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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.
Alright, guys. Excited to jump back in with you. I just got back from some vacation time with my kids, took 'em to the old Great Wolf Lodge. It was exhausting. Need a vacation from that. Vacation, but had some thoughts processing some things, uh, in life. And just kinda wanted to take you guys along my journey.
I've shared with you guys quite a bit. So far about wrestling through kinda depression, anxiety, um, what sometimes is called the, the dark night of the soul or, or the wilderness in the Christian life. And for me, I, uh, am just in this season again, where I'm kind of working through these moments of real anxiety, real, um.
You know, sometimes it's called looping, where you're just working through the same thought patterns over and over and kind of obsessing, um, running around this track with, with patterns of fear or anxiety or frustration with myself. And I'm really trying to process and. But man, I'm in the middle of that and I've got my kids at the, at the waterpark, and all of my kids are so timid and just not naturally adventurous.
Um, they got that from their mom. And, uh, my, I have a 4-year-old who's gonna turn five this month. That's why we went to the waterpark. All my, like three of, uh, three of our kids have birthdays in February. And so I have a 4-year-old who stayed in the baby section, uh, for the first couple days and I kept trying to talk him into going, kind of moving up to the next section and going down the water slides that were more fit for his age and size.
And, uh, probably for two days in a row I'd take him to the top of a slide that was really appropriate for him. And. Try to talk him into going down the slide and he would just start to gimme all the reasons why he didn't wanna do it. And he would do it if they would let us go down the slide together.
But you know how they're, they won't let you. And so we're just having this conversation every day and then watching him sit in the baby pool and actually be pretty content in the baby pool. So, um, but on the last day, uh, our last day there, I just decided that like. I'm gonna push him. And, uh, I knew it was risky, right?
Because this could only go one of two ways. He's either gonna love this and love me for encouraging him to conquer his fear, or he's gonna hate this and I'm gonna hear about it for at least, you know, two to three months. And so I take him to the. On top of the water slide. And then he starts giving me the same speech about how he's scared and he doesn't wanna do it.
And when he turns six, he'll do it. That's what he kept saying. When I turn six, I'll do it. Dad, when I turn six, uh, he's, he just starts working me through the same circle of arguments and finally I pick him up. He's super small, pick him up, and I sit him on the top of the slide and I look at the girl running the slide.
She's like 15. Uh, maybe a little bit older, but I say to her, I'm, I'm gonna push him. And she just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. And so I gave him a shove and pushed him down the slide and he stopped like 10 feet down. I mean, it was just not steep enough to even at all be nervous about. Um, but he cried for a second when he was stopped.
Then he kinda scooted himself down to the bottom of the slide and. Uh, you know, I rushed down to beat him to the bottom and scooped him and like Yeah. Made it a big deal. This is incredible. Yeah. And he like, kind of cried for a second and then got up and was, you know, you know, kids are just so into it was ready to go again and it was the first time on our trip where I was able to sit down.
I had just spent my whole, you know, quote unquote vacation chasing kids through the waterpark. And the first time the trip, I pulled up a chair to the bottom of that slide. And I sat there where he just looped, just did the slide over and over again. And when he would get to the bottom of the slide, he would look at me and he would run over to where I was sitting, double high five, not one high five, double high five.
And then he would take off and do it again. And I'm shouting at him, you know, like, run, walk, don't run, you're gonna fall. And he was skipping away like all awkwardly because he was too excited to to walk And. It was just interesting to watch him kind of conquer this fear and then he is seriously just doing it over and over, just looping over and over again.
And as I sat for the first time, my thoughts were doing the same thing. They started to loop and I'd had a really hard couple weeks at work and. Um, yeah, the anxiety, the, the, the mental health issues that I wrestle with just kind of come storming back and I sit down in the chair and for the first, first moment I have like a minute of solitude and my thoughts just start to loop.
Like you could have done, you should have done. Why didn't you? You always handle things poorly and uh, they're just, my thoughts are just spinning in the middle of that, knowing I had to go have another couple hard conversations when I got back in work and it's just part of my responsibility. And, um, man, it's just going round and round and round and I, and I let myself loop and I would pause to double high five him when he got to the bottom of the slide.
And then as soon as he started running again, my thoughts just were running me over and just looping. And I sat there for a while and. I tried to eventually start to work my way out of my own patterns, and I started to, to kind of quote to myself, John 1427, where Jesus looks at the disciples and what we call the the farewell discourse, and Jesus says to the disciples, peace.
I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives. Do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither. Let them be afraid, not let not your hearts be troubled, neither. Let them be afraid. And so now I'm looping as my son loops around the water slide. And I'm trying to get myself out of this as I quote the scripture over myself and I begin to, you know how in your mind you'll just begin to picture, I just begin to picture Jesus sitting with me.
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, but not your hearts be troubled. Um, he, he opens the, the farewell discourse. The farewell discourse we get, it kind of shifts the farewell. Piece of John's narrative kind of shifts from all the way from John 13 to John 17 and John 14. He opens this particular discourse.
This is um, after he's washed the disciples feet, he's foretold the betrayal of Judas, and he opens with, let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. And it's very clear when you ponder this passage of scripture for a while, that Jesus sees in the disciples as he kind of declares.
The betrayal of Judas. They know something's up, something's coming. He's prophesied his own crucifixion on several occasions. He sees in them confusion, despair, uncertainty as he prepares to head towards Gethsemane, confusion, despair, and uncertainty. So he opens the feral world discourse with let not your hearts be troubled.
And I at times really wrestle with confusion, despair, and uncertainty. And I need to hear Jesus say, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe. In God belief also in me. He remember he says in this discourse, he begins to kind of address some of their concerns. He says, my father's house has many rooms, and Thomas responds, um, or they respond, we don't know where you're going.
How do we know the way? And he says, I'm the way. I'm the truth and the life. No one comes to the fatherless. They come through me. He promises the coming of the spirit. I won't leave you as. Orphans, but I'll, but I'll come to you and, and all of this, he's addressing their anxieties, their fears as they kind of sit before their master, who they followed for three years, who's talking about his own death.
He's talking about a betrayal, and there is all this, what now? What's coming? How do we navigate What storm is this that I've just found myself sitting in the middle of is really. Frustrating Jesus to not be able to see clearly. And Jesus looks back at all of that kind of anxiety and despair and confusion and angst.
And he says, let not your hearts be troubled. I go to prepare a place for you. I won't leave you as orphans, but I'll come to you. I'll send the spirit. And then he kind of works down into John 1427, which I'm quoting to myself now, sitting at the foot of the water slide, looping through all my own insecurities as my son loops through his newfound victory of conquering fear, and I begin to quote the 14, 27 piece I leave with you.
My peace I give to you not as the world gives. Do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled, neither. Let them be afraid. Peace he says. I'll leave with you. This is kind of a, uh, um. A Jewish greeting, a, a, a welcome or a farewell. It is kind of a saying Goodbye. Peace. He's leaving, right? Peace. I leave with you Matthew Henry.
I love the kind of devotional commentary, uh, that Henry gives, but he said this, when Christ was about to leave the world, he made his will. His soul. He committed to the father, his body. He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred. His clothes fell to the soldiers, his mother, he left to the care of John, but what should he leave?
To his poor disciples that had left all for him, that silver and gold, he had none, but he left them that which was infinitely better. His peace as Jesus kind of, um, works towards his own natural end. And in this life, Jesus leaves his disciples with shalom, with perfect peace, with his own peace. DA Carson said at the individual level, this piece secures composure in the midst of trouble.
In the midst of trouble, we're able to secure to find composure because of this piece. Not a theoretical period piece, not a concept. But a tangible and kind of transcendent peace that sits down on my life. He sits down next to me in the middle of my confusion and despair and misunderstanding. He sits down next to me as the Prince of Peace, the sovereign one who holds the worlds in his hand, who is totally at ease.
He's completely and totally satisfied, and, and he, he just knows what's coming and he's decreed and declared beginning and end. He, he sits with me and he. As he, as he, as he sits, I'm just reminded that I have total, total peace total. Rest. And then he says, it's not like the world I, I don't give like the world's piece.
It's, it's different than the world's piece. And the idea here is that, uh, the piece that Christ gives is so much more sweet and valuable than the kind of piece the world's always offering us. One commentator said, the world's peace begins in ignorance, consists with sin and ends in troubles. Christ's peace begins in grace consists with no allowed sin.
Ends at length and everlasting peace. Christ peace begins in grace. There's no sin there, and it ends in everlasting peace, total peace, final peace, and the world's peace is always about extracting me from frustrating circumstances. I've got frustrating circumstances right now. I'm frustrated with my own leadership.
I'm frustrated, uh, with my. My own actions and the world says peace would be to be extracted from, to be removed from any situation that makes me uncomfortable. And Jesus looks at the disciples who are in the most uncomfortable night of their lives, and he says, peace I give to you. Not the world's kind of peace where you're never gonna have to walk through hardship, but the kind of peace that sits down with you, that locks arms with you, that embraces you as you stumble through real hardship.
Don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. I was thinking then of, um. I don't know if you've ever heard much about Spurgeon's depression or Charles Spurgeon. In his despair, he says, some days he would be so depressed that he would struggle to get out of bed to preach, and he, um, he called it, uh, in, in one this kind of series of lectures.
He referred to this as a minister's fainting fit. Um, and the idea that he was. Getting at is that ministers or pastors often struggle with, uh, great. Measures of depression with these highs as they preach, highs as they minister, and then lows, as they've kind of dumped all of their adrenaline lows as they encounter spiritual warfare or a real burden for souls and brokenness for the church.
They get these sudden dumps and Spurgeon said that he had these kind of sudden dumps of adrenaline and, and, and burdened and he really, really wrestled, uh, with. With despair, he says at one point, I know that wise brethren say you should not give way to feelings of depression. He says cheerfully. Tell them that they evidently have never suffered from inward trial themselves.
Depressions of spirit. Come over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry. The cloud is black before it breaks. It overshadows before it yields. Its deluge of mercy. I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I know not what I wept for. A kind friend cheered me when he said, what have you got the mist again?
Um. Spurgeon is, is getting at the idea that throughout his ministry, there were seasons where he says, here I wept like a child, uh, by the hour and I have no idea what I was weeping for. He's just got circumstances, he's got issues in his soul. He's, uh, he says later in that same. Lecture. He says, the strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready.
The brave, not always courageous and the joyous are not always happy. And in that he's getting at this concept that, again, the peace that Christ offers us. Does not always settle all of our storms. It walks with us through the storms. And so he, he, he goes on to say, fits of depression, come over the most of us talking about ministers, usually cheerfully as we may be.
We must at intervals be cast down. And, and he's describing all of these ways in which. He has these real emotional lows, but has to keep fighting forward. He, we see in his life that there were these seasons where the church would send him away. The churchy pastor would send him away for great extended periods of time to just rest and recover.
And his wife said he would struggle so hard to get outta bed and I sail it to say that in all of that, we can look back at his life and go, no, God used him. And God was faithful and he did know. Peace. He knew really hard days and really frustrating times, but he had Christ in and with and around him as he marched forward with his mission and journey.
And for me, I. I was, uh, trying to have a vacation with my kids when in reality I was in such a hard place in my ministry. Such a confused place in my mind and looping, right? Just going round and round. You should have, you could have. Why do you always, and I'm accused by my own thoughts and I'm tired. And after a while I realized that, um, the peace that Christ offers me hadn't gone anywhere.
And that he, again, has overcome the world. I can just sit still and that every loop that my child did and he got to the bottom and he gets to the bottom and he wants a double high five so he can run again. Every loop I spent totally, um, self-absorbed and. Enduring the condemnation of my own thoughts and maybe even some spiritual warfare.
And eventually I had to get to the place when I realized that I was actually missing out on what was so beautiful and precious to me. My, my baby, the, the youngest of my kids sliding for the first time, and the only thing he wants to do when he gets to the bottom is double high five, and I'm spending this moment.
Wrestling down my own, condemning, confusing, distorted thought patterns, and I, and I've got to in this moment, remember the disciples looking at Christ, who's made it clear at this point that he's going to his own death. This is Passover week. Things are heightened. There's tension. He says Judas is gonna betray him.
And he looks at the disciples who are so confused and so bewildered, and he says to them. Let not your hearts be troubled, and I'm looking at my own life and I'm confused, and I'm bewildered, and I'm tired, and I'm missing out on one of the most beautiful moments to watch the baby of my fa my baby. Um. So excited and so passionate about life, and I'm missing out as my own thoughts are just wave after wave condemning me, trapping me in the same pattern, and I had to allow, this is probably the the big key that I want you guys to take away today.
There are sometimes when you find yourself in loops of condemnation and loops of confusion and loops of despair, when you have to allow an external perspective to break in. And the external perspective at times can come from a friend or a spouse, right? When you say to your spouse, this is what I'm struggling with and this is where my thoughts are going, and your spouse is able to break the loop and to begin to speak truth to your despair and, and sometimes that external perspective is so beautiful and so meaningful, and the Holy Spirit just uses our spouses to help break the enemies.
Voice of condemnation. But there are other times when you're left alone and you have to allow the word of God recorded for us in scripture, spoken from the incarnate son of God, when he said, peace, I leave with you. Peace I give you. I have to allow his word to break my looping, to break my cycle, and to crush all of my despair and fear.
And when that external perspective begins to. Bear all of its weight down on my petty condemning thoughts. Then I can lean back in my chair and double high five my kid and laugh as he's awkwardly skips off again. And man, I don't know. That to me is sometimes life. My wife is sitting in a chair and missing.
Beautiful, sweet. Profound moments with the things that are most precious to me. These kids that God's entrusted me with, these kids that I love with all my heart, and I'm, I'm missing them because I'm in these loops of condemnation, these loops of confusion. And I need the word of God to penetrate it. I need brothers and sisters in Christ to.
Give external perspective to interrupt all of my looping so that I don't miss out on the beauty of my, my son's looping around the, the side and. So, man, I, I think a, a lot of what I needed to remember, and I want you guys to remember again, is, um, we have external perspective recorded for us, permanently recorded for us in God's word, and he tells us.
Like there are gonna be days where you're frustrated, when you're tired, when you're anxious. Spurgeon saying, right, like, no, my life knows real times of frustration, but I have peace. Peace has been given to me. It's a gift that will not be withdrawn. It won't be retracted. It's given to me. It's not the kind of peace that the world gives where it says peace is sitting on a beach with your feet up.
But it is the kind of peace that says there's a call on your life. There's purpose on your life. There's a. Good fight to fight. And I'm with you in every step of the way and every step of the way you can remember that I finish every good work I start. You can remember that all things work together for the good of those who love me and are called according to my purposes.
You can remember that I am for you until the low I am with you until the end he says to the disciples. Um, and so. Man, the looping has to break as the voice of God comes and reminds me that I'm not alone, that he's with me and for me, and I have, I possess peace and understanding. Peace and an understanding that all things will be settled.
All things will be made, right? There's not a single. Sliver of a moment of my day that he's not with me, that he's not sitting down with me as the prince of peace and the sore one over the universe. So, um, I'm getting all this to say is I don't want you guys to miss out on the, the most beautiful moments with your kids.
I. I don't want you to miss out on all the good gifts that God gives us in life. He wants us to enjoy and, and to kind of, um, cherish because you're stuck in loops because you're stuck in these, uh, these kind of patterns of self condemnation and self confusion. And so, because I don't want you to miss out on that with the looping, I wanna encourage you today for, to allow external perspective to.
Kick in your front door, and that could be for you picking up a phone and calling a friend and saying, here's where my mind is. And I need some talk back that could be for you sitting down with your spouse and saying, here's where I am and this is what I'm telling myself right now. This is the narrative that I'm telling myself and allowing them to gospel you again and to remind you of what Jesus has done and your secure position as a son and the kingdom that there's nothing to earn and there's nothing to lose.
You're just kept, or it may be for me in that moment. What you need is you need to stuff some scripture in your memory so that when. The looping of condemnation and confusion and despair comes, you can recall, and it might be as simple as putting this verse to memory this week, John 1427, peace I leave with you.
My peace I give to you, not as the world gives. Do I give to you, but not your hearts. Be troubled, neither. Let them be afraid. So I want encourage you again, to allow external perspective to to kick in so that you don't miss out on your kids. Joy and, and in life and enjoyment of God's good creation as you're stuck in your own.
Self-absorbed, destructive patterns. Alright, man. Bless you guys. I love you guys, Lord, in Jesus' name. I ask that there would be great peace that would come from my brothers this week, that they would know your voice, know your presence, know the mercy of God upon their lives, that they would lead their families well, that they would communicate and bless their wives, serve their wives well.
Ask for the blessing of the Lord upon their homes and the precious. Name of our Lord Jesus I pray. Amen. Amen. All right guys. I love you. Can't wait to chat with you soon.