin in me that's opening doors, yeah, help me to see it and close it. And Lord, I forgive those who trespass against me.
I'm not gonna be a man of bitterness. Yeah. Those things are simple, straightforward, and I think I'm, I'm doing right now. I, I hold my nine year old's hand. I pray with them. I try to pray with them daily, but I don't do this every day, but I do this regularly. I'll hold her hand and say, let's pray the Lord's Prayer together.
I. And like my four year old's watching, she's not engaging yet. Yeah. But she's seeing what we're doing and we just, you know, our father, thank you Lord for loving us and face in the middle of our sin and iniquity like I'm a daughter, I'm a son of God. How would be your name? You alone are worthy in our hearts.
No idolatry in us. Even your kingdom come, your will be done is teach me to live obedient to your, so I'm talking about obedience and discipleship. And it sounds silly, but like maybe the Lord in his wisdom gave us what we needed there. Totally. You know what I'm saying? Totally. Maybe Christianity is not this.
You've gotta go to this website and go to this eight part seminar. Totally. Maybe it's just simple Christianity that helps our kids engage in some of these principles. Yeah, so I think we find major keys to spiritual warfare just right there in the Lord's Prayer. I love that so much, dude. That's so helpful.
I think you're right. Like the, some of the most mature believers I know aren't necessarily the smartest ones. Yeah, yeah. They're just faithful to the word of God. Faithful. Yeah. And consistent. Consistent. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that. I'm, I'm reading, I'm trying my best to understand it and I'm gonna just consistently, I.
Right. Try to come before Jesus one. I had a friend tell me years ago, like one of the biggest hurdles, I don't remember exactly how he said, I'm gonna butcher it, but something to the effect of like, one of the biggest causes for feeling far from God is essentially unconfessed sin. Yeah. Unrepentant sin.
Yeah. And this, it's just like we overcomplicate things. Like you said, you come down every week, you go to the altar, you, you know, do things. It's just like, dude. Just confess your sin before Jesus. Yes. Sometimes there's some sim simplicity in that. Yeah. And there's, I don't mean to go too far down this road, but there's a lot of conversation right now in the body of Christ about demonization, demonic influence and there's, there are classes in courses and, and I'm not against anything, I'm not throwing stone or shade at anybody, but like you're saying, like a lot of kind of closing the doors to the enemy is just confessing your sin.
Mm-hmm. And it's just repentance. Yeah. And it's forgiveness. It's stuff we know. Yeah. It's not believing lies. And so when I pray our father, I'm saying, God, today I choose to believe that I am grafted into your family. I'm adopted because of Jesus. I'm rejecting lies. Yeah. Just by simply praying that prayer.
And so I think to simplify for our kids like what it means to kind of shut the doors to the enemy to do discipleship in that way. Yeah, it's just confession, repentance, believing the truth. It's not, man, you can get into these eight week long seminars on this kind of demonic spirit and how it attaches in this way, and it's like.
Maybe, but if you wanna break it, I don't know. I just confess that. Yeah, yeah. Plead the blood of Jesus and live in, live in con in repentance. Yeah. I think there, if, for you guys who are listening right now, I imagine there's some of you listening to this and you're by yourself. A lot of dudes are probably listening and you're by yourself maybe in your truck right now, or you're mowing the lawn or working out or whatever, and you're going through a lot of stuff in your life.
Um, bro, maybe the thing you need to hear today is just what Caleb said, like. Maybe the, the biggest thing to like, not overcomplicate it, is just to confess your sin, like right now, to like, pause this podcast and repent of where you've sinned and where you've fallen far from Jesus, and confess that out loud to yourself.
Find another brother, confess it to another brother. Then as you start to get into the habit of gospeling yourself, of just dude, open up that prayer, where can they find that prayer? It's all throughout the gospels, right? All of them. Um, yeah. So just go in the gospels haptics. I'm trying to find it right now.
Do you know off the top of your head where Jesus taught his disciples how to pray? They said, we'll, find us to pray. We'll find it as a, but dude, just open up the gospels and pray that prayer and, and literally that first line, if you could start to have that truth, our Father, my Father, meaning. If you have confessed Jesus that you and you are, you are a bot son of God, dude, if you could just get that truth deep into your heart, that every other thing that you're chasing after to find identity, whether it's you, you need your bank account to be more full.
You need that woman to give you attention. You need your boss to whatever you need your wife to do, dude, all those things will fail you. Yeah. But if you could come back and say, dude, I have a father. Who loves me. If you could start to understand that truth, lots of stuff is gonna get less complicated, right?
So confess your sins, rest in your identity as a son of Jesus, son of the Father, and then do just go home. And as, as you get home, recognize there's a battle being waged at home. Yeah. Over my wife's heart. Uh, over my kids' heart. And so I'm gonna be a man who on the front lines is the, is the one confessing my sin first, and then I'm, I'm just gonna look for the lies that.
The enemy is whispering into my family's ear. Yeah. And as much as we disciple our kids and teach our kids scripture, praying for them daily, covering them daily, yeah. Just confessing scripture over their lives daily is huge. There's more power in that than we, I. Give credit to Layla went to, uh, the women's thing that, uh, we did at the church this last weekend, and she was really challenged.
Mm. There, it sounded like they taught, I wasn't there. Uh, obviously it sounded like they talked about they were really challenged to pray specific prayers. Yeah. Which I thought was really cool. And, and one of the things they talked about was why do we not pray specific prayers? And it's the. Kind of fear.
If I'm too specific, then there might be room for God to not answer it. Yeah. And if I just general, God bless me. Yeah. Then you can just be like, oh, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Yeah. But just pray these specific prayers. And so Layla and I have been even just this last week, like been praying specific prayers for our kids.
So good. And just believing like, and God, like Jesus said, I here, here's what I want. Your will be done ultimately. Yeah. But God, I'm gonna just specifically pray. Right. For each of my kids. Yeah. I think, and I was listening too. One of the podcasts you did that helped me to get to the place where you're not trying to be so exhaustive in your prayer life, or, yeah.
It doesn't have to be crazy spiritual when you're praying with your kids you were talking about. Yeah, yeah. Like just, just a little at a time and faithful. And we do, prayer is a big part of our church. Like we do lots of prayer meetings. And only gonna do more in the coming, coming weeks. But for me, I tend to pray really passionate and loud and I feel like I've gotta work myself up.
But I'm learning too, to like just simple, straight forward request. And I think, I think that's huge with our praying for our families too, of like, you don't have to have the most exhaustive, eloquent prayer life, just Lord in Jesus name. I was praying for my son today, Lord, in Jesus' name. Would you baptize him in humility?
Mm-hmm. Would he grow in humility? Mm-hmm. Would he be a man of integrity? Just simple, straightforward stuff the Lord hears. Yeah. We're really not impressing anyone with our, our eloquence. Yeah, totally. Well, bro, I appreciate this for you guys that are listening, I think, man, the main takeaway here is confess in your closing.
I love the way you said that you're closing the doors Yeah. Too to, to the enemy. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and we want to do that with our kids too. So Yes. Your kids, our kids. Meaning they're gonna just, they're sinful little humans. Right? Right. And they're gonna be in their own flesh and do things, but also there's an enemy who hates them.
There are no rules when it comes to spiritual warfare. Right. Right. And so we pray for them. We pray specifically for them. We pray the Lord's prayer, simple but powerful prayers to shut the doors. Yeah, so good. I appreciate you, bro. This has been good, man. Thank you. God bless you.
Hey guys, as always, hope that episode was helpful for you, man. Such an important topic. If you want to continue to process these topics and other topics, uh, highly recommend that you go check out our Dad Tired community. It's totally free. Uh, it's not on social media, so there's no distracting things on there.
If you go to dad tire.com, just click that community tab, you'll be able to jump into that group. And again, if you haven't picked up a copy of the Dad Tire q and a mixtape, and you want to talk about things that aren't being talked about on Sunday morning or in your accountability group, I highly recommend that you go pick up a copy of that.
You can get it wherever books are sold or@dadtire.com. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.