Feeling guilty about not doing enough as a dad?

Show Transcripts:

Voiceover:

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, so, Lawson, welcome back.

 

Lawson Brown:

What’s up?

 

Kent Evans:

To the show.

 

Lawson Brown:

What’s up?

 

Kent Evans:

How are you, my friend?

 

Lawson Brown:

Good. I’m glad to be doing this after a long week of work. It’s only Thursday morning.

 

Kent Evans:

It’s only Thursday.

 

Lawson Brown:

And work has been a bag of nuts so far, crazy. So I’m glad to see your face, man. It’s good to hear from you.

 

Kent Evans:

Well, so far it’s Thursday and you’re the first person to say they’re glad to see my face. Man. I’ve gone almost the whole week.

 

Lawson Brown:

I’m sorry to hear that.

 

Kent Evans:

No, I’m just kidding. My wife loves my face. That’s plenty. That’s plenty for me. Hey, so what we’re going to talk about today on the show is we’re going to encourage dads by way of a quick story that I will tell. I was recently with a pastor, and really great guy. He has younger kids. They’re like middle school aged kids, three of them, two boys and a girl. And we were just having lunch and we were talking about all kinds of stuff. And at one point we were getting to know each other. We are not long friends. We recently became friends and he said that as a dad he wondered and since he knew I was in kind of the fatherhood ministry, he was going to kind of use me as a sounding board. So he goes, “Hey, my wife and I were, we got a solid marriage and it’s not perfect, but we’ve got a good marriage, and our kids are growing up and we’re leaning into them. We spend time with them. We take them places. I listen to them. I talk to them about spiritual topics.”

 

Lawson Brown:

Wait a minute. He was the pastor or he was telling you about himself or someone in his-

 

Kent Evans:

He is a pastor. And he was telling me about like his sort of, I don’t know, habits with his kids. And it sounded like he’s walking through life like the rest of us, choosing opportunities, finding moments. Then he said something very interesting to me. As he went on continuing to talk, he goes, “But I don’t feel like I’m being very intentional.” And he just spent like a minute telling me how intentional he was, but that’s not the word he was using. And so that really piqued my curiosity. And I go, “Well, what do you mean? How are you not intentional?” And he goes, “Well, like right now, I’m not walking them through a Bible study specifically.” And I went, “So the only way you can be intentional is to walk through scripture with them?” And he kind of smiled. And he was like, the point had been made. And I just said, “Bro, listen, it sounds to me like maybe you need to do a Bible study with them. However, you’re being a pretty intentional dad in every other area.”

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

And so we just had this angry conversation about why dads, because I hear this comment a lot from our father audience, and that is, “I’m not doing enough. I’m not being intentional enough.” In fact the word intentional shows up on our surveys almost more than any other word. And it’s like, “I need to be more intentional.” And it’s a double-edged sword, man. It’s a double-edged sword because on one hand they may be right. We can’t just take them fishing all the time and never talk about scripture stuff and think that’s going to get it done. But by the same token, just because we crack open the Bible doesn’t mean we’re also being intentional in the other areas of that. So if you’d been sitting there talking to that same pastor, what kind of thoughts would have run through your mind?

 

Lawson Brown:

Well, just listening to you, it’s like I would think as a non-pastor guy, that most of them have their act together and are checking the boxes or whatever, however you want to say it. That hurts my heart to hear a guy like that saying that he feels like he’s not doing enough, anybody that says, “I’m failing as a dad,” or “Not living up to some godly dad checklist of activities and items and prescribed way of managing it.” Just because it’s tough. It’s a hard gig being a dad. And I love the way you put it back to him. I think that’s really cool to say, “So that’s the only element of intentionality of discipleship is like, you’ve got to, ‘Okay, kids gather round, we’re doing our daily devotional and we’re going through scripture line by line, through Ecclesiastes and then next month.'” That’s maybe a little overly, I don’t know, man.

 

Kent Evans:

What was it that made you pick Ecclesiastes? You got 66 books to pick from.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

You could have dropped any book reference, what led you to Ecclesiastes?

 

Lawson Brown:

I forget why, but I was looking at it last week and I’ve already forgotten.

 

Kent Evans:

I forget why.

 

Lawson Brown:

See?

 

Kent Evans:

I decided to look at all the books that start with the letter E. So I just did like Exodus, Ecclesiastes, yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

You’re giving yourself a quiz.

 

Kent Evans:

Is there another E, Ephesus, Ephesians?

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. Guys are already like, “Why are we listening to this podcast?”

 

Kent Evans:

So what was interesting to me is it’s like there’s two extremes dads seem to go to. So at one extreme it’s like the only intentional thing we can do is a Hebrew research word study in the Old Testament. And like they file that away as the only intentional things you can do as a disciple-making dad or a dad who’s really intentional and pouring his faith into his kids, his walk through scripture. And then the other extreme is, “Oh, well, then fine. I don’t ever need to walk through scripture. I just go fishing all the time and teach them how to do their 401k and I’m being intentional.”

 

Kent Evans:

Well, okay. So the question really becomes not so much are you being intentional or not intentional? The question, I think, becomes are we being intentional about what or into what kind of direction?

 

Lawson Brown:

Dude. I wrote down earlier, define  two things. To your point, there is this spectrum where you don’t want your kids to feel like, “Oh man, here we go. This heavy duty, my dad’s expectations are so high on whatever and I’m just not going to live up. I’m just not going to meet my dad’s standards.” Or on the other side of the spectrum is like you said, all fishing, going to baseball practice, you spend hours and hours with kids, but it has zero to do with anything except baseball.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

Maybe you’re not being intentional enough.

 

Kent Evans:

Well, and for me, man, you know what I like? When I’m probably on my best fatherhood game, I’m working from a framework that is biblical and gospel-centric and that salts and flavors all of my day. All of my day. So I may or may not crack out Ecclesiastes on a given day. However, just to use that particular book since you brought it up, I think of the part of Ecclesiastes that is two are better than one, three’s even better. A cord of three strands can not be quickly broken. Well, there’s a great lesson there, that’s just, we need running buddies, we need community. We need that. And so if I sense one of my kids is getting too removed from their friend group, or they’re not at all finding mentors, they’re not finding people to walk through life with, man, if I’ve got Ecclesiastes all soaked into my brain. And then I say to them, “Hey, man, the Bible says a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Let’s talk about that.”

 

Kent Evans:

And I just dropped, right?

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

I just dropped a little Bible knowledge and we’re going to work from the perspective of scripture as we fit it and make it relevant to his current life circumstances. Now, again, that all sounds like this is Kent Evans, 24/7, and I do that all the time.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

Although I didn’t have to look up Ecclesiastes so I’m quite proud of myself for actually knowing one reference from Ecclesiastes.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is why I brought it up though, by the way, what you just-

 

Kent Evans:

If you listen to this podcast very often you’ll notice we only bring up like two books of the Bible. They’re the only two Lawson and I have ever read. But truly, I think, all right, part of my job as a dad is in fact to be an intentional guy who brings scripture into their lives in situational moments and uses it as the guidepost and the instruction manual and the inspiration for the thoughts. And I do need to do that. And so I hope if a dad’s listening, I hope he hears at least two messages today. One is you might be being really intentional. You’ve got to look at a circumspect view of that. But secondly, that doesn’t mean you don’t ever crack open the Bible. We need to do that with our kids. Right, Lawson?

 

Lawson Brown:

Yep. Back to your original story, did you ask him, “Hey, dude, where do you think that that feeling of you being less than intentional is coming from?”

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah. We talked about that for the next five or 10 minutes.

 

Lawson Brown:

Hmm. What’d he say?

 

Kent Evans:

It was really just like a bar that he had set in his own mind that here’s what a godly dad does. Here’s the long list. And he may have been doing seven out of eight or nine out of 10.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

But he still felt like he wasn’t quite getting it done because he wasn’t doing 10 out of 10.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. I wondered about that because there is definitely some societal, not general society, but the society of church expectations that I feel like, I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but-

 

Kent Evans:

Oh, I’ll tell you. Just go ahead and say it and I’ll tell you.

 

Lawson Brown:

Man, I just want to be careful because it’s hard to put into words exactly what I mean, but there’s some churchy, hardcore, if you aren’t doing these things, you’re just not living up to what we describe as a godly father. And so fill in the blank, you need help. You need to do the following things. There’s enough pressure on being a dad. Dad is tough enough. I don’t want to let anybody off the hook either from being intentional, so I would go back to where is that coming from, one, and number two is define your intention. What is your intention?

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

And put some thought into that because winging it isn’t going to work, but having some well defined goals for yourself, two, and maybe after the break, we can talk about something else if this resonates with you, kids are people and all people are different. Just because you do it one way with one kid, in any parenting, regardless, but maybe spending time walking the baseball field with one son works great. And you can work in that Ecclesiastes or whatever it is. I’m going to bring it up repeatedly.

 

Kent Evans:

Well, let me help all the dads out there. If you want to be an intentional father, memorize the Book of Ecclesiastes.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

And if you haven’t, you’re an abject failure. You’re just a bad father.

 

Lawson Brown:

But, look, I would do something different with my youngest than I would my oldest. They’re different people and they’re going to take information in differently, I have a different relationship with them. So part of being intentional is to sit down and figure out what is my intention and how can I do it? Run it by a few other people.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

Run it by your wife, of course, and talk it out.

 

Kent Evans:

Well, and you talked a minute ago about how churches can put pressure, and not just on dads, I mean, I can think of a number of times when, and this is I think totally inadvertent, I don’t think the pastors sit back and go, “Hey, I want to pressure my people right out of the door.”

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

I mean, nobody wants to do that.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right, right, right, right.

 

Kent Evans:

The challenge does become when we start to set a bar that may or may not be everybody’s bar. I love the metaphors we see throughout the New Testament about the body of Christ. I remember one guy kind of getting on me at some point about not having taken enough mission trips, and he was kind of challenging me about how many mission trips I have or haven’t taken well.

 

Lawson Brown:

Wow.

 

Kent Evans:

Unfortunately-

 

Lawson Brown:

Man, I’m sorry, dude, that rubs me wrong.

 

Kent Evans:

Here’s what’s interesting. What’s interesting was, in his particular case, as the years would go on, it turns out mission trips were his thing but keeping one marriage together wasn’t. He’s on like his fourth or fifth marriage and I’m not judging the guy. I’m just saying I think he got over-focused on one area of his expression in the body. And I’ve gotten to where, man, I’ve got certain things I do well and certain things I’m not great at. And I’m learning how to kind of cut those edges and focus where my giftedness is and so forth. And so I’m still learning that whole process. And I’d love to talk a little bit about that after the break in the form of what does intentionality look like and how do we stop kind of judging ourselves in a negative way and layering more kind of weight or Pharisaical guilt on top of ourselves as dads?

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

Just because we’re not doing thing X or thing Y. Let’s tackle that on the other side of this brief interruption.

 

Kent Evans:

Hey Dad. Do you ever wonder where you are on the godly father journey? It’s like you want to be a more godly father, but you’re not totally sure where you’re standing right now and you’re not totally sure how to make meaningful progress. So what we built, to help you and to help us, is the Godly Father Assessment. It is a 28 question survey that you can take that will help you assess your fatherhood in seven crucial categories. And it will help you know, whether you’re just starting out in this journey or you’re a pro who ought to be helping others on their journey. Go today and take this free Godly Father Assessment so you’ll know two things, where are you now and how can you make meaningful next step progress? Do this today at manhoodjourney.org, that’s manhoodjourney.org.

 

Kent Evans:

Lawson, now that we’re back, I think we should start with this scripture since you brought up Ecclesiastes. We took a short break in the middle and I dug into Ecclesiastics and found what might be the most helpful verse for dads in Ecclesiastes. Do you want to hear it?

 

Lawson Brown:

Good. I hope you have come up with something because that was quite the lead up.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah. It’s Ecclesiastes 10:9. And it says, “He who quarries stones is hurt by them. And he who splits logs is endangered by them.”

 

Lawson Brown:

I would’ve said you’re making that up.

 

Kent Evans:

I may have taken that out of context.

 

Lawson Brown:

For all of the dads that we have not lost yet in this podcast, we just had some go.

 

Kent Evans:

I may have taken that out of context.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah.

 

Kent Evans:

Bottom line: don’t quarry stones and do not split logs.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

They are hurtful and dangerous.

 

Lawson Brown:

Man.

 

Kent Evans:

Man.

 

Lawson Brown:

I think with that we can close this very valuable dad podcast.

 

Kent Evans:

Imagine, guys listening to this podcast get all that for free. I mean, we don’t even charge him for that.

 

Lawson Brown:

So dumb.

 

Kent Evans:

It’s pretty amazing. Okay. Being intentional-

 

Lawson Brown:

Hey, you said something before we broke. Pharisaical pressure.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

Dude, I think that resonates with me because you said better than I did about the churchy pressure. Are you living up? Are you doing everything? That is so reminiscent of the Pharisees, or whatever you want to. Have you heard that before? Did you just come up, Pharisaical pressure? I mean, I know you’re kind of smart, but did you do that?

 

Kent Evans:

Most things I say I’m just making them up as I go. I don’t know if I’ve heard that exact phrase.

 

Lawson Brown:

Is Pharisaical a made up word?

 

Kent Evans:

No, that’s a real word.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah, okay.

 

Kent Evans:

That’s a real word. I didn’t make that word up. And I didn’t make up the word pressure. I mean, it’s not like I wrote the whole dictionary. What I think is interesting, at least the connection, is we tend to, at least not we, I tend to be a dad who parents out of my understanding of the gospel and the same way I think about kind of my relationship with the Lord is the relationship I map onto my children. So for example, if I think God has some big to-do list for me to do, and I’m not doing enough of it, and therefore I’m in trouble and I just am not, then I tend to parent out of that. And I think we either parent out of some kind of like spectrum of the law and grace, and at one end we have grace and the other end we have the law, and we tend to move back and forth. And to be fair, there were times when Jesus really put the truth at people.

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

He told the Pharisees they were whitewashed tombs and John the Baptist caught them from a brood of vipers. I mean, He really leaned on some people with a heavy truth because that’s what they needed in order to be redeemed. They needed to know the truth. And then some people, He really leaned back and welcomed them with a lot of grace. The adulterous woman, the centurion whose child was sick. And there’s a number of moments where Jesus moved across that spectrum of law and grace or truth and grace. And as a dad, I think the Pharisaical pressure comes in when I think, “Man, I’ve got to be a perfect dad. I have to do everything perfectly. My marriage has to be perfect. My kids have to be perfect. My finances have to be perfect.”

 

Kent Evans:

I remember just in the last week or two, I was having a conversation with my 19 year old son and I wasn’t handling the conversation very well. I was angry. I was raising my voice. And he was shoving it back at me. And I was like, “Look, man, we’ve got to give each other more grace. I’ve got to let you express frustration in a way where I don’t make it worse by going, ‘Oh, you didn’t say that just right.’ And vice versa, man. Yeah. I’m frustrated. I need a little room to operate here and I’m not saying this perfectly, but I’ll try to get my point.” But then I remembered Proverbs 15:1 says, “A harsh word stirs up anger, but a gentle answer turns away wrath.” And so just as a dad, that’s something I’m constantly working on. And if I get out of that, if I step out of that, I get back to kind of today’s topic where I feel like I’m just going to just pile recrimination on my own head and pour ashes on my head and say, “Woe is me. I’m a bad father,” rather than close the loop and just repent, ask for forgiveness, accept the grace, and move on.

 

Lawson Brown:

I think that the pastor you talked about at the very start is most dads, pastor or not. Pastors also don’t get everything right either. Most of us feel to some degree, periodically at least, like we are just not enough. We’re not doing enough. We haven’t done it right enough, whatever. That pressure, man, you’ve got to guard against that. I really cringe with the association of guilt from not doing enough or doing it right enough. It can be divisive. It can make people pull away from enhancing their faith because it’s like at some point you just go, “I’m just not going to be able to do it. I’m not going to be able to do all that.” And just kind of give up.

 

Lawson Brown:

I love what we have as an emphasis on this podcast, which is encouragement.

 

Kent Evans:

Whoa, hold on. When did our plan change? You mean this podcast? Like the one we’re recording?

 

Lawson Brown:

That’s right, yes.

 

Kent Evans:

Encouragement. Hmm.

 

Lawson Brown:

You don’t remember that?

 

Kent Evans:

No.

 

Lawson Brown:

Come on, bro.

 

Kent Evans:

Did we talk about that in the planning meetings?

 

Lawson Brown:

I want to, yeah.

 

Kent Evans:

All right. Whatever.

 

Lawson Brown:

All right. Well, anyway.

 

Kent Evans:

Half the show is yours, Lawson, fine. If you want 50% of this thing to be about encouragement, go right ahead.

 

Lawson Brown:

All right. So I told you this was a hard week for me, dude, And you’re just like piling on.

 

Kent Evans:

Hard week? Allow me to encourage you.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah, shut up. Oh my God.

 

Kent Evans:

My objective now is going to get you to tell me to shut up on every episode, at least once, at least once, “Shut up.” You can’t find the mute button for my mic, can you?

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. I need that. Hey, Hunter, give me a mute button, an extra one for you-know-who.

 

Lawson Brown:

Something that came up was, I’ve been fortunate to have other people, not just other dads, but other people in my life, Audrey being one of them, my wife, for sure, who have helped fill my weakness. So fortunately for me through family groups or whatever, there have been other dads that I’ve been able to bring into my child’s lives at different times that I’m like, “Man, I’m so glad that Matthew is with me on this journey or Van is with me on there.” Or you, even, believe it or not.

 

Kent Evans:

Not.

 

Lawson Brown:

Van specifically brought something that I didn’t, and it resonated with my daughters, it resonated in my marriage. So you don’t have to do it alone, I guess is what I’m saying.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

And yeah, maybe the checklist that you create for yourself to be intentional is pretty long. You don’t have to be the expert at all of them, and frankly you may not be the person that’s going to be in that right moment with that specific kind of yours. Someone else may be having been prepared to enter that moment or that situation in your child’s life, that if you aren’t intentional in seeking out others to bring in, then your child will miss out on that opportunity. So I guess what I’m saying is be encouraged that there are others, that you don’t have to solve it all alone, obviously, through prayer, through scripture, be ready, but you aren’t the answer to every situation in your kids and your family’s lives.

 

Kent Evans:

Man, brother, I was just talking with one of my older boys recently about a subject where that he’s wrestling with that I don’t understand very well. Like I can’t relate. I don’t mean like a school subject. I mean like a life challenge and I’ve never had that specific challenge. And what I told him was, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is your Mom and I are with you and we’re supporting you and we got your back and we’re going to pray for you. That’s the good news. The bad news is we don’t understand this challenge, hardly at all, but the more good news is we are going to find some people who do.” And so we’ve connected him with some other guys who have had personal experience in this area. And man, I’m so grateful for that network of guys. And you just made me realize that as a dad the community that I’m building around myself is often going to be the community from which I can draw to help my kids over time. That’s a great way.

 

Kent Evans:

When we’d started this podcast, I wouldn’t have said me building relationships with other men is part of my intentionality for my children. But, man, it is because they become beneficiaries of the overflow of the relationships that I have in my life. What are some other ways, man, as you think about dads who can be intentional? And, Dad, listen, if you’re listening to this podcast, definitely go teach your kids scripture, get into the Bible and read it every single day and read it till you feel about the Bible the way the author of Psalm 119 feels about the Bible. Just keep going like God’s word is the source. It’s brilliant. It’s living and active. So I don’t want you guys to hear some get out of jail free card on teaching your kids scripture.

 

Kent Evans:

But at the same time, there are so many ways you can be intentional as a disciple-making dad. I mean, after all we do call this podcast The Father On Purpose Podcast so part of what we want to do is help you live on purpose and with intention, but not feel like a slave to a giant to-do list as if you’re walking around as a failure every day and the best you can do is six out of 10. What are some thoughts, Lawson? Man, let’s close it out with a few minutes of just talking about what are ways dads can be intentional? One of them is building a network of friends, as you just mentioned, even myself. The other is definitely to spend some time in scripture, but what are some other ways that come to mind for you with your daughters?

 

Lawson Brown:

So, for sure, quiet time, like you mentioned having that scripture ready. It was because you had spent time reading the Bible and God knows what’s upcoming in our lives and He will prepare us if we’re open and ready and looking. So, yeah, you’ve got to be intentional for your own self so that your lenses are then colored as you walk through life and see your children and see what they’re dealing with and you’re then ready to introduce that. Intentional isn’t an exercise that you carve out a specific time for. It’s a way of being. And so you’ve got to be ready, and readiness comes through preparation. Even if it’s 10 minutes, that’s plenty. It’s what you’re seeking to bring into your own life and your own heart that is going to then help you maneuver better and be ready when the time approaches. 2

 

Kent Evans:

Whoa, that’s great. Even your own quiet time is a way of being intentional as a dad.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. And being intentional is not accidental.

 

Kent Evans:

Dude, that’s deep.

 

Lawson Brown:

Like you said, Father On Purpose, you’ve got to have a purpose. You’ve got to have that, I don’t know, I feel like I always come back to, it’s just my personality, I write it down. I write down like what-

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

But being intentional comes with thought and preparation and some study, talking with other dads. And then also being able to know your kids are different. They need different things from you at different times. One way doesn’t fit everybody and you alone aren’t the answer in every situation.

 

Kent Evans:

Man, no doubt. One other one that I would love to throw in just as we are kind of sharing some ideas on this topic, one would be when we pour into our marriages, we’re being very intentional as a dad. And it’s not just because, I want to make sure dads realize, it’s not just because when we’re intentional with our wives the marriage doesn’t fall apart and kids have a safe home and all that. That’s nice. But what I mean is our marriages are a picture of the gospel. It’s all throughout scripture. Jesus was the bridegroom. The church is the bride. And so the degree to which we model a healthy marriage, again, not flawless, not perfect, but the degree to which we model a healthy marriage, we’re showing a relatively accurate picture of the gospel to our children. So they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, Jesus can be my bridegroom. I am his bride. And, oh, that really looks a lot like the way my dad used to serve my mom or the way my dad would pray for my mom.” The things that we’re doing in our marriages really give us a platform for conveying the gospel to our kids.

 

Kent Evans:

And I think it’s super important that we keep in clear view that being intentional with our kids isn’t just what we do with them, but it’s what we do kind of around them. And so every moment that I spend blessing my wife, serving my wife, saying kind things about my wife, loving her well, whenever that’s happening, man, I’m being intentional as a father by showing them a picture of the gospel in action.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yes. Awesome. Back to my earlier question on where does that come from? Just to throw it out there, and this may not necessarily be the right final thought so correct it if you want.

 

Kent Evans:

Oh, gladly.

 

Lawson Brown:

But if your answer is that it’s coming from guilt, then I think you need to question that, and talk with your kids, talk with your wife. Like, “I feel like I’m not doing enough. And it’s because I feel so guilty that we aren’t doing blah, blah, blah,” whatever. That is not healthy. I do not believe that’s from God. And having a conversation with your kids, asking them what they feel like they need, where can you be more intentional with them? Ask them.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah.

 

Lawson Brown:

And especially as they get a little older, they can articulate and communicate where they are, what they need. You don’t figure it out in a vacuum. I mean, I think you’ve got to engage in this back and forth, like you did when you were talking with your son, like, “Hey, time out, we need to give each other a little more grace in this situation.” It’s a dialogue. It’s a two-way. It’s not a, back to your pastor friend who said, “I don’t feel like I’m being intentional enough because I’m not doing a daily Bible study.” Okay, well, I mean, I don’t know, maybe that is what his kids need, but it’s just so much more than that one shoe fits everybody in the same way. It’s a dialogue.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah. Well, Dad, I hope today’s show has been encouraging to you. And I hope that, to Lawson’s final point there, man, if we’re operating out of guilt, as a dad, we’re operating at a deficit and we’re not working within the confines of the grace afforded to us in scripture. Romans Eight, man, says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

 

Kent Evans:

Dad, you are free from having to be perfect. You are free from having to be all things to all people. And we hope that today’s show has helped you be more of a father on purpose, but a father who’s not walking around feeling guilty or feeling ashamed as a dad. Go get him, Dad. Have a great week.

 

Kent Evans:

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. And if you really liked it, please consider doing three things. Number one, share this podcast with someone. You can hit the share button in your app wherever you listen to podcasts or just call the person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically. That helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

 

Voiceover:

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.