Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 21 | Kids Are a Blessing

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Ep. 21 | Kids Are a Blessing · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:06
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Beth Key, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:27
  What's up, guys? Jeff and Jeremy here back today for another episode of 5-Minute Fatherhood. I'm excited about this one. We're going to start with a quote today, and then we kind of want to talk about the problem that that quote addresses and brings up. And that is a quote from, we think, the John Green that a lot of us know and love and read on YouTube and with his novels. And the quote is, The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something you are unqualified to do.
• 0:50
  And then you become qualified while doing it. Now, Jeremy, I don't know about you, but that's literally almost like I'm struck with fear, anxiety and laughing at the same time. It's so true. Like, it's just we're kind of thrown into this. But there's also a blessing in that. And I want to hear you read something and talk about that for a second.
• 1:07
  Yeah, so I think we all feel like when you have that baby, it feels unbelievably surreal that they let you out of the hospital without any training. And when you think about this is the way God originally designed it, he wanted us as dads to get training on the job. And so I think it's fair to ask the question, why is God taking this risk?
• 1:29
  for whose benefit? Is it really the child's benefit? I mean, they're not exactly the one who is benefiting from the fact that we have almost no experience. And so I've been thinking about this for a long time and been pondering and trying to figure this out in my own heart and just understanding God's sort of design. And so I wrote something I want to read to you guys and just ponder a little bit with Jeff.
• 1:49
  The Bible never actually says fathers are a blessing, though of course they are. It says children are a blessing. This is from Psalm 127, because they are 100% of the time. What this means, dads, is today is a great day for you to thank God for making you a father.
• 2:06
  Having a group of humans completely dependent on your leadership, protection, and provision is always a blessing first to you. Our culture gets this backwards. We think fathers are the ones making the sacrifice. Really? Think about it. None of us were ready for this responsibility when it came. Most of us were totally self-focused boys when someone put that first baby into our arms.
• 2:29
  We practice learning to become real men on our children through fatherhood. What a risk God takes in trusting children into our care. He could have found a safer way for children to be raised, but he loved us so much. He made us fathers.
• 2:45
  And I'm so blessed that my children made me a father. God only knows the self-destructive, self-focused, confused, and foolish boy I'd be without them. And so I think that this really encourages me to feel the love that God has for us as dads and also helps us avoid self-pity. Because I think that one of the things that we often feel like is we are sacrificing so much for our children, and I totally get why we think that.
• 3:10
  But if you look at it from God's perspective, which really is the only perspective that's truly objective, it's the one that really brings us into alignment with really truth, from God's perspective, he's really trying to raise us. He wants to raise us from boys into men. He wants to prepare us to become sons of the kingdom. And so what better way than all of the ways that you're refined by having to—
• 3:35
  really care for children and raise a family team. I think that's a lot closer to the reason why we are handed children without training in advance. God wants to raise us up, and this is the method that he—he's the one who decided to do it. So yeah, what does that stir up for you, Jeff?
• 3:55
  Oh, I love that. I think it's so true. I mean, for some reason, the two first words that popped into my head that I want to talk to dads today in the five minutes we have is, don't run. And what I mean by that is I think a lot of times our natural inclination is when the burden becomes bigger, the responsibility comes bigger, the vocation becomes bigger, the mission becomes bigger. Everything that happens when you become a father and as your kids and your family grow, the inclination is to run, to kind of say to abdicate, to step away, to walk away. Now, a lot of us
• 4:24
  Don't, if you're listening to this, you probably don't do that in your actual life. A lot of us, we do that in almost a heart level, a mental level, a checking out level. And so I think, yeah, like to me, this is the switch that was really helpful for me to flip that when things, now, of course, there's needs to be proper self-care, health on the soul, some rhythms in your marriage. But when things are just hard in general and not like burning out or maxing out, um,
• 4:47
  when they're just difficult and they're hard, I've actually started to welcome that and realize, man, this is making me, this is the primary vehicle and tool that is making me more into the image of Jesus. And that's actually how it's supposed to be. That's not an accident. That's not a mystery. That's not something random or weird. And to me, I don't know, it just takes away a lot of resentment. I'm nicer to my kids, to my wife, and more gentle and more compassionate because I'm stepping into kind of the cadence that God's already doing. And I'm just kind of paying attention.
• 5:15
  Yeah, I don't know if you have a closing thought on there or if that's what you would say, too, after what you read that. Right on. Yeah, God's—His agenda is to shape us. It's not about our happiness. That's not His primary goal. And so when we really fall in line with the design that He's created and embrace this role and see how it's transforming us, it really can help us just have the courage and embrace all the challenges that fatherhood brings.
• 5:45
  Hey guys, can I just ask you a quick favor? If you could just pause real quick. Well, actually after I'm done with this, so it makes sense. And about for about 30 seconds and just rate and review this podcast. We can 10 X the number of dads we help through this content. If our podcast can be found by more dads. And one of the weird main things about this podcast game is that how they get ranked and how they get in front of other people essentially is because of how it gets rated and reviewed. So if you can just give a quick, honest rating and review, we would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys.