Finding a Fresh Start

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, but 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.

Lawson Brown:
Good afternoon, my friend Kent. It’s good to see your face. Good to be back. I am excited about this episode as we are kind of approaching what I think is an interesting time of year. And it’s the end of the year. The start of a new year. The holiday season is coming upon us. What some people, myself included, do often at this time of the year is when things slow down at least for those of us who are in jobs or in a place in our life or whatever where the holidays actually do mean an opportunity to kind of slow down. It’s not like that for a lot of people. In fact, I was talking to a UPS guy making a delivery earlier today and he would not qualify this time of year as a time of slowing down. But something that comes to mind is that there is an opportunity to reflect and think of this as an opportunity for a fresh start. Maybe a new start. Some things that we want to do differently. And so I’m curious why that is. I’d like us to talk about kind of why we are prone to do this sort of thinking at this time of year and then let’s make some use of it. Like, let’s talk about what can we as dads do if this is a good time of year for us and our family to do some of this thinking. What does it look like in God’s eyes for us to take a pause and what does He mean by a new start? How can we get kind of maybe be grounded in His will for our lives, and for our families? So for this episode to be dropping at this time of the year, let’s get into kind of what does this mean? What does this time of year mean to you and do you do this? Do you personally, you and April and the family, what kinds of things do you talk about?

Kent Evans:
Well, being as I’m already perfect and all, I really don’t normally need to think about changing anything. Pretty much steady as she goes. We just try to one year after the other. I’m just kidding. Absolutely. I love to look at the year breaks as times when I start to think about what are things I can keep on doing because there’s a pace I’m moving at that’s comfortable or what are some things I need to change? I’m not a huge like classic New Year’s resolution guy. I don’t tend to go, “Hey, I’m going to drop 10 pounds this coming year.” And part of the reason is not because I’m anti-New Year’s resolution. Don’t hear me say that, but because they tend to not stick real well. And I think part of it’s because we have a one-year time horizon. I mean, honestly, if you’re trying to drop five pounds next year or 10, you don’t need a year to do that. You probably need a solid 30 days, let’s go. And so it’s really a January resolution. And so for me, the other thing I think about this time of year is it’s one of the very few times when, to your point, some UPS guy, some businesses are very seasonal and this is their extreme busy time. For a lot of us it is a bit more of a laid-back time. And I think that pace, that kind of, of downshifting from fifth gear down to second or third gear does give us a little bit of time to reflect. I just finished a talk this morning for a couple hundred guys. And it was kind of the last thing on my calendar until after Christmas. So it was like up until today as the time of this recording, I’ve been thinking about that and praying about it. And then I had a bunch of stuff for it, but now I’m like, “Whew. All right.”

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. That’s good. Like you just crossed the finish line a little bit.

Kent Evans:
I did. I did. And I got some time now.

Lawson Brown:
Good for you. That’s awesome.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, so I’m basically going to do nothing, but eat chocolate and drink coffee there. That’s my next two weeks straight. I can’t wait.

Lawson Brown:
Right. That’s a new beginning.

Kent Evans:
The eating chocolate would be. The coffee not so much. Fairly constant. I do think just in case, quick commercial before we get too deep. In case, you’re listening to this episode in April or August or some other non-New Year’s Day, it’s going to drop around the first a year. So we’re going to talk about this idea of fresh starts and new beginnings. But as a dad, I kind of look at like being a father as a bit like a computer hard drive. It keeps processing and processing and processing, but it’s building up like fragmentation in the old kind of hard drive days. And we used to have to defrag the disk. I don’t know if you remember doing that. You remember that?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
Because as the year, the memory kind of stored stuff in random places, and then it would go in and put the memory in tighter blocks and clear up space on the hard drive. I think that’s almost like a bit of an analog analogy too as a dad, we got to do this on a pretty regular basis. It might be kids’ school year beginnings. It might be Father’s Day. It might be Valentine’s Day. There’s times in the year I think you’re kind of built-in. Whereas a dad, it’s a good call for us to go, “Hey, time out. What do we need to do by way of a fresh start? So you may be listening to this at some odd time of the year. You may need a fresh start in some areas. Let’s not wait till New Year’s Day. If you’re currently listening to this on April 27th, get started on April 28th. Let’s go.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, that’s right. You know the old saying of how do you get started with something if you just start. It doesn’t matter when, but because of when we’re recording it right now as we approach the end of the year, it’s a good topic. But I agree you don’t have to have a beginning of a calendar year just to get the thought process going. Is there something in my life and in my family’s life, what’s going on one individual kid or yourself or a job change or whatever it is? My curiosity is less about what kinds of things tactically can we do in our lives. And I guess I’m just kind of more reflective for whatever reason is it’s like why is a fresh start something to consider? And then think about reflecting on what? What would God have me focus on? And how do you discern that? How do you become re-grounded in His will and less about I’m going to create my list, because I’m a list guy? I’m going to create my list to these exact things that I want to attack. And there’s also a reminder of you got to start small. My tendency is to create a list of 25 things that I’m going to work on and go from there. But you hear the cough. I am almost over the COVID so I’m trying not to laugh at your silly jokes or I’ll start coughing away.

Kent Evans:
I like how you call it the COVID. That’s nice. Sorry. I don’t want to make you start laughing, but like you probably also shop at Walmart.

Lawson Brown:
I do and the Kroger.

Kent Evans:
And you’ve occasionally looked for something on the interwebs. I think what’s interesting about the way you’re coming at this is, again, not so much the tactical, is it weight, loss, money management or whatever the thing is, but why is it? Why is our heart kind of drawn to that? No question every good and perfect gift as the Book of James says comes to us from God the Father. God’s a God of new beginnings. He’s a God of refreshing. He’s a God of starting things over. I think of that verse. We don’t tend to trot out the Book of Lamentations very often. We probably should more often it’s got some great content, but one of the verses in Lamentations that’s probably the verse that gets quoted most often is in 3:22 or 23. And it says, “God’s mercies are new every morning.” There’s a characteristic of our God that is this capacity to continually restart, refresh and forgive. And for dads, I think it’s extremely important because we’re going to fail regularly.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, dude, that scripture is very reassuring. He knows we need it every day.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, for sure. It could have said God’s mercies are new every other second Tuesday if he wanted, but it says they’re new every morning. And I think for us, I was talking with a guy today actually right after I spoke to this group of men, a guy came up to me and we were talking about his child. I don’t want to give too much away, but his child who’s an older teen. And how there are some things going down that are not exactly good, healthy or godly. And I sensed in his attitude he’s starting to get a little bitter, a little frustrated. And quite frankly, relatively I get where he is coming from. However, if God’s mercies are new every morning and we’ve been forgiven of a whole lot, then shouldn’t our mercies be new every morning as well? But I think it’s wired in, man. I think it’s hardwired into our soul to have like as Dr. Henry Cloud, I think it was a whole book or at least a concept in the book called Necessary Endings. There is this season to certain things, maybe relationships, or maybe you’re on a volunteer committee or maybe you have a job, maybe you’re in a town and you sense God calling you to a different town. And you had one of those this year. You had a big one, man, where you and Audrey moved from a place you’ve been and you had family and a lot of friends, and a lot going on in one particular part of the country. And you guys up after what? 15 years there.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
You uprooted and moved and you’ve started something new down in a new place so that I can come visit basically.

Lawson Brown:
Absolutely. It’s always here for you. Yeah, last year December 15th, we got an offer on the house and accepted and started packing up. And literally, two weeks ago we moved into this new house a year later. So yeah.

Kent Evans:
Wait a minute. So almost a year’s worth of like migratory.

Lawson Brown:
Oh yes, yes.

Kent Evans:
Gypsy kind of living, right?

Lawson Brown:
Yep. Packing, unpacking, apartments, temporary spot. My mom owns a place and yeah. So we’ve been vagabonds, man. It’s been really nice to unpack and feel like, “Okay, we’re unpacking this piece here for quite some time. We are not hopefully going to be doing this again.” The guys on the audience who have moved before you know, but we’ve had like four of them in the last two years.

Kent Evans:
Keeping up with your address has been a little rough. Like I wanted to send you stuff. I’m always telling Hunter, “Hey man, check Lawson’s address because I’m not sure that’s the current one.”

Lawson Brown:
I know. I know. I’m sure the IRS knows somewhere.

Kent Evans:
You’re not actually Lawson Brown. You’re in the witness protection program.

Lawson Brown:
But I will say to the topic of this. It’s been for us an opportunity. This is not at all spiritual, but it can be cleansing to go through and like, “Do we need this? And are we going to haul this to the next place?” And I think you brought something up. I don’t know who it was, but an author wrote a book about a basically fresh start, getting your head around what it means to use an opportunity to maybe go through a change or redirect, and it’s that K.I.S.S. rule. I’ll let you explain it. But it’s been, I guess, moving physically, packing, and moving has been for us a tangible reminder of, “Do we keep this? Do we want to move it with us? Is it going to improve our lives?” Talk through that and then I don’t want to miss it, I do want to go back and kind of uncover a little bit more about what is the underlying reason in our heart for wanting a new beginning.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, you bet. Well, there’s an author and guy who I admire a lot named Michael Hyatt and he was the first guy I’ve ever heard say this. It may not be brand new to him, but the first guy I’ve ever heard say this. And he used it in terms of business planning. But I think it’s really handy for dads or families to think the exact same way every end of the year. Or if he’s going through a new season in a new business launch or something like that, he’ll use the acronym K.I.S.S. K-I-S-S and a lot of us think, “Well, keep it simple, Sam or keep it simple, stupid.” That’s one way to look at that acronym. But there’s another way to use it in the context of either annual planning or a fresh start. And it would be four words. What do I want to keep? What do I want to improve? What do I want to stop? And what do I want to start? And so as I think about it like, I’ll think about it from a manhood journey context. In our ministry, we’ve got podcasts, we’ve got printed materials. You came to Louisville last week, a couple of weeks ago for our annual board meeting retreat. And we talked about, “Hey, how’s the last year gone? And what have we done?” And we’ve got these 20 things. We have cooking, which of those 20 things should maybe go on the chopping block? And they’ve kind of run their course and we should stop doing those things. Or what things do we have that are going well, they’re solid, but we should improve them? We should get better at them. What things do we keep doing, kind of the way we are doing them? And then importantly, what’s the brand new stuff we want to start? And one thing about the way Michael uses the acronym is the stop comes before the start. It’s very important for guys who are kind of like you and me list guys, type A. We kind of try to get a lot done.

Lawson Brown:
Right. Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s not a minor point.

Kent Evans:
No. I had a friend who for years was talking to me about writing a book. At the time he was coaching travel baseball, being a husband, working a full-time job, traveling, getting an advanced degree, and raising three children. And after 10 different lunches where we had hung out for a year, a year and a half or two, I finally said to him, I said, “Man, you cannot bring up writing a book ever again. I’m going to punch you in the mouth at the Panera Bread until you tell me what you’re going to take off your plate to make room for the book writing. Let’s think of it as a couple of hours a day or four to six hours a week for like a year. That’s about the pace. Where are you going to find those hours? So I’ll know you’re serious about the book soon as you got a four to six-hour block, a time a week that you’re ready to slot that sucker into.” Because for guys, we just think we have unlimited time. We’re going to just continue to cram stuff in and it doesn’t work like that.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, do you wrestle with anger, man? I sure have and so have thousands of other dads in our email list. And so what we did for those dads and for you, we built a special digital course called the Anger Free Dad. This digital course is chock-full of almost 50 assets, a bunch of teaching videos, a ton of PDF booklets and worksheets so you can walk through and understand your anger triggers, the expectations underneath and how to pull those out of your heart and mind so you can be a dad who is less angry and more at peace. If you take this course and you do not become less angry, you will get all of your money back. Plus, we’ll send you some boxing gloves so you can beat up the wall at your house with all of your mad anger. Dad, come take the Anger Free Dad course today at manhoodjourney.org/anger-free-dad. That’s manhoodjourney.org/anger-free-dad.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, I don’t know that the word warning is the right thing, but I do think there’s a-

Kent Evans:
[inaudible 00:16:12].

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
I’m sorry.

Lawson Brown:
There’s a bit of caution at least for us as dads if we’re going to have this conversation with our children depending on their age. And that is if we really don’t have our heart in something if we don’t mean to make it stick, can something like this be counterproductive? In other words, I picture let’s have a family discussion. Let’s go through some of the things that we want to improve, stop, start. And if in their mind, they’ve gone down this road before and they know nothing’s going to come of it. Does it mean as much? I just want to continue to go back to why does this in our heart sometimes resonates to desire a fresh start? And like let’s question our motive. Question our motive for the change. Because if you really don’t buy into it, if you personally as the dad don’t believe in it, then you’re just going to go through an exercise that is wasting time and probably going to degrade your credibility a little bit. So talk about two things, Kent. You put in one of the notes 1 John 1-9 about confessing our sins. And I don’t know that this ties into my question, but I am curious what you’ve seen work with some dads that have gone through some major, maybe not a major trial or something like that, but a big change in their life. And that you’ve heard about through the ministry. How did they land on? Was it quiet time? Was it prayer? Was it?

Kent Evans:
You know it’s interesting. I’ve surveyed a lot of dads and one of the questions I love to ask and we’ve probably gotten, I don’t know, several hundred to maybe a thousand data points on this survey. So it’s fairly reliable. We’ve asked a lot of dads, “Do you have any kind of mentor in your life?” And usually, it’s anywhere from 20 to 40% say yes. So that means 60 to 80% say no. When we look at a verse like 1 John 1:9 it says, if we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just and forgive us our sins. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” A lot of times dads will put, well, men, people, humans will put into the New Year’s resolution or the fresh start bucket, “Man, I’m going to stop doing that one thing. Whatever that thing is, I’m going to stop looking at internet porn. I’m going to stop smoking cigarettes. I’m going to stop gossiping at the office. I’m going to stop eating after 9:00 PM so I can lose some weight.” Whatever they want to stop that might fall into this category of certainly a suboptimal behavior, not productive behavior, but maybe it’s just outright sin. Flat up, it’s straight sin. And 1 John 1:9 to tells us, “Hey, one of the ways to eradicate sin in your life is to confess our sins.” God’s going to forgive us. He’s already forgiven you. And He’ll cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well, we see in Psalm 51, David pouring his heart out to God when he sinned and he is remorseful and contrite and apologetic and desperate. And so we need to cry out to God and ask Him, but we also need some guys in our life, some people that we can confess to. So one of the things that while I don’t want to make this podcast about here are the 10 things you ought to commit to in the coming year if you’re a real godly dad. I would say categorically as a general thing, most of us probably need to commit to either bolting on for the first time, some running buddies, some close relationships, call them, whatever you want. Friends, mentors, accountability circle, huddle group as my friend, Jeff Kemp likes to say. Whatever you want to bolt on or increase. You may have one guy in your life in this coming year, you need one more or you got two and you could run it up to three. But man, don’t go through another year of your life, isolated all by yourself with nobody around you. When you were here, Lawson, a couple weeks ago, wasn’t it remarkable that we had about 15 or 16 guys in Louisville, Kentucky? About half of them live here. Several came from out of town like you. Wasn’t it remarkable the quality of the guys in that room who like you and I are running the podcast for Manhood Journey? And we’ve got 13 or 14 guys around us who are high caliber, high-quality, high character who are cheering us on, giving us advice, giving us input. Man, I feel like we were totally surrounded with quality and strength in that room.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, it’s really encouraging those guys were. And it was also cool to see all the differences among them and the backgrounds that they brought to it. But you’re right. Like I picture them, I picture other people in my life, some of my own friends and others that I know personally listening to this when we’re talking. And now I picture them because we got some good feedback from them about it. I picture them listening now and smiling and kind of virtually cheering us on out there.

Kent Evans:
Except you remember that one guy who I picture having his arms folded, he looked like he was sucking on a lemon? Remember that guy? Like his face?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
You know my whole objective is with him.

Lawson Brown:
I know. You’re trying to make me cough.

Kent Evans:
I’m just trying that’s my only objective is get you to hit the mute button.

Lawson Brown:
I see your smirk coming before it even happens. No, but you’re right. I don’t think it’s a list of 10 things, but like at the retreat and because we have moved, this is a silly thing for me to confess to, but it’s true. My Bible got put in the wrong box and got stuck in a pod, storage pod going on almost a year. Not that I all have another Bible. I’ve been using my phone and this and that, but it’s just not the same as my good old trustee with the highlight and the margin notes and all that. And so I found it as we were unpacking here. Before coming to Louisville, one of the questions in part of the breakout of your retreat that you held was what is something that you want to begin to … that you would confess and you want to do differently. And it is that it is that I missed that quiet time of just me and reading the Bible some, taking some good notes. But the question in the group that I was in was framed more about, I guess, in the context of what are your children seeing you do? And they haven’t seen me do that in a while. And so if I were to say, I’m going to approach some new beginning it is going to start with that. And I need somebody in my life. I do have them, but I’m telling you, I’ve told a couple of others that I don’t want to do this alone because it’s harder. It’s less fun. Probably more likely to stick if I’m telling somebody, my wife included that this is what I want to do. Not that read your Bible shouldn’t be some chore. I’m not trying to put it like that. But to your point of having some guys in your life, when you said 20 to 40% I would’ve thought you were going to say five or 10.

Kent Evans:
Oh, okay.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Not that 60% having no mentor or no one surrounding you in your life that’s involved that wants to see you succeed and you them, 60% is pretty lacking. But hey, that’s not 90%. But it’s so important, man. It helps a lot to have people, potentially other dads in your life that are going right here with you down the same road.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. Well, and we’ve talked a little bit so a couple tactical. We’ve talked about having guys around you. You’ve talked about Bible reading. There may be like time in the Word or quiet time. There may be we’re helping some dads. Dad, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “What is something I want as a fresh start? What is something I want as a fresh start?” One principle I would turn us all back to is the principle I think Dave Ramsey was the first guy to talk about the debt snowball, where he’s like, “All right, look. Take all your debt problems.” And you may have your house at the top. It may be your biggest debt or your cars or your student loans or whatever. And then maybe you got some credit cards or whatever or you got that JCPenney debit or card or whatever. And he would always say, “Pay off your smallest debt first. Get one knocked out.” And it’s not necessarily because that’s a financial win. You may still be losing money on some of these other debt things. But because psychologically it helps you to get momentum in the right direction. It’s like the principle of inertia. Once you kind of get moving down the debt removal path, it’s easier to keep moving down the debt removal path. And so I want to go back to something you said a minute ago. I’d love for you to comment a bit more on. Man, the tendency is the guys to go 27 things on the list or however many. And I’m going to knock all these out, man. I’m going to do this and do that. And it’s I’m going to run an Ironman and down they go. And part of the reason, I think a lot of the New Year’s. I almost said New York resolutions. They would be like a good baseball team or something, New York resolutions.

Lawson Brown:
That’s funny.

Kent Evans:
So part of the reason New Year’s resolutions I think don’t often stick is because we just have too many. We just pile them all in as if we’re going to change a hundred things about ourselves. What have you done in the past personal, professional as a husband, as a dad where you said, “Man, here’s one tweak I want to make? And kind of come hook or crook, I’m going to find a way to make this one tweak.”? As opposed to the giant long laundry list. What are some things that come to mind that either you’ve done or we could encourage a dad who’s listening to this podcast, “Hey, man, if you want to start. If you’re earnest about starting some fresh starts, let’s pick one or two that are relatively achievable.” What would you think one or two of those might be, Lawson?

Lawson Brown:
Something that happened to me five or six years, more than that was I hooked up with an old friend. Both of our families happened to be in the same place at the same time, and we hadn’t seen each other in a while and it worked out great. And we saw each other and we throughout the day spent the day together. And just neither of us were in a very healthy place in our life, physically or healthy. And we used to be and that day we got into a pretty deep heart to heart about, “We got to make a change, man. This is ridiculous. We’ve got young families and we got to do something different.” So yeah, this is physical. It’s not spiritual. It’s not professional work-wise or anything like that. But, but the principle applied. We committed that day that we were just going to do something, one thing every day. If it’s walk, if it’s eating right we committed that we were going to check in with each other every single day through a text and update every day what we had done.

Kent Evans:
Wow. Awesome.

Lawson Brown:
And dude, for seven years we have done that.

Kent Evans:
What?

Lawson Brown:
Yep.

Kent Evans:
Are you kidding? Yep. It’s grown. It’s grown now-

Kent Evans:
I thought you were going to say for seven weeks or something.

Lawson Brown:
Right. It’s grown into now there’s a group of five of us and it’s those days where I don’t want to go for a jog. I don’t want to go to the gym. I know that I’ve not been eating right or something like that. I got to get better and I’m maybe running a little bit low on willpower and then bing, a text comes in. It’s from one of those guys, it says, just did a three-mile jog. And that’s all it is. It’s not life story. It’s just that little extra push has helped me sustain this thing.

Kent Evans:
Let me ask you a question. What qualifies for what can go in that text thread? So for example, let’s say I’m out at dinner with my wife and I have only one piece of cheesecake, can I say in the text thread, “Guys, only one piece of cheesecake?

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
Does that count or does it got to be a little more?

Lawson Brown:
No. In fact, you would need to put that into the group chat and say, “Guys, I slipped up. I had a piece of cheesecake. I had two pieces of cheesecake.”

Kent Evans:
No, no, no, no, no. I don’t think you heard my question. I was going to have two pieces of cheese, then I had one.

Lawson Brown:
It’s a brutal honesty chat room. Yeah. Sorry. You are not allowed into our little group. Tough.

Kent Evans:
For those of you listening to this podcast who want to join Lawson’s ruthless hateful group of text people, feel free to say no. No, that’s a great word, man. Like I’m shocked that you said the number seven years. I was listening ahead of you and if you said seven, I thought it might be weeks. And I was going to go, “Wow, way to go.” Seven years is crazy. You must have started that back when you were like 22.

Lawson Brown:
I wish.

Kent Evans:
That’s awesome, man. I don’t think I’ve done anything consistently for seven years except like sleep and go to the bathroom. I mean, that’s pretty amazing.

Lawson Brown:
Well, the thing is though it’s just a small step and that’s the point. We just committed to one thing. Like every day we’re going to keep each other on track. And I do have long lists, like some bucket list things that I’ve always got my eye on I want to do down the road. And look, there’s also, if somebody wants to go do an Ironman Triathlon, you’re going to need to set that goal and set it pretty far out there. And then backward plan, break it down into the smallest little things, likewise for me. \
I confessed last week in your meeting, two days I’ve spent sitting down like I wanted to. Of course, I got sick, but sit down, have my coffee, read the Bible, and get back into that spiritual habit. Not because I feel like I want to set some false example or not be authentic, but because I miss it and I know what it does for me.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I don’t try to crack open my Bible so my kids see me reading the Bible like I’m putting on some show. Having said that when I tell other people, “Hey man, here’s what I read today or can I tell you what God said to me today.” When I’m inviting other people in on that play, I know it’s going to help hold me accountable.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kent Evans:
I used to do this when I was in marketing consulting, I would occasionally … It’s a little bit of a diversion, but not huge. Guys might be able to map this into their life. When I was in marketing consulting, I’d be working on something for a couple of weeks and not making a lot of progress. And then I would go and tell one of my clients, I’d call my client and go, “Hey, man, can we meet next Friday? I’ve got the plan ready to show you.” And I didn’t really have the plan. Totally ready.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kent Evans:
But I knew the deadline would get me ready. Nothing gets me ready to give a talk like the day I’ve got to give it or the day before I’ve got to give it. And so for me I think it’s so important to pull people in. So let’s just kind of land the plane here today. Guys, dads, if you want to make a fresh start, whatever time it is in the year right now. You may be listening to this on January 1st or like we said, some other time of the year. A few guiding principles, number one, God loves fresh starts. He’s a God of redemption and renewal and grow. He’s not a God of stagnation. He’s not a God of the past. He’s a God of the future. And he wants to help you and so let’s begin right wherever you are. Number two, as Lawson said, maybe it’s something small. Maybe it’s like just one little thing. Maybe it is a physical health kind of thing and you need to loop in two of your buddies and say, “Guys, let’s do something every day physically and then we’re going to text each other.” Maybe it’s something more of a spiritual discipline, but whatever it is, let’s get going. Remember the acronym, keep, improve, stop, start. If that helps you, that acronym can help you. But dad, your family, your family needs to see you make these fresh starts, make these fresh starts because it is part of the character of God that we’re bringing to bear inside of our family. When they see us go, “All right, the old has passed away. The new has come.”

Lawson Brown:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, they go.

Kent Evans:
You may be hearing a Bible verse in my head that would be 2 Corinthians 5:17, “The old passed away. Behold, the new has come.” So dad, what do you need to start today? What is your fresh start? Lawson and I are here to help you. If you want it to be physical and arduous and painful and hateful, join his little text thread. Give him a quick call if you feel free. If you want it to be nice and loving and have a little more to do with cheesecake, feel free to give me a call. I’m happy to do that. Guys, we really appreciate you listening today. We hope today’s podcast has been helpful. Let’s have a fresh start together. We will see you guys next week as we tackle a brand new topic that will not have anything to do with fresh starts.

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 a 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.

Outro:
You’ve been dozing off to the Father on Purpose Podcast featuring Kent Evans and Lawson Brown. Now wake up, head over to Father on Purpose.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.