The Godly Dad Learns to Serve Others

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 :
I’m going to get this podcast started because I think Lawson is working on either a piece of bacon or a beef stick. At least I can’t tell by the video. And so he needs to… We need get him all caught up on his food intake. Welcome to the Father on Purpose Podcast. I’m Kent Evans, and I want to thank 13 or 1400 of you who have downloaded an episode already. Lawson, we just got some fresh numbers in-

Lawson:
That’s so cool.

Kent :
… and I’m super pumped.

Lawson:
Right on, man.

Kent :
Yeah, I’m excited.

Lawson:
Wow.

Kent :
Thank you so much. If you find that any of these episodes-

Lawson:
I don’t feel so alone now…

Kent :
If you find-

Lawson:
… with just you.

Kent :
… any of these episodes ever make any sense… On the off chance that… Please share the podcast with your buddies. There is a dad out there that you know who needs to be encouraged, he needs to laugh a little, he needs to be challenged, he needs to hear some scripture, and he needs to hear something awesome that we’re going to say on this podcast that I’m attributing 100% of that to Lawson.

Lawson:
And to know that he’s not alone. We’re all out here doing the same struggles, and you will find some commonality among what we are all after.

Kent :
Fo sho. So we’re in the middle of a series right now based on our ebook, the ebook we released earlier this year that’s just about to hit just over 6,000 downloads of this ebook. It’s a free resource. You can get it at our website, if you want to, go snag the whole ebook, at manhoodjourney.org/survival-gear, that’s survival dash gear, manhoodjourney.org/survival-gear. You can go snag that ebook for free, and it has seven must-have tools every godly dad needs for his journey. We’ve talked about things like knowing God’s word and praying and so forth. And on this episode, we’re going to talk about serving others. The godly dad figures out at some point he needs to serve others. Lawson, have you had any experience serving other people?

Lawson:
I have not. Next question.

Kent :
I didn’t realize that was a requirement for today’s episode. I don’t believe that. Here’s one thing I know for sure about you, Lawson, is you have this intersection of passion and concern for guys who’ve been in the military. You were a… you’re a military service veteran. Thank you for your service back in the Marine Corps, I believe. And so you have served in some capacities with guys who have done that. Tell us a little bit about your service after your time in the military.

Lawson:
Yeah, I’ve been really fortunate to be surrounded with some cool dudes that are very involved and doing a whole lot. And I’ve gotten to be part of a group, or was for five or six years, maybe right at five years, most recently, where veterans who returned from any of the post-911 combat scenarios with a brain injury or spinal cord injury from an explosion or concussion, got hit in the head with something. There’s a really amazing place in Atlanta called the Shepherd Center. They’re a world renowned brain and spinal cord injury treatment center. People come from all over the world. And they basically raised some money and founded a location on campus there now for only for veterans. So they do what they do, but then they do this specifically for veterans because what typically comes with that… And I won’t go on too long, but what typically comes from someone with a brain injury from combat is PTSD and just some other things. And so it’s a specialized treatment. It’s a quiet environment and they have special counseling. They’ve got all kinds of occupational therapy resources.

Kent :
What was it about that particular area that caused you to want to lean in and serve?

Lawson:
Well, I felt an obligation because they raised their hand and went overseas and stood strong and hunted some bad guys that were over there trying to hide out and plan things that were probably not going to be good for us or our country. And then getting to know them, that’s a big piece. And same with… In any capacity of serving others, usually… Or not… I don’t know usually or not, but when you set out to go, air quote, serve someone, I have rarely found that the person gets more out of it than me. It’s rewarding and reminds you of your own perspective. And in doing something for someone else, you typically get a whole lot more.

Kent :
Man, how true. I’d love to kick off some of our discussion on the dad side of this with a story about a friend of mine named Brian. And Brian was speaking one time at an event. And I… [inaudible 00:05:33] the first time I ever met him, and we became friends after. And he said… In the context of talking about our marriages, he said, we all know we need to serve our wives. We all know that inherently, and the Bible commands it. And he said, but what I’ve found is there are three mental starting points you can serve your wife from. You can serve your wife from.

Kent :
And so they all start with the letter D so it’s super easy to remember. And the first one is, he said, you can serve your wife out of duty. You know you have to, it’s a chore, it’s a job, but you feel like your duty-bound, and so you serve her out of duty. The second way you can serve your wife is out of devotion. Out of devotion. You love her, you want to serve her, and so you’re devoted to her, and therefore you serve her. And that’s an upgrade from duty. So duty would be the bottom, devotion would be the next step up, but there’s a third one above it. And it kind of ties into what you said a minute ago, Lawson. And the third way you can serve your wife is out of delight. So duty, devotion or delight. And the big difference, obviously, to the third level is it’s not just that you feel like you’re blessing her, but you actually get fueled and you enjoy the process of serving her when you are serving out of delight. And I would hazard a guess that I’ve probably spent the bigger chunk of my marriage, probably serving my wife out of one of those first two categories, either I have to or I’m devoted to her, so I do it. But man, in the last, I don’t know, five or 10 years, I have started to experience some of that serving out of delight where I really do enjoy serving her. How do those three-

Lawson:
Are you saying these are in stages? Or is it either/or? How did you…

Kent :
Yeah, I think the way Brian was framing it was, they’re almost progressions, where if you start serving out of duty, okay, nice. It’s almost like you’ve made it a third of the way down the field. If you start serving her out of devotion, even better. Even better. And then the third stage is wow, even better if you can serve her out of delight. And it ties back… I’ll tie it back in a moment to something we read in scripture about Jesus and how he served us because we are called his bride and he’s called the bridegroom. But before we go there, duty, devotion, delight. How do you normally serve Audrey? Out of which three of those positions, Lawson?

Lawson:
Yeah, it’s a mix. Just being… Thinking about it on the spot here and just kind of being transparent, sometimes it’s a… I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I have… Let me think about this. I don’t believe that I have progressed to the point where it’s just every time I’m doing something for her or the kids or anything that it’s just out of delight at all times, Mother Teresa. Not me. But it’s interesting… So I hadn’t seen that before. Duty, devotion, delight. I think you can begin to do it out of duty and then the reward comes, and even though you did it out of duty, you receive it’. Especially if it’s something where… I’m not talking about an anniversary or a birthday or something like that, but when it’s something that’s unexpected, I think that is a nice cherry on top that you get to receive back. And I know you’ll probably get to it, but that Philippians 2 verse about doing nothing out of selfishness, but consider others more important than yourself, that’s a position to put yourself that is… I don’t know. It’s an interesting thought to say they are more important than me, and so I am here to serve them. That’s-

Kent :
For sure. What’s interesting is there’s a verse, and I don’t have it on the tip of my tongue. You could probably Google it while I’m talking, and we can find out. I think it’s in Hebrews. And it says for the joy set before Jesus, he endured the cross. And so we see this picture of delight, right? Where there is a joy set before him, that was not going to be joyful, right? The process was not going to be joyful, but the prize of redeeming mankind was so joyful that it says he endured the cross with a joyful heart, even though we all know that was very painful. And the verse that you mentioned a minute ago is Philippians 2 and it’s verse 3 and 4. And let me just read it for the guys as they’re driving down the road or heading to their workout at the YMCA. We won’t do the chant or the dance right now. Philippians 2:3-4 says do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. But with humility, consider one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. Man, that’s a tall order.

Lawson:
Yeah. That’s big. Do you think it could depend on what you’re doing? Some things are dutiful, but when you say devotion… I’m very devoted to Audrey and to my and to certain other things in my life, but…

Kent :
Right.

Lawson:
… the chores, the to-dos, the little things here and there, that may not mean anything to me, but if I were to do them, that it means a lot to her.

Kent :
Yeah. Well, you know what’s interesting, when I think about some of the things that I do, that I are indirectly, I guess you could argue, do serve my wife, because it’s one thing she doesn’t have to do. So if I do it, she doesn’t have to. So one of those is we make our bed every day, and we have kind of the rule that sort of whoever’s last to get up is the one who’s going to make the bed. And I’m usually up first. During the week, I get up a little bit earlier than my wife. And so she’s normally left to do that except maybe on a weekend day where I may sleep in a bit. But when I make the bed… I don’t know what it is. There are other things I’d rather do. I hate making the bed. It takes literally a minute or two.

Lawson:
Right.

Kent :
But the whole time I’m doing it, I’m like, oh, stupid bed. I can’t lift it, and I got to put the sheet under. It’s like the dumbest, most babyfied attitude. However, what I know is when I’m doing it, she’s going to walk in the bedroom later and go, oh, nice. Nice. And so as I’m doing it, I’m like, I will get a husband point for of this. So it kind of outweighs the frustration of getting the stupid sheet flat. And so I know that’s dumb, but like to your point, there are other things where if I’m serving her, I don’t mind at all. If her car is low on gas and I go, oh, you know what I noticed it was low on gas. And I grab the keys and run up to the gas… I don’t mind at all. Driving up, go to the gas station, fine by me. I’d rather drive to the gas station 10 times then make the bed once. That’s just… I don’t know what it is about that. But to your point, they’re not all the same level of delight.

Lawson:
Yeah, you approach them with a different heart, depending on the thing. You’ve got… You have a servant’s heart, and I’ve seen it in your other businesses before Manhood Journey. I’ve that just in the way that you approach people in general. Many times, I’ve seen you in a coffee shop, as an example, where you’re just meeting with someone who… This was back before manhood journey… who just had something on their heart, and they were referred to you by a friend or someone else, and you’re taking 30 minutes or an hour out of your morning to go and just listen and talk. And then that, I think, probably over time, grew into you becoming equipped and prepared and pointed at a ministry leadership role where the whole thing is serving fathers.

Lawson:
And so as an audience, not necessarily the podcast audience, I’m talking broader than that, but Manhood Journey in general Father on Purpose as a whole, the approach is we are here to serve. And particularly on this podcast, we think very specifically of not ourselves. And we’ve got some exciting things coming up with a guest speaker. We’ve got some new technology that’s going to be… You can explain it better than me, but on the website where individual people listening to us here can go on the website and click on a button-

Kent :
Oh, I forgot to mention that.

Lawson:
… and leave us something.

Kent :
Yeah, I forgot to mention that.

Lawson:
We’re here. This has been good for me personally, but it started as, yeah, let’s, let’s do this for others.

Kent :
And you know what’s interesting, I’ll occasionally go and speak at an event and I’ll have a specific talk I’m giving or a specific keynote address. And I love doing that. It’s enjoyable, and the prep is always a little bit… I’m always a little nervous when I’m prepping. In fact, Hunter, who helps us produce this podcast, he went with me recently to Iowa, and he can attest to the fact that 24 or 36 hours before, I woke up early, nervous about my presentation that morning.

Lawson:
Really?

Kent :
I walked down the street to get… Oh yeah.

Lawson:
No way. You’re so good at it.

Kent :
I do.

Lawson:
That surprises me.

Kent :
Well, here’s the thing, it’s a… I heard a guy-

Lawson:
Probably because you prep.

Kent :
Well, I heard a guy say one time that speaking to any group is a sacred privilege and not to be taken lightly. And so I feel competent and I feel capable, but I also feel the burden of not even wanting to quote/unquote do well, but wanting to serve them well. And so here’s what I want to kind of tie that back into. I would rather walk into a room, say with 50 guys or 100 guys or 200 guys, and literally have no prepared talk ready, and instead let them fire questions at me. Not because I have all the answers. That’s not why. The reason is because I’d much rather start with their problem that they’re currently experiencing and work from there. I may not even have an answer. My only answer may be to pray for them. I may not have any guidance I can give them, but I’d much rather start with their problem than my own desire to speak. And so even in that context, I’ve occasionally thought about going in and saying, Hey guys, I’ve got a prepared talk. However, let me just shelve it. Because somebody in here has a question, and until that question gets answered, you’re not going to listen to me anyway. And it does come down to serving-

Lawson:
That’s funny you say that. There’s a guy on our team at work, Michael, who has very little experience talking in front of a crowd. And this is two years ago. He’s evolved to be pretty natural at it. He’s very gifted guy. But the first time he presented to our leadership team, he literally stood up with like a five-page typed, Good morning. I am Michael-

Kent :
My name… Yeah.

Lawson:
… and I am here to talk to you today about… And it was… He’s such a likable, good, fun dude that we were all like looking around the audience, smiling at each other like you just love this guy. And it was stiff and difficult. And then somebody asked a question, and he is off and running, just natural and flowing and… Because it hit the sweet spot. So I don’t-

Kent :
I can relate.

Lawson:
You made me think about that.

Kent :
Well, after the break, I want to tell you about one of the funniest presentations I ever sat through in a business context. But before we go to break you mentioned something, Lawson, I want to remind everybody of. We just launched a feature on our podcast webpage. So go to manhoodjourney.org/podcast. That’s manhoodjourney.org/podcast. And here’s the feature you’re looking for. You’re looking for this orange box that says, tell us your challenge. Or I think something like that. You may correct me. But there is a little microphone button, and here’s what you can do. You can be on your mobile device or on your computer if you’ve got a microphone, and you can record… I think it’s up to four or five minutes. You can record a message for me and Lawson. And when we get those, in the future, we’re going to start including some of those in future podcast episodes.

Kent :
So tell us your greatest fatherhood challenge. What is your current fatherhood challenge? And we may switch up the question in the future, but right now here’s what I want to know. I want to know your number one fatherhood challenge. Record it into the machine, and the machine will email us a link to your recorded file. And just know… Here’s fair warning, okay. This is the legal disclaimer. There’s a chance we’ll use it on the podcast with your own voice. So don’t give out your social security number. Don’t give out your checking account, unless you’d like to make a tax deductible donation to Manhood Journey. We are glad to take your money.

Lawson:
As soon as you said checking account. I was like, he’s going to do it.

Kent :
You knew where I was going.

Lawson:
Yeah.

Kent :
But truly, we’d love nothing more than to wrestle with and walk through some of your fatherhood challenge questions. So right now-

Lawson:
Yeah. Please, please do this.

Kent :
… pull your car over, yank the thing on the bus, get off the bus, tell your boss the meeting has to take a 30-second break, get up, go to manhoodjourney.org/podcast, and leave us a quick voice memo about your greatest fatherhood challenge. And we’ll have Lawson answer that in a future episode. For right now, let’s dive into a quick break, and we’ll be back with you on the other side.

Kent :
Hey, dad, sometimes being a dad can seem like a very difficult journey for which you and I are ill-equipped, and we need gear on this journey. So we built a seven-part framework, and we call it Survival Gear, the seven must-have tools every dad needs for his journey. We took these tools, we wrapped them all into an ebook, and that ebook is entirely free. You can download this free ebook at manhoodjourney.org/survival-gear. That’s forward slash survival dash gear, manhoodjourney.org. Come snag this free ebook and get equipped for your fatherhood journey.

Kent :
So, Lawson, you mentioned this guy who was presenting one time, Michael, who was a little stilted in the beginning, but questions let him kind of run free. And so I remember one time when I went to a business setting, and different guys had to pitch and give a quick kind of commercial about what they do. And this one guy gets up and he says, hey everybody, my entire presentation, my computer and everything was misdirected on a plane flight, and so I have none of my materials, and I’m going to wing this. And you know, you kind of roll your eyes, and you’re like, oh, it’s going to be horrible. And the guy says, but could I get a volunteer? And I thought, well, wait a minute, this could be interesting. And so another guy comes up out of the audience, and we’re all like just regular Joes at this business thing. And turns out the guy worked for, I think it was Stanley Doors, like those double doors when you go in a Home Depot or you go in an office building or a hotel where you got the sliding doors. And I’m pretty sure, if I remember right, he was the rep for those doors, right? And so he got up and he gave this guy a marker, and they did a flip chart. And he goes just all what I say. And I validated later, none of this was set up. It all happened on the fly. These two guys did not know each other at all. And so the door guy goes, okay, part one, when you walk up to our doors, there is an electronic eye. And so the guy with the marker draws a big eyeball on the flip chart. And so we all start laughing. And he goes, yeah, just like that. And so they start going ba… It was like a comedy show. And he went for like 10 minutes, and it was one of the best presentations I ever saw.

Lawson:
Wow. That’s brave.

Kent :
So memorable. And he just so happened to collect a dude from the audience who was, I mean, a great, straight guy. Because he didn’t laugh. He didn’t goof off. He just drew whatever came out of the guy’s mouth. And so he would say, and you walk up to these doors, and the guy would draw doors on the whiteboard with a little stick figure. It was remarkable. It was so great. And so I always remember that as like, you may come to a moment where you’re supposed to speak up in front and it may not be going well. You just gotta roll with it. And I… Was so entertaining.

Lawson:
That’s fantastic. It sounds like this podcast is about how to give a presentation.

Kent :
All right. So back on topic. How to serve other people.

Lawson:
Let’s talk…

Kent :
How talk about-

Lawson:
Let’s talk about…

Kent :
I’m serving the audience who has to give presentations, Lawson. Gee whiz. So dad, here’s the thing. You may be saying to yourself, self, how do I serve other people? How do I serve other people? Or maybe more specifically, who am I to serve? We’ve talked a little bit about serving our wives. That’s fairly obvious. If you read through the Bible, you see it all throughout. Jesus was the bridegroom, we’re the bride, and so there’s all these metaphors about how he came to serve and not to be served. And so you’re going to find a lot of examples in scripture about serving your wife and how that is a picture of the gospel. Serving our children. My mission in life, in part, is essentially to know God, to love April, and to serve my boys. And then everybody else kind of comes in fourth. Sorry, Lawson. No offense.

Lawson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kent :
And I think it’s so important for dads to realize that kind of cascade because often they think, man, I serve on that volunteer committee or I serve as a deacon or an elder or I serve as a board member of a non-profit. And that’s important. That’s important.

Lawson:
Yeah. I think about people on one of my work teams or something like that too.

Kent :
Yes, absolutely. And so those are all important, but man, we got to begin at home, right? We want to cultivate that at home. So our wives, our kids. How about our bosses? How do we serve either our colleagues or our bosses, Lawson? What are a couple practical ways we can serve our boss or our colleagues?

Lawson:
Well, I think, being a good, responsive person at work and with the attitude that they aren’t here for you, that… Back to the original Philippians 2, that they are more important, we’re doing nothing out of selfishness. Thinking about whether you are the business owner or the ministry leader or in a corporate environment, you’re the manager or in the military, the people that you work with, if you are there to make their job easier, make the…help them be better at their job, take something off of their plate so that they can run faster, doing something that’s more productive that maybe you aren’t gifted in, but they are. I think that’s serving them, and that’s also serving the good of the business or the good of the team. And to me, it’s about the attitude that you bring to it and the perspective that you have of yourself versus them. Because it can be… Depending… Gosh, especially… And I’m thinking about some of the guys out there, like you said, driving down the road or riding your bicycle or on a jog or whatever, where… I happen to have a fantastic boss. One of the smartest guys I’ve ever been with, a great servant heart leader, but there are some guys that are really struggling in their job, and you just do not want to be of service to… Maybe you’ve got some difficult people on your team or maybe your boss is awful and hard to deal with. And it’s going to take a lot out of you to have a servant mindset toward, fill in the blank, that person. And so you’ve got to lean on not yourself to be able to fill that void that maybe you have in your heart or your desire. Maybe you’re going to have to do it out of duty only and pray that it grows over time into eventually, maybe, hopefully, one day delight.

Kent :
Yeah. Yeah. One other constituency I’d love to have the dad listening to this podcast think about when he thinks about who he serves is I’d love to have… Dad, think about how you serve your pastor. So if you go to church, I think there is a temptation to go to church to be fed. And you hear that language. I remember one time I was at an event and a guy came up to me and was talking about why he switched churches, and he said he just wasn’t being. And what’s kind of funny is I had my 16-year-old son, or 17 at the time, he was standing there with me and he overheard this conversation. And after it wound down, we were somewhere else later and he goes, man, dad, you did a good job of holding it together when that guy talked about being fed. Because we’ve had that conversation in our house. I’m not saying we should go to church and endure awful doctrine and have the pastor be completely unbiblical, and you should just keep going. What I am saying is if your default setting is to go to church in order to receive from the church, I would really challenge you to prayerfully reconsider a different posture. When you walk into that building, who can you serve? How can you serve? The job of a pastor is a very challenging, often unforgiving, unrelenting, unrewarding criticism-laiden kind of role. And so as you think about people around you that you can serve, how can you serve your pastor, your men’s pastor, your youth, pastor, your high school pastor that your kids go sit under every week? Rather than just criticize the silly game they played last week or the too much whipped cream in the fun event, how can you serve that guy or that lady? Man, I would love it… I would love it if… I would love to hear a pastor email me and say, hey, we had a guy come up and help serve this weekend, and he said, it’s because he listened to the Father on Purpose Podcast. Nothing would make me happier. Guys, go serve your pastors. And I know you’ve done some of that, Lawson, especially with some church launch stuff you’ve been involved with. Tell us about it.

Lawson:
You made me think of something else too, as a tangible example. I’ve seen… I can’t remember his name. This was a long time ago. A guy that had a case of water bottles in his car and/or would set out into the day with like a $5 bill or a $10 bill that he was just ready to give to some server who did a great job or someone that came across his path throughout the day. And he kept the case of water bottles in his car so that at a red light, a homeless guy on the side of the road, rather than always give money, he would just hand the guy a bottle of water, whether he gave him money or not. But the point was he was ready. He set himself up so that the lens through which he was looking throughout the day was, I know I’m going to come across a situation where someone may need something from me. And so I’m ready. I’m leaving home this morning, and I’m setting out, and my radar is up, and I’m looking.

Kent :
Wow. Just even the presence of the five or $10 bill in your pocket or your wallet, knowing that’s your default setting every morning, would real how you interacted with people. That’s amazing.

Lawson:
Yeah, it’s about being ready. Yeah. And he was one of the most just… You could just feel the joy of him when you’re around him because that’s how he approached life. And he and his wife, they’d been married for… He was just like, come on guy, you have 50 years marriage, you’re a deacon on the church, you’re giving. It was like, oh, I’ve got so far to go.

Kent :
He’s what I call a curve-buster. We don’t need any show-offs in the fatherhood ranks, okay, making the rest of us look bad. Kidding aside, but it truly is… My wife’s cup is really full, and she serves all the time. And so even… Our sons just finished their soccer season, and for my two other boys who play on this other coach’s teams, she bakes cookies and takes them to the coach with a handwritten thank you note, because my wife is always looking to bless those people who are in some other kind of service, if they’re coaching or they’re pastoring. Man, she’s taught me so much about how to serve, and what I’d love to do is leave our dads with a particular scripture verse. And love for you to comment on this, Lawson, as we talk about it. But one of my very favorite verses in all of the Bible is 1 Peter 4:10. 1 Peter 4:10. And what that verse says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s very grace. Then it goes on to describe some of these gifts, but essentially then it goes on to say in verse 11, in order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. And as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. So in short, it says, look, you’ve been given gifts or a gift, and that gift you’ve been given is really not for you. It’s not so you can just roll around in it like a pig in mud. It’s a gift that you’ve been given, and you are to use that gift to serve one another as good stewards of God’s very grace. So in God’s grace, he gave you gifts, and he’s counting on you and me to use those gifts to serve other people. And so in one way, we could say it this way, your gifts are for me, and my gifts are for you. That’s how God builds the body. And so as a dad, when we’re serving our wives and our kids, we are bringing God’s grace like manifested into those relationships because it was he who gave us the power to serve in the first place and the gift to serve with. So, Lawson, close us out talking a little bit about this idea of how we can use our gifts to serve other people and how important it is that we not neglect the gifts that we have because they’re really meant for other people.

Lawson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, with that perspective, that sheds a cool light on it. And I’m thinking about the dads out there who maybe thinking I get it, I want to do something, but I don’t know where to start. Or maybe it’s been a while. I think back to there was this really neat lady at a church that we attended in Kennesaw who started a ministry basically to just go to downtown Atlanta and hand out roses. It was a prostitution ministry, and that’s all they did, was they would go and walk around literally to the corners. And my daughters who were at the time young, mid-teens would go with her. It was a group of people, there was safety, we had precautions. But talk about changing hearts. And it was simply to hand out a rose, tell them they’re beautiful and they’re loved, that God loves them, that Jesus is with them, and then whatever came from that. Maybe that it ended with that, or maybe it turned into something where a really neat prayer moment or in some cases they… the story ends with them coming off the street. But that woman was so specially gifted at that, in uncomfortable situations, just showing love with a heart of being there for someone. I am not that, but I’ve also had some really special moments with some of these guys where we were raising money for… through Shepherds men, back to the original conversation about veterans. We did these long runs, and when you’re out for two, three hours with a small group of guys, you talk about a lot of things and you share your lives. And I was gifted in those moments to both give and blessed to receive from them. And so if you have an open mind and open hands and are praying, God put in them what you want me to do, that will serve others, and you listen, you go back to the example of putting water bottles in your car, go out there, ready. Look, just start. Get out there and start doing something. God will point you in the right direction. And I promise, promise, promise you will be blessed, and you will receive as much as you are giving.

Kent :
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 father on purpose