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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. We're really glad that you are here. Before we jump into today's conversation, I do wanna thank my friends over at Classical Conversations for sponsoring today's episode.
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Todd, so excited to be hanging out with you today, man. Thank you. Uh, I saw your book. Uh, I've actually been reading it. I don't. Just kind of as a behind the scenes for our listeners. We have publishers send us books probably by the dozens every week.
And so I have stacks and stacks of books, which are great, but I can never, I'm a tired dad. I don't have time to read any of them really. But yours came through and I put it on my nightstand. I didn't just put it on the bookshelf, I actually put it on my nightstand 'cause I just really, really wanted to read it.
And I have been reading it and it's been, I've even been reading it with my kids. And it's been really good. But anyway, before I jump into all that, ramble too long here, tell us who you are, what you're up to these days. Uh, my
name is Todd Nettleton. I'm the host of Voice the Martyrs Radio, which is a weekly radio program and podcast.
Uh, and as you mentioned, I wrote a book called When Faith is Forbidden, 40 Days on the Front Lines with Persecuted Christians. I have been working at Voice of the Mars, actually just celebrated my 25th anniversary working here. And uh, so the book is. 40 of the most powerful stories that I've heard from persecuted Christians.
And, uh, the idea of the book is, is kind of you who come with me on a trip. Uh, let's take a 40 day journey together and let's go meet some of our persecuted family members. Let's go sit down and, and drink a cup of coffee with them and hear their stories. I. And the promise, and I hear from you that you're experiencing this.
Your faith is gonna look different on day 41 when we finish this trip than it did when we started because you, you can't hang out with people who are willing to give their lives for Christ and not have it impact your own faith, not have it impact how you live your life. So. That's the goal of the book and the promise of the book.
And, uh, I love hearing from people. I love it that you're reading it with your kids. My dad read missionary biographies to my brother and I when I was probably 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. And that really, uh, I think, I think part of that is what I'm doing today, that the, the fruit of that is being felt in my own life today, working at Voice of the Martyrs.
Man, so many thoughts as you shared that introduction there. I've actually been trying to get my hands on more biographies of just Christians who have done that, who have lived out their faith in really radical and serious ways. I think it's really good for us as believers, especially in America in 2023, to hear these men and women who have gone before us, brothers and sisters who have gone before us and really lived out their faith.
I have a lot of questions about voice of the monitors, the book, all this stuff, but you said your dad read this too. What was your relationship with your dad? I. Like, uh, it sounds like he was pretty intentional as a dad.
He was intentional. Yeah, that's, that's a good way of saying it. My dad and I have a great relationship.
My dad was a pastor when I was 12 years old. We moved to Papua New Gua, my parents kind of transition from pastoral ministry to being missionaries, and so we packed up from comfortable Southern California life and moved to Papua New Guinea and. Uh, we had, at that time I had one brother. I have another brother since that was actually born in Papua New Guinea.
But so there were four of us. We had a kind of a family conference and it was three to one, three votes to move to Papua New Guinea and one vote, which was me saying, uh, no, I like my life in California. I don't wanna move to Papua New Guinea. I was in the sixth grade, I was getting ready to go into junior high, oh, sixth grade and getting ready to be able to participate in sports.
And I was very excited about that. And it was just like, no, this is not a good time. But ultimately we ended that conversation with, you know, I wanna do what the Lord wants us to do. So if, if that's what the Lord is calling us to do, then, then I'll go. And it's interesting because it was a very difficult transition for me moving over there.
It was even harder four years later when we moved back to Southern California and we came home for furlough and. I had this picture in my mind during those four years that, you know, I have friends back in California, and as soon as we get there, you know, everything's gonna be great. Four years for a 16-year-old is an eternity.
Uh, when I got home, I found out a lot of my friends had moved on as, as they should have, as they naturally would. And so coming home was very difficult as well. After I kind of had this mental picture of how great it would be, it wasn't great at all. And so my junior year of high school, we came home for that year.
It was very, very hard. It was very difficult for me, but again, as I look back now, much of what I do today started when I was 12 years old and we got on a plane to move to Papua New Guinea. I have a great love for people who don't look like me and don't talk like me, but who are my family members because we are in the same family.
We serve the Lord. I have a great love of getting on a plane and going someplace that I've never been before and trying to figure out, okay, how do I get around and, and what do the taxis look like here and how do I ask where the bathroom is? And, uh, all those really important things. I love doing that.
And that really started when I was 12 years old and we got on that plane. So even though I voted no, and, and it was very difficult, the Lord is producing fruit. Even still now, we're 40 years down the road, uh, the Lord is still producing fruit out of that decision. Man,
I went on my first trip internationally on a mission trip.
It was a high school trip, but they, I was transitioning from eighth grade into high school, and they let me sneak in, so I was only in eighth grade. But that was a life shaping trip for me. About that same age that you just described, where you, it's kind of that age where you start to realize the world is bigger than you.
Yeah. I was just talking to my son about this. He's turned 12 and I told him I, yeah, I kind of painted a, we use, uh. Like a little graph pie chart to show him kind of the stages of growth and, and I was showing him how you're moving away from childhood into young adulthood. And one of the main characteristics in that is that you recognize the world is bigger than you.
That there's God's doing things all over the world and you're part of a much bigger story.
Anytime I get a chance to talk to students, high school students, college students. I always try to challenge them before you get a full-time job. Go on a mission trip. Yeah. Um, and it's not because God's gonna call all of you to be missionaries, but it is gonna change how you see the world.
It's gonna change how you pray. It's gonna change how you participate in your local church. So I always try to encourage young people, Hey, before you get locked down in a full-time job, take a mission trip, go somewhere and just see what God does through that.
I think that's good. It's, we, we want to do that as dads.
I, I've been encouraging dads to do some kind of trip, uh, again, my son's 12, so he's stepping into the manhood journey and he knows that really intentionally, like we're moving toward a rite of passage over the next several years. And one of those things will be that he comes with me on a trip and we just go see what God's doing around the world.
And, and hear from these other believers that you mentioned, a lot of whom or you know, are mentioned in the book that men and women who are willing to give up their lives. I think that there's a lot of people, you know, I'm probably making an assumption here, but I feel safe making it. I think there's a probably a lot of people, a lot of my peers who really just have, we have no idea that there are people who are actually still giving their lives for the sake of Christ in 2023.
I think some people might hear that and be like, martyrs, like I thought that was like hundreds of years ago. Is that still happening? Can you just kind of paint a picture globally? What is happening right now as we speak? Around the world with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Well, at first, I agree with you.
There are far too many Christians who kind of get to the end of the Book of Acts and just think, well, that was the end of persecution. Like, okay, we're done. We moved on from that. Today in more than 70 countries, Christians are forced to pay a price for doing what we do and and really take for granted, for having a Bible, for gathering with other believers, for studying God's word, for sharing their faith with someone else.
And that persecution can be on what, what we might consider the low end kind of discrimination or oppression, harassment. Hey, you can't work here anymore if you're gonna follow Jesus. I, I, you know, we only have Muslims that work here. You can't work here. Hey, I'm not gonna rent an apartment to you. What would my, your neighbors think?
Like, they'll all move out of the apartment then I won't have any renters, so I'm not gonna rent to you. You're a Christian again, what we might call oppression or harassment. All the way to people who are giving their lives. Uh, there was an attack over the weekend in Uganda and 40 students were killed in a school.
Now that was done by an Islamist group. I, I'm not clear yet. It's not clear yet what motivated that attack or that particular school, but the same Islamist group earlier this year attacked a church and people were killed in the church. And so there's a wide range of what it looks like to be persecuted.
One of the things that is fascinating to me, and I, and I think. Maybe for those who are listening to this, it would be kind of a new concept in a lot of places, especially in a Muslim context. The first line of persecution is usually not the police. It's not the government. It's your family. It's your dad, it's your big brother.
It's somebody in authority in your family who comes to you and says, listen, we're a Muslim family. You're not part of this family if you're a Christian. So either you can move out or in some cases we will kill you. To avenge our honor to restore our honor. But a lot of times that's the first line of persecution and you think about, you know, having the people closest to you turn into your persecutor and how hard that would be emotionally and how difficult it would be to keep going in the midst of that.
But that's reality for so many of our brothers and sisters and one of the outputs of that, uh, the other end of that or something for us to take home from that as we pray for the Muslim world. Please pray for whole families to come to Christ. Yeah. Not just son, not just dead, but whole families to come together because then instantly they've already passed that first line of persecution.
Their family's not gonna persecute them if the whole family came to Christ at the same time. And so just as you pray for the Muslim world, that's one of the things to kind of put on your prayer list.
Mm-hmm. You said 70 countries. What are some of the main countries that are probably have the highest persecution right now?
North Korea is probably the most closed. I often describe North Korea as a prison camp, disguised as a country, totally, uh, because everybody there is oppressed. Everybody there is held under the thumb of the regime, but Christians are singled out for the very worst oppression. And the reason for that is actually it's very logical reason.
The Kim regime presents the members of the Kim family as divine beings, and literally kindergartners are taught when they sit down to a meal to say, thank you, father Kim mil sung for our food. Wow. So if you come in and say, I follow Jesus. It's not just a matter of, Hey, we don't do that here, or, Hey, that's a Western religion.
It's treason. It undermines the North Korean government. If Jesus is Lord, then Kim Jong-un is not, and so they can't let Christianity spread because it's a direct threat to the regime. So North Korea is certainly one of the most closed. China has gotten, sorry, I'm gonna
interrupt. I'll pause you there. Go ahead.
So it's so hard to get information from what's happening in North Korea, which by the way, the stuff that I hear, it's truly unbelievable. Like what's happening in North Korea. Truly unbelievable. It doesn't. There's no box to fit it in. Yeah. What's happening?
I, I said on Voice Smarts Radio one day that, that, it was amazing.
North Korea is an amazing country and I had a listener write in and said, how could you compliment North Korea? And I said, I didn't mean it as a compliment. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. It's like no place else on Earth. Almost literally, almost like a science fiction novel that has come to life. Totally.
Totally. Every piece of information is controlled. What you see on TV is exactly what the government wants you to see. It is amazing. Not in a positive sense, but in a sense of like for, it's hard for us to even wrap our minds around what life is like there.
Totally. Have you heard stories of like, how is the gospel being infiltrated in North Korea like.
What do you know?
There's a couple cool things that Voice of the Martyrs is directly involved in, uh, that involve getting the gospel into North Korea. So one of those is balloons. We actually float balloons over with complete New Testaments attached to them, and so fill 'em up with helium. When the wind is blowing the right direction, we're able to launch those balloons and they over, these aren't the balloons that got shot
down over, uh, it's the
same
balloons,
uh, not the same balloon, but similar technology, honestly.
Interesting. We actually are able now to put a GPS tracker on those, so we can see where it goes. We can see where it comes down. So that's one way that the Gospel's getting in. A second way, that Voice of the Martyrs is involved with is a radio broadcast. And the entire radio broadcast is simply someone reading the Bible very slowly and deliberately so that people inside North Korea can write down what they're hearing.
Wow. Uh, because it's so difficult for them to get a Bible that just having that radio broadcast and saying, okay, hey, we're gonna read this passage, write this down, and then read it really slowly. The other thing that's happening, and it's really fascinating, is we have a sister office in Seoul. They're actually training North Korean defectors.
Because most of them talk to somebody in North Korea at least once a month. They will talk to family. Now it, it's illegal. Uh, it's illegal to have a cell phone in North Korea that can dial out, but people have them, or people can rent them. They can get their hands on them, and so they are able to talk to their relatives who have fled.
So if we can train those relatives, hey. H here's how you share the gospel and here's how you can help your relatives to know Jesus. That's another way that, that the gospel is getting back in. But obviously all of this comes with great risk. It, it comes with great danger. Our sister office in Seoul that I mentioned, they've actually been threatened by the North Korean government because they're effective, because the gospel is getting in.
So there are ways to get it in, but it, it's definitely difficult and it requires a great deal of creativity.
That's incredible. I imagine it's hard to get any kind of feedback, but have you heard any stories of people who have heard the gospel, heard the word of God, and there've been life change?
We have heard a few stories like that.
Yes. We heard a story from someone who said they read the gospel on an orange plastic bag, which in the old days, that's what our balloons looked like. They were bright orange and they were made up plastic, and so we're like, okay. We know that We have also heard reports of the North Korean military being mobilized when we do a balloon launch.
To kind of get the balloons, destroy the materials, so we take that as a good sign. The fact that they want to fight against it means it must be effective. The other thing that's happening with regard to the radio broadcast is they repeatedly jam our Bible broadcast. I'm not a radio expert, but it's a, it's kind of a cat and mouse game.
We will move it up a little bit on the dial, and then they'll move the jamming signal up, and then we'll move it back down a little bit and they'll move the jam signal back down. And so it really is. An effort by them to stop the gospel message from coming in. That lets us know how important it is if, if the North Korean government is working that hard to stop the gospel from coming in.
We need to work all the harder to make sure it does get in.
Wow at Dat tired. We have lots of resources to help equip you to be the spiritual leader of your home, but by far the most helpful thing that we offer is what's called our Family Leadership program. Our team will come alongside of you over the next 30 days and beyond to help you really lean into what it looks like to be the spiritual leader of your home.
Everything from family devotions. To practicing Sabbath to what it looks like to have the gospel infiltrate your marriage, all kinds of stuff. And we're gonna do it alongside of you. Go to dad tire.com, click the family leadership tab, and you'll be able to jump right in. Todd, I don't, uh, I hardly ever do this, but I just feel a sense in my gut man to pray right now for those people.
And so if you wouldn't mind, I'll just pause for 30 seconds and pray. Yeah. For all the efforts you guys are doing, Lord. Uh. I truly can't even imagine what's happening in, in North Korea and all your children there who you love, these people who you love and you want to know you, and you want to reveal yourself to them.
God, I pray that the efforts I. That, um, Christians are taking specifically voice of the martyrs, the ways, the creative ways that they're trying to get the gospel into North Korea. God, I pray that they'd be effective, God, that you would thwart the plans of the enemy to stop it. God, that even thinking about these balloons and these radio broadcasts, God, the people who are having connections and conversations weekly.
God, I pray that you would have massive fruit, that your kingdom would just reign through, Lord, in people's lives, God, that they would, people there would have courage to hear your word, understand it, Lord, to even talk about it, even if it meant their life. God, even praying that I feel convicted 'cause it's just such a big deal.
Um, but Lord, I do pray that your gospel would spread, that it would expand, that God, that you would save souls, that you would save moms and dads and kids and uncles and grandparents for your glory, Lord. It's in your name of prayer. Amen. Amen. Okay, so your book, you highlighted 40 stories. When you think through those 40 stories, obviously we want everyone to get your book and read all these, but is there one or two that just really stick out to you when you wrote it?
You're just like, people need to hear this story.
There's a couple and, and one of them is a lady named Sister Tong that I met in China. She had just been released after serving six months in prison, so she hosted a house, church meeting in her house. And at that time, the police would raid, uh, they would take everyone's ID information.
They would take pictures of everyone but the host, the person who owned the house, they would get arrested. I mean, so Sister Tong went to jail for six months and she had just come out like three weeks before we were there. She had been released from the six months in prison. So. Uh, my wife was with me on the trip, which is a great blessing and, uh, we get a chance to sit down with Sister to, and I know I'm gonna come back to America.
I'm gonna write a story for the Voice of the Martyrs Magazine. I'm gonna do radio interviews like this one, and, and I'm gonna tell Sister Tong's story. So if you're gonna tell a story, the first thing you need is you need the setting, right? So I say Sister to. Tell me about the prison. And what I'm thinking is, you know, tell me how hard the bed was.
Tell me how bad the food was. Tell me how big the rats were. Let's paint a picture of how miserable you were in this Chinese prison for the last six months. And so my translator translates the question and Sister Tong gets this amazing smile on her face and she says something in Chinese and the translator says, oh yes, that was a wonderful time.
And I, I looked at the translator 'cause I'm like. We're missing something here. We need a different translator. Yeah. Like, like are, are you sure that you understood my quote? Yes. Yes. I understood. Are you sure she understood when you translated, did she understand what I was asking? Yes. Yes. She understood and, but she went on to say, she said, you know, Jesus was with me in that prison in a different way than I had ever experienced him before.
Mm-hmm. He was so close to me and he was so real to me, and she said, you know what else? There were some ladies in the cell with me and when I got there, they didn't know the Lord. But they do now, and I got to be the one to introduce them. Yeah. And so Jesus was with me and Jesus gave me a ministry to do so that was a wonderful time.
And the question I ask in the book for us is, okay, well what is there in my life that maybe I don't want? I wouldn't have asked for it. I didn't wanna be here, but Jesus is with me and Jesus has given me a ministry to do. It could be a wonderful time if I would look at it that way. It could be a wonderful time.
Wow. So that's the story of Sister Tong. There's one other that I would point to, and I honestly, it's interesting because even as I have, I've read this story, you know, you write a book, you read it a thousand times, and then they sent the proof pages, and I read it again. I'm reading it on a plane, and I actually start weeping as I read this story.
So this is a story of a man named Iman, and he was a drug dealer in Iran. As he started to tell his story, he said, now I want you to understand I'm a very competitive person. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's cool. And he is like, no, no, no. I want you to understand I'm a very competitive person. He's like, when I was a drug dealer, I wanted to be the best drug dealer in the whole area.
When I was a drug addict, I wanted to take more drugs than anyone else was taking. I. And he said, even when I went in the military, during the Iran Iraq war, when I was sent to the to the front, I told my commander, listen, you send me to a place where I can die as a martyr within the next 24 hours. Or I don't even wanna waste my time.
Like I wanna be the best soldier. I wanna be the best drug addict. When he was a thief, he said he loved stealing things that somebody else had tried to steal and got caught. Wow. Because then he could say I was a better thief than them. So he is like. I'm very competitive and I'm like, okay, okay. I understand you're competitive.
But what has happened is the Lord healed him of his drug addiction. He had an incredible experience with the Lord, where instantly the Lord changed him and healed him. And he decided that that co, what was it? What, how did,
how did that happen?
You know? Was it a
dream?
It was a vision of Christ.
Yes. And so here's the reason I asked that question.
So my wife's family is all from Iran.
Ah,
okay. Yeah. And so the amount of stories I've heard about dreams and visions is incredible. So that's why he, yeah.
It really is an amazing story. So his family went away for a like a vacation and he was so bad off and so addicted that they invited him not to go with them on vacation.
Like, we don't wanna be around you, you stay home, we're gonna go. And he was watching tv, it was flipping through the channels, and he came across a Christian TV channel in Iran and they were talking about giving away their hearts. And literally they said, when I gave my heart. And he flipped the channel and he thought, those Christians are very strange people.
They give away their hearts like that. That is such a weird thing. And you know, he was using drugs that night and, and he finally just cried out to God, uh, God save me. Like, I don't know if you can, I don't know if you're real, but save me. He went back down and he was flipping through the channel again and the person said, when I gave my heart, and this time he stayed on the channel.
When I gave my heart to the Lord, he saved me. And he was like, he had just prayed, God, save me. Wow. And now here he is watching television and they say how he can be saved. When I gave my heart to Jesus, he saved me. And he said he went and he prayed in his room and he closed his eyes and he said, I could feel Jesus in the room, but he said I was so sinful and so broken.
That I didn't deserve to make eye contact with Jesus, so I kept my eyes closed because I didn't deserve to see him, but I knew he was in the room. I knew he was there with me. I. From that moment forward, he never was tempted to drugs again. It was complete instant healing. Wow. And this competitive fire that he had.
You know, I'm gonna be the best thief. I'm gonna be the best drug addict. I'm gonna be the best soldier became, I'm gonna be the best disciple. I'm gonna be the best witness for Christ that he's ever had. And his attitude was, Lord, if you are bringing someone across my path. I know they're ready to hear the gospel because I'm gonna tell every single person I talk to.
He ended up going to prison in Iran because of that. Even in prison, the Lord worked in just miraculous ways to watch out for him and look out for him and protect him. And at one point this, this story is so mind blowing, but at one point literally he's in court and the judge takes his paperwork this.
Christian apostate who should be sentenced to death. The judge takes his paperwork and says, oh wait, this is wrong. The judge changes his paperwork and then he hands it back to him and he says, now this is the department you need to take this to, and here's my cell phone number. If they give you any trouble, just call me and I'll work it out for you.
And it's like, it's not like this judge is a Christian. He's a Muslim, but God is working through him to protect his child in the midst of this court case, in the midst of jail. And so that's one of the stories. And like I say, even talking about it now, when I read it, it amazes me again. So that's another great story that's in the book.
And the book's just full of stories like that. I mean, every, every story I read, I was just captivated by, as you hear all these stories, you travel around the world, you, I mean, your life is literally surrounded by you're completely. Encapsulated with stories of people who are living out their faith and you live in America and uh, go to church on Sundays.
I imagine there's some times where you probably feel a little bit frustrated or just like, oh man, are we getting it? May, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but if there, I guess seeing the things that you've seen, hearing the stories that you've heard, what is something that you wish us in America would just know or understand or lean into a little bit more?
If you think about the story of the treasure in the field, it talks about, you know, the man found a treasure in a field. He covered it back up because he thought, man, this is amazing. I found this treasure. I'm gonna have this. And it says he went. And in his joy, I. He sold everything he owned to be able to buy the field and own the treasure in his joy.
Nobody had to twist his arm. Nobody had to put a gun to his head. In his joy, he sold everything he owned to go and possess that treasure. If we saw our relationship with Christ in that frame, it's worth everything I own. If I had to sell everything I own, it would still be a bargain. I would still be getting the best end of the deal.
To possess that treasure, to own that. If we could kind of see our faith in that light and not, you know, we get wrapped up in a lot of things and I, you know, I don't wanna point fingers at American Christians 'cause I'm an American Christian and, and you did say, I do go to church on Sunday and, and sometimes I get distracted by foolish dumb things.
And I'm like, why are you thinking about that when you should be, you know, doing this? But I think just understanding walking with Christ is worth everything. It's worth anything that we could sacrifice and we would still be winning, like we would still be getting the bargain. I. If we could understand that, I, I think that would help us as we live out our faith.
And the other thing I would point to is just the scripture. As I meet persecuted brothers and sisters, they love the Bible. They are passionate about not just having one on the shelf, but actually reading it and studying it and sharing it with other people. And. So often I feel guilty so often in those conversations 'cause it's like I have like seven translations on my phone in my pocket.
Yeah. Yeah. I have unlimited access to the Bible. But do I read it every day? Do I study it? Am I letting it wash over my life? And that really is one of the really specific changes that I have made in my faith walk over the last number of years, is man, I try to read through the Bible every year now, and I try to read it every day.
And my wife and I actually were using an audio bible now. We listen in the morning and it's something we do together in the morning to start the day and. Let the scripture be a part of our life. And I think of, of fathers of young children, they need to see you making the Bible part of your life. And you need to be helping them make the Bible a part of their life that needs to be a pattern in your family and in your life.
And that's another lesson from our persecutor brothers and sisters that I've learned and hopefully am am putting into practice.
Yeah, that's good man. I was in Serbia one time and I was teaching, I was going around teaching at different churches, and I remember one time I was at this real small little church out in some village, and I, I sat down and when I sat down, I sat my bible under my chair because there was nowhere to set it next to me.
And this guy next to me, just like he kind of hit me and then picked up my Bible. It's like, whoa, what are you doing? Yeah. And I didn't, and I didn't, I didn't know what he was saying at first, so I grabbed it and then at some point later in the service, I had done it. I did it again and I could tell it really frustrated him.
And then I caught on like, oh, I'm putting the, the word of God on the ground. And just the reverence, like what you were talking about. Mm-hmm. The reverence for the word of God. And I, I was so convicted by it. I just felt like such an idiot. You know, I think about that story all the time. I think what you just said is so important.
I don't want to get, I have no desire to like get political in any way here, but I'm wondering as we just kinda look at the shape of, and the, the culture that we're in right now and the, and the direction that we're moving as a country. It seems like, I guess it wouldn't be surprising if it became harder and harder to become or to live out your faith even in America.
You know, when I was a kid, it was easier to talk about Jesus than it is now, and I think that trend will get even more common. And so our kids may get to the point when they're adults, when my kids are in their thirties and forties, that I don't know what it will look like for them to try to live out their faith.
And maybe it will require much more. They'll have to be much more radical in the sense of living out their faith. And I wonder how much of it will be that they will be glad that they have the word of God memorized because they might not always have. And even even just saying that, like saying that out loud, thinking that thought out loud makes me feel a weird way.
But the thought that that might be the reality. And so the importance of like to have memorized scripture and to really know the word of God in their hearts deep within their hearts. Do you have any thoughts on that as you kind of. Have a pulse on what's happening around the world.
You know what? I would encourage American Christians and, and I'm like you.
I don't want to get political either, but there are. A lot of people I feel like right now, who are thinking, well, if, if the country goes this way politically, it's gonna stop the church. Oh, the church is gonna be shut down, the church won't be able to grow. And the thing that I always, and, and I totally am favor of Christians having a voice in the political process.
And absolutely you should vote, absolutely. You should study the candidates and know where they stand and, and speak to them and encourage them to follow Godly principles. I'm not saying any of that is bad. But I like to think about the country of Iran and, and with your wife being from there. I bet you think about it a fair amount too.
1979, the Islamic Revolution happens in Iran and the mullahs, the Islamic leaders are now the government. They are saying, we are gonna run this country according to Islamic principles. It is gonna be just like Muhammad himself was running the country and people outside the country, and even Christians inside Iran thought, oh, no.
The church is gonna be shut down. What's gonna happen? This is gonna be terrible for Christianity today. The fastest growing church in the world is in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And so I think what I would encourage people to remember is, yes, we need to have a voice and we need to have a vote when as long as we're allowed to, let's do it.
But the growth of the church is not dependent on. The government, it's not dependent on some law that somebody's gonna pass or not pass or vote this way or vote that way. One of the convictions that God has laid on my heart is nobody that I vote for is gonna come and share the gospel with my neighbors.
Mm-hmm.
So if, if I feel like going into the voting booth is gonna bring revival to America, I'm probably wrong because nobody that I vote for is gonna share the gospel with my neighbors. Yeah. God put them next door to me so that I could do that. I. Or God put me next door to them so that I could do that.
And so if we're not praying for our neighbors, if we're not sharing the gospel with them and we think, well, it's okay because I voted this direction, that's not biblical and that's not true. And if we think that. Too many people voted that way. So now the church is gonna be shut down. That's not biblical, and that's not true either.
So I would just encourage people, again, I'm, I'm not anti vote, I'm not anti be involved. Uh, but we always need to see things in the eternal perspective, not just in the sort of next four years of politics perspective,
man. Good word. Good word. Kingdom of God is never at risk. Amen. Uh, I'm so grateful that I got a chance to hang out with you today and pick your brain a little bit.
How can people get involved? I love voice of the Martyrs, what you guys are doing to expand the gospel around the world. How can people stay in touch with what you guys got going on?
Well, lemme give you a couple of websites. So persecution.com is the main voice of the Martyrs website. We send out a free magazine every month.
I'd love for you to sign up actually, right at the top of the page it says Free magazine. Just click on that. Uh, give us your name and address. Uh, the other thing I would encourage you is listen to VM Radio. I'm, I'm the host of VM Radio, so I get to sit down. Every week with persecuted Christians, with people who are working in hostile and restricted nations.
Uh, and just ask them questions, Hey, what's going on in your country? In the case of they were persecuted. I, I literally get to kind of unpack in the midst of, okay, so how did God show up in that prison cell? How did God show up in the midst of that situation? So. You can listen to the podcast wherever you listen to podcast.
It's on 1100 some radio stations. You can find it somewhere close to you. But that website is VOM radio.net. So persecution.com v om radio.net. And uh, those are good ways to stay connected and. We always try to equip people to pray. So the magazine every month, uh, the last question I ask in, in the interviews is, okay, how can we pray for your country?
How can we pray for what God is doing there? So we always want people to pray because that's the first thing that persecuted Christians ask us to do. So we have lots of tools to help you do that. Let me say one more, also the VOM app. So we have an app for your smartphone. Actually every day it will pull up a new prayer request so you can set a reminder on your phone and say, Hey, at at nine o'clock at night before I go to bed, I'm gonna pray for persecuted Christians, and it'll remind you it'll pull up a new request.
So that's another great way to connect with Voice of the Martyrs, and it's available in whatever app
store you prefer. I really love what you guys are doing. I'm a big fan and, uh, I hope that our paths cross again at some point, and I just want more of our dads to be exposed to this. I, I think it hearing all these things.
Somehow in the kingdom makes us better husbands, fathers, and disciples as we understand the bigger story that God's doing all around the world.
You know, one of the things that, that I think, and, and we talked about my dad reading us books about martyrs and missionaries, our kids are gonna have heroes.
Some of them are probably gonna be people who are good at, you know, putting a round ball through a round hoop, uh, maybe running a football down the field. And I, I love those kind of heroes too. But let's make sure some of the heroes they have are heroes of the kingdom and heroes who did great things for God.
And, and we can influence that. We can influence that by sharing these stories, by telling 'em to our kids and by showing that, that these are people we admire as well.
I. Todd, you brought us closer to Jesus today. Man. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time, your wisdom, and your stories and uh, I'll look forward to staying in touch.
Thank you.
I look forward to it as well. Thanks for having me.
Hey guys, hope you enjoy today's episode. As a reminder, we have our dad tired annual retreat coming up in September. We're already halfway full on that, so if you wanna secure a spot, go to dad tired.com, click the annual retreat tab and get signed up today. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.