Comparison: The thief of contentment

Show Transcripts:

Intro: Welcome to the Father on Purpose podcast, featuring author and ministry leader, Kent Evans, and business executive and military veteran, Lawson Brown. This is a show for you, dad.

You want to be a godly and intentional father. Unfortunately, you’ve turned to these two knuckleheads for help. Let us know how that works out for you. Before we begin, remember this, you are not a father on accident. So, go be a father on purpose. Please welcome your hosts, Kent and Lawson.

Kent Evans: Hey, Lawson. We’ve been talking about enemies of gratitude. Hasn’t it been fun?

Lawson Brown: Yeah, it sure has been fun.

Kent Evans: We’re looking at four enemies of gratitude. They are money, comparison, entitlement and selfishness. Last week, we talked about money and its role in making us potentially discontent and ungrateful people. And today, we’re going to look at an enemy of gratitude called comparison. Comparison.

Lawson Brown: It can be tied together, money, comparison, but I think money is different, the way we talked about it of that’s within ourselves, within our own lives, do we have enough, that sort of thing. This is different. Comparison I think is a totally different sort of enemy.

Kent Evans: Man, it’s so insidious. And to your point, they can be related, right? You can be comparing yourself to the economic wherewithal of some other person. I remember one time, a friend of mine let me stay at his place on an island near Florida, not too far from where you live.

And it was back in the days before Zillow, so you couldn’t easily figure out the value of a home, right? Where of course now you can, but back then, April and I went and stayed at this place. At the time, it was one of at least four homes. I knew the guy owned, right?

So, I’m down at this home. Just so happened, the home two doors down was for sale. So, April and I are walking one day and I went, “Oh.” And it was with those days back in the day, if you’re old, if you’re over 45, you’ll remember these days, you’d put a box in your yard, physically a little metal box.

And you’d stick it in your grass. And it had a lid and there were sheets of paper in it that had the home profile. People think, “There’s no way that used to happen.” That totally used to happen in my adult lifetime.

Lawson Brown: Came off of something called a printer.

Kent Evans: And so, I remember walking up to the little metal box in the yard of this house for sale. Lifted the lid. I pulled one out. And I had to look around to find the sale price, $4.9 million. I was trying to get the sheet of paper back into the box without creasing it. I was afraid. I always got to pay five grand just to look at the sheet of paper.

And so, we go to get ice cream or whatever. And we’re sitting there eating our ice cream and I’m running the numbers on, “Okay. Let’s say you got 4.9 million. Let’s say you have a 30-year mortgage, which I’m sure people who buy 5 million homes don’t have 30-year mortgages, but let’s say you did, blah, blah, blah.” I couldn’t afford to rent this thing for four straight days. Much less actually buy it, right?

Lawson Brown: Right.

Kent Evans: But this guy’s a good friend.

Lawson Brown: But what a gift. That’s a great gift.

Kent Evans: Amazing gift. It’s tempting though to be like, “Oh man, how come he gets a $5 million house and I just get to stay here for a week when it’s just instant. It’s instant.”, instead of to your point, “Man, I’m so fortunate that I get to stay here for a week absolutely for free.” That should have been my attitude, but my attitude is, “How come he had that $5 million house?”

Lawson Brown: Have you ever had the thought… I’m asking for you to be authentic here of-

Kent Evans: Are you asking for a friend?

Lawson Brown: Right. No. Seriously, you lead a ministry. It’s been over a decade now, right?

Kent Evans: Yeah. This will be our 11th or 12th year.

Lawson Brown: You come in contact because of your role and because this ministry is great at raising money. And a huge majority of it, it goes straight into the ministry to serve. Have you ever compared if you ever thought, “Why am I slugging it out here in this ministry? And look at all these people with all this money.”? Has it happened?

Kent Evans: It only happens on the days of the week that end in the letter Y. Oh, wait. That’s all of them.

Lawson Brown: Really?

Kent Evans: Yeah, man, for sure. Absolutely. The vast majority of the people I compare myself to are further down the tracks than we are in many, many dimensions, right? In fact, what’s funny is we’re going to close the first year. We’re on episode, I don’t know, 53, 54 of our podcast.

And we’ll close the first year of the Father on Purpose podcast with somewhere around 12 to 15,000 total downloads of the show, which on one hand, you go, “Man, that’s awesome.” for one year.

I know other podcasts and I’m not talking about just The Joe Rogan Experience. That’s just a whole different animal. I’m talking about other faith-based type podcast, where their first year, they might’ve had 20 or 50 or 100,000 downloads. And you find that out and just go, “Dag, man, what am I doing? What am I doing wrong? And how come his took off?”, and all that.

And it is so tempting for me to do that in the area of just me personally for me to do that in the area of ministry type products, whether it’s a podcast or a download. And Hunter, who helps produce this show, he and I look at our analytics all the time. And we’re looking at page views and traffic, and we’re comparing it and benchmarking it.

And some of those days can be pretty exciting. Some of those days can be pretty depressing depending on how you look at it. And then, I look at it in terms of book sales, right?

I had one time Dennis Rainey, super famous Christian radio and speaker, teacher, pastor, author. And I was on his show one time back in 2016. And he told me, he goes, “Hey, man, remember, 95% of the Christian books that are published never sell 5,000 copies ever.”

Lawson Brown: Oh my gosh.

Kent Evans: And he goes, “So, if you ever have a book that sells 5,001 copies, welcome to the top of the mountain.” That’s amazing actually. And so, what’s funny though is if you look at someone like-

Lawson Brown: Yeah, but it’s hard to be content with that when you look at-

Kent Evans: It is. You look at Max Lucado. And I heard him on a podcast recently and I think his lifetime total book sales, 150 million. You just go, “Man.” And it’s so tempting to want to compare and feel like you’re way behind instead of just going, “Man, good for him. He writes great books.” I’m glad a hundred 150 million people bought one.

Lawson Brown: It’s hard. That’s why we call it enemy because it will literally suck the contentment out of your life. And it’ll suck the gratitude out of your perspective by comparing.

This verse that you threw into the show notes, 2 Corinthians 10:12, “Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”

Yo, the King James, “But they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.” And what I wish it had gone on to say is they’re not wise because when you do that, it makes your life suck. Right?

Kent Evans: It does.

Lawson Brown: I do the same thing. For the career path that has been taken, it’s like, “Why did they get that promotion? I was literally standing beside them and it could have been me. I did the same thing, same job. I’m just as good. In fact, I may be…” Then you just go down this rathole of, “Why not me and why them?”

Man, I see it in myself. I’ve certainly seen over their lives. Not as much recently right now in their lives, but with my daughters, that has happened too. And thank goodness that I didn’t have to struggle as a teenager with social media like today.

I don’t know if you’re out there and you’re 40 plus years old and can go down the trail of comparison of, “Well, back when I was a kid, we just didn’t do stuff like that. We didn’t talk like that. We weren’t as entitled as this generation.”

Well, okay, maybe so we were different, but I would challenge that thought process with, we also just didn’t have so much marketing from the world and from this current culture we live in, blasting our face all the time with, “Are you enough is the question it’s asking. And are you doing what this person is doing? Do you own the things that this person does? Do you look like her?”

It’s hard. I don’t want us to beat up this generation so much in comparison with ourselves to what we were back then because it’s a different world today. So, just throwing that out there.

Kent Evans: You found a really good Teddy Roosevelt quote about comparison, Lawson. What was that?

Lawson Brown: He says, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I’d submit, it’s the thief of contentment to be equally true. You think about maybe you’re rolling along and you are content. And you’re having a good day, good week, good month, whatever, good period of your life. And then, come in contact with something that trips your trigger and you begin to compare. And you can sense the contentment draining away.

It’s that thief that just maybe it doesn’t come in one big fell swoop. Maybe it’s just a slow trickle, where that thief is just carefully, quietly, gently pulling joy, pulling contentment, pulling gratitude out of your perspective to the point that you become bitter and you become malcontent with what’s up in your life, or what you have, or where you are, compared to fill in the blank person’s status.

Kent Evans: And what’s interesting from a fatherhood standpoint, this takes on a different complexion. It’s one thing for me in the privacy of my own mind to compare my book sales to the book sales of Max Lucado and be sad or frustrated.

Having said that, when that starts to happen in a way where my kids hear of it, if I’m saying things like, “Well, our new book, Bring Your Hammer, is only sold a couple thousand copies.”, or whatever and my kids overhear that, or if I’m comparing, heaven forbid, my kids to other kids, “Well, you had a good game, but I mean, shoot, Billy, he really held the team together. Billy was the…”

And my kids start to see me compare my wife to other people, compare my family to other families, compare my income to other incomes, compare my influence to others’ influence, what kind of signals and messages are we sending to our children, Lawson, when we as the dad fall into this trap and we give into this enemy of comparison? How does it negatively affect our kids?

Lawson Brown: Just listening to you say that, that just hurts my heart to hear, to imagine your child hearing you comparing them to someone else. It’s different to say, “Yeah, I was really proud of Billy as well, did a great job. Glad he’s on our team. Good young person, really, really doing well out there.”, if you’re agreeing with them or talking in the environment of a teamwork kind of thing and teaching your children to be grateful for others that also did something well or maybe even better than they did.

But I think the difference is maybe if you’re comparing them in a way that is, “They did that and you didn’t, or you didn’t do as much or as good.”, and not even with the intent of trying to tear them down, it’ll do it. But maybe that’s not even your intent, or worse, for them to overhear you. Maybe you don’t know that they’re listening.

We’ve talked about it before. The words coming out of a father’s mouth carry a lot of weight. If you’re instructing and talking to them about something, that’s one thing. But if they were to overhear you, that can break a heart.

Kent Evans: And I think about even just what I accidentally teach my children by the way I am walking through my own life. If I’m constantly comparing whatever it is, my economics, or my influence, or whatever, in a way that’s where I’m the loser, I’m always comparing to that guy who’s…

I never compare myself to broke people or to people who have never written a book, right? I’m always comparing myself up. And so, I always put myself on the bottom end. It makes me so sad some days.

And so, if my kids see that as a pattern, they’re going to repeat that pattern. That’s an unintended consequence of you constantly comparing yourself as a dad. They’re going to repeat that pattern.

And secondly, what it basically says is, “Hey, God, thanks for nothing.” So, back to the example I used of the really nice $4 million home that I got to stay in for free for a week or 10 days, if I’m constantly comparing and saying, “Oh man, how come I don’t have a house like that?”, my kids, you know what they’re hearing? I just am not grateful to God because God’s given me a short end of the stick and he didn’t deal with me fairly or appropriately.

And it starts to plant this seed in their mind, in their heart, where they’re very likely to do the same thing. They’re very likely to get something. Your daughter, Lawson, recently had a career success. And you could be comparing her to this thing or that thing. And you could make her feel good or bad about that career success based on what you said above it or below it.

Or your son might have come in first in the state tournament, but in the national tournament, he came in 12th. And instead of telling him, “Way to go, man. You’re the best in the state. You keep going, man. How does 12th feel?”, and you just continually lay those comparisons in front of our kids, it can do a lot of damage not just to their self-esteem, but even to their view of God and the blessings that he brings into their life.

Lawson Brown: That thief of comparison can sneak in. And the inverse of what you’re talking about I think is true too. And it’s just as unhealthy and dangerous to compare down like, “Ooh, I sure I am thankful that my kids aren’t like those kids.”, or something like…

I’m being real here. And I confess I’ve done it. I’ve done that where my children have overheard me say something that was comparing whatever, “We aren’t those people.” or, “We didn’t do the things that that person did.” And it’s boosting us up falsely even. That is just as nasty. Comparison in any context can be unhealthy.

And so, I think it’s fair to say to ourselves, let’s ask some challenging questions like how are we comparing? To whom are we comparing? I think about that especially social media wise and in some cases where people you just don’t have much contact with. Or it was a fleeting moment, but it stuck with you and it eats at you.

Most likely, they don’t even know you’re comparing to them. And if they did, they would not even care. They wouldn’t care about you. But yet you’re just tightly hanging onto this, “Ugh, if I only had that, or if I had only done that.” And you’re just burning up about this person. They don’t even know you’re doing it. And if they did, they wouldn’t care about you. They’re worried about themselves. So, here you are just eat-

Kent Evans: That’s the truth. And you reminded me as we compared down the story in Luke 18 where Jesus tells the story about the parable, where two men go to the temple and one is a pharisee and the other is a tax collector.

And the pharisee says, “Dear God, I thank you I’m not like other people, these robbers, evil doers, and adulterers, or even this tax collector.” The Pharisees says, “I fast twice a week. I give a 10th of all I get.” But then, the tax collector just says, “God, have mercy on me. I’m a sinner.”

And Jesus says, “Which of these two people went home justified before God, the Pharisee who compared himself down and was arrogant, or the tax collector?” And it’s obviously the tax collector. And so, I start to see in that parable, one of the… oh, we agreed we weren’t going to say antidotes. What are we going to say instead of antidotes?

Lawson Brown: You’re not saying anecdotes.

Kent Evans: I just told an anecdote. It’s from the Bible.

Lawson Brown: I’m saying, how do we guard against thievery?

Kent Evans: How do we guard ourself? One of the things that keeps this thief away if we use this parable from Luke 18 is humility. So, for example, this tax collector came before God in humility and just acknowledged his own sinfulness.

And so, the other day, I heard someone talking… bumped into a friend of mine at a coffee shop. And we were talking about a tough situation with some relationships we both are aware of. And he said something like, “Man, these kids deserve better. They deserve better. And they deserve better.” And he kept saying the word deserve, deserve, deserve.

And I kept thinking in my head, “Not really, man.” We actually all deserve to go to hell. We all deserve… here’s what we deserve. You deserve everlasting punishment in a lake of fire. That’s what we deserve.

However, because of the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross, you don’t get what you deserve. And so, I’m grateful for not getting what I deserve. And part of that humility becomes one of those things, Lawson, that can guard against this thief who wants to come in and steal our contentment called comparison.

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What are some other practical ways we can help dads think about what can they do if they find themselves and they go, “Yeah, man, shoot, I compare myself all the time. And I always come up on the short end and it’s a major source of frustration for me.”? Let’s spend the rest of our time talking about… to that dad, what are we telling that dad that he can do differently in the future to guard against this thief of comparison?

Lawson Brown: Yeah, I think you’re right. Listening to that reminded me of a guy told me a story where he was at… I think it was a Chamber of Commerce networking kind of thing. And there was a guest speaker, the CEO of some big bank. Seemed like a great person.

And afterwards, this guy, friend of mine, stuck around, headed up to the stage afterwards just to shake his hand and thank him for coming. Tell him, “I got a couple of things out of it, something that you mentioned about in your slides where you were comparing the banks in our community. Congratulations, you guys are being number three. And it struck me how proud you were of that.”

But he told a story of his business and how he felt like. He told this to that guy, to the CEO of this big bank. And he was telling him, ‘We’re growing. We’re in growth mode. We’re doing this and that. But I just don’t feel like we’re doing enough or we’re growing fast enough.”

And he was just being authentic telling this story to the CEO. And rather than come back with, “Well, I hear how bad you think you’re doing. Let me tell you how great we are one more time.”

My friend’s authenticity in telling this to that CEO broke a wall down. And that bank CEO began to talk about, “Not just we’re number three and we want to be number two or number one.” He was like he went down this road of, “I feel like in my own life, I struggle with what is enough in just my own life. And I know these other people that have been more successful than me and I should be celebrating.”

I think he was more like, “I’m sorry if I came across as number three is not good enough because I feel like this is something that I just generally struggle with. Forget about work. Forget about the bank. Just me, I struggle with this.”

And they got into this 10, 15-minute-long conversation, became friends, invited him into a Bible study. My friend invited him into a Bible study and they became really good buddies because my guy was authentic and was humble. And that just shattered this wall of comparison between the two of them that they were each struggling with.

And I thought that was a really good, cool way that God used this moment for them to help each other. Another thing, I was on the phone this morning talking about this episode, this comparison as the enemy of gratitude with Tom. Remember Tom, Be like Tom?

Kent Evans: Oh, yeah, from Pennsylvania, right?

Lawson Brown: Yeah.

Kent Evans: Hey, everybody, Be like Tom. If I remember right, “Go listen to our podcasts. Wait a minute. You’re already doing that.” What was the other thing Tom did that was so great?

Lawson Brown: Well, he had listened to all the episodes on his way to the gym. And that struck you as-

Kent Evans: Went to the gym. “Yes, Be like Tom. Number one, listen to our podcast. Number two, go to the gym. Number three, send us a text telling us how great we are.”, that’s what Tom occasionally does. Be more like Tom from Pennsylvania. Do it now.

Lawson Brown: He’s such a big fan, encourager of me in my life. And I just love him. He was talking about, “Is there an antidote over a social media comparison?” And something that he said that he’s been trying to do and talking among his family members about is scripture only before noon, no social media before.

And he and I over the past have talked about intermittent fasting as just a part of a healthy lifestyle, which means skip breakfast, eat a later breakfast or an early lunch and let that be your first meal. And before that, stick with water, stick with black coffee, that sort of thing.

And Tom used this idea of maybe you intermittent fast from social media. You delay it until noon. Don’t just wake up and grab your phone and start feeding your brain with the problems of the day, the social media of the day, and see. Does that help? Does that help your perspective? I thought that was a really good input from Tom.

Kent Evans: Man, that’s great input. Just intermittent fasting, also the authenticity, breaking down the barrier, sharing with other people that you’re even having the issue with comparison can be I think really healthy as you saw when the bank leaders had that happen.

I texted a group of guys earlier this week who are in my… every other Tuesday, we get together on Zoom and pray together as a group, small huddle of about four of us. And I texted him and I said, “Hey.” This was maybe three, four days ago. “Today, I’m really wrestling with this idea of comparing.”

And it wasn’t because we were doing this podcast necessarily. It’s just that comes at me. Of these four enemies of gratitude, probably comparison, if I had to grade him, so which one do I wrestle with the most? It probably is comparison.

Lawson Brown: Same here.

Kent Evans: But it’s not like I wake up every day and I’m rolling around in a pool going, “My life is horrible.” But it’s just that it does occasionally come at me and I’ll see it. And one of the things you put in here, Lawson, and I know it’s a Bible verse reference, I can’t remember what the verse is, but you put, “We rejoice with those who rejoice.”

As an antidote to comparison, we got to go find those people in our life that are having success, or they have a moment, or they had a victory, and we need to rejoice with those people. Why is it so hard to rejoice with somebody when things are going well for them? Why is it so hard?

Lawson Brown: My brother-in-law just got a new job, which is entailing them moving from one state to another. And now, that it’s come to be, we see God’s hand and the timing of some things that have fallen into place, which is great. It has really helped them feel good about this is a big change for them. More than two decades in the same house, same state. This is a big, big change.

And it’s been rewarding to my wife, Audrey, and I to be celebrating with them because we just love them so much to see all this good converge in their life onto this one. This one period of time here has been very gratifying, but I would say that’s easy. We’ve known them most of our life. We love them deeply.

It’s not as easy to rejoice with those who are rejoicing over something in their life when maybe you don’t know them all that well. Or maybe you do know them and you’re like, “Well, why them? Ugh.” If the parenthesis and that thought process is why them, parenthesis, and not me, then I think let’s check our motive on there and check our root cause for that level of discontentment.

It certainly has happened to me. I’ve gotten home before where something happened good for someone. Ad I don’t know them all that well, but I just felt like, “Hmm, it’s something that I had wanted and they got it. And that means I’m not going to.”

It’s hard to rejoice with those who are rejoicing when there’s something in your way. And so, I think let’s find what that something is, what is that thief of gratitude of contentment? What is that thief placed at our feet or maybe tangled our feet with that’s getting in the way of us being able to rejoice? Because when you do, it’s actually very fulfilling for you.

You mentioned what has just recently happened for Abigail. Great news for her. She’s getting to go on this amazing, cool journey that’s about to get started. And the people that she’s going to be meeting to do it with, she’s known before, and they’re going to be coming out together. And they sent her videos of being in tears, happy for her, and these text messages that are just, they truly rejoiced with her.

It was super fulfilling for my daughter to hear from other people who have very little, zero level of, “You got that and we didn’t.” And so, I’m a little salty about that. It was just nothing, but we’re so grateful that that happened to you, that God has done that in your life.

Kent Evans: And I’ve talked with guys before about the difference between a zero-sum outlook on life and an abundance mentality of life for the things that really matter. So, you might be in a company. There’s a dad listening to this show and he’s in a company. And there’s only so many spots in the company above him that he can be promoted into. It’s a fixed number.

And you look across your peer group. And of the five of you, one of you is going to get the promotion, which means four didn’t. And so, there’s like this, “If you got it, I didn’t get it. And if I got it, you didn’t get it.” And there are some situations where that is true. I mean, there’s some situations where if I got the promotion and my four colleagues didn’t, then it is a bit of a loss for them temporarily.

But for the things that really matter, joy, peace, contentment, those are not fixed-sum amounts that if Lawson gets some joy in his life, well, there’s less joy to go around. Or if Lawson experiences peace, or you experience some financial reward, oh, that means somebody took money out of my pocket. That’s really not usually true for the stuff that really, really matters, right?

So, I can have an awesome relationship with my wife, April. And guess what? You can have an awesome relationship with your wife. We can both have that. And so, I can be joyous for you when you and Audrey are doing great, and you can be joyous for me when April and I are doing great because our joy isn’t taken away from yours. It’s not like we got in the cigar club and no one else gets invited.

And so, one of the things I love to try to figure out as we look at our friends and we look at the people with whom we should be rejoicing when they rejoice is, do we really feel like…

Your daughter as an example, the opportunity she got has to do with her ability to act and sing and do lots of things that I can’t do. So, for example, I don’t feel like her getting that opportunity is taking it from Kent Evans, right? I have no dog in that fight, no dog whatsoever. And I just think that comes down to believe-

Lawson Brown: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Kent Evans: … that there’s an abundance of opportunity upside and we can all share in that. Or do we think it’s fixed? Every time someone buys a Max Lucado book, that means they didn’t buy a Kent Evans book. Really? Is that how I view life?

Lawson Brown: There you go. Right.

Kent Evans: Give me a break. What do you think?

Lawson Brown: Another thing is comparisons, a lot of times, they’re just typically not true. They’re not valid. What you’re comparing to is something that you’re just missing the mark. You don’t get it. Some conversations that you’re privy to with other people, they’re telling you just the surface little piece up here. Or in social media, you’re seeing the highlight reel.

In our own lives, we see our extended documentary version of our life with all the ups and downs, and the uglies and the regretful moments and all that. But when you look at someone else’s life, you’re seeing a snapshot. And you’re probably seeing only the best, most curated version of their highlights of their lives.

So, to help yourself feel maybe a little less lower than, or less than, or whatever, not enough if you’re comparing, just remember, what you’re comparing to is probably not fully all that real.

Kent Evans: Well, and maybe what we could do to counterbalance that, Lawson, is let’s just commit, you and I, for the next month, it’s mid-June as we record this, let’s go through mid-July and let’s just only post on social media all of our problems.

Lawson Brown: Can you imagine?

Kent Evans: Every time I yell at my kids, every time I have a frustrating moment at work, every time something happens that I’m unhappy about, let’s just have… I’ll call it the depression channel on Facebook and I’ll just continue to post. I’m just kidding. But then, it’s true.

Lawson Brown: That’s true though, man. Can you imagine if that was the case? Well, actually there are some people out there that you scroll their feed and there’s just nothing but bad news. But the point is, just don’t worry about it. Don’t compare. It’s not doing any good. They don’t know you’re doing it. You’re eating at yourself for no reason.

Here’s one more and I’ll throw it back to you. Maybe you can close us up here. The converse of comparison, or I guess you are still comparing, but part of a way to combat this is to know that there’s always somebody that has it worse than you. And this is a bit silly. I get this.

But when I guess I was 24, 25 in the Marines, we went to Mogadishu, Somalia. We’re there for six, seven months, and just the horror, the tragedy of what man can do to man, and these orphan kids and moms with barely alive babies. And there was just death everywhere. It was awful, awful, awful. But I’ve seen moms with a baby on the hip barely alive, head back. And another one, she’s dragging with the other hand. And they’re literally walking miles to get water.

And so, when I find myself poormouthing in my brain about some hardship or some something, that image is seared into my brain. And so, I don’t know. For what it’s worth, I do sometimes fall back. And I know I’m being silly here, but man, we generally have it pretty good in a lot of things. And I’m not belittling that, but also remember.

And I guess the antidote within this is to list the things that you are grateful for and focus on those and remind yourself. It’s very good for us. And it brings us closer to God when you say thank you, when you list these things that you are thankful for. I’m thankful I can turn the faucet on and have all the water I want.

But in a more serious vein, there are things that God is doing and has done in your life. Maybe we don’t understand them all, but everything that he has in our life will be used for good. Believe it. And so, write those things down and see what God’s doing in your life.

Kent Evans: Well, we’re having a blast walking through these four enemies of contentment and enemies of gratitude, money, comparison. Next week, we’ll talk about entitlement. And then, the week after, we’ll talk about selfishness. So, if you’re an entitled, selfish baby, join us the next couple of weeks.

Let me leave you with a parting word of scripture. That’s our theme verse for this four-part series on gratitude. And it’s Philippians 4:11 through 13, “Not that I’m speaking of being in need, for I’ve learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

I pray that over the next week, your strength will not come from anything other than Jesus Christ. As Paul said in Philippians that the secret to contentment is knowing that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Thanks for joining us today. Lawson, it’s always a blast hanging with you. We’ll see you next week as we talk about entitlement.

Hey dad, thank you for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode helpful, remember you can get all the content and show notes at manhoodjourney.org/podcast.

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Outro: You’ve been dozing off to the Father on Purpose podcast, featuring Kent Evans and Lawson Brown. Now, wake up. Head over to fatheronpurpose.org for more tools that can help you be a godly, intentional, and not completely horrible dad. Remember, you are not a father on accident. So, go be a father on purpose.