The Power of Interruptions

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:
Hello, Kent. How are you today?

Kent Evans:
Am I in trouble? It sounds like the voice you’d use when I’m in trouble.

Lawson Brown:
Go ahead and have a seat, Kent.

Kent Evans:
So, Lawson, you can just start talking about whatever you want to talk about, and then I’m going to demonstrate-

Lawson Brown:
Why, because you’re going to do something and-

Kent Evans:
Oh, see, you just interrupted me.

Lawson Brown:
I knew it. I did not want to be the first to start talking because I knew that’s what you were going to do. Man, I know you. I know you too well.

Kent Evans:
Oh, darn it.

Lawson Brown:
I knew you probably woke up this morning going, “I cannot wait to just interrupt him over and over.”

Kent Evans:
Almost pounce on him like a lion in a Serengeti.

Lawson Brown:
Like a spider monkey.

Kent Evans:
Like a spider monkey. Today’s episode is entitled, even though they don’t always have an official title. Today’s episode is entitled The Power of Interruptions.

Lawson Brown:
I like what you did with that, because that’s not how it started, but there can be value, well, there certainly is value in interruptions. If we’re talking about our children who we love dearly and we would do anything for. And no matter what we’re working on, when they need our time, we absolutely always drop everything we’re doing and take care of them-

Kent Evans:
Man.

Lawson Brown:
…with a happy heart.

Kent Evans:
With a happy heart on the inside. I know that daddies outside say why have you interrupted me for the 19th time this hour? But on the inside, I have a happy heart. I think it’s interesting when you look at the idea of interruptions and one of the things that wars against us is this, I call it Western. I’m not sure that it’s uniquely American or Western, but it’s this mentality that if I’m on a mission, if I’m a leader and I’m going to get it done guy, then I just can’t be distracted. I got to eliminate all distractions and I got to go, go, go. And sure, there is absolutely some wisdom in not allowing certain things to distract us, if we’re headed to an objective. Jesus said, “For the joy set before him,” or in Hebrews we hear, “For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.” He had a mission. He was headed to the cross and he knew increasingly that that was the big plan. God had revealed that to Him, He knew, but along the way, along the way, Jesus was interrupted hundreds of times. And one of the things I think that we get out of balance a little bit is that sometimes our mission should include interruptions. And here’s what I mean by that is, if I’m a dad trying to disciple my kids, I cannot always predict when those moments will jump out and get me. Those moments may come on the car ride to pick up something at the grocery store, or those moments may come on an evening when they come home after something at church and they have something on their mind or their heart. And so, for me, interruptions are not a distraction from the game plan, interruptions as a dad are in fact part of the game plan.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. That’s not easy to remember or implement sometimes. But listening to you just then, I remembered when our oldest, Abigail, was younger. So, we have two daughters, Abigail and Olivia. Olivia’s the youngest. And as a young girl, young kid, she was just 90 miles an hour, talk and talk and talk and talk. And you always knew what was on her mind, you never had to have a quiet moment, sit down. If she thought it, if she felt it, it was out. Abigail was maybe a little more pensive, a little more introspective at the time as a younger kid. And not that we would intentionally necessarily go create these moments because they had to happen naturally. But in her own time, in her own space, Abby would open up and we would have some special conversation. But it, generally speaking, was not when we said, “Hey, Abby, let’s sit down and talk.” It usually happened spontaneously with her. And so, we had to be sensitive to those times where an interruption may happen because that’s when it was happening with her. And so, we learned that over time and became a little bit better, but it doesn’t happen naturally. In fact, I still struggle a good bit with everything is for me planned. I mean, I said that too. My wife would be laughing. It’s pretty planned, my calendar records everything. I’m very, very OCD about the space throughout the day, and it holds obligations and meetings and call reminders and to-do slots. And so, for me, natural interruptions that just come are like, I don’t know that I deal with them as well as I should.

Kent Evans:
Well, and to some degree, hasn’t that capacity to schedule your time intentionally probably helped you in your career? So, like at work, sometimes that ability to say, “Hey, man, I’m planning my days. I might even plan open office hours in the afternoon when interruptions are welcomed.” But that ability to plan your day probably has catapulted your career, right, Lawson?

Lawson Brown:
I had a boss once back when I was in Louisville, back when I worked for the chamber.

Kent Evans:
Back when you lived in God’s country.

Lawson Brown:
Oh, I do miss parts of it.

Kent Evans:
That was very diplomatic.

Lawson Brown:
But we’re pretty happy right here, let me tell you.

Kent Evans:
Good grief.

Lawson Brown:
He had, call it, I don’t know, seven or eight of me who each had a team or a department or whatever. Everybody was busy. He certainly had reason to be busier than me or than any of us, but I was just amazed that almost without fail, if I went to him, interrupted him, it was like he had all the time in the world and just shut his laptop and turned his phone over and walked around and sat down and shut his door, and it was just like nothing more important than me and whatever I needed. And he taught me a big lesson in how valuable that is in a business setting or in any setting, to give someone your full attention. And I, over time, got to know him a lot better and just learn from him like how in the world do you do this. You have every right to be triple as busy as me, but it never seems like it. And it was because he was on purpose about it. And now, we didn’t just sit around and look at our watch and go, “Gosh, we’ve just been shooting the breeze for two hours.” He did manage and control that to a degree, but I envied and learned from him that ability to do that. And some of it is, I don’t remember who wrote the book, but there’s a book called Margin. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Kent Evans:
No, I haven’t had time to read it.

Lawson Brown:
That’s hilarious. Well, then I’ll make it short and quick, okay, Kent.

Kent Evans:
I know what short meant there. I understand.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, I know. But it was about building into your life, the ability to have some buffer time.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, certain jobs by definition are jobs of interruption. So, for example, if you were an EMT, your whole life is to be ready to be interrupted. You’re sitting at the station cleaning off the car and you’re putting the oxygen tanks back where they belong and all that, and then the siren goes off and the call comes in and you don’t go, “Oh, come on. Couldn’t she wait to have a heart attack until a few minutes from now? I’m really busy cleaning the vehicle.” No, in fact, you signed up for a job where interruptions are the job. You’re spending your days and your nights prepping to be interrupted. And I think that mindset is a much more healthy mindset for most dads. It’s almost like there’s a switch, where at work, there’s a high degree of planning and efficiency that comes with, especially with Western or white-collar type jobs, even blue-collar jobs, where you’re building something and you’re working with your hands, you got to get so many things built every day. And being interrupted is a negative. Any downtime on the line, any parts that aren’t there on time, those kinds of interruptions are super unwelcome. And then in white-collar jobs, you got schedules and budget meetings and things that happen. We tend to take all that stuff that works for us at the job and we try to map it on our family, where everything is scheduled and everything’s in rows and columns. And I think it helps if we think of our job as dads, to be more like that of an EMT than to be like that super scheduled kind of guy. Because I’ll go back in a minute. I want you to comment on that EMT thing, Lawson, but I’m going to go back in a minute and just take our listeners through a few examples of when Jesus was interrupted because He was interrupted all the time. If you pull out the interruptions from Jesus ministry, you cut out half of the New Testament that’s recorded what Jesus did, because it was as He was good going then something happened. And He was always willing to be interrupted along the way for the sake of the people around Him that he loved and wanted to serve.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I saw in the show notes, you put that article in there. I didn’t see it in time to go deep with it. But when, literally, while you were just explaining the EMT, I thought of that. I wondered, Jesus while teaching, or I’ve always had this, well, frankly, a little bit of envy of the disciples and them getting to go and go fishing and just sitting around the campfire, talking with Him. But it was like, no matter what He was doing, the most important thing could be trumped immediately by someone in need.

Kent Evans:
Oh, yeah.

Lawson Brown:
And so, when you were talking about EMT, that was what He did. He came to spend time seeking the lost and the sick. And so, while He’s walking through towns, while He’s teaching, someone voices a need, or he spotted something, it was like the show stopped. And I won’t go into a whole lot of this, but there’s recently, depending on when this has been released, there was a real tragedy in a concert where people got trampled and suffocated and died, and the artist with the microphone did not stop things. I happened to be this past weekend at a concert as well, completely, totally different. And something did happen in the crowd and the artist noticed it and he stopped singing, stopped the show, called the crew guys to get full, bright lighting on, and made sure that that person got taken care of. And I thought, first of all, I love this artist. And you can get glimpses of how real a person is through interviews and stuff like that, I just think he’s a real person. But in that moment, I thought that guy’s priorities are right, because he didn’t just half-heartedly point, but keep the show going, it was like, “Stop everything. We have a much more high priority.” And listening to you talk about EMT and then seeing this article about the hundreds of times that Jesus… Jesus came here for interruptions. His life was about looking for them. And I think we can do a better job as dads too. You can’t create spontaneity, but you can be more ready for it.

Kent Evans:
Well, and what’s interesting about this as you study the life of Jesus and the interruptions, you find that two things were true, that a lot of guys would say are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. Number one, Jesus was on a mission. He had a thing to do that was extremely important, the most important mission of all time. So, He was mission-driven. So, a lot of guys will say, “Well, I can either get my mission accomplished or I can be open to being interrupted.” Well, somehow, Jesus was able to do both. He didn’t just come down and go, “All right, guys, look, I don’t know what I’m going to do for the next three years, anybody got any ideas?” That’s not how He came at it. He was on the mission, but his mission was people. And I think that’s where the duality really lives. The idea that I can be on mission and be willing to be interrupted frequently must mean that my mission has something to do with the people who are interrupting me. So, as an example, we see in Matthew 8, it says, “Now, when Jesus had entered Capernaum,” verse five, “A centurion came to Him, pleading with Him saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” So, not only was Jesus being interrupted, He was being interrupted by “the enemy.” He wasn’t just a Jewish guy who came up to Him in this case, who said, “Hey, rabbi, help me out.” It was a centurion. Later, one of these centurions, they’re going to nail him to a cross. And the occupation by Rome and the control by Rome was not welcomed. And so, not only was Jesus willing to be interrupted, he was willing to be interrupted by really anybody, even what some would’ve called an enemy. And Jesus immediately said to him, “I will come and heal him.” And then the centurion says, “I’m not worthy. Just say it and it’ll work.” And Jesus marveled and said, “I’ve not found such a great faith, not even in Israel.” Isn’t that interesting? If we go back in time, He gets interrupted by a Roman soldier and then He compliments the Roman soldier’s faith, and then He even compares it and says, “This is faith even better than what I’ve seen in Israel.” And some of the Jews were probably not super happy about that particular comparison. But later on, I won’t go into all of them, but we see Jesus going to Peter’s house and Peter’s mother-in-law was lying sick, and Jesus heals her. Jesus gets interrupted by the disciples. As an example, He’s sleeping on the boat and the disciples are freaking out. They interrupt Him. The demon-possessed men. And also in Matthew 8. And He met two demon-possessed men and it doesn’t seem like He was necessarily going to see them. By a paralyzed man in Matthew 9. By Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew 9. Just in two chapters, we can find five or six or seven examples of people who interrupted Jesus. And not only did He go, “All right, fine, what do you want? Yeah, you got my attention.” And He sat the paper down. He put his iPhone down. That’s not how he related to these people. So, I guess the question for us as dads, Lawson, is what mission are we on as a dad, that is more important than the interruptions of our children?

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-free-dad.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, I feel like if I had been one of the disciples, I would’ve been the guy that would’ve said like in Matthew 19, when the little children were brought up and they come running and Jesus says, “Let them come to me.” I could see Him waving his arms like just kids just come running. I would’ve been the disciple that was one of the ones who was rebuking that. He was like, “Hey, he doesn’t have time for the kids. He’s teaching, don’t interrupt.”

Kent Evans:
Do your kids have an appointment? I want to see. Did any of you kids use the order-ahead app? Because I don’t think any of you are supposed to be here right now. I have gotten better at this over time as a dad. I still have a long way to go. Technology encroaches on our families, obviously. And 20 years ago or 30, 40 years ago, I got to go back farther to get to when I was actually a child. My dad didn’t have a mobile phone to distract him all the time, but he had television, he had the newspaper and things. Not that he was distracted, that’s not why I’m saying it. I’m just saying there were probably fewer things in his life that encroached upon him. At 7:00 or 8:00 at night, when I find myself being interrupted, I’ll tell you what I’m finding now as a dad of two boys who are now out of the house. I mean, one’s in college. And so, not officially all the way out, but one’s married and finishing up college. And I’m finding now that I love it when they interrupt me and they call me or they text me. They’re not physically here and I love it. Just the other day, my son texted me a picture of something he’s working on. He’s in architecture school, up near Chicago, and he texted me a photograph of his latest design project. And I remember just seeing it and thinking, “Man, that thing is so cool.” And I was so pumped that he sent it to me. I really enjoy these opportunities, even though this may not come through on the podcast, Lawson. And that’s what he texted me the other day, this diagram of a drawing that he did by hand of a space that he was sitting in. And I just thought-

Lawson Brown:
That’s great.

Kent Evans:
…it’s not a big deal. It’s not like he went to a lot of trouble. It’s a small interruption. And I think as a dad, the question is, like the EMT, is my heart set and my mindset that my job is to basically be preparing to be interrupted? Is that where my mind and my head is? And I think a lot of our Western productivity type culture, it’s like, “Man, if it ain’t planned, it ain’t happening. If it ain’t scheduled, it doesn’t matter.” That may serve us well in at the office, but I don’t think that mentality serves us very well at home.

Lawson Brown:
I mean, it does serve well to get certain things done, but it doesn’t serve us well if we, like you said, are all about our mission as people, because life is just always happening and always changing and you just can’t plan for everything. So, you’ve got to have some space. You’ve got to be ready. I’m not the one to be talking about how to do this best. But in fact, this podcast is speaking to me personally, and it’s a reminder of the value that can come from these interruptions. Like you, my children are a bit older. They have jobs, they have friends, they’re coming and going. So, I may be the interrupter, trying to get some of their time. We’re all just busy. But thinking back to really special moments, it was going for an unplanned walk together or reading a book and having some quiet time and something sparks an idea out of… While Olivia’s reading a book and we start talking, it’s these unscripted, unplanned moments that with the wrong lens, they appear to be an interruption, but what they are is an opportunity for a really valuable time together, a really valuable conversation. This is less so about how to discard these habits of planned-ness that we may have as productive people and more about our perspective and our mindset on our mission. Like you said, our mission is people and that’s our children, that’s our wives, that’s our coworkers, that’s our teammates. And so, I think it’s a shift in the way that we see walk through our daily life.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, it is for sure. And here’s the thing that I would love to have happen, I would love to be the same guy in every setting and scenario, where I don’t put on a face for a certain group or a face for another group. And here’s what would be really sad, I don’t quite work in an office anymore. I work today is mostly in my basement, or even pre-COVID. I was working mostly in coffee shops and I’d be meeting with donors or partners or dads all the time. And so, I’m usually on the go. But back when I had an office and I would occasionally be interrupted, well, often be interrupted, I think I probably had a reputation, at least to some degree, Lawson, like your boss, where I was willing to be interrupted. I’m kind of ADD anyway, so fine, interrupt me, do me a favor. My brain is a series of constant interruptions anyhow. But I think what happens to guys is they become one way at work, they’re a different way at home. And here’s what I would never love to have happen. The good news about where we live is our boys have all grown up in this community and they’ll interact with a lot of guys that I interact with. So, they’ll be at my church or they’ll be at a coffee shop. So, a lot of the adult men in their life are guys that I run with or guys that I am counseled by or counsel or interact with. And so, the reason I mention that is because my boys have regularly bumped into guys who I work with. And what I would love to have happen is I would love for there not to be some dissonance in terms of who I am to those guys, versus who I am at home. So, for example, I might be sitting at a Starbucks and a guy will walk up to me and I may be writing, or I may be even on a Zoom call or whatever, and I may give off this kind of vibe that I am not willing to be interrupted. Do I give that same vibe?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. Man, I’ll tell you what, I think we could do more on this. I think this is big. Our culture is so do it fast, do it now, don’t take your eye off the ball. Nothing’s more important than what you’ve got immediately in front of you. And it’s so easy to just keep that frenzy, that flywheel just never stops. I’d love to see us go even deeper on this. I don’t know necessarily next one or something like that. And I want to encourage, guys, and remind you, if you haven’t heard, on the website manhoodjourney.org/podcasts, journey.org/podcasts, there’s now an orange button called start recording. And it says, “Share a current challenge with us.” I’d like to ask a favor of our guys listening. It says, “Share a current challenge with us.” Share maybe related to the challenge of patience and avoiding interruption, maybe not seeing interruptions as what they truly are, which is an opportunity, a moment to make something of, and maybe hear God’s heart for yourself, for your child, for your wife. As a dad, go on, you can click record. We will get that recording in an email, play it on the show, perhaps, and hear you talk about the way that you have interacted with this, maybe, struggle and found an interesting way to deal with it. And a way to incorporate something into your life, some habit, or maybe the lack of something, you’ve killed some habit. And have begun to do better at allowing some margin, at allowing some buffer into your life, so that when interruptions do happen, you’re not frustrated by them. You’re not taken off what you believe is your course by them, but that your mission is people. Your mission is a dad, and therefore, your mission is your children and allowing these interruptions to come and see them for what they are. Would you do that? Would you go online and click that start record button. We’ll get it. We’ll go through them and pull out of there something that’s not coming from Kent and I. This show is about you guys. I’d love to hear from y’all.

Kent Evans:
I would, man. And especially if your story is really rough and horrible because then it’ll make me feel better. I’m just kidding, that’s a joke. That’s a joke. That’s a joke. A little bit of a joke. I would love to hear that, man. I would love to hear the things that interrupt you, that drive you crazy, the times when you were interrupted and you were unkind or unhelpful, or the of times of victory. Give us a story about, you’ve kind of figured this out and you’ve built interruptions into the rhythm of your family and they all know it’s okay to interrupt dad. Man, that’d be awesome. We’d love to hear from you. We made it simple, there’s just a button. You mash it and click the button, and you can talk right into your phone or your mic or whatever you got handy. And we’ll get that email and we’d love to include those in the show. Thank you for remembering to say that, Lawson. Dads, listen, interruptions are powerful things. Interruptions are the stuff that life’s made of. And if you pull all the interruptions out of Jesus’ life, you pull out almost all of the most famous and interesting stories in the four gospels, are somehow connected to an interruption. And so, dad, be interruptible, be interruptible. And be that kind of guy that sees interruptions as welcome moments when you can spontaneously pour into the life of the people around you, first, your wife, then your kids, and then this podcast. Let this podcast interrupt you every Friday when we release a new episode. We hope it has been a blessing and we will see you next week. God bless you guys.

Lawson Brown:
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 podcasts, or just call a person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically. That helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

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