Let God’s Word Lead the Way For You and Your Family

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, Lawson. Welcome.

Lawson Brown:
How are how you doing, man?

Kent Evans:
I’m fired up. I’m having afternoon caffeine and water, which basically means when I’m having that combination-

Lawson Brown:
Oh, good for you, no doubt.

Kent Evans:
Oh, when I’m having that combination, afternoon caffeine and water, man, I’m fired up. We’re recording this on a Friday afternoon.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, I was going to ask. So you got April taken care of, right? She had some car trouble?

Kent Evans:
Yes. We were supposed to record a few days ago, and my wife was a damsel in distress, and so I was out in the 100 degree heat, putting in a new battery in her car, in the middle of a Walgreens parking lot, which then it turns out two days later she was stranded again. So-

Lawson Brown:
Oh.

Kent Evans:
I wasn’t exactly the most effective mechanic. So yes, turns out it was the alternator and the serpentine belt, and my nephew, who’s a great mechanic, diagnosed it all and fixed it in a few hours. So-

Lawson Brown:
There you go. Nice.

Kent Evans:
Exactly.

Lawson Brown:
Good. He’s nice to have. Good.

Kent Evans:
He is nice.

Lawson Brown:
Well, I’m excited to talk about this topic, Know Scripture.

Kent Evans:
Do you mean no scripture, like N-O?

Lawson Brown:
Right. Yeah.

Kent Evans:
No scripture.

Lawson Brown:
To be a father on purpose, no scripture.

Kent Evans:
No scripture. [Kah-no 00:01:51]. For those of you listening and you need phonetic help, we’re talking about Kah-no. We’re in the middle of … Well, toward the front end, I guess, of a seven part series on the ebook that we published called Survival Gear: Seven Must-Have Tools Every Dad Needs For His Journey, and we decided to take the seven things that we tend to see in all of our surveys and all the things dads tell us make a good, godly father, and we rolled them into this ebook that we wrote about now about a year ago, and we’ve had almost 6,000 people, Lawson, download this ebook in maybe, oh, I don’t know, seven months.

Lawson Brown:
That’s awesome. I wondered.

Kent Evans:
Seven, eight months. And so thousands of dads have downloaded it, and it’s seven pieces to the godly dad backpack. If you’re going to go on this dad journey and you’re going to be a godly dad, then here are the seven thing you need. The first one we covered last time, which was Trusting God, and then this one is Knowing Scripture.

Lawson Brown:
Before we get into this one, I’ve got a question. How did the order of number one, Trust God, number two, Knowing Scripture, how did the order come in to be?

Kent Evans:
Yeah. Well, there’s seven pieces to the puzzle, and really. what I would say, it’s almost like bookends. The first one, Trust God, is very foundational and it deals with everything from are you a, say, believer? Have you claimed the name of Jesus Christ in your life? You’re regenerated with the power of the Holy Spirit? All that stuff. A lot of folks are trying to live out of their own power, and unless you have a relationship with God and you have the in-feeling of the Holy Spirit, wow, it’s just like trying to run a marathon and not having eaten for a week. So you just don’t have the power inside. So the first one, Trust God, is kind of standalone, and the very last one, Make Disciples, is a standalone in that once you’ve done these first six, then really you need to be about the business of duplicating your life through the lives of others. The middle five, you could toss up and they could land anywhere. In other words, they’re not necessarily sequential. You’ve got to know scripture, you’ve got to build relationships, you’ve got to pray fervently, you got to serve others, you’ve got to steward your resources. There are things you have to do, and I look at the middle five as like a combination lock where if you have a five-part combination lock and you only have three or four, it doesn’t matter if you have one then, right? Because the lock isn’t going to open. And so we’re all trying to progress through these disciplines and skills and behavior traits and patterns along the way, but I would say the middle five, what we’re entering right now with no scripture, you could throw those five up and they could land anywhere.

Lawson Brown:
Gotcha. All right. That makes sense. I’m glad I asked.

Kent Evans:
Extremely scientific. You throw them all in the air and you see where they land.

Lawson Brown:
Right. That would’ve been my version. You obviously put thought into it, so good check for you. I also like that the imagery for Know Scripture is a headlamp, a flashlight. And just full disclosure, you’re a good example of this, but some people can just rattle things off the top of their head, quotes from books or business concepts out of some certain seminar or learning that they’ve gone through. They just have this quick recall, and it’s not because I haven’t read the Bible, but I have always admired guys like you that in situations can just pop it out and have it almost like, I don’t know, your memory recall is just super fast and clear and it’s pointed. I guess my experience with knowing scripture has been more like in study or in a situation when I’m going through something, and in my time of sitting down, going through the Bible, I can hear and I receive information from God, and it’s always been interesting and I love it and I’m grateful for it when it happens to me where something is going on in our lives and I’m reading the Bible, and it is like this particular chapter was written exactly for me in this particular situation.

Kent Evans:
Mmm. Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
And I don’t know, maybe it was part of what you guys were putting together through the Survival Guide to think about having that … It felt to me like getting into the survival guide, it felt like, “Know scripture so that you can have quick recall.” And I read it and was like, “Ugh. All right, I got some work to do because I’ve never been good at that.”

Kent Evans:
Well, you know what’s interesting is I think a topic of knowing scripture is, for a lot of dads, it is intimidating, if we’re honest. We’ll say things like, “Well, I think there’s an old part of it and a new part, and I remember weren’t there those guys, like Matthew? Didn’t he write something?” It can be pieces where dads can feel intimidated. So I think there’s two extremes we got to avoid. At one extreme, we’ve got to avoid is, “Well, I’m never going to be …” fill in the blank. Tim Keller, Al Muller, John Piper, whoever you admire as a Bible knowledge guy, and so you put him up on this pedestal and so you say, “Well, I’m never going to be that guy. Therefore, ah, I’ll just throw my hands up and do nothing.” Then at the other end, you become this arrogant … To your point, you become this arrogant quick recall guy, who’s like, “Don’t you know it says the sinner,” kind of guy who can always quote chapter in verse, but people would come to your house and you’re not living it out. Your kids would say, “Well, yeah. I mean, he can quote the chapters.” I can also quote LeBron’s basketball statistics. That doesn’t mean I can shoot.

Lawson Brown:
That’s a good example. Yeah.

Kent Evans:
And so I think those two extremes, let’s get those out of the way, and let’s get to the middle. The middle is here. Hey Dad, guess what? You really do need to know scripture if you’re going to be a godly dad. Now does that mean you’ve got to be chapter and verse, you’ve got to be writing Hebrew letters at night with parchment and a quill? No, obviously not. However, we see, to your point, Lawson, the reason we picked the lamp is not because it was our idea. Psalm 119:105, which I had to go look up. I mean, I’ve got Psalm 119 pulled up in front of my computer.

Lawson Brown:
Okay. I was about to say, “Here we go. There you go already popping it out.”

Kent Evans:
Here we go. As it says in the Septuagint … Okay. Psalm 119:105, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” and the idea is if something is going to illuminate your path in front of you, what’s that thing going to be? What’s that thing going to be? Is it going to be what your wife said or what your dad told you or what you heard on like late night television? Is that what is illuminating your path, or is it God’s Word? And Psalm 119:105 is a great example. I do know that verse by heart. I could have quoted that verse. I just couldn’t have told you where it was. So full disclosure, I do know that verse. I didn’t know it was Psalm 119:105, but I did know it was in Psalm 1119. There we go. Again, that’s just where I am on my journey of biblical knowledge as a dad. What do we do, though, Lawson? So we got the guys on here who aren’t … I hope if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re with me and Lawson in the sense that you see the two extremes, you see the extreme of total ignorance or total knowledge, and there’s arrogance at one end and embarrassment at the other, and that you’re in the middle with us somewhere. But here’s the thing I find a lot of dads brush off, and I’d be curious to get your reaction to this, Lawson. They go, “Well, man, I go to work, I bring home the paycheck. My job is to keep the house fixed and keep the cars running. Man, I can’t know the Bible, too.” And it’s this extra credit thing that they never get around to, and they go, “Well, that’s what the pastor is for. That’s the preacher’s job. That’s the priest’s job. That’s why I send him to that fancy school so somebody there who is a professional at knowing the Bible, they’ll give it to him. That’s why I spent all that money sending him to that fancy Christian college.” What do we say to that dad whose abdicated his role as a scripture guy? He’s pulled himself out of the game, but he’s probably gotten a little bit out in the weeds on that. What are your thoughts on that, Lawson?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I don’t know. That’s good. He’s missing out, I would say, first, because there’s a lot in it for you. Forget about being a dad and doing it for the reason of fill in the blank with your family needs or including your children. Just for you. It’s going to help you.

Kent Evans:
Oh, man. Okay. Hang on. I got to tell you a quick story that I didn’t think about until you just said that. I remember being with a guy last year during the … We’re recording this in late 2021, so we’re still in the middle of wave two of the pandemic, and I remember when a guy was going through the pandemic and he lost his job, but he had some cushion, financially. And I asked him one time, I said, “Hey, how are you using all your spare time? You got some spare time. What are you doing with it, other than job hunting?” And he said, “Oh, I’m doing X, Y, and Z,” and then I just casually, I wasn’t trying to trap him, I just casually said, “Are you spending more time doing Bible study?” I was like, “Man, I bet you are.” And his head fell, his shoulders slumped, and here’s what he said. He goes, “I know, I know. I should be doing more time in God’s Word. I know.” And it was like this, “Have you taken your cough medicine? Did you remember to go to the gym and work out?” And his only view on it was, “I really ought to.” And I remember telling him, his name was Yvon. I remember telling him, “Yvon, man, bro, number one, you misunderstood my question. I’m not trying to catch you. Number two, what do you mean you ought to? I think what you mean is you get to,” because for me there’s nothing I like more, and this may sound over-spiritual, but it’s true, there’s nothing I like more than 6:30 in the morning, a cup of coffee and the Bible. I like that time. I like the early morning, I like the quiet, and I just find that God really speaks to me when I’m into his Word. I’m growing, I’m deepening, I’m being strengthened, I’m being rebuked and challenged and shown what I did wrong the day before. It’s not always roses and unicorns, but man, I get to. To your point, if I’m not in there, I’m really missing out, aren’t I?

Lawson Brown:
And look, I don’t want to overstate it or play the Star Spangled Banner in the background, but it’s also a privilege. There are plenty of countries in the world where if you’re caught with a Bible, that’s a death sentence. And so it’s easy for us. It’s encouraging. We get to talk about it freely and openly. Fortunately, I had an experience early on where I was with Murphy Balding. Remember Murphy? From the Southeast?

Kent Evans:
Oh yeah. Yeah, Murph, for sure.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. He put his arm around me early on as far seeing that I was a new Christian and wanting to learn, and we really got to be buds, and he and I read several different books of the Bible, but what he said was, “We’re going to read this book every day, the whole thing every day for 30 days.” And it was two to three of the shorter chapters. He showed me through that and doing that with me, that the Bible came alive, because I thought, “Okay, day two, day three, day four, day 10. I just couldn’t see what happened to me. I didn’t see it coming, which was even on the 29th day, I was finding new things. Oh man, it was great. It was a great lesson to me, and it helped. I’m so thankful for Murphy for doing that because that laid the foundation that was almost opposite of, “Hey look, we’re going to make this a chore. You’ve got to do the following things. Here’s a break the Bible down Bible study and come back to me and do your homework,” and make it like it was work. He showed me how alive it can be and how God talks to us through it. And I don’t know, I think I did a bad job of answering your question, but maybe after the break, I do want to also talk about what does it do? What does the Bible do for us as fathers? When you say it lights our path, let’s break that down into the way that it does that.

Kent Evans:
Let’s talk about what you started to hit on, “How does it actually illuminate our path?” right after this.

Kent Evans:
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Kent Evans:
So Lawson, one of the questions you were hitting on right before the break was this verse we see in Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” one of the questions that you asked, which I think a lot of folks would ask, is “How? How is it or what does it do in that regard?” I had a guy one time at an event, I was presenting a breakout session and we were on this topic of knowing God’s Word, and he said, “Hey, if I’m just getting started, if I’m a new Bible student and I want to develop, really, a hunger for God’s Word, what do you recommend that I do?” And what I told him to do, it ties into the answer to your question, and I said, “Here’s what you should do. Go read Psalm 119, which is the longest chapter in the Bible. Go read Psalm 119 over and over and over again until you feel the same way about God’s Word as the author of Psalm 119.” Because if you go back, if you go back, Psalm 119, it’s really a very poetic book of the Bible. It’s very clever how it’s structured. If memory serves me correctly, there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and Psalm 119 is broken into 22 stanzas, and each of those stanza is eight verses long, and each of those verses begins with the same Hebrew letter. So in our language, it’d be like the letter A and then every one of the eighth starts with the letter, A, A, A, A, and then the second would be like B, B, B. So it’s a very poetic and very cleverly architected psalm. But basically, what it is, is they’re not totally sure. A lot of people would fight tooth and nail over this, but Psalm 119 is one of those psalms that’s hard to nail down the exact author, even though a lot of the psalms were written by David. There’s a little bit of a question about Psalm 119. Bottom line is the author of Psalm 119, over and over, describes God’s Word, how he feels about God’s Word, and what it does for him, over and over and over again. In some ways it’s even kind of repetitive. And so in that psalm, you’ll see, for example, if we look right in the very beginning, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. They walk in his ways.” Then it says verse five, “Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. I’ll praise you with an upright heart when I learn your rules. I’ll keep your statutes.” And then it says, verse nine, “How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your Word?” So part of what God’s Word does is help us walk in purity. And so I’ll just stop for a moment because if I go onto Psalm 119, I’ll just get lost in it for the whole part of this episode. The bottom line is a lot of what’s contained in Psalm 119 starts to answer this question, “What does God’s Word do for me, and how does it help me become a …” fill in the blank, a better husband, a better dad, a better person, a better believer. But you know what’s interesting, Lawson, is if we look at God’s Word just as the tool for making me better, we’re probably missing a big piece of the message for why we have that as a resource today, because it’s not just designed to make us better. It’s not just a big self-help book.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, that’s what I was about to say. I mean, it does, yes, for sure. I love what you said about 119, and you’re just bringing back memories to me of times where I’ve been around guys like you, like I said, where you just are able … You’re a good communicator, good instructor, but I’m thinking about the audience of the podcast and wondering, there are probably dudes out there who, like us all early on, somebody says, “Open your Bible to book so and so,” and you’re like, “Eee, is that the old, the new? Do I start in the middle and start looking left, then going right?” and trying to figure out where, try to catch up. There’s probably, maybe some guys that have, at one point in their life, been in a men’s group or a home Bible study with other couples or just on your own, but maybe it’s been a while and things in your life, this, that, and the other, and before you know it, it’s maybe been a year, two years, three years, and maybe you miss it. Maybe you got to get that habit back in your life and carve out some time and make room for it. And then I’m thinking of folks out there listening that they are in a great habit, a daily morning with your cup of coffee kind of thing, and it’s alive and well, and you’re really soaking it up. And as always with this, I’m hoping that is somehow a resource that God is offering hope and encouragement to dads, and so I want to encourage you guys who maybe you’re in the first two groups, God’s Word, here’s part of what is in the survival guide. Guides our difficult choices. Raise your hand if you ever run into a difficult choice, helps us discern right from wrong, changes us from the inside out, fills us with wisdom, gives us strength, and removes fear. So raise your hand if that short list of six things is something that you’re interested in. Well, it’s there. It’s there for you. It’s there for all of us. But sitting on your desk or on the bedside table alone, it’s like, “Gosh, I don’t want to call it a tool, but it is like a tool that doesn’t get used.”

Kent Evans:
Hmm, man. Well, and I want to give guys, that’s like a pro tip. This is like a secret pro tip. Let’s say for the sake of argument because I can resonate. I really did not come to know the Lord until I was in my 20s. I was in college, and so I’d be in a Bible study at age 22 or 23, and everybody there could outpace me in terms of finding a scripture, and then I learned a very valuable technique. Very valuable technique is so you’re holding your Bible, okay, on your lap, and the preacher says, “Turn to First John Chapter One or whatever,” and you have no idea where to find First John. And so here’s what you do. Here’s what you do. You keep your Bible closed on your lap. You close your eyes and you pretend to be praying. Then you wait just a few seconds and you say, “Amen.” And then you look up and you just look at the guy next to you and see-

Lawson Brown:
Right. Look to your right, look to your left.

Kent Evans:
Where did he turn? Where did he turn and how far did he go?

Lawson Brown:
Is it two-thirds in?

Kent Evans:
And then you’re pretty close. Pretty close.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I agree.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. So, I mean, deception and lying and pretend praying. That’s what you’ve come to this podcast for. That’s why dads tune in to this podcast, is to learn how to-

Lawson Brown:
Look at us, doing God’s work.

Kent Evans:
[crosstalk 00:23:41]

Lawson Brown:
Right on.

Kent Evans:
I’m just kidding. I’ve never actually done that one, but that’s actually pretty good. That might come in handy. And now that we have mobile phones, nobody knows, right? For all you know, they’re checking Facebook, but you’re scrolling to your Bible verse. To your point, man, one thing I would love for guys to hear or for dads to hear, knowing God’s Word is a progressive discipline that yields fruit over time, that yields fruit over time. And I think sometimes, Hunter, who helps us produce this podcast, Hunter and I were having lunch the other day, and we were talking about what happens when guys are presented with something we know how to do? “Hey, pick up that bucket or turn that light off or carry out the garbage.” We may go do it because we know how to do it. Well, what happens when we’re presented with something we don’t know how to do? If a dad’s listening to this and he’s anything like me, I put that stuff off. I procrastinate big time on things I don’t understand how to do because I don’t like being faced with my own ignorance or my own inadequacy or be reminded, “Yeah, there’s something and I don’t know how to do.” And so what I hope a dad is listening to, if you’re listening to this episode and you hear us say, “Know Scripture,” and you think what we’re saying is, “It’s Monday when you’re listening to this, and by Tuesday you’ve got to be Tim Keller,” man, I hope that’s not what you hear. I hope what you hear instead is get into the water. Get in.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
Start the process of becoming a student of God’s Word. Begin the process. Break the friction, the inertia of being still on this and get in motion, and then let’s see what happens over time as you dive in. I think it’s so important that we help guys just take the very, very next step, Lawson, whatever that is. When you mentioned Murphy a minute ago, where were you in terms of inertia or stuckness in terms of were you moving already and studying and learning and he accelerated? Were you starting at zero? Take us back there.

Lawson Brown:
Like you, I was in and out for the first three decades of my life, I guess. Meaning I just really wasn’t sure where I was, faith-wise. And then at Southeast, I saw the Easter pageant, the whole story of Jesus’ life came to life for me. At that moment, it was like … I even leaned over to Audrey during or afterwards, we were in the parking lot, and said, “So how much of that was play? How much of that was theater? How much of that was for real?” Changed my life.

Kent Evans:
You asked your wife that? You were asking her those questions in the car?

Lawson Brown:
Yep. For real. Yep. And so I went back, I probably went back that week. Back then, they did 10 or 12 different ones, and I probably went back three, four or five different times throughout that next coming week. I just couldn’t get enough of it.

Kent Evans:
You were the guy that security had their eye on. They’re like, “Hey-”

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
“He’s here for the fifth night in a row.” You kept noticing some guys sat next to you, didn’t they?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, right. That’s how I met Shane Suder. That’s how I met Murphy, and Murphy at the time was the men’s ministry leader. So I found him and told him what’s up, and we just clicked. We hit it off. So I was early. He gave me my first Bible, which I still have.

Kent Evans:
Wow.

Lawson Brown:
Not my first Bible, but he gave me the Bible that has been mine, and it’s all dog-eared and written in and highlighted.

Kent Evans:
Nice. Well, what I want to do in a second, I want to ask you a question in a second. I’m going to give you time to prepare for it. I want to ask you about your current study disciplines, where you study, when you study, how you study, that kind of thing. So be ready for that one. What I’d love for dads to hear, as we’re talking through this, is one thing that we haven’t mentioned yet that I want to make sure we get to before we out the show here in a few minutes, Dad, if we’re going to lead our families spiritually, we don’t just need to know the facts out of the Bible, like when the Assyrian empire conquered the Persians and what the head of gold and the chest of silver and the feet of clay and iron from Daniel. We don’t need to know the facts out of the Bible. We do. We do need to know the facts out of the Bible, but that’s not just what we need. What we’re after, what we’re after in our Bible study is the will of God, the character of God, the things about God that can be discerned from the scripture that we would see through the Word God’s traits, his characteristics and those things because that helps us paint the picture for our wives and kids and our friends and guys we’re discipling of who God really is because we tend to make God in our own image, right? Just like we’re sometimes no different than the guys at the bottom of the mountain who just fashioned a god out of gold while Moses is up on the mountain. We tend to fashion God out of our cultural influences, our own desires, what we want him to look like, and so we need God’s Word, not just to give us information and not just to make us better, but so that we would know who God is, his character and his will, so that we can help point people to the one true living God. So I want to make sure dads didn’t miss that. Lawson, close out the show by describing a little bit. I shared a little bit of mine earlier, the first half. How do you study God’s Word today? What’s that look like for you?

Lawson Brown:
Oh, I mean, you literally said a sentence about it. You get it with your coffee. That’s as far deep as you-

Kent Evans:
All right, I’ll give a little more detail. So here’s what I like to-

Lawson Brown:
No, I’ll answer. I’m good.

Kent Evans:
Go ahead. Fine.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Interrupter.

Kent Evans:
What?

Lawson Brown:
Nothing.

Kent Evans:
What you just said made me think of something. No, I’m just kidding.

Lawson Brown:
All right. You’re so stupid. So the iPad has come in handy for me. I travel a lot. What I really love is getting into it on the plane on the way out and back. There’s all kinds of versions of Bible apps. You can take notes in it. I like the quiet time. I like putting on headphones, and especially sometimes coming home and it’s maybe dark and I’m not watching a movie or something like that, and I don’t spend two hours on an airplane, necessarily. Sometimes. And it’s usually now, we’ve moved a couple of times. So we’ve only been down here in Florida for four months. Haven’t found a church. Haven’t found a group, and that helps.

Kent Evans:
Wait a minute. So you’ve been driving around for four months and you haven’t found a church? You haven’t seen any?

Lawson Brown:
Right, right.

Kent Evans:
Wow. Where are you driving?

Lawson Brown:
Are you done? Are you done? No, man. But what I was going to say is, so what it’s become for me is, “Let me go seek some help. I’m dealing with whatever,” fill in the blank, and I’m going for a reason versus being a part of some sort of eight week curriculum Bible study or men’s group or something, which has been typical in the past every now and then. Yeah, so I’ve gone to it as a source, and a source of reassurance.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I’m with you, man. I’ve spent time, generally in the mornings, generally five days a week. I’d like to say seven, but usually on Saturday and Sundays it’s hit or miss, but during the week, very consistent. I’ll spend time in the morning. Love a cup of coffee, love a journal. I use my iPad now for my journaling. What I often find myself doing is starting with one scripture. Man, it might be something that the day before, I was angry, or the day before something really good happened, or I had a question or a problem or I’m sad because someone passed away or I had something come up, and I’ll go looking for a verse that connects to that, and then I’ll tend to use a daisy chain of verses after that. So I might find a verse on hope or a verse on patience, and then I’ll look in the footer of my Bible. I have one of those Bibles with a really good cross reference, a paper Bible, and I’ll look at the footer and find the cross reference scriptures and just meander through scripture on a topic.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, the digital versions are real good for that because you could go researching.

Kent Evans:
Easy, easy, easy. And then every now and then, probably once a year, maybe twice a year, I’ll get into a really deep book study where I’ll spend … Earlier this year, I did the book of Daniel, and I just spent probably two months in the book of Daniel, and I just was going back and forth and back and forth, and oh, there’s so much prophecy in that book and a lot of numbers and timelines, and then even the book itself isn’t chronological. The first few chapters are, then the later chapters aren’t. And so I spend a lot of time in Daniel, and I tend to do that once or twice a year. I’ll do a really deep book study and stay in one book for, sometimes up to two or three months, depending on the length of the book. I mean, if you’re going to do that through Romans, it may take you a whole year. There’s a lot in Romans. So what I hope dads are hearing, here’s what I hope dads are hearing.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
Number one, we got to know God’s Word if we’re going to be a godly dad. It’s just that simple. Number two, we can’t delegate it. Number three, we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to be theologians. We don’t have to know everything. Number four, it’s not just about self-improvement. It’s about getting us to where a position of humility and where we know God, we know his will, we know his character, and where we find our own rhythms. Like you described your pace, your rhythms, my pace, my rhythms. It’s not necessarily like, “I gotta do it like Lawson does it,” or Lawson has to do it like Kent does it. But it is that we have a hunger for God’s Word and we see it as the thing that is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Lawson Brown:
Nice.

Kent Evans:
Dads, I hope this episode has helped you walk through that mental question of how well do you know God’s Word, and are you willing to break the friction of where you are right now and dive in and begin to be a more diligent student of God’s Word? I sure hope today’s episode has helped you do that.

Lawson Brown:
See you later, fellas.

Kent Evans:
We’ll see you next time. God bless.

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.

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.