The godly dad glorifies God in all he does

Show Transcripts:

Intro:
Welcome to the Father On Purpose Podcast, featuring author and ministry leader, Kent Evans, and business executive and military veteran Lawson Brown. This is a show for you, dad. You want to be a Godly and intentional father. Unfortunately, you’ve turned to these two knuckleheads for help. Let us know how that works out for you. Before we begin, remember this, you are not a father on accident so go be a father on purpose. Please welcome your hosts, Kent and Lawson.

Lawson Brown:
It’s good to see you, Kent.

Kent Evans:
Awesome.

Lawson Brown:
I’m excited about this chapter eight in Bring Your Hammer, The Godly Dad Glorifies God in All He Does. And I appreciate that you just prayed before we got started, I was in church yesterday and the pastor was a guest. He turned out to be fantastic. In the beginning, he goes good to be here, blah, blah, blah. You know, I got a lot on my heart here and I don’t want this to be about me so let me just open with some prayer, dear Jesus, help. Amen. And then he got going. I was like, I love it.

Kent Evans:
That’s awesome.

Lawson Brown:
That’s exactly what you need to do. It was like you don’t need to draw it out. He knows. Just ask for it and receive it.

Kent Evans:
Wow. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. The one-word prayer. I love it. Love it.

Lawson Brown:
Help.

Kent Evans:
That’s what some dads listening to this podcast probably need to do today. They got some big family problem, whatever it is, marriage, kids, money, jobs, who knows? Health? And maybe there’s a dad listening today and that’s the word they needed to hear is just Jesus help.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. This chapter eight hit home with me, and you know Eric wrote this chapter which was noticeably well written as I was going through the book. I had to go back a few pages like, oh, oh, now I see why, it says by Eric. There you go.

Kent Evans:
I think I’m connecting the dots, Lawson. I’m picking up on what you’re suggesting. If you’re a first-time listener to this show, this will be Lawson’s last episode. So let’s wish him a great farewell.

Lawson Brown:
No, this was good. And do you know what? This story that he wrote about learning to drive or being able to sit on his dad’s lap and thinking that he was being allowed to drive as a young kid resonated with me, it brought me right back to my grandfather’s farm. When I was like 10 years old, I couldn’t reach the pedals, but he kind of taught me how to drive out there on the dirt road and couldn’t really hurt anything out in the middle of nowhere. But I remember distinctly that feeling of running in the house and feeling like I wanted to tell my grandmother or my mom or whoever that I just drove the way he describes it in his opening was really cool. You know, you could picture the little kid hands on the steering wheel, the dad’s doing everything, but the little boy or the little girl feels like they are the ones in control. And sometimes we as dads and I’m guilty too many times of feeling like that was all me. This chapter about The Godly Dad Glorifies God in All He Does. How many times have I missed that point thinking that it was all me and God just looking down, going like, okay, well let me let you actually grab the steering wheel for a few moments, and then I’ll be right back. You’ll see. You’re rolling right off the road.

Kent Evans:
No question, man. Yeah. Eric Ballard, the co-author of our book, Bring Your Hammer did a masterful job in this chapter. We split up the work, he did about two-thirds of the chapter writing. It’s fun because I go back and read parts of the book and can really appreciate him in a different light because I didn’t write that section.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
So it’s like, I can look at that story and really get us by it. So Eric, as I’m sure a faithful listener to this podcast, you’re out there listening to this episode, nice job Eric. Comparing that idea of as a kid feeling like you’re in control. I’ve done that in my neighborhood before where my youngest Titus, who’s now seven, but as he’s been five, six and seven, I’ll occasionally ask him if he wants to go out and help me move the cars and he’ll sit in my lap and I’ll let him steer a little bit, but in a neighborhood like mine there’s cars everywhere and there’re houses. And so you can’t let him go very far. You know that five-year-old, he’ll drive it up into a neighbor’s yard. It’s no joke.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
It’s no joke.

Lawson Brown:
How many times in our lives have we felt like we were driving and then you got to realize that God is in control and it’s a reassurance, you know, it’s like thankful he is the one with his hands on the wheel that he never sleeps. He never takes his eyes off us. He’s always in control. Although I appreciate that he lets us participate to a degree and in that comes a lot of learning.

Kent Evans:
Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
One of the scriptures that Eric put in the very beginning is Nehemiah 2:8, it says and because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests. Easy for me to say, gosh, I stumbled through that. And because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my request. That’s the reason because God’s hand was on it. I wrote a note to myself that it doesn’t say partly, it doesn’t say and partly because the gracious hand of God was on me. Like the reason is because God was doing this, he was creating this.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, sometimes you just got to acknowledge the source. I remember that one of my very favorite sports quotes of all time is back in the ’80s or ’90s when Michael Jordan dropped 69 points in a game, one game, and Stacey King had been subbed in for a bit and got fouled and made one free throw. And somebody asked Stacey king after the game what will you remember about tonight? And he said, “I’ll remember it as the night Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points.”

Lawson Brown:
I’ve never heard that.

Kent Evans:
Oh my goodness. It’s one of my very favorite sports quotes. And it’s so funny. I mean, the more I say it, the funnier it gets year after year, and isn’t that true man? That’s what we do. Right? We score one point, God scores 69 and we walk around going yeah, between me and God, 70.

Lawson Brown:
So good.

Kent Evans:
And I love Nehemiah because there’s a pretty powerful actor in this drama, right? The king and the king had the earthly power, the ability to sign the law or commission the people or give a certain resource. So in some ways, the King’s earthly power was really not to be trifled with. He had the power of life and death for the most part. And Nehemiah, I wouldn’t have been shocked if Nehemiah had said, because the king gave me favor, my requests were granted.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, true. That’s right.

Kent Evans:
It’s not totally off base. When you go to somebody who has authority or power, yeah, in a sense they have the ability to give you the thumb up or the thumb down.

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

Kent Evans:
Nehemiah knew for sure that God had paved the way and that the reason the king was inclined was because God’s favor was on him. I heard a Christian speaker one time. I think it was Alex Kendrick from the Kendrick Brothers films. He was at an event and he goes I don’t know what all you need individually, there’s a bunch of people out in the audience and I don’t know what each one of you need specifically, but I do know what all of you need generally. You need God’s favor. You all need God’s favor. And then he went on to just talk about how God’s favor trump’s my strategy, trump’s my economic capacity, trump’s my intelligence.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I like that.

Kent Evans:
And just on and on, if God’s hand is on us, we can’t lose, we can’t lose. And I think intently about that as a dad and as a husband, that if my marriage is going well and April and I are getting along well and together and we’re like kind of back to back fighting the issues of the world around us and we’re not fighting each other. If my kids are making wise choices, if I have a good relationship with them in that season, all those aren’t because man Kent did such a great job as a dad, it’s because God’s chosen to give us that favor and write this second, that particular area of destruction or drama is not in our lives. And it’s not just because of what we did, it’s because of what he’s actively doing in our lives.

Lawson Brown:
You know, I have found it hard to not want to try to be the hero. When things are going good there have been some times where I’ve been really humbled, but I’ve also looked back and kind of like shook my head at myself when times were really good and I felt like I want to take the credit. I know a guy named Larry Brown, who I always admired because no matter what, whether it was things were going so great and everything just falling into place, it just looked natural and easy, or when things were really tough and he had hit a hard right turn or a roadblock in his life and something just really went off track and regardless, his attitude was God’s got me right where he needs us. My family and I, and I trust him and man, I so admired the peace and the contentment and the wisdom that he portrayed.

Lawson Brown:
And no matter what the circumstance was, he just always deferred to the fact that in his heart that he knew that God had him and his family, or him and his job or him and whatever exactly where God wanted him to be. And I guess maybe there’s a bit of growth that has come in my life because of men like him that have been able to model that attitude, that perspective, that mindset. But I have found that it’s easier to give God the glory, aka not try to take credit for something ourselves when it’s almost supernaturally clear that that was not of our doing. That’s real easy when you go, well, yeah, they somehow healed. They came out of the MRI and that thing was gone.

Kent Evans:
Right.

Lawson Brown:
You don’t go well, I mean, that’s because I was able to get them here to the doctor’s appointment on time. And thankfully I was here to help with that. It was clearly God doing something.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, otherworldly.

Lawson Brown:
Right. But as dads, when things are going well, or when there is a struggle and we come out of it, the temptation to claim that heroic feet as something of our own.

Kent Evans:
You remind me of a story. A few years ago, our basement flooded. I would say again, it’s not that it flooded all that often, but every couple of years it would flood and my brother-in-law is a civil engineer. And so I was asking him, hey man, what can I do? And he’s like, well number one, go outside and grade the ground away from your house. I think you got a little swell there and water’s coming up against your foundation and he goes, and you should check that drain. There’s an in-ground drain that’s dug in our yard and he goes you should check that. So I go out one day and it’s like a bazillion degrees. I mean, I picked literally noon on a summer day to go do this. It was so stupid, but I go outside and I find out that the way they had done the drain originally, and I’m taking pictures, I’m texting them to my brother-in-law and he’s coaching me through the process. And there’s two drains and they’re not connected right. And so I go to Lowe’s, anyway, long story short, I’ve repaired the ground outside my house with some help from my son and one of his friends, they were over one day, I had them doing some of the hard work, but then I dug this big, like seven-foot trench in my yard and we got it all fixed and then I could hardly wait until the first heavy rain just to see what would happen. Right? There’s a window on the side of my house where you can raise it up and you’re protected from the rain and the rain doesn’t come in because the overhang of the roof. But you’re like right above where that drain is in the ground. And so you can look at it like five feet in front of you. And I remember the first day it rained really hard and I rolled the window up and there was all this water flowing through that drain. I even went out in the rain to the ditch where the water exited and watched the water shoot out of this pipe. It was perfect. It was like a Marvel of civil engineering I’m sure. And what’s funny is I was kind of standing there going, man, I totally fixed that. I completely fixed that. I tell water where to go. Water doesn’t tell me where to go, I tell water where to go. And what’s funny is, had I not had access to some young sturdy backs to help me move some dirt, had I not had access to a brother-in-law who’s a civil engineer, had I not had a shovel, had I not had a Lowe’s nearby that I could drive to, none of that would’ve actually worked out good. Right? It’s its something that simple that I forget. What was that age-old thing that says, if you see a turtle on the top of a mountain one thing, he didn’t get there by himself and I didn’t get there by myself. I didn’t do that by myself. I love how my friend Jeff Kemp puts it. He’s the first guy I’ve ever heard it to say it this way. He said glory is man’s kryptonite. Glory is man’s kryptonite. And I loved that phrase. It’s the thing. It’s this shiny beautiful thing that has amazing power, but we are not to touch it. We are not to claim it. We’re not to try to put it in our pocket. We don’t get the glory, God gets the glory.t.

Lawson Brown:
That’s super cool.

Kent Evans:
And when we pull it closer to us, all we do is weaken ourselves. All we do when we pull glory toward ourselves is weaken ourselves. And I just love that idea. Jeff, good idea, man, on how to position that. So if you’re a dad listening to this and you did that budget or you arrested that guy or you taught that class or whatever you do on your day job, somehow you got the strength, you got the favor, you got the opportunity to do that, and if you go back far enough, it’s not because of something you did, it’s because of something that God has chosen to do through you.

Lawson Brown:
So talk about that for just that one part about like Superman, if Kryptonite got near him, he got weaker. So when we try to take the glory for ourself, we become weaker. Talk about that.

Kent Evans:
What’s really interesting is I have a friend who has had a disproportionately successful business career. I don’t know what he’s worth, but I’ve stayed in at least three of his houses. One of which I know is worth several million bucks and he’s not overextended. I don’t think this is for show. And so I think this guy has made a lot of money, a lot of money. And one time I asked him, I said, hey man, what do you attribute your business success to? If there were like one or two kinds of core things, what did you do right? And he goes, well, I can’t get up in the morning and take a breath unless God says I can and so all of it points back to God at some level. And then he kind of went on to say the second thing, which still he didn’t take credit for this. So step one is he said, God deserves the credit for even waking me up in the morning. Step two, he said, I think everybody kind of comes out of the womb wired with a certain level of risk tolerance. Some people are real cautious and afraid. Some people are super big risk-takers. He goes, and I just find most guys who have business success are on that sort of risk-taking half of the spectrum. They may not be all the way at the end and they’re always betting the farm, but he goes, so I just came out kind of wired for risk. You’ve seen my successes and they’ve outnumbered my failures in terms of money, but I’ve had some colossal failures, but most people don’t know those. And I just found it interesting that this guy’s mindset for how he had achieved. Now, this is a guy who is brilliant with numbers, brilliant with people, brilliant with strategy, brilliant with real estate. Like this guy has a mast and an incredible resume of skill and most of the time in any room, he’s the smartest guy in the room, but even so his answer about how he achieved business success was step one, God’s got to wake me up every morning. Step two, I had a default wiring and a DNA that made it.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, yeah.

Kent Evans:
He still hadn’t gotten to the place where he goes, well, let me show you that spreadsheet I did. And I just found that an illuminated response where if we understand rightly what glory is and that’s like praiseworthy adulation, it never belongs with us. It never ever belongs with us. Even if I sharpen that pencil, I’m looking at my desk here. Even if I jump on the Zoom call at the right time, or I do the things I can do, it’s because like I got a roof over my head. Well, who put the roof here? I don’t even know. Right? Because this house is 60 years old that I live in or so. I don’t even know who put the roof here, but somebody came out here and built this house that I can have wifi in and talk on my computer in and all that combines over the decades that we’re really standing on the shoulders of other people. And they couldn’t have done that if they didn’t have the strength to do it and God gave them the strength. And so in the end, God gets the glory and not man.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

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 of bunch of teaching videos, a ton of a 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:
That’s got to be a default stance in your mind. This is really good, man. I need to work on this. And another reason for it is because in this season of life that we’re in right now with the girls and the family and a new house and moving to Florida and all that things are just really kind of clicking along and I think you can model for your children a grateful heart so that they take that into their own lives. You call glory as a man’s kryptonite, that shiny object that’s attractive to avoid that because as you try to intercept glory for yourself, you’re doing a disservice to your faith, to your family. You’re modeling the opposite attitude of gratitude for what’s going on in your life.

Kent Evans:
Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
And look, dude, I don’t want my children or my wife to be dependent on me. Like, don’t look at me because I’m going to fail and I’m going to mess this up. I am not going to be successful where I need to be successful, but God never fails. He is always with us. He knows what we need and when, and he knows what we don’t.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, man.

Lawson Brown:
And so, yeah, I’d much rather them know that I feel like and believe that I’m not the one doing this. And so be assured your life is not dependent on dad. Dad is going to mess this up at some point.

Kent Evans:
Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
But God won’t. And so let’s all look to the goodness or the relief from a struggle or the upcoming. Somehow God’s going to get us out of this dark space. Let’s rely on God for that and not this dad.

Kent Evans:
I even think about this, Lawson, in the context of our spiritual gifts or even our skills, talents, abilities. So for example, one of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 Peter 4:10, and I’m quoting it from memory, I didn’t look it up before the show today, but it basically says whatever gift you’ve been given, use that gift to serve other people. And it talks about bringing God’s character, God’s glory manifested into other people’s lives. So it’s like you’re showing the grace of God as you use your gifts to serve other people.

Lawson Brown:
Part of it is how do we live in a community as Christians with each other, right?

Kent Evans:
Yeah. And knowing our role in the body. Right? So for example, I went to a public speaking class one time, years ago, maybe 15 years ago. And the teacher Charles was this super seasoned veteran. He had trained all kinds of people, media people, senators, like this dude was a list public speaking trainer. One of the things that he insisted is that you understand your strengths or weaknesses as a presenter. And his point was, most of us understand our weaknesses all too well and don’t understand our strengths at all. And so what he made you do as part of the training was, and a dad could do this as he’s driving down the road, or if you’re working out right now or you’re going for a run, you can do this with me. So Charles had this exercise where he would say, all right, stand up and for a couple of minutes I want you to tell us three or four things about you that are true and then he went on to say, these should be like character traits. These are character traits, it’s not like I grew up in Louisville. These are character traits. Tell something about you. And so when it came to be my turn there was about a dozen of us in the class. I said something like, well people tell me I’m kind of, and I’ve heard people say that I’m sort of, and then there’s this time, one time I was kind of like this and I had all these qualifiers around my character traits and Charles goes, okay, Kent, that was okay. Now let’s try it again and I don’t want you to use any qualifiers at all. And he said, so you said people have said you’re sometimes occasionally maybe sort of funny. He goes, here’s the question. Are you funny? And it is like this kind of tense moment in the speaking class where he is looking right at me, he goes, are you funny? And I said, well, kind of I mean, he goes, what?

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
He goes, are you funny? And I caught on finally and I go, yes, absolutely. I’m hilarious. And then he started laughing and he goes, do you see what I mean? And so he made us do it again, but here’s what’s really interesting, I think people confuse in this area of glory and God’s favor and how God’s wired us and gifted us. We confuse being able to state how God has wired us for taking the credit. So for example-

Lawson Brown:
Oh yeah, I see what you’re saying. Right.

Kent Evans:
I can think and be quick on my feet.

Lawson Brown:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kent Evans:
I can be thinking quick on my feet, God gave me that ability.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
I’m funny. Do you know why? Because God gave me the ability to use humor. I can write. I’m not a bad writer. I might even be a good writer who knows? But like I’m close, I’m writing. So those things, I want dads to hear. You acknowledging your gifts and your strengths is not the same thing as you taking credit for them, unless you take credit for them, unless you decide, well the reason I’m such a good business person is because I understand math forward and backward and I know everything and on we go. I would love to have dads walk away from today’s episode knowing that a couple of things are true. One is glory is not something we reach for. Credit is something we give God and our gifts are something he gives us in order to use those gifts to help other people. So part of the exploration for us-

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, man, very well said.

Kent Evans:
Part of the exploration is if I walk into a room and they’re all trying to do brain surgery, best thing I can do is go get the surgeon a glass of water, right?

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
That’s probably it and leave the room and not come back until the surgery is over. Like that’s a room in which I can add almost no value and all I can add is risk and damage. I’m just going to touch something with a germ and all of a sudden the patient dies. That’s not a room where I can add value, but if it’s a room where they’re trying to figure out how to put a talk together or how to do marketing or how to write something, all of a sudden I become useful in that setting. It’s not because I’m arrogant, it’s not because I’m boastful, it’s because I know how God’s gifted me. And I also know how he hasn’t gifted me. There are a number of areas most rooms I can’t be helpful in, there’s way more rooms I can’t be helpful in than there are rooms I can be helpful in.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
I just think we got to figure that out over time, man. And we’ve got two as dads help our kids figure that out. How have you helped your daughters Lawson on that journey? You’ve got at least one daughter who’s talented upfront and does stage kind of stuff. I’m sure over the course of her teenage and adolescent years, she was experimenting with that skill, the ability to sing or entertain or be upfront or act. And I don’t know your other daughter’s story as well, but how have you encouraged your daughters to discover their gifts, but at the same time, not become arrogant or boastful about them?

Lawson Brown:
You know, it’s always been part of the conversation where it’s a God-given talent. Olivia can dance like nobody’s business. Abigail’s got this beautiful voice and that’s been part of the conversation, but I always feel like I’m coming across as this guy that’s got it figured out and I do not and did not, but I also try to weave in like God’s really given you the gift of empathy. It’s good about being able to sing well or talent and we did talk about that being something that God put in them. And God’s really given you a mind for independence in Olivia’s case, as far as like, I think she’s going to be an entrepreneur, that kind of thing. It’s a nice way of saying she probably ain’t going to work for someone very well.

Kent Evans:
Hardcore and unemployable.

Lawson Brown:
Oh geez.

Kent Evans:
Hardcore and unemployable.

Lawson Brown:
She’s a good worker. So not necessarily the talent-specific question, but the character and the who you are.

Kent Evans:
Oh, man.

Lawson Brown:
And what does God have in store for us that he’s preparing your heart to undertake down the road? Or we’ve talked about things in our marriage because we’ve moved around a little bit here and there. Kind of like, what does God have in store for us? What’s he preparing us for as a family? But I think what you said, man, that really, really resonated and I hope it encourages dads out there where accepting and believing that God gifted you for something is not taking credit for something that God has done or is doing in your life or in the life of someone in your family. Let’s avoid trying to steal the credit or intercept that glory and be much more quickly ready to deflect it or reflect that glory and that credit back to the source.

Kent Evans:
Man, this doesn’t have to be the very last thing we say, but let’s talk a little bit about this verse as we hit the back end of this podcast episode, if you have a minute dad where you can grab your Bible, go grab your Bible and turn to chapter eight of the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter eight. I’m going to read just a few verses. I’m going to read them here on the podcast. But I think if you look through this, it’s a really great three verse stretch or four verse stretch where if you look for the verbs and you look for the action words, it really crystallizes what we’re talking about on this episode. So in verse 15 it says most talking about the deliverance of Israel and he’s talking about God and he says, he led you.

Kent Evans:
So notice who’s doing the leading. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, thirsty and waterless land with snakes and scorpions. Then it goes on to say, he brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors hadn’t even know, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember, the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. He goes on and says a lot more other things, but I just want to take that stretch and like, God did the leading, God brought the water. God gave them food to eat. And in the intent there it says, so that in the end, it might go well with you so that you would be humbled and tested. But remember, and you’re going to be tempted to say, look at what I did. Look at what I’ve done.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
But remember the Lord, your God, for it’s he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
And I just think that verse to me reminds me if I can continually have this posture of not having the glory, seeing that when things go well for me, it is God’s hand. It is God’s hand in my life and even amidst those things, if you go back and look at that story of Israel, some things were not easy, it wasn’t necessarily easy to live in the wilderness. It wasn’t necessarily easy to make that journey, but they were provided for, they were provided for all along the way.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
And even then they’re going to be tempted to take credit.

Lawson Brown:
Yep.

Kent Evans:
But man, they can’t do that. Right Lawson?

Lawson Brown:
I love where scripture completely lacks ambiguity. There’s nowhere in there where it was like look, God and us together are going to figure this out. Or God gave some way out, but you also had a part in this and you guys figured out how to get water. And that whole thing just completely describes everything that happens to take care of them, to get them out was because of the power and the strength that God had. And to avoid credit as if it’s kryptonite is something that I’m taken away from this, and not because it diminishes God, because it doesn’t because he is the all-powerful almighty, he’s everything, nothing can diminish him. But in my life, I want to be dependent on him. I don’t want to be dependent on me. I don’t want to seek glory for myself because what that does is it’s putting myself in a position of being in charge and of being in control and I don’t want to be. If it really boils down to like does Lawson Brown need to be in charge of everything in his life and in his family’s life and our safety and our finances and our skills and our talents? Absolutely not. None of us do. If I had the choice, would I rather God be in control of all that and get all the glory for that? So I’m going to reflect that glory and I’m going to avoid credit like it’s kryptonite.

Kent Evans:
I’ll close with a quick story and that is when we went to adopt our boys from Ethiopia. I remember just being completely at the mercy of our in-country liaison for the adoption. Number one, he knew the system, he knew what was going on, he knew the steps. Number two, he knew the language. Number three, he knew the geography. Number four, he knew the danger spots, et cetera, et cetera. Right? And all I could basically do was get on an airplane and land myself in the country. That was my job. From the moment I landed at that airport till the moment I got back to that airport and he put me in the door, I was at his mercy. I was completely dependent on him and in one of the cases, some government system went down and some technological thing and we were there two weeks longer than we should have been. And every day he’d come over to the hotel and I would say, is the thing back up? And he would go, no. No, not yet. So then we were both at the mercy. It was like the internet that didn’t work or whatever the problem was. And I just remember thinking man, sometimes to do God’s will, which we fundamentally believe those two adoptions were in his will for us, sometimes to do God’s will you got to put yourself in a position where you’re completely dependent on him and other people. And that for me is a picture of being dropped into a place where I don’t know the language. I don’t know the customs. I don’t know the process. I couldn’t have driven myself anywhere in that country. I didn’t have a car, much less I didn’t know where the roads were. All that to say, some dads need to hear this message that they are holding on so white-knuckled to their family, they’re trying so hard to control their children.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. It’s awful. It’s so stressful and it’s so hard.

Kent Evans:
My goodness. And I see occasionally this is of course true about me, no question that it’s true about me, where I try to control the outcome of every decision my children make. I’m just now to the point where out of my five kids, more of them are legal adults than not for this just changed about a month ago. As my middle son hit 18, I have more kids who are legal adults three, and then I have two that are not plus a daughter-in-law. So I have four on one side, two on the other. And I’m realizing that the older they get, the more that I can’t control every decision that they make. And I don’t even want to become like the critic who points out the ones I think they got wrong. I want to be the encourager. And I want to be the one who points them to God. And even when they start to take credit and they’re like, look, I aced that test I’m so smart. I occasionally want to go, yeah, let’s remember where we got that big brain from. I want to be the guy who helps point them back to the fact that they don’t need to take the glory. They don’t need to be in control. God takes the glory. God gets all the glory. And in the end, it’s him, it’s him who’s in charge. And Nehemiah knew that. Dad, I hope you know that. I know Lawson knows that. I’m trying to learn that. So I hope today’s conversation has helped you get just an inch closer to realizing what we really need is we need the hand of God and his favor on our life. That’s what we need. Right?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Kent Evans:
And let’s give God the credit for that and rejoice in the fact that we don’t have to be in charge.

Lawson Brown:
My goodness

Kent Evans:
We can just go along for the run and use our gifts to bless other people. Lawson, thanks for the conversation today brother. It’s been enlightening and invigorating as always.

Lawson Brown:
Thanks. You too Kent. Take care.

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 the podcast, 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.

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