Dad Tired

In this episode, Jerrad reacts to a moment between UFC fighter Sean Strickland and comedian Theo Von. Jerrad reflects on why men struggle with friendship, what real connection looks like, and how trauma often hides beneath our toughness.

What You’ll Hear:
• What made a UFC fighter break down on camera
• Why many men carry deep pain without knowing it
• How friendship is more than advice or fixing
• What it means to sit with someone in their grief
• Why our strongest behavior often covers our deepest wounds
• How Jesus meets us in the places we try to hide
Tune in to rethink how you show up for your friends and where healing really begins.

Episode Resources:
  1. Watch the interview clip: Sean Strickland & Theo Von on YouTube (timestamp 1:31:00)
  2. Read The Dad Tired Book: https://amzn.to/3YTz4GB
  3. Learn more about Dad Tired: https://www.dadtired.com
  4. Invite Jerrad to speak: https://www.jerradlopes.com
  5. Support the ministry: https://www.dadtired.com/donate


What is Dad Tired?

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.

 Today's episode of the Dat Tired Podcast is brought to you by Samaritan Ministries. I wanna ask you guys, how are you meeting your family's healthcare needs this year? It's one of the most important decisions you'll make, and that's why we highly encourage you to consider Samaritan Ministries. It's a biblical, affordable way to pay your medical bills and has everything you should look for in a healthcare sharing ministry.

Samaritan members glorify God above all else and care for one another through prayer and encouragement. It's a way to align your healthcare with your faith and through direct member to member sharing. You'll always know who you're helping and who's helping you. Here's how it works. There are no networks, so when a medical need arises, you choose the healthcare provider that's right for you.

And you have a say in the type of treatment that you receive. You can send your medical bills to Samaritan Ministries and they'll notify fellow members to pray for you and send money directly to you to help pay those bills. And when another member has a medical need, you'll do the same for them. When the body of Christ comes together to pray for, and courage and provide for one another, the burdens are lifted and God is glorified.

This applies to all areas of life, including healthcare. You can check out Samaritan Ministries today, and if it's the right fit, you can even join today. Let them know that you heard about it through Dad Tired by going to samaritan ministries.org/dad tired. Again, that's samaritan ministries.org/dad tired.

Alright, so in eight years of podcasting, I've actually never done anything like this. Um, but today I want to do a reaction video to, uh, something I saw this week that. Really it, I don't know how else to say it. It just touched me in like a really profound way and I had so many thoughts on it. I immediately watched this video and I had so many thoughts on it.

I just wanted to like talk to some friends about it and I thought, wait, let's just talk about it on the Dad Tire podcast. So I've never done this, but I'm gonna to play a video for you, an interview, just a real short clip of it, like three-ish minutes. And then I kind of wanna dissect what we hear in the video 'cause I think it's really powerful and we can learn a lot from it.

As men. I wanna give some context before I hit play here. Uh, you guys know if you've been listening to Death Tire Podcast for a while. I'm a big UFC fan. I got a couple friends who fight in the UFC. I've been watching the sport for years and years, over a decade for sure, maybe two decades. And so I just, somebody said one time I was promoting, I.

Recently, one of my friends fighting in the UFC, who's part of the dads hired community. He's a big dad tired guy, and he was fighting recently and so I was trying to tell the dads hired community, like, Hey, you guys should go watch this fight and support it. And one guy was like, you know, yes, punching each other in the face for Jesus, you know?

I was like, uh, I know it's weird. As a Christian, you're like, you know, how do you watch these people? My mom just can't stand it. She's like, how in the world do you watch these guys punch each other in the face? What's crazy about UFC is they did their incredible sportsmanship. I grew up in the, a really rough part of California.

I watched a lot of fights out of anger, a lot of gang violence. I remember. School getting shut down because of gang violence and, uh, so I hate that stuff, man. I hate violence in that sense. I hate angry hurting each other for the sake of hurting each other. But there's something so cool about a disciplined martial arts and two guys who have trained and practiced and go in there.

And really just try to prove their toughness. But it's incredibly disciplined and it's incredibly, the, the sportsmanship is like the highest I've ever seen. So anyway, I'm a big fan. So there was an interview this last week with Theo Vaughn, who's a comedian. I'm sure many of you have heard of him. I.

Comedian Theo Vaughn had interviewed current champion Sean Strickland. And I thought that's interesting. You know, Theo Vaughn's a funny guy. Um, not appropriate for sure, but he's funny. And, and then Sean Strickland is a UFC fighter who I'm, you know, I know about and I'm interested to hear, you know, what they wanna talk about.

So I started listening to the interview and honestly, I could barely get through the first couple minutes. It was so vulgar. And it was just like the things they were talking about were wildly inappropriate. And you know, on the Dati podcast, I'm like, I'm trying to protect what we put in our eyes and ears to be men of integrity, knowing that the things that we put into our eyes and ears absolutely affect our thought life and the way that we.

Operate and think about our lives and about Jesus and about our wives and about our kids, and all that stuff. So I don't wanna be like sheltered from the world for the sake of being sheltered. I just wanna protect what goes into our eyes and ears so that we can really meditate on things that are good and pure and lovely and true, and all this stuff so that we can be the men that God's called us to be.

I was listening to the first part of this interview and I was like, holy, I don't think I can get through this, but I had heard. At some point during this interview, Sean Strickland specifically gets really emotional, and so I wanted to hear like, this is a, you know, kind of a tough guy. He's a self acclaimed, proclaimed redneck, you know, just like, yeah, he calls himself like white trash.

He's just like a, he's a very simple dude, and he's just kind of, he would say kind of a man's man, a simple man's man. And so the fact that he admitted that he got really emotional. I had saw this earlier. He got really emotional on the interview. I was like, okay, what caused that? That's really interesting to me.

So I, I kind of got through the interview, which was hard to listen to dude. They were talking about, specifically Sean Strickland, talking about the amount that he sleeps with women and just very vulgar, the way he talks about women. Very objectifying. He's cussing a lot. At one point he says, he asked the yvan, which I thought was actually really interesting.

He said, are you a religious man? Theo Vaughn kind of stumbles around the answer. 'cause you can tell Theo Vaughn if you listen to some of his recent podcasts, like he's sober now. He's given up pornography. He's trying to figure out, he talks a lot about deities and like believing in a higher power. But it seems like God is capturing his heart from just kind of an outsider's perspective.

That's what it seems like. But he hasn't by far. He's not like following Jesus and he can't articulate any of that clearly. But he's on some kind of spiritual journey, clearly. And so Sean Strickland asks him, are you a religious man? And he says, I think he kind of fumbles through the answer. And then Sean Strickland says.

I believe there's nothing like when we die, it's just, it's black void. Like we just kind of go into nothingness. So that was kind of an interesting little, like you flag that information earlier on in the interview and then they get to this point where they're talking about, you know, Sean Strickland is talking about how he, he loves fighting guys and almost at a weird, kind of violent, it's not that like beautiful martial art, it's almost like this violent, unhealthy mode.

He's just kind of angry at the world and he's, he wants women and he knows that he's mad at pe. He can't go out in public 'cause he doesn't trust himself in public. And if there's road rage, he'd kill a man. He's just kinda like bizarre. Again, self-proclaimed. He would say all this stuff about himself, I believe.

You know, it's kind of like not, it's pretty dark. They get to this point at the very end of the interview where. They're talking about trauma. And this guy that Sean Strickland's about to fight in a couple weeks, he had said something to Sean Strickland like, oh, you were molested as a kid by your dad. And Sean Strickland says earlier in the interview, I wasn't molested by my dad, but you can't just say that kind of stuff.

You know, I'm gonna, there's, there's gonna be consequences if you talk to another man like that. So it's kind of macho, but you know, there's some truth in what he's saying there. But he comes back to that and he says, I know a lot of people who have been. Traumatized. I've gone through a lot of hard things as a child as well, and so you can't just like flippantly say.

That about kids being molested and stuff. This is heavy stuff and as kind of dark as Sean Strickland is and as sometimes crazy as he is, what he's saying is true. Like this is not stuff you joke about. This is really, really heavy stuff and especially as men but as anyone, we shouldn't be just like flippantly just throwing around this kind of stuff.

I don't care who you are if you're in the FFC or celebrity anyone, he's clearly this opponent of his is crossed the line. But I say all that because it's set up this moment in particular. Again, it's only about a three minute clip. I want you to listen to the whole thing. I'm gonna give a caveat here.

There's a ton of cussing, like bad cussing. I had thought about bleeping it all out, but I, I just want you to catch we're men, dude, like. You're gonna hear a lot of cuss words probably today, like just at your work. You know, I don't cuss personally, not because it's just like I, I wanna be like a quote unquote good Christian boy.

But the Bible talks about like, if we can control our tongue, we can control every other area of our life. Uh, James talks about that. And so the tongue, even though small is James says, really can destroy your whole life. And so, um, cussing is, it's bigger than just like, oh, we want to be sheltered. Nice.

Christian appropriate men. It's more the fact that like I want to control the little areas of my life because I know if I can get that un under control, I can control the bigger things. Or if I can't even control the little things like my tongue, my language, my speech, how in the world am I gonna control much bigger things that will come up?

And so all that to say. There's a lot of cussing in here, and so if you're listening with kids or around people, I would highly suggest that you put some earbuds in, headphones on. You don't listen around kids. It's hard to listen to as far as cussing goes, but I, I wanted to keep it in there because I think it captures the pain and the rawness of what's happening in this moment.

It's a really powerful moment. I'm gonna play the three minutes here, and then I'm gonna come back and we'll kind of dissect this. Okay. So now you fast forward this, like, I don't go to school. I'm up till three in the morning. I couldn't stay awake in school. Like, so like I remember I was like in third grade, no second grade, and I kept falling asleep at my desk and my teacher took my desk away from me and she made me like, stand up.

And so me, I'm like, fuck you being this little kid. I just went and fell asleep on the ground. And mind you, like the school system's like, oh, Sean, like he's just a bad kid. They don't realize I'm up till three o'clock in the morning. Right? Like. You know, late. I mean, fuck, dude, I remember it's hard to stay up late and learn, dude.

I remember like laying in bed, like, I remember when I stopped believing in God, man. Like fucking, like I had fucking, um, yeah, it's crazy shit, dude. Crazy shit, man. Yeah, it's okay man. It's a lot of that sad dude. I used to be scared at night. Like, uh, I used to stand up like I heard when I was a kid that like if you peed around your like animals could pee somewhere, that other animals wouldn't come.

You know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about, huh? Yeah. Have you ever heard that?

Yeah. I'm sorry, bud. So, ah, man.

I'm sorry buddy. It's all good, dude.

We don't have to talk, man. I can just sit here with you for a minute. Oh fuck. Ugh. Fuck. Six seconds. I can just sit here. We can just sit here. Nah, it's all good, dude. Six seconds. I just process it.

I think it's a little hard. Things that people don't understand, but like trauma, you know? Yeah.

Sometimes it just comes out. Oh, no, dude. Like I remember, uh, I have a hole in my gum.

Yeah. When I was a kid I used to scratch my gum and I have a hole in my gum. You know, I'm just from being nervous and stuff. No, I just, anxiety, you know. Yeah. Yeah, to this day, yeah. I mean, the day, dude, like I'm a grown ass man. I don't give a fuck. I mean, you could put, so, yeah, I'll stop it. There. Really powerful, even just how he ended that.

So I wanna give some thoughts on this 'cause I, I, I think that it's, there's so much happening here for us as min that I think we can learn from first. That whole kind of segment of that interview started. You know, they were talking about hard times as a child, which he had gone through and many of us have.

But what was interesting to me is when he said, I remember the day I stopped believing in God, and that line for him. Broke the dam of his emotions, like broke the dam of his soul and something started to pour out there. So for a guy that said earlier in the interview that he doesn't believe in God, the thing that broke him, you know, we're talking about a UFC champion, a guy who spent the last.

Hour of this interview, almost an hour and a half. Oh, an hour and a half of this interview talking about how tough he is, how we need stronger men, how, you know, he can get any girl he wants. He slept with a million girls, all this stuff, you know, he can beat up any dude. He'll kill a man. But, but the thing that broke him, the thing that crushed his soul to the point where he could not hold back was when he said, I remember.

The day I stopped believing in God and he immediately tied that back to deep trauma that he experienced. He goes on to talk about, like specifically why, and he was saying, if there is a God, how in the world could he allow this? I. Which man, just as, that's a valid question. Like, I don't want to, I'm a Christian, I'm a pastor, but dude, that's a valid question.

If you picture little Sean Strickland under a bed, scared, crying, watching his dad beat his mom, saying that he's gonna kill her, he is afraid for his mom's life, of his life getting beaten. Living in just terrible conditions and praying out to God and nothing changing. Eventually a reasonable response would say, is there really a God?

And so that's a valid dude. That's a valid, valid question, and I don't fault him at all for asking that. The saddest thing is that that was the day he decided, you know what? I must be praying to nobody. There is nobody listening. But dude, even the fact that he. Tied back when he recalls, when he reflects back on that day on those emotions, that it, it stirs up something so deeply in him that in front of what he knows will be millions of people.

He cries, he breaks, and he thinks like he's okay sharing how vulnerable and how much pain that caused him. Like, dude, there's something deep there. I just don't believe that he has stopped. Thinking about God, maybe as a kid, he made this conscious decision. I'm praying to nothing, but dude, something tells me there, just from an outsider's perspective, from an objective perspective, he has not given up on God as much as he thinks he has.

And most certainly, God has not abandoned him as much as he thinks he has. Just based on just the emotions there. If he really believed there's nothing, I'm convinced that, that that wouldn't have struck such a deep chord. I'm also, when I listen to this interview, man. Theo Vaughn had Kat Von Dion, who's like, kind of this notorious, very dark witchcraft, satanic, uh, I don't know all of her backstory, but I know it's very, very dark.

And she recently gave her life to Jesus, baptized, going to Bible studies, part of a local small church where she's being discipled. I mean, like God has crazy and radical ways. Is transforming her life and pulling her out of darkness and into light. And uh, a couple weeks ago, Theo von had her on the podcast and they were talking about her spiritual journey.

And that was so fascinating. But I was telling my wife, I was listening to it with Layla actually, and I was telling her like, dude, a year ago, five years ago, if Kat Von d and Theo Vaughn were talking about Jesus. We would've been like, what in the world? Like what? What is happening right now? But for some reason, more and more people, especially big name people, people of influence, people who have a platform and are influential.

I'm hearing story after story weekly of people who you least expected to come to know Jesus are coming to know Jesus. People who are never curious about Jesus are curious about Jesus. And I'm just. I'm wondering, I'm not a prophet. I don't have any secrets on like, let me tell you, uh, this angle of the Bible that you've never thought about.

I don't have any of that, but I'm just selfishly are quietly wondering to myself, is God starting to separate? Like with all the chaos in our world, starting with. Global pandemic and governments and, uh, all the crazy things, unprecedented, crazy things that are happening in the world is God starting to separate.

What I mean by that is the people who said that they were Christian, but they're not really, they're starting to fall off and the people who you would've never imagined to be Christian, God is starting to draw them to himself. And maybe again, I have no. Prophetic claim here, but maybe is this a sign that like things are starting to wrap up and I don't know if that means like one year or one month or one week or a hundred thousand more years?

I have no idea. I don't know. It wouldn't be surprising to me, I guess. If God's starting to wrap things up with this whole human experience thing and like enough is enough, and God is starting to say, okay, I'm going to draw men to myself. I'm going to separate those who say that they were Christian, who are not actually Christian, and those who were so far from me that thought they would live a life of rebellion, I'm going to save them.

For my glory so that the whole world takes notice. Like if that person gets saved, is there a God? It seems like God is doing that. I have no idea, but it seems like God is here at the very least, the kingdom of God is moving in really crazy ways. The kingdom of God is advancing in really crazy ways.

People are talking about Jesus, who you never imagined would be talking about Jesus. And so you just have to ask yourself like, why We get scared about where the country's going. We get scared about leadership. We get scared about the world, but dude, God's kingdom keeps advancing. It just keeps advancing.

God is not. Scared. He is the king of kings. The Lord of Lords the one who sits on the throne. He just doesn't, he's not shaken. He's not rattled. In fact, he keeps saving people. The people who you never expected to be saved. He's saving. And I want you to take away two points just from that. Just the fact that Sean Strickland and Von are talking in front of millions of people about God in some way.

Is evidence that God is moving, he's active, he's doing something. And I want you to take two things from that. Number one, God is moving, okay? Like he's gonna save people. There are people in your life right now who you are convinced, uh, will never come to know Jesus. And I don't want you to sell God's glory short His power short.

For some of you, you have been praying for someone specifically for a long time. God, would you save them? And at some point you just kind of resigned in your heart. They're never gonna know Jesus. I'm not gonna spend eternity with them. They're so far gone. And I just want you to say, dude, you do not sell God's power and glory short, God will save whomever he wants to save whenever he wants to save 'em.

And in fact, God has a reputation of saving the most crazy, wicked, sinful, dark, far away person. So that he can get all the glory. And so for that person in your life where you're just like, man, I don't know. I don't, I think I've, I've given up. Do not give up. Do not sell the power and the glory of God's short.

He will relentlessly pursue whomever he decides to pursue. That's one. Number two is there is going to be a time, I really believe this and I think it's gonna be sooner than we think. I think it'll be in our lifetime where there will be no social benefit. For being a Christian in times past, it's like, yeah, you're a Christian, you can be part of a church, might help you with your job.

It looks good on a resume, a life resume. I think there will be a time sooner than we would like to imagine. I. Where it will no longer benefit us to say that we love and follow Jesus, that the way that we serve a king who is not of this world, that we're part of a kingdom that is not of any government of this world, that our loyalty and our allegiance is not to a flag or a country.

I mean, I'm proud to live where I live. I'm so thankful for the men and women who protect our country and give us this opportunity to live in a land of a free For sure. Do the first one to say for sure. But my allegiance is to a kingdom that is eternal. That's for a good king man, not some corrupt per king or leader that we have to wonder what are their motives.

Just a king, Jesus man, king Jesus, who rules with justice and love and authority, and power and grace, and always does the right thing all the time. That's who my allegiance is to, and there will be a time where we will say, that's who I'm serving, regardless of what the consequences may be. I think that time might be, again, I don't wanna be doom and gloom.

I have no idea. But I wouldn't be surprised if that time comes in our lifetime where there's no social benefit to being a Christian. And Jesus may be separating who's really in and who's not. And some people, it seems like they're not even having a choice like this. Theon, it seems like God has him in his crosshairs and he's gonna save him.

And uh, does he even have a choice, like God's gonna save him? And again, I know that's a, I'm dropping, like that's a big theological claim. I know you, we, for youth theology nerds, you got all kinds of thoughts on that, but you know, I'm just looking around man. It seems like some people who didn't even plan on getting saved are getting saved and it seems like some people are gonna fall off.

Christians who said that they were Christian, grew up in church. My grandpa's a Christian. My, my grandpa was a pastor. Yeah. I, I don't know, man. I think Jesus is coming to, getting to the point where he says, I'm starting to separate who's in and who's out, who's really in and who's really out. And so you just have to ask yourself personally, like, dude, if things get hard, where are you at?

Are you still in. I wanna go back, I wanna finish, kind of wrap up this time with some final thoughts on this interview. During that time where Sean started to, a nerve was clearly pricked, the floodgates broke open. I think one of the most powerful things that I. Stuck out to me in that moment was Theo Vaughn's ability to just sit with his friend.

If you watch the YouTube video, I'll put a link there. I can't recommend the, the whole interview. It's really quite crude and crass, but that happens right around the one hour and 31 minute mark. Right as that happens, uh, if you watch it, it's really powerful because Theo V just sits there and Theo VI didn't catch this when I was listening to it the first time, but when I went back and watched, I saw this Theo V is also actually crying in that part.

He watches his friend have a nerve in his soul prick. He starts to cry. Sean Strickland starts to cry, and Theo v just quietly sits there. And he cries and it reminds me of that verse that says, there's a time to weep with those who weep. He didn't try to save him, he didn't try to rescue him out of it.

You notice that he tried to make some kind of funny, he talked about like peeing around the bed, claim his territory. He tried to go there for a second, which is often what us men do. We try to deflect emotional like. Something that feels emotionally big with some kind of humor, sarcasm, or whatever. So he went there for a second and then he realized he was smart enough, emotionally intelligent enough to realize like, ah, this is bigger than just some joke.

I'm not gonna laugh this off. And so he just sat with his friend and he just cried with him. He didn't try to rescue him out. I think one of the most powerful things he said was, we could just sit here buddy. I'm sorry. We can just sit here if you want. We don't have to talk anymore. We can just sit here, bro.

Oh man. That gets me emotional, just thinking like, we just need more dudes who are willing to do that with their friends. So often we talk about on the Dad Tire podcast, the need to have godly friends, like real friends who you can share the darkest parts of your soul. With that you have no secrets with that you're completely open when you can confess sin to each other.

And, uh, I think, dude, the reason we don't do that is 'cause we're so afraid of what that moment will actually look like. Both of those scenarios that happen with Sean Strickland and Theo Vaughn are terrifying. One is, I might start talking about something that pricks a nerve and, and breaks a emotional dam that I've been trying to suppress for years.

I don't want to be that vulnerable. This guy's a UFC fighter. He's about to fight for a UFC championship in a couple weeks. Last thing he wants to do is get in front of millions of people and start sobbing about his past. I know that for a fact, like that was the last thing he wanted to do, and so he was probably no.

Every dude, when you think about I want to have those kind of friendships, none of us actually want to do that. I don't wanna sit in front of you or any dude and start crying and sharing my pain. None of us want to do that. That's terrifying. Secondly, the other terrifying thing is to be the friend. In that situation, you don't know what to do.

Your friend starts to cry. He starts to, he shares something vulnerable. I don't know what to do now. I feel awkward. That happened and we just watched that happen with two guys who don't follow Jesus. And it actually happened Beau, like textbook beautifully. Exactly as you would hope that it could happen.

And I hope that more and more Christian friendships are like that, where you could sit down with a buddy. You can have long conversations about the real things of life. Something might come up and you just, I'm proud of Sean Strickland. 'cause he didn't cut it out. He Theon said, we can cut this out. And he said, no, just leave it in.

He was willing to be vulnerable. He shared some stuff that obviously were really, really deep and painful. And then his friend Theo v just sat with him and said, I'm sorry, we can just sit here. I can just sit here, man. Every time I think about that I get emotional. Uh, we can just sit here if you want.

Brothers, would we be that kind of friend? Would we be that kind of guy who we're willing to be vulnerable, we're willing to talk about the hard crap of life? I promise you Sean walked away from that interview feeling somewhat lighter. I don't think his soul's restored 'cause he hasn't found the healer.

Jesus. He'll try to mask that and numb that pain with something else. So funny. At the end of that little segment, he said, you know, f it, man, it, it doesn't matter. I'm fine. Clearly he's not. But what he's gonna do is keep trying to mask it. We just need more men who are, are willing to take off that mask to be real, to be vulnerable for the sake of healing, to walk away lighter.

'cause we do know the healer. We need to be the kind of friends who can just sit in each other's pain and not try to solve it. Try to give them some churchy Christian answer. But dude, just sit there and say, I'm sorry bro. I'm willing to just sit here with you, bro. I'm sorry. We can just sit here, man, I'm really sorry.

And to eventually say, let's go to Jesus together, man. There's one who can heal this. Let's go to Jesus together. I'm, I'm broken too. That would've been such a beautiful moment to see two brothers in Christ experience that moment and to really point each other to the healer. Those guys don't know Jesus yet, and so they weren't able to experience the full healing that I think is available to them.

We can 'cause we love Jesus and we know the healer, the one who will make all things new. The one who does hear us crying out and has not left us in our pain, has not left us as orphans. The one who said, I will wipe away every tear. I will come back as king Jesus and I will make all things new. That pain that your experience will be gone.

The injustice that happened, I will make right. He's a God of justice. He's a God of grace. He's a God of love. He's a God who will take away all that pain. He did not leave us. He does hear us, and he has made a way. We will, by God's grace, maybe get to experience some healing here on earth. Chunks of heaven.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We will get to experience some of that now, but the full redemption bro is coming. It's coming. Our hearts long for the day when all things will be made right again. And our savior, our king, has made a promise he will come back and he'll make it right.

And so that's our hope, bro, as you cry in the quiet places, in your car, in your bed, uh, in the shower, wherever you're at quietly and you feel like God, are you really listening? He is. And he didn't leave you in your mess. He won't leave you in your mess. It may feel like years and decades, but he won't leave you there.

He will complete what he has finished and it will be full redemption one day. And so I want to end with this. Just final thought. Sean lives his life. Kind of a crazy tough macho. I'll beat anybody up. I'll sleep with any woman. I'll do whatever I want. I'm gonna be a man's man. But all of that. Behavior. If you follow the string, it's tied back to that little boy who's under the bed crying out, God, are you really there?

'cause I feel scared. And for you as a man, what behaviors are you currently involved in that if you followed the string all the way back, it would be tied back to a little boy who's actually scared. Who doesn't feel good enough? Who feels worthless? Who feels like he doesn't have what it takes? Who's not fully loved?

And bro, go back to that boy and give that boy to Jesus. God wants to meet you in that place, bro. No women, no money, no career advancement. No bank account, no toy, no fishing trip, no vacation, no behavior from your wife. There's not enough sex, pleasure, alcohol, money pills. There's not enough any of that in the world that will actually heal what your soul is actually longing for, to be known, fully and loved, and that's who you are, bro.

If you are in Christ, you are known fully and you're loved. Fully, deeply, passionately, relentlessly. And so follow the string back, dude. What's it tied to? What is the pain that you're experiencing today being masked by? Follow the string back. Give that portion to Jesus so that we can be men who are healed.

Let's be the kind of friends who can just sit and say, I'm willing to sit with you. I'm sorry, and I'm willing to sit with you, to be the kind of friends who are vulnerable, who have the guts to just. Cry in front of our friends and say, this is deep pain. Let's be the kind of men who are willing to follow the string back and say, where's the pain really coming from?

My behavior, my macho, my whatever I'm doing, what am I actually, what's the string tied to? Let's deal with that. I hope that's helpful, man. Uh, again, I know I've never done an episode like this, but I just wanted to talk about that. I love you guys. I'm in your corner and I'll.