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Father On Purpose Podcast

The godly dad prepares a strategic game plan

As we prepare our kids for the road ahead, are we identifying the areas in life where they are struggling? Asking ourselves and them how can we help? As the strategic leaders in our families, it’s important to have a solid plan to serve our kids. What are the deepest needs they have? Start with questions and let those guide you in helping their situation and spiritual growth. Your game plan will help your families discern the problem and build towards the solution.

Publish Date: March 11, 2022

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.

Kent Evans:
Hey, Lawson. How’s it going? What’d you do this weekend?

Lawson Brown:
What’s up, dude. I had two very good buddies, we’ve been best friends for decades, they came down and visited for the weekend. We played some golf. We rented electric bikes, which I have never done before. It’s super cool.

Kent Evans:
How was the electric bike experience?

Lawson Brown:
I love it. It’s like where you can set it on zero, one, two, three, four, and the higher the number, the more assist it gives you if you pedal. Or you could just work the throttle like a motorcycle. And if you pedal, the more you pedal, the longer your battery lasts. And you feel like you’re getting a little bit of exercise, which you’re really not, because it’s pretty helpful.

Kent Evans:
We had an unseasonably warm day last week in Louisville, and my wife and I decided to go biking. And we’re going up a hilly part of this biking stretch, she and I, neither of us have an electric bicycle, but there was this guy, probably, I don’t know, 15, 20 years older than us, who went past us on the way up the hill. And like 20 minutes later, had already reached the top and was coming back down on his electric bike. And all I could do was ridicule and judge that guy. I was so mad at him. So mad at him.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I know what you mean. We would blow by some people too, like, doo, doo, doo, doo, easy pedaling and they’re…

Kent Evans:
And I think electric bike makers are intentionally trying to make them not look like electric bikes. You got to look close to notice the battery. Oh, that thing is a, so that-

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, like the battery’s in there? Okay.

Kent Evans:
…so that people can show off and pretend they’re riding on a real bike. You electric bike riders out there, you know who you are. And now you’ve got Lawson sucked into your little cult.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I don’t know if I’ll do it much. They’re pretty doggone expensive.

Kent Evans:
We’re walking through, speaking of electric bikes, which it has no transitional value whatsoever, speaking of electric bikes, how about Nehemiah? Speaking of electric bikes, how about Nehemiah? Man, if he had an electric bike, imagine, imagine how much faster he could have gotten to Jerusalem. But no, he had to get a horse and ride around the city. Oh goodness. So we are talking about Nehemiah. We’re walking through selected, handpicked chapters out of my newest book, called Bring Your Hammer, that I wrote with Eric Ballard, my good friend down in Houston, Texas. And we had him on the podcast a couple weeks ago to get us all kicked off. This week we’re going to cover chapter six or talk through pieces of chapter six from the book, which deal with a stretch really early on in the story about Nehemiah. What’s interesting about the first couple chapters of Nehemiah, or many things are interesting, and an interesting piece of it, is that God preserves for us the length of time that transpired from one moment to the next. So it talks about the Hebrew calendar. And it says in this month, this happened, and then in this month, such and such happened. So what’s very interesting is you can pace the first couple of interactions that we see in the book of Nehemiah, you know how far apart they are. So when Nehemiah’s brother visits, we see a certain timestamp. And then later when Nehemiah asks the king for resources, we see another timestamp. And I find it really interesting that about five months had gone past, unless we misread it or something’s changed, it would appear about five months past from the moment Nehemiah finds out from his brother, Hanani, walls broke down, people are in dire straits. Till the moment we have this interaction between Nehemiah and the king is about five months. And I find it really interesting that that’s preserved for us.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Good catch on that. I wonder if his brother was still there? Was his brother, like-

Kent Evans:
Could have been.

Lawson Brown:
Bro, when are you going to bring this up? It’s been three months.

Kent Evans:
Did you ask him?

Lawson Brown:
Do you remember-

Kent Evans:
Well why not?

Lawson Brown:
You remember why I came here and the whole thing about the whole wall and the city’s crumbling and…

Kent Evans:
Clocks ticking, pal. And what I think’s interesting is along that time, Nehemiah was obviously doing some preparation. And how do we know that? Because when the king says, Hey man, what’s up Nehemiah goes, well, trouble back home. And king says, what do you need? I mean, I paraphrase.

Lawson Brown:
Right.

Kent Evans:
It’s probably worse than The Message paraphrase right here. But I’m paraphrasing. And Nehemiah says, well, I’m glad you asked. And Nehemiah goes, bam, bam, bam. And he starts listing what all he needs. Interestingly, he didn’t just ask for a pallet of wood to go rebuild the gates. He asked for a higher-order question. And he said, you know what I need is I need a letter that lets me get into the Royal forest. So instead of saying, give me a pallet of wood, he’s like, give me access to all the lumber and I’ll pick what I need. Amazing, amazing level of planning and strategy that went on for these several months. I imagine if Nehemiah had access to a Starbucks, which I’m sure he didn’t, but if he’d had access to a Starbucks, he’s meeting with people at the Starbucks. Smart people, construction people. And he’s going, Hey, by the way, let’s say I had to rebuild a door and it’s so big, by so wide. How many pieces of lumber would I need? I think he was doing his homework. I think Nehemiah was doing his homework. And then when he had amassed all of his homework and he knew what to ask for, that’s when he drops the bombshell on the king. Because not only is he going to ask for a bunch of resources, he’s also going to ask for a lot of time off.

Lawson Brown:
And he had also probably, like you wrote, probably consulted and begun to make some things get in other people’s minds and get them prepared as well because he wasn’t going to be able to do this fully alone. How, I don’t know. How did he get from cupbearer to someone that the king is asking, what’s on your mind? And then him being… I guess the relationship had evolved to the point where he could bring this up without being told, you’re simply a cupbearer. That’s a pretty elevated position to feel like you can have a plan, like even this ready to go. And then let’s get into tying it like dad’s.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. Well, what’s interesting is I think how he got from cupbearer to trusted advisor was he rode an electric bicycle.

Lawson Brown:
I’m not going to laugh at that. Sorry.

Kent Evans:
You already did. You could not prevent, for everyone listening the only reason-

Lawson Brown:
Speaking of electric bikes, Nehemiah…

Kent Evans:
The only reason you couldn’t hear Lawson laugh is because of the mute button. So he pretended not to laugh, but in fact he laughed his head off, but he hit the mute button. I used to have a boss, who’s a great guy and I didn’t have a ton of access to him. He was the CEO of the company. But every now and then he would call me and go, Hey man, come over here. And I was 50 yards from his office, 50 feet or so from his office. And so when he called I’d run over. But here’s what I would do. I kept this file in my office and I literally had on the file tab called Questions for Steve. You remember those old file sorters you’d sit on your desk that were the metal things that had the little rack and they would stack them up? I kept my Questions for Steve file on the very top. The easiest one to grab. And here’s what I would do. When he would say, Hey man, come over here. I would instinctively grab my Questions for Steve file, flip it open, and read as I walked. And by the time I got to his office, I had listed down, I probably had, I don’t know, anywhere from 10 to 20 questions perpetually on this list. And it wasn’t like, can I have Wednesday off or can I have a raise? It was stuff I needed. Can I have permission to do this? Or when is this meeting going to happen? Or do you need my help on that presentation? Or can I hire this next person? And so I would have these questions. And as I walked, I’d read down the questions and I’d see 10, maybe 12, and I’d pick one or two, pick one or two, close the file forward, walk into his office and I’d say, okay, what do you need? And he would say whatever he needed. And he may need me for 2 minutes or 30 minutes. It was the bosses prerogative and I would be there as long as he needed. Soon as he got done, I would say, Hey, can I have two more minutes? And he would go, sure. Almost always. And I would say, okay. And then I would state one of my questions. So I was always in this kind of perpetual ready state to ask him for something. And it wasn’t always like he had to give up anything. Sometimes I just needed to know, did he want me to write this one article in such a way or that way? Or did he want me to chase this one PR outlet in such a way or that way? So often they were strategic questions. And I think if I were to compare, even though I wasn’t super, super high on the org chart, kind of like Nehemiah, I could get a trusted moment with the king every so often. Every so often I could get a trusted moment where I could lay one of my requests in front of the king, so to speak. And I think that most of the dads were probably talking to, Lawson, are guys who work for a living. They have a job and they have a boss, or they have a lot of bosses. In my case I got a board of directors, seven guys, and they’re all my bosses. And I think over time we earned the right to ask these questions of the senior leaders in our life by how we’ve used those past interactions.

Lawson Brown:
Something else that you did, I suspect, is you didn’t have a list of things that you needed to run by him just because you needed to gripe about some issue. You went with a solution, or a potential like, Hey, here’s what’s going on and I’m ready to kind of go this way or that way or this other way, one or two or three options. Here’s what I think about this one. Here’s the goods and bads about this other one. What do you think? And offer something besides just, and I don’t have a good example just off the top of my head for our family, but rather than just looking around and then you get a moment, in our case with our family or with our children or with our wife in your case with Steve, and say, you know what it’s been bugging me is so and so, and this issue going on or whatever, and then leave. That’s zero value. It doesn’t help anything. It actually lowers your credibility with him and he doesn’t look forward to the next time, because all you are is a problem pointer outer.

Kent Evans:
PPO. You know what you are? You’re a PPO. You’re a problem pointer outer.

Lawson Brown:
And we can’t be that as dads. It’s like that does nobody any good. And when I say I don’t have a good example of this as a…in our current…nothing comes to mind. I’m talking about some sort of a plan, some sort of a strategic plan. I think we can get to that as far as like, what sorts of things as a dad, can we, by designing some strategy around how we interact with our children, with our wives.

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

Kent Evans:
I’ll tell you one thing that has really helped me over the years. And I hope that as… If you’re a dad listening to this podcast and you are driving down the road or taking notes, or you have a minute to just kind of pause for a moment and file something away in your brain, I want you to file away the word inverse, I N V E R S E, inverse, inverse, or the word opposite. You pick whichever word you like better, but inverse, inverse. And here’s what I mean by that. Let’s say we have a child in our home who’s constantly selfish and they might be young. Maybe they’re five years old and you kind of go well, that’s kind of childish. I mean, eventually, I want them to not be selfish. They might be 17 years old and still be selfish. Sometimes as dads and moms, we can get sucked into the process of just simply criticizing the fact that they’re selfish. We’re PPOs. We’re problem pointer outers. And all we can say is, man, you’re so selfish. You got to stop being selfish. You know what? Don’t be selfish. Quit being selfish. You’re so selfish. However, we’re going to get a lot more mileage out of an electric bike. Sorry, it’s it just keeps coming up. We’re going to get a lot more mileage out of inverting their problem, and then reinforcing the inversion. Here’s what I mean. What’s the opposite of being selfish? Selfless, altruistic, other-centered. We could find a label and we could say, alright, here’s what I want to do. Instead of devoting myself to simply extracting all of your selfishness, child, I’m going to try to insert selflessness. My objective moves from removing selfishness to imparting altruism or imparting selflessness or imparting other-centeredness.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, it’s similar to negative reinforcement/positive reinforcement. And in that case, they get to do something for someone else and then feel the reward, or feel the joy of having seen someone else benefit from something that they did. Maybe they learn from that. And they that’s a better feeling than hoarding their toy or being self-only centered. And I would say, especially for maybe not the younger kids that don’t have access to social media or TV time or whatever, I think there’s a real selfishness, self-centeredness, that comes from posting. I know we’re not going to get into that now. But I think we need to understand where our kids are and not just PPO, not just point out the problem all the time, but talk to them about it and really get their thoughts on where it maybe coming from, get them to verbalize it a bit. And then let’s figure out a way to invert that, like you said, and go on a different journey. I interrupted you, but…

Kent Evans:
No, I think you’re spot on, man. Here’s what I would love for dads to consider. And part of it is, as you described, it’s negative reinforcement versus positive reinforcement. The other piece of the puzzle is, what are the things we could put in their life, experiences, that would cause them to grow in the area of the inverse? So like, as an example, as an example. I’m not saying don’t take your kids to Disney World. I’m not saying it’s evil. What I’m saying is if you have to choose one year between taking them to Disney World and possibly spending that money going on a mission trip, I’m not saying every year. I’m not anti going on vacation. What I am saying is, maybe there’s a year where you go, what we’re going to do this year is we’re going to spend that money going on a mission trip. And the reason is, I want my kids to learn how to invest in other people, or how to change their stewardship habits, or how to spend time serving other people. Now, again, this, hope you’re not just dialing in right now and go, Kent hates vacations. Quite the opposite. We just got back from one. I love taking my family places where we can enjoy each other’s company. What I am saying is, are there ways we can put in their life, the experiences that would cause them to grow in the inverse? So for example, if your child is a teenager, just use the teenager as an example, and they don’t listen very well to you, that you feel like you’re giving them commands frequently or telling them to consider a path over and over, and they continually don’t listen to you, the question might become, have they developed the muscle of being able to listen to wiser minds and apply that to their life? And then you might need to get creative. You may need to get them around other people. I remember when my oldest son was kind of coming up through the ranks at our church, in terms of playing worship music. He was a really good guitar player, good singer. And so he got opportunities to play in various worship music contexts. There was one guy who was the leader of the worship team who I had super high respect for. I thought this guy was really, really sharp, spiritually grounded. I liked this guy a lot. And I remember encouraging my son to spend more time with that guy. I knew my son would be drawn to him because of that guy’s musical skill and upfront ability. But I also knew there was a character component, a care for others, a missional kind of mindset that I wanted my son exposed to. So instead of just wondering about the deficit and saying, Hey, stay away from bad people, I was trying to invest in the opposite, invest in the inverse. Hey, get close to good people. And I kept encouraging that. And here we are, 10 years later-ish, ballpark, and my oldest son is a really good worship leader with his head screwed on straight. He’s a sharp young man. And I’m not saying that was the reason. I mean, God’s sovereign. He’s going to do whatever he wants. I do think as dads, we can fall into that trap, man, of just being PPOs. We just point out the problem and we don’t come up with a strategic game plan to solve it.

Lawson Brown:
And when you talk about strategic game plan, that I want to hone in on that. My idea around that is, what sorts of things need a strategy? Not everything falls into the category of, yeah, let’s sit down and give this some real strategic thought and put together a game plan. But some does. There are things in my early 20-year-old daughter’s lives like saving, investing. Some of the that’s kind of a tactile, tangible example. It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with their character growth. But as an example, that is something that you can sit down with them and have conversations about, talk about the pros and cons, model some of why when it looks bad, some of the consequences versus the inverse of that. When you’re doing it well, what does that feel like? What does that look like when it’s being done right. Something that I thought was interesting you brought up once before was, what was it Joseph that said, we’re going to have seven years of plenty, seven years of famine. And then he said, so let’s set aside for the next seven years, a fifth of all the grain, which is 20%. So seven years, times 20% is more than what’s going to be needed. And so I think there’s some real wisdom in that, at least specifically for the example of from a less selfish standpoint. Part of the reason that you want to save and tithe, perhaps tithe is a better example than saving and investing, because it’s so much less self-centered. I just didn’t think about it at the time.

Kent Evans:
Well, no, I think I would maybe even say, Lawson, how our kids approach money in total is really important. We all know, man, money pressure… There’s a few pressures like money pressure. Financial pressure can be devastating. In fact-

Lawson Brown:
Especially in a young marriage.

Kent Evans:
My goodness.

Lawson Brown:
And if you begin that conversation, you start enacting a strategy around how you view money when they get married, you’re way too late.

Kent Evans:
Well, and, oh my goodness, no doubt. And you look at, for example, what you were doing with your daughters, if you’re talking about either saving or investing or having a rainy day fund or any of the things. I think that’s one of the reasons why, if you look backward over the last 30 years at the time of recording this episode, we’ve watched the meteoric rise of a company like Ramsey Solutions with Dave Ramsey is because money is so important. And it’s not impossible to get the basics right. It’s not like you got to have a PhD in finance to understand you should probably spend less than you make. That’s not the most complicated financial concept in the world, but clearly in terms of putting it into practice, it is a little challenging. And I think we’re doing our kids a great favor. So for example, as opposed to simply telling our children, don’t waste your money, don’t burn through all your savings, don’t spend more than you make, we do help them set up a budget. Or remember the old, if you’re really struggling-

Lawson Brown:
And then when things come up, you go, okay, so we’ve talked about this. We have a plan. How does wanting that, buying that, going to that thing fit into your plan?

Kent Evans:
Exactly. And instead of simply kind of chidding our kids and getting on them all the time about what they don’t do right, we are putting in place. And I think that’s for me, the essence of where I want to be as a dad, is I want to be at the place where I’m noticing the things in my children’s lives that are their tendencies. Do they have a tendency to be angry? If they have a tendency to be angry, then I’ve got some choices. One choice is I can try to help them have self control as it relates to their anger, which is not a bad idea, not a bad idea. However, I would argue, that’s a good idea. A better idea might be to help them understand how to live in a state of peace. So not just when you get angry, don’t break the door handle or don’t kick anything. Don’t kick the dog. That’s okay. Yeah, sure. Ephesians says, don’t sit in your anger. But there’s 50+ other verses about how to live in peace and not become angry in the first place. And so if my child has a tendency toward greed or anger or lust… So lust is a great one. If we notice that our children have a tendency toward lust, do we just say, don’t look at pornography. Don’t be on your phone late. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Of course, we got to play some defense. However, I think dads often play a lot of defense and not a lot of offense. And so as we’re preparing our strategic game plans for our children, we want to say, Hey man, what’s a good use of your time? Especially, what’s a good use of your time after say nine or 10:00 PM? Because that might be when the temptation is running its highest. And so how can we use our time? Should we just get to bed earlier? There may be strategies we can put in play that are offensive and strategic and not just defensive and reactionary. So here’s what I would love to do. Let’s take some of our moments here, Lawson, as we go down the last portion of today’s episode. Let’s talk about… There’s a dad listening. And as the dad listens, here’s what I want to encourage the dad to do. In your head, how many children do you have? How many children do you have? Lawson has two. I have five. I have a daughter-in-law so we’ll call her six. So I have six children that I care about. Lawson has a couple. As you think about your children, I wonder if you could identify in each child’s life, what is an area of current weakness for them? What’s an area where they are struggling, whether they know it or not. If they are currently going through a severe addiction, they might know it’s obvious to them and everybody around them. Or it might be a little more subtle or they just have a tendency to be a little fearful. They have a tendency to be a little greedy. They have a tendency to be a little lazy. What are those things? And I want you to think child by child. Think little Joey and what’s his tendency. And little Billy and little Sarah and little Mary, what are their tendencies? And then I want you to think, what’s the inverse of that tendency? What’s the inverse of that tendency? So for example, the inverse of greediness is not just stewardship, it’s generosity. The opposite of being greedy is being generous. So if you have a child who is kind of bent toward being greedy, instead of simply trying to tell them to not be greedy and bring them back to center, let’s push the other side of this pendulum and swing it all the way over to how could they be more generous? And I think, and so it goes with parents, especially dads, are we preparing a strategic game plan within the area of both at what I would call kind of three levels. One level is the family level. So financial planning or vacation planning or building that wing on the house or whatever you’re going to do at the family level that may involve effort and time. Or the marriage level. For me and April, for example, what are the things I’m doing that are strategic in the area of my marriage? And then third in the area of our children, what are we doing in the area of our children to help each of them have more of a strategic game plan as they’re walking in and it’s very dependent upon their circumstances. So probably, Lawson, you’ve had your daughters walk through situations, whether it was opportunities in their potential careers, or choices about maybe college, or dating options when they were in their teen years and started to become interested in boys or dating. What are some things that you did as a dad that you look back on and go, man, you know what? I was actually kind of being strategic in that regard. You may not have even have realized it right at the moment that it happened, but I’ll bet you there’s a season or two where you can go back and think about specifically and tactically, how were you strategic as a dad? And what’s one way you can share an idea with one of our listeners. Or maybe it’s the opposite. You can think back at a time when you weren’t very strategic and you think, man, yeah, that one, I would’ve like to have that one back.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. And I’ll keep it short. So I do not have a file folder system called Strategic Planning by child by any stretch, but something that we have kind of become more intentional about. And it did begin with kind of some, not issues, but not clarity, lack of clarity, and the idea around dating. And now that they’re in their early 20s, you kind of begin to lean forward a little bit into, it’s not just dating to meet new people and get a feel for it. It’s like with something greater in mind and that is your spouse and what sort of family do you want to have and build? And what characters will that spouse, what would you want them to bring into that relationship with you? And so rather than just pick apart, not only people that they’ve gone on dates with or things that were said or things that were considered or whatever… What did you say?

Kent Evans:
I was saying, remember that one guy? Remember thing about him? Mm. That kid.

Lawson Brown:
Right. But we’ve begun to use that to, like you said, kind of conversely, what was the experience and what would’ve made it great? What was that one missing in context of your future husband and the future family that you want to build? Now there was no… We didn’t sit down my wife and I, and come up with, here’s the three things for this kid and three things for this kid that we’re going to be more strategic about. I wish, and honestly, simply talking this through today, based on Bring Your Hammer. I think I am going to create a little, short little list and the thing that you describe your really well. But something else I’m going to do is I’m going to ask them. It’s not just going to be my opinion of what I think they could work on better, is ask them, what is something that’s really on your mind? Like Steven Kendrick said, when he was on here with us, where he would ask them, what are you thinking about the most lately? And then just shut up and let them talk. And so, absorb that back from your children and go, okay, well, you know what, let’s put a plan together. You don’t need to go into, we’re going to develop a one-year strategy and it’s going to have seven steps. Let’s just, okay, great. Then can I help you with that? Can maybe I kick around some ideas for a plan to take you from where you are to where you want to be? And then stop talking and let them get it off their mind.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I often think if we just ask our kids the right questions, they tend to build things pretty smart. And for me, one of the hard things to do is… Well, I use my own example. Throughout my career, one of my strengths has been my ability to think quick on my feet and communicate. Those are a couple strengths I have. However, those are… When they get fully dialed up, those become total control of every situation is what I’m after-

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

Kent Evans:
And I can usually use my mouth and break down relationships and get in the way. And so for me, even my strengths fully dialed up, become weaknesses, right?

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

Kent Evans:
What I had to learn was, what’s the opposite? What’s the opposite of running your mouth all the time? It’s not just necessarily being quiet. It’s not just necessarily being quiet. It’s being a really good listener, being a really good listener. And so I think over the last, I don’t know, 5 or 10 years, again, I’m not where I want to be, but I am moving forward. I think I’m becoming a better listener.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. That’s the inverse of talking too much and talking over people.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. That’s the inverse. And so for me, the minute I can say to myself, man, I’m really frustrated about going west. And then instead of saying that I go, you know where I want to go, is I want to go east. The minute I can just state the opposite, all of a sudden, doors start to open. And I begin to pivot. And I look at a compass or I turn my GPS. And I think as dads, the thing I’d love to kind of release, if we have 1,000 dads or 10,000 dads listen to this episode, I hope we have a 1,000 or 10,000 little miniature awakening moments where the dads go, man, I’m going to stop telling my kid that he’s lazy, or I’m going to stop barking at him for being lazy. And instead I’m going to put in some kind of ideas or plans for how he could become more industrious.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Right on.

Kent Evans:
Or more hardworking. I think it changes a lot about hard parenting when we can do that. So I’m hoping dad’s listening to this will consider the inverse. Consider the flip side of the challenge they have personally, in their marriage, and their homes, with their children. And begin to build some strategies around how to flip that. And instead of trying to remove the negative, we’ll try to implant the positive. It’s not just a surgery of extraction. It’s a surgery of embedding. So let’s dive in, man. Let’s do that as Nehemiah did it in the book of Nehemiah. Rather than spend five months sitting around doing nothing, and then when the question comes up, you get shocked and surprised and go, I don’t know. What do you think we should do? Instead of that, let’s have a strategic game plan as dads to help our families, our wives, and our children discern the inverse, discern the problem and then it’s opposite. And then begin to build strategies and ideas for how to go chase that opposite. Dad, Lawson and I both hope you will go do this, this week. And then we will be back with you next week to cover another chapter from the book, Bring Your Hammer, 28 Tools Dads Can Grab From the Book of Nehemiah. And if you can’t afford the book, then just listen to these podcasts. If you can afford the book, what are you waiting on? Go get a copy now on Amazon. We hope this week’s episode has been an encouragement. Dad’s, keep up the good work.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, I hope that episode, that Lawson and I just covered, gets you excited about learning from Nehemiah. If you would like to sample the book, Bring Your Hammer, that Eric Ballard and I co-authored, you can do that right now at manhoodjourney.org/hammer. Manhoodjourney.org/hammer. Go to the website right now. And you can snag the first two chapters of the book completely free. And if those aren’t good enough for you to want to buy the other 26 chapters, no harm, no foul. Thanks dad. Have a great week.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, I hope that episode, that Lawson and I just covered gets you excited about learning from Nehemiah. If you would like to sample the book, Bring Your Hammer, that Eric Ballard and I co-authored, you can do that right now at manhoodjourney.org/hammer. Manhoodjourney.org/hammer. Go to the website right now. And you can snag the first two chapters of the book completely free. And if those aren’t good enough for you to want to buy the other 26 chapters, no harm, no foul. Thanks dad. Have a great week.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, thank you for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode helpful, remember you can get all the content and show notes at manhoodjourney.org/podcast. And if you really liked it, please consider doing three things. Number one, share this podcast with someone. You can hit the share button in your app, wherever you listen to podcasts, or just call a person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically. That helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

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

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