Help Your Kids See and Defend Against Spiritual Attacks

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.

 

Lawson Brown:

Welcome back to the podcast. This is Lawson Brown, and I am with Kent Evans. So glad to have you back. Hope you guys are all back and ready for another discussion from us about … Today, it’s going to be … Kent, you were telling me the story about your kid that was getting ready to move out on his own and distance from the family, physically distance, and just begin to a life of their own, and the analogy you used became crystal clear in my mind for the protection that our family brings, the protection that you, as a dad, have been, and in your case have been, and can provide to our family, to our children, about the wall. Talk about building the wall.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah. What was happening in the mind of … It’s happened with all my boys at different ages. He was really struggling with some spiritual attack, some spiritual attack, and one of the principles that I wanted to try to help him understand is the principles of how our enemy works. How does our enemy work? Because if you have cancer, and you continue to try to lose weight, you’re fighting the wrong problem. The battle you’re engaged in is not where the actual battle is, or to use a different metaphor, it’s like you go to one of those places where there are multiple fields, and you’re playing on one field, but the score is being kept on another, and so you keep losing and going, “Why am I losing?”

 

Kent Evans:

And so here’s the metaphor that God just showed me. A little bit out of like the Book of Nehemiah. It’s basically the principles out of Nehemiah, but I want you as the dad, if you’re listening to this, I want you to picture in your mind’s eye that you’re standing, you, the dad, you’re standing in the middle of a small walled city. Not a whole city, but a little enclave. It’s maybe as big as your house or a garage or a soccer field, and you’re standing there, and you’re in the center. You’re in the center, and around you is this wall, and the wall represents the defense that you have against our enemy, the devil.

 

Kent Evans:

That’s what the wall represents. And I want you to think of it like one of those old walls back in Jesus’ day where it’s made out of stones. Stones, one on top of the other, and there are things about that wall that speak to the quality of the wall and the level of defense it will play if you are attacked, right? One is how thick is the wall? How thick? Is it an inch thick, or is it feet thick? If you go back to medieval construction-

 

Lawson Brown:

Right. That’s exactly what I pictured.

 

Kent Evans:

… castles. Yeah, their walls are eight or 10 feet thick. Thick, right? From beginning to end. Then I also want you to think about the height of the wall, the height of the wall. So you’re standing in the middle of this wall. Let’s picture it like a big circle, and you spin yourself around in 360, and you look around your wall, and you see certain parts of the wall are higher than others, and certain parts of the wall are thicker than others. The metaphor is this. Where the wall is really high and really thick, it represents an area where you don’t tend to succumb to a lot of temptation. So, for example, you may not be super greedy. Maybe you’re born, and that’s not going to be where the enemy is going to attack, and you just really are a giver. You have money come in; you give it away. You’re very philanthropic, and you’re just not tempted to be real greedy.

 

Kent Evans:

Awesome. That part of your wall is super tall and super thick. You might, however, have a tendency toward lust, and that has always been a temptation for you. It’s repetitive. It’s rears its head often, and you just feel like it’s a battle you’re fighting over and over again, and you don’t know how to break it. That part of your wall might be lower, a little more rubbly and a little thinner. And here’s the metaphor I used with my teenage sons more than once.

 

Kent Evans:

“Hey, son. You’re in the middle of your own little walled area. The older you get, the more you’re in the middle of your own little walled area, and here’s what Satan does. He walks around your wall over and over and over and over again. And what he’s doing is he’s putting his hand on the bricks and he’s pushing. Like that game, Jenga, where you play Jenga and you touch the little blocks. And you’re trying to find a loose one. You’re trying to find a loose one. He’s trying to find a loose one, or he’s trying to jump up. He’s trying to jump up and see if he can look over. Can he just jump it? Can he just sky it, or does he need to push some bricks out of the way and crumble it?” And here’s the couple principles I wanted my sons to understand at a deep, deep level. Number one, he walks around over and over and over again.

 

Lawson Brown:

He never stops. He never ever stop.

 

Kent Evans:

Let me tell you when he stops. He stops when you die. He just never stops. He never stops. And when you’re 15 or 17 or 18, if you were to get above that wall and look down, you could see a little worn path around the edge, maybe, like the grass is tamped down, and you go, “Golly, I wonder if someone’s been walking there,” and you wonder because the grass looks a little beat down around that edge. When you’re our age, Lawson, some parts of that path are three foot deep ruts. He’s been walking around that same section of my wall for so long that he’s worn a rut in the ground.

 

Lawson Brown:

He knows it was a weak spot and he just keeps trying right there, over and over and over.

 

Kent Evans:

Exactly, exactly. And what happens is, eventually, God will come and help you through his Word, through the Holy Spirit, through angels, through whatever, lots of factors, and we’re going to talk about those on the other side of the break, but lots of factors can help you thicken and heightened certain sections of your wall. However, he will never give up. He will never give up. He may even take a break. He may Zoom over one day and go, “Hey, who’s that guy outside the wall in the beach chair with a Mai Tai, hanging out?

 

Lawson Brown:

Right.

 

Kent Evans:

That’s Satan. He took a little break. He took a little break. He’ll get back. He just took a few minutes. He needed a little respite because he’s just planning.

 

Lawson Brown:

It’s not because he’s unconcerned any longer and isn’t going to try. It is that he knows that the strategy is, “Maybe if look like I am taking a break, they’ll quit tending the wall.” I would say good job to you on this whole analogy, but I know it’s not you. God, when you were telling me about it the first time, and rightfully so, you were like, “Man, this vision just was like a gift given,” and it was a perfect explanation at the time. And dude, I’m telling you, it’s been perfect for me, too. It’s like, I love the image of the worn path around. Think about your wall. Some of it was, at the time in your life, you were only equipped, all you knew to use was mud and straw because that’s all you had or that’s all, maybe, the effort that you gave it. Something going on in your life was a bigger distraction, whatever. Usually, it was the building material you had at the time. That wall takes constant renovation.

 

Kent Evans:

And in some cases, what you had is, as a kid, you had so much trouble, you had so much pain and challenge or you had a home where you were always trying to make sure that your mom and dad didn’t yell at each other or you were trying to always make up the extra money because there was not enough to go around. You may have had so much trouble as a youngster that you actually don’t even have a whole wall. What you have is you have an arc. You’ve got one half of a wall built, but the whole back half is totally exposed. It’s not your fault. It’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because, think of it almost like a triaged ward, right? If you’ve got big, big problems, you’re not necessarily taking out the garbage. There’s a time for everything, and you may find yourself at 16, 18, 20, 24, you may be 44 and going, “Oh my gosh, I got two little bricks stacked on top of each other. I don’t have any wall at all.”

 

Kent Evans:

Awesome. Good to know. Right? Good to know. And for me, it helped me convey two big, big overarching principles to my son. And I want to these on the other side, at some point. One is when you are first born, you’re in my city. You’re in my city, right? So I got a little town and I got a circle and I’m building the wall, and you get to be a baby in a carriage, in a little rocker, and you’re in the wall. You’re just in mine, and I’m trying to do what I can to protect you from the enemy. And in some ways it’s just obvious, right? Don’t go play in the street. Don’t talk to strangers. There’s some things you do as a parent that are mechanical and tactical and very obvious to keep our kids safe, just physically safe, right?

 

Kent Evans:

Then over time, as our kids become late teenagers, and they’re entering that phase where they’re transitioning both mentally, psychologically, spiritually, physically, and they’re either heading out, going off to college, they got married, whatever, I like to paint the picture that you’ve gotten out of my town, you’ve gotten out of my town, you walked 50 yards down the way, down the hill, rolled down the hill, and you started building your own wall. You start building your own wall. And what happens when that happens is it’s almost like Satan has multiple methods of warfare, and one of them he’s walking around the Evans’ family wall over and over and over again, wearing the path, wearing the path, wearing the path.

 

Kent Evans:

He’s also got one of those fancy drones, and he’s flying it overhead. And he flies it, and he goes, “Oh, look. There’s five, six, seven people inside that wall. Okay. I see, I see. I see them all, I see them all.” And then, one, goes out and starts to build, and Satan like-

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Kent Evans:

He gets some of his buddies, and he goes, “Hey, Hey, another one. We’ve got another one,” and then they start walking around that town. And so what I want dads to be able to do, but here’s what I want. I want this episode to be hyper practical, hyper practical in that I hope this metaphor … Now we’ll talk about ways this metaphor can break down, right? In other words, God is my defender. He is my shield. He is my protector. I’m not in charge of all the spiritual protection in the universe. I understand that. Don’t misinterpret what I’m trying to say. The word picture, though, of us being under attack, of us having a relentless enemy, of us having parts of our life that might be more or less susceptible to attack, and our kids building their own little enclave, I think those are really helpful word pictures. So we can take some of these thorny spiritual topics and put them into some kind of basket or handle, mentally, that our kids can pick up. What do you think, Lawson? What should we do right before we hop on the other side of the break and we start talking about some things we can do to strengthen our walls?

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah. When we come back, I want to talk about elements of a strong wall, how it’s built, the things that we can do. I want to talk about, too, like you’re saying, your kid is getting ready to move off or is already out and starting to build their own. Are they referencing back the things that they remember having seen you do? And we’ll talk about that, and then also that there’s always a pull. There’s always a trick that you hear over and over, like it worked. But fortunately now, you don’t need that wall any longer. You can stop. You can rest. And things that we can do to think about that, using this word picture of, “What goes into the wall? How are you doing it, and how are you modeling that?” And then, what happens if you do get tired or start to feel like you’re hearing this, “The wall has been successful and now I can rest.”

 

Kent Evans:

Hey, Dad. Every week, it can seem like you’re climbing a mountain. You have things to do, and Manhood Journey and Father On Purpose are here to help you climb that mountain with a free weekly newsletter we call Mountain Monday. What it is is it is a short, bite-sized reminder every Monday of important things. We walk through some scripture together, we throw out our recent blog posts, we throw you some quotes, we give you a challenge. This Monday morning newsletter is free, totally free, and you can sign up today at manhoodjourney.org. Come to manhoodjourney.org and sign up for Mountain Monday, and every Monday morning, get some encouragement for your Fatherhood Journey.

 

Kent Evans:

So we’re back. Lawson, great point you were making right at the end of the first segment, and that is one way this metaphor can break down, which I recognize all metaphors do have limits, but one way it can break down is it could lead us to thinking that this whole exercise is completely isolatory, that we’re all by ourselves, there’s no one else inside our wall and all that stuff. In probably what would be a more biblically accurate word picture, there’s one big wall. It’s one big wall. It’s like the city of Jerusalem in the Book of Nehemiah, and each of the families, some of the families actually at homes that were built into the wall, like literally the wall was one of their pieces of their home, and then there’s three other walls and a thatched roof, and they were physically part of the wall as a family. They were part of the wall.

 

Kent Evans:

And that’s probably a better picture we can build on with our family and with our kids over time because what we want to help everybody realize is that, Dad, if you are doing this all by yourself and you see yourself as the only person who can do anything to support and help your family, I don’t know that that’s a very accurate view of how God wants us to live out our fatherhood. It discounts community. It discounts running buddies. It discounts accountability friends. Comment on that a little bit, Lawson.

 

Lawson Brown:

I don’t think I said it very well, but what I was thinking about is there’s been so many times where, back to the wall analogy, I can apply what has happened in my life, where I did think, “Okay, cool. It’s safe now. I don’t have to put quite so much effort into that part of my wall or just the wall in general,” and then something happens in someone else’s life, and it scares me back awake and I’ll go back to doing what I know ought to be doing. But there’s also been times where if somebody else says, “Dude, you keep talking about this place in your wall that you’re constantly working on and it just keeps crumbling apart. I know what you need. Here’s how to fix that part of your wall.” Right?

 

Lawson Brown:

And there’s also been times where I have felt like, inside this analogy of yelling over the top of my wall for help, and two or three other great buddies scale their wall, come running over and just to help me lift, help me lift these rocks and keep it going. And you do feel the need for partnership because what I think Satan wants us to understand is you can make it, you can stop and/or all you’re doing is building … Is it lonely in there? You’ve been in there, trapped yourself and trapping your family, and you’re scared to move and scared to come out. You don’t need that wall. Come on, let your guard down.

 

Kent Evans:

Yeah. And the thing is, I know there may be some purists who are listening to this podcast who want to talk about the weapons of our warfare and being on the offense for God. I get all that. Don’t send us hate mail because this is an imperfect metaphor. This metaphor does break down. I’ve fully acknowledged that the metaphor does break down. However, the word picture of our kids realizing that Satan is relentless and that he tries to find weak spots, and I think, Dads, you just know this. You know this to be true. You know that there have been some things where, if you look back over your life, there’ve been some things where you’re tempted to anger, you’re tempted to lust, you’re tempted to greed or workaholism, or you’re tempted in some way where that thing happens, and you just feel like, “Man, this seems to happen a lot.”

 

Kent Evans:

One of the things I was trying, Lawson, through this discussion, not this discussion. I’ve had this kind of discussion with all my older boys more than once. So there’s 10 or 20 of these discussions about the wall, and one of the things I’m trying to get them to understand is, more often than not, when one part of our wall is broken into, whether there’s one brick missing and Satan snuck in, or he jumped over or he smashed a whole big pile of rubble, it’s often not just because we were slackers. I think one of the challenges is we go, “Here he comes in through that part of my wall,” quote, unquote, “again. That must be because I’m just a bad person. It must be because God doesn’t care about me,” or I’m just not trying hard enough.”

 

Kent Evans:

Whoa, whoa. Time out, time out. It’s because you have a relentless enemy. So you’re in the middle of battle and there’s bullets flying. You don’t turn to your colleague and go, “Hey, stupid. Why are you being shot at?” You don’t yell at the guy for being shot at. There’s an enemy. So I was trying to get my sons to realize, over time, don’t make the problem worse by being sad that there’s a problem. So in other words, the reason it’s stressful and frustrating and sometimes repetitive and sometimes a besetting sin that might come at you more than once is because your enemy is clever and relentless. I’m not mad at you. I’m not coming along and going, “Hey, look at your stupid wall. I bet a fox can’t jump on it like Sanballat and Tobiah from the book of Nehemiah.” I’m not judging the wall and just saying, “Hey man, you’ve got a relentless enemy.”

 

Kent Evans:

And for me, with my boys, I think it helped them realize, “Man, for a long time, I’ve been shielded from certain things because I’ve been a young kid. I’ve been a little boy. I’ve been a young man,” and as they become older, I think we just have to help them understand that the attacks are going to be more personal. The attacks are going to be more directed at their own weaknesses, and their attacks might look a little different than ours.

 

Lawson Brown:

Yeah, and as they’ve grown older, become of age and realize, “Oh, no wonder I’ve been living in this environment that’s safe and we talk about God and character and whatever.” The list is a hundred long, “Because of that wall. I’ve always seen dad out there working, and now it makes sense.” The other thing I thought is I’ve been really thankful in my life to look over and go, “Huh? I was coming to work on that whole area there, and it’s already rebuilt. I did nothing.” And it’s like, Kent didn’t do it. Van didn’t do it. My buddy, Van, or somebody else. It’s not our wall. We are praying and working on the protection that God provides, and he can do it with or without us. He lets us have a hand in it. He wants us to. He wants us to sweat and learn from it more than anything. But how many times have I turned around and gone, “I had nothing to do with that right there.”

 

Kent Evans:

Man, no doubt. And even today, I got a text from a friend of mine just this morning about him having a health challenge in his family, and in some ways, that moment, he’s tempted to despair. He’s tempted to be afraid. He’s tempted to be impatient, et cetera. There’s lots of challenges that come along with not just the health challenge, but all the stuff around it. And I could go to the Lord on his behalf and pray for him and intercede. And in some ways, we could take the metaphor too far, but in some ways it was like God going, “All right, tell you what. I’m going to go down and I’m going to stand. I’m going to send an angel to that corner of his wall, the despair corner. The fear corner. I’m going to go down. Thanks, Kent. Yeah, we got this. We got this.”

 

Kent Evans:

I remember that that part of Second Kings is one of my favorite parts of scripture, when the servant comes to Elijah or Elisha. I can always get those confused. But the servant comes and says, “Hey, we’re surrounded. This is trouble.” And there was an army all around them, and Elijah just goes, “Should we or shouldn’t we?” And he goes, “God, let him see. Let him see.” And God opens the servant’s eyes, and then all of a sudden, the servant sees these flaming chariots of angels on the hillside around them, perfectly encamped, and there’s total protection. And then, poof, they’re gone. They’re gone. He got a glimpse. He got a momentary glimpse of the protection that was around them that, ironically enough, Elijah … I’m going to go down with Elijah. I could be wrong. It could be Elisha.

 

Kent Evans:

But Elijah saw the whole time. What was very interesting about that, and for dad’s, the principal there I want dads to not totally miss is, as I’ve told my boys, there are times when I can see the attacks coming at you that you can’t see. And so for example, I think it’s a real easy metaphor to use is to tie all this together with a military metaphor. We’ve all seen those shows where you’ve got a team in the field. It’s some Navy Seals, and they’re on the ground, and then there’s a dude back at Langley or back at Washington DC that’s … and there’s a command center, and what does the command center have that the guys on the ground don’t have?

 

Lawson Brown:

Oversight. Right.

 

Kent Evans:

Eyes in the sky. Eyes in the sky, baby. Right? And so there’s a drone and the commander’s going, “Hey, turn right. Hey, go forward. Wait. Hold it. Go right.” And what I was trying to get my sons to realize through all these different conversations is I don’t have flawless view from above. I don’t have flawless view from above. However, I do often have an elevated perspective, an elevated perspective. And so what I need you to do is trust me. Trust me. No Navy Seal on the ground listens to the commander who’s got drones overhead and has perfect vision and says, “Nah, you know what? I appreciate your feedback, but we’re going to turn left anyways.” No smart ground troop would do that because they know the perspective of the commander is far better than their own current perspective.

 

Lawson Brown:

And they trust the intent.

 

Kent Evans:

And they trust the intent. Oh, that’s a great … Yeah. I wasn’t even going to go there, but you’re right. They trust the intent. They know their commander is not trying to lead them into harm’s way, and so we have missional alignment, we have difference of perspective, we have command objectives understood, and then we have the capacity. So all that put together, I wanted to help my boys understand over time, “Hey man,” and Lawson, I want you to close with your point about guys that are around you and running buddies because what I’ve said to my boys is, “I’m not going to have flawless vision. That’s not my objective. But what I am going to have is benevolent intent, right? I want what’s best for you, and I’m going to try to get you to see what I see. I’m going to try to get you to see what I see. Through my eyes, I want you to see what I see. And there will be times when I see your wall is short and thin, and you don’t realize it.”

 

Kent Evans:

Because the way the metaphor does help us, if you’re standing inside a wall and the whole thing is 10 feet tall, but is varying thickness, you can’t see where the areas are thin and thick from inside. Right? All you can see is a 10 foot wall all around me. It looks the same. It all looks the same. But if I’m overhead, if I have a different perspective, I can go, “Hey, man. Southeast corner, southeast corner. That’s where your attack is going to come from, and I can see it right now. I can see it happening right now. I can see the ground troops. I’m flying overhead. I see the ground troops. They’re coming at your southeast corner. You just got to trust me, man. You got to trust me.”

 

Kent Evans:

And I think for dads, for dads, if we can get our kids to understand a couple of things, one, Satan is relentless, number two, we’re going to have different parts of our lives that are weak and strong, number three, we, like the eyes in the sky, sometimes have a perspective they don’t have. And to your point, Lawson, we have benevolent intent. Can’t we help our kids see this and coach them through some life situations and maybe even have them see things before they get too close to them? Wrap us up, Lawson. What do you think?

 

Lawson Brown:

Man, I hope this has been helpful. It sure has been to me. I love the word picture. And I know, like you said, it’s not flawless, but this is a topic that I think a lot of guys struggle with. When you said eye in the sky, I thought immediately prayer and trusting God that says, “Work on that part of the wall right there,” and you look over it and go, “There’s nothing coming. It’s clear skies, no enemy in sight,” and all you hear is, “Work on that part of the wall. Just keep on building. Trust me.”

 

Lawson Brown:

And what we don’t know is what’s coming, or what we don’t know is something that we’re going to struggle with ourselves, maybe not in the moment, but God is helping us shore that up well ahead of time. So that when it does happen, when the attack does come, when the struggle does get real, he’s prepared us in advance, and so that he can show his benevolence because how many times in your life have you gone, “Aha. Now I know why that whole thing happened,” and maybe it was something that at the time you thought wasn’t good.

 

Lawson Brown:

I’ve felt God’s presence very often in my life where, at the time, I was like, “Why is this happening? This is not at all what I want or what I thought should have been going on,” and then hindsight, in this case, eye in the sky sight, looking back or looking down, you go, “That’s why, because he knows better than I do.” And so some of this is, a lot of this, most of this is prayer and trust in God to know how to build our wall, who can help us do what we can’t do ourselves. He puts people in our lives that just show up and go, “Hey bro, I bought a whole wheelbarrow too full of rocks to help you on this part of your wall. You couldn’t see it, but from the outside, I can feel it starting to crumble. I’m here. Let’s work on this thing together, and then you come help me because you’re really good at the whatever construction part of the wall.” You get it

 

Lawson Brown:

But man, I hope that people listening have benefited from this as much as I have in the thought process of it’s reassuring to me to know that there is an eye in the sky. He has only our best in his heart for us, and he knows way better what we need, how we need to do it, and can guide and director every step.

 

Kent Evans:

Man. Thank you, Lawson. Great conclusion. Guys, we hope this episode has been helpful and practical, and get out there and build your wall and help your kids build their wall, and do it in partnership with God and the Holy Spirit. Be on your knees in prayer. We’re grateful for you. We hope you have a great week, and we’ll see you next time.

 

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 back in 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.