Latest / Main Thing Podcast / Building Strong Family Relationships

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Building Strong Family Relationships · Main Thing Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Main Thing Podcast with Pastor Steve, equipping you to respond and thrive in the world we live in today.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Keep the main thing the main thing has been a saying that Pastor Steve has told for decades.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It means no matter what is happening around us, Jesus is what we need to have front and center in our lives.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: There couldn't be a more powerful reminder for us to recall in today's divisive and dark culture.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: From foundational truths and scripture to the hot topics of today's culture.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Allow this podcast to inspire and motivate you on your faith journey.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, well, guys, welcome back to the Main Thing Podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: As you saw last week, we are back on track with Pastor Steve back on his own podcast after being away for quite a while.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: But we're glad to have you guys here.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Steve, as always, thanks for being here.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we uh we started a few weeks ago uh talking about the family.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna keep talking about the family today.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but give me your impressions just about this to start off with.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why do you think we present such uh good pictures on Facebook?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Facebook family is what I call it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's um fictitious what I wish my family was, I think, for many people.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I heard you say it one time the greatest birthday parties in the world are on Facebook.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this this is the best birthday party of all time.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we just had the trip of a lifetime.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody's ever had a trip as good as us.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh man, these are the most precious people on planet earth.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so yeah, we I think uh at least subconsciously, a lot of people are presenting what they wish their family really was.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And on the flip side of that, nobody wants us to present on Facebook what our family is really like, I'm sure.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no, no, no, absolutely not.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start out with scripture today because we're gonna be talking about kind of the other side of Facebook, the things we never show on Facebook with our families.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: But let's start with Ephesians 4, 29 through 32.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just speak to those verses a second.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: How does that relate to our families and how we go about raising kids and relating to our spouses?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's a mandate to the Church of Jesus Christ, first and foremost, uh, of how we should interact as believers with one another.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it certainly applies to our families also.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, we're all a product of our upbringing.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: And those formative years, those young years, you're instilling in a child their worth and value, helping them understand who they are, what they have the ability to accomplish, uh, what their limits might be.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you're not going to do anything that's gonna be helpful to your child by tearing them down, verbally trying to destroy them, um, being overly critical, these sort of things.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so the principle there is that whatever you say um should be helpful uh to the child, even to the spouse.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, I've been married this year's 47 years.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: I still thank my wife every time I eat a meal uh for preparing it for me.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: I make a point to do that uh because I don't take that for granted.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: And and I want her to know I appreciate the effort that she put in for that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um so just basic wisdom.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: If she prepares something and I get home tonight and it's really not what I want, it's really not what I care for, I'm still gonna thank her because I don't want to tear down or create a negative connotation in her mind that I'm unappreciative of her efforts in our marriage.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing with our children.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you don't have to always affirm what your children do, but it's good to affirm their efforts, you know, the the intent of what they were trying to do.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, I I think though those verses are great uh instruction for a family to live by.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, back on Father's Day a couple months ago now, uh you talked about what it meant not to exasperate your children, you know, when the Ephesians says don't exasperate your children.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's some of the ways that we um that we do that, that we exasperate our kids, or or um, and I forget the way other translations do it, but uh don't, you know, don't bring bitterness to your children.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, best example I know in my own family.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh my two oldest sons uh never needed help or tutoring in any way in their school endeavor.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh for the most part, always made great grades.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: And in all honesty, they never studied a whole lot.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then the third one came along and he was severely dyslexic.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, with the first two, we we're guilty.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, they come home with a B on a test.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Why didn't you make an A?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: See?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: And when it really dawned on me, I think the fallacy of our interaction with our kids is with the third one, he'd come home with a C on a test, and we'd want to go out to eat and celebrate, you know.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: So man, this is great.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: Good job, buddy.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: And the other two brought it to our attention.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we never celebrated a C.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and of course, we explained to them it's a different situation, you know, but that didn't change what their experience was.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I I I think uh one of the mistakes we make is when our children accomplish things, uh, the first thing out of our mouth is, why didn't you do more?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I I think that's a serious mistake.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it one of the things you said about, you know, your kids were different.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of one of the first lessons I learned about coaching long before I got into ministry.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember uh the guy I worked for at the time, uh, this was uh coaching baseball at a high school in Panama City.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You have got to learn how each player handles criticism and handles praise.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're not all gonna handle it the same way, you know.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we have one guy who's a pitcher who went on to pitch college ball, played in low-minded leagues, but never made it to the majors.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, for him, you've got to be hard on him.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he thrives on that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then this other pitcher, same thing, went on to college, very, very good play.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You can't do that to him.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta be very gentle, you gotta be very encouraging, you know.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and how does that play out in our our families, you know, with our kids?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, anybody who's got more than one child understands that those personalities are different.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um the book, The Strong Will Child.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um James Dobson.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: James Dobson, thank you.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I learned more from that book.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it you know, how do you take a child's will?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because every child has one.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: They have a bend uh toward a certain personality of being who they are.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: How do you guide them, instruct them, mold them, but not break their will?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's uh boy, that's such a tightrope thing for all of us.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: I as you know, I coached my own sons uh for many years, and I had that same experience.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: There was one.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: If I went out to talk to him, I had to get in his face and scream, and then he would get so mad at me, he would just perform way above what he was capable of.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: I had another one that I had to go out and uh almost babysit a little bit, you know, buddy, you got this.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, believe in yourself, you can do this.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: I believe in you, you can do this.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and he would play much better.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, but they were very different, different is night and day.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so these parents who make these statements about you gotta treat all your kids exactly the same, um, you need to analyze that a little bit.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: You you treat all of your children with the same principles and values, uh, but the individual interaction may in fact need to be a little different uh for each child to give them the opportunity to develop at their best.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the things uh we're we're talking about today is just uh different, I guess, negative uh aspects of family life.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I know a saying that's always stuck with me uh that I learned a long time ago is you can happen to life or life can happen to you.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: What they mean is you can be proactive and go out and and do what you need to do, or you can be passive and just wait and see what happens, you know.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: How how are we passive as parents and how are we proactive as parents?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: What what is that what does that look like?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's um healthy, proactive, and an unhealthy proactive, um as well as passive.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um a healthy proactive parent is uh I think uh putting the guardrails on the road of life.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they're trying to encourage, um, prompt, guide, but not determine for the child of their decisions and courses of life.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um whereas an unhealthy proactive parent, uh, you're gonna be a pro ball player, I don't care if it kills you, you know.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna see to it, or you're gonna learn to play the piano if I have to break your fingers.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, that's obviously very unhealthy for a child.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the the the a healthy proactive parent is um one of my sons is doing this with a grandchild now.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: They have had this grandchild do a different activity every year and kind of seeing does the child take to it or not.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: They're not trying to push it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let's let's see what the child gravitates toward.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think that's very wise, you know.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: And nobody would believe it of me.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we were a huge sports family, but I never made one of my boys play anything.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it was always their choice if you want to play.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I just I just think you you put the guardrails on it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I remember taking one of my sons to eat one time, and I said, Look, uh, you want to play college ball.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll do everything I can to help you get there.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: But right now, with your work ethic, you're not gonna play college ball.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's not gonna happen.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: Here's what I believe you gotta do.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, a lot of parents would have never done that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I felt I owed it to the child not to lie to the child.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: So many parents are lying to their children.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I wanted my son to know you you can play college ball, but there's a process, there's a price to pay if you want to do that, and you're not paying it at this point.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And to his credit, he went on and accomplished that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um would he have done that if we didn't have that hard conversation?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um what I know is uh he hated me for several months, and his work ethic increased big time.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: So as a parent, you gotta be willing to own it sometimes in order for the betterment of your child.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, so yeah.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh as far as negative, uh, I think, like I said, all these parents that are lying to their children.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I went to a t-ball game Monday night.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm 100% convinced T ball is for mama's and papa's and for mom and dad.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't see one kid on the two teams that really looked like they gave a care if they were out there playing t-ball or not.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: I observed one grandmother come in the dugout from her chair, get this little five-year-old boy and drag him to the outfield and make him stand there with her, you know.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, that's negative.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care how you want to defend it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: The kid didn't want to be there, but they were gonna make him be a T ball player.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: He was gonna play, huh?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: He was gonna play whether he liked it or not.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so um I think the negative comes in with the intentions uh behind the parenting.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Why are we telling them what we're telling them?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh is it a selfish motivation?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh as a parent, I need my child to be a star athlete.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh I suspect that's the problem with a lot of parents.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I need my child to make straight eights.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: I I I'd be embarrassed if my child wasn't in the beta club.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be it's so sad the traps that parents fall into.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: And when they do, uh it creates a negative environment for the development of the child.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I'm not saying don't have expectations for your child.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh very few children go on to accomplish anything when they're raised with no expectations.
• 14:34
  unknown: Right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a fine line there.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: But the difference is why are you implementing the expectations?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: For you are the child.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I and I think that that comes about because what I was kind of joking with earlier about Facebook, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have we have created this bar of what a successful parent looks like.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really a fake bar because we only pick out certain things.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think so much, um, especially back to like when I was a young parent, you know, sometimes you take yourself so seriously.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and you think people are gonna decide who I am by what my three-year-old does.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's because of the world we live in nowadays.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how many times uh we've had young families from church over, uh, and their kid goes to jumping on the couch or running through the house.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, first thing, young parent, you know, horrified.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Stop that! Stop that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And we always tell them they're fine.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we really mean it.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we made a point to never buy furniture that was so expensive you couldn't jump on it.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: A child's made to jump.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: Let them jump.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you can replace furniture.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: You can't replace the joy of jumping on the furniture.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can put a piece of plywood under the under the cushion.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it's natural as a young parent, I think, especially if you're a responsible young parent uh to want your children to behave in acceptable ways in social and public environments and those kind of things.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but but you can get way too serious about it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So funny.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So much of life is is is finding that line, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it is we tend to go to extremes.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, earlier you were talking about communication or, you know, expectations with your child.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why why do you think we have communication breakdowns with our kids?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I I and I would probably put dads in this more than moms.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Dads seem to have the hardest time communicating well with their kids.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Brent, if I knew the answer to that, I'd write a book.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't know.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think just my own humble opinion, and that's all it is is an opinion, is that moms tend to have the patience to talk through what in dad's mind is a stupid discussion.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh men tend to be more uh get to the bottom line, you know.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think moms are wired because they're verbal.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think they're more wired to listen to the kid a little better, uh, discuss things a little better with the kid, explain things a little better to the kid, whereas as dads were like, stop it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And that's our discussion, you know, or that's stupid, you know.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: And um and I think the kids respond to mom as a general rule better for that reason.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you say that about dads.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of one of Kelly and I's favorite stories from before we moved here to home and back at our home church.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one one Sunday right after church, we're walking out, and there was a couple in our family that, um, not in our family, in our church, that were very into the, you know, the the feelings, parenting, and, you know, little Johnny, tell me how you feel today.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, little Johnny on this particular day had pulled his pants down and was running through the parking lot butt naked.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the mom is following him, going, I can see you're not feeling well today.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell mommy what the problem is?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the kid's just going nuts.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, we know what the kid needs.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: He needs that bare butt popped.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um, and I think as we rebel against anything like that, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about feelings.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna end this right here.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, one of the famous truths, the old Dr.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Spock, the psychologist, who was very popular in the 60s and 70s for this um warm, fuzzy, feel-good parenting movement.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um I saw an interview with him after he had had his second child.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he admitted, he said, you know, everything I teach worked wonderful with our first child.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: And we had to come to a point uh with our second child where we realized positive reinforcement didn't work with him.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: And we had to learn to implement negative reinforcement.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh a whole generation bought his books and went to his seminars, and then he goes, Whoops, my bad.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, I think any parent uh who's been around any amount of time, if they wrote a book, it would maybe be called uh soft suggestions for parenting.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, at best.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or things I know don't work about parenting.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: There, you know, we've been talking, I guess, a lot of negative type things, you know, all the things are rough about families.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: But what what are some of the benefits of families?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the good things about our families?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh goodness, God created the family.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: It has it has a purpose.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um a man brings certain attributes uh to the home, and a mom brings certain attributes to the home.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: And there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of studies done, and they all show the same thing when you've got a healthy family, and by that what I mean, you've got a mom and a dad in the home, and they understand their proper roles, they work together, there's mutual respect, uh, they raise their kids with value and worth.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: Those kids are less likely to be on drugs, they're less likely to be in trouble with the law, uh, they're less likely to ever drop out of school, they're more likely to do well in school, they're more likely to be successful in life uh going forward.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh you can argue the benefits of family all day long because secular sociologists and psychologists have done these uh studies ad nauseum, and they always come back showing the same thing.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: The the family is good and positive in every way.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yet what we've done in America, our government has set it up where especially the what we call the poor working class is rewarded for not keeping their family together.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's such a tragedy.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: Our own government is aiding uh in destroying the family unit.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: And they can't figure out why we've got so many problems.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh, and I and I I know one study I read, it it put it this way the greatest indicator of success in life is a stable two parent family.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: Over and over and over again.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say obviously somebody can grow up and not take advantage of of what they had.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's sad to say this, but I can look at the average teenager walk into church and I can tell you pretty quick.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Not a hundred percent, but to a large degree, I can tell you if they're coming from a well-balanced two-parent home or a single-parent home.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: The difference is even in the way they dress, their hair, um, their tattoos or their piercings or whatever else they're wearing, uh, you can figure it out pretty quick.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, to to switch base just a little bit, so uh kind of some of some of the things uh I think are that are good to discuss.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe among husband and wife, among parents, um, you know, what kind of atmosphere do we want in our home?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how how do we build an atmosphere in our home and what kind of what does that look like, do you think?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: It takes intentionality.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta be honest with you, I grew up in in a horrible home, uneducated, backwards parents, neither was a high school graduate.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um uh worked menial jobs their whole lives.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we were always, you know, one paycheck from being on the street, and they worked hard.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: In a lot of ways, they were good people who who tried really hard to do the right thing, and they were not always successful at it.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then when I got married, it took me um several years to understand.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: I knew I didn't want a home like I grew up in.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: But it didn't dawn on me that I should actually have a plan to create an environment for a home that I'd want to grow up in.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was a journey for me, you know.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: Today, oh yeah, I sat here at my age with grandchildren, and I can tell you here's how you do that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you got to create an open, loving environment, accepting, forgiving, uh, you know, with intentionality.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how you do that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I I have to be honest, uh, I didn't do that real well with my own kids.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: I I parented more out of fear to keep them from going down the wrong path than intentionality to guide them in the right path.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so I I think you have to decide what's important.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: If if I could make this little person to turn out to be the kind of human being I want them to turn out to be, what do I need to be instilling in them?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, one of the things I tried when my kids were small uh was family devotions.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody would assume the pastor's family does devotions, right?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh our typical devotion usually ended up with everybody slamming their Bibles and fighting.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: I wish I could tell you different, but that's the way it ended.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, more times than not.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't think there's a secret recipe as much as I believe you got to kind of know what your goal is and be intentional.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: I've even boiled it down with parents in our church here to say today's world, if you can raise a kid that loves God, stays out of jail, gets a real job, and becomes a productive member of society, you're a success.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because everything in our world seems to be trying to set them up to do right the opposite of those things.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so uh that's kind of basic, unfortunately.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: But that's a good starting point.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: I want to raise a good moral human being who will be a productive member of society and not a leech, who will value their life and the lives of other people.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then you got to figure out for you now how to how how do I go about implementing that?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: What does that look like?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: How do I do that?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I don't think anybody can necessarily tell you how to do that, but it goes back to the verses you read by and large.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't think anything thrives on the negative.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: Your marriage, raising your kids, your job.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if if all you are is negative about it, you're gonna get a negative product.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: On the other hand, um we had a young girl in church last Sunday that grew up in our church, married a boy from here.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: They live in North Louisiana now.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: She was sitting with her mom and dad, and uh, so I started chatting with her, young mother, two small, beautiful little girls.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: She said, You know where my husband is today?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he wasn't with her.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: I said, No, I don't.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: She said, He's preaching today.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: He's what?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because I knew this kid growing up, you know.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Since when?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he surrendered the ministry three years ago.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: He's about to finish his master's, and he's pastoring a church in Shreeport, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Well, baby, it's not always what you think it is.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, take it one day at a time.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Understand you're gonna run into a lot of difficult people, but you're gonna run into a lot of wonderful people too.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And how well you do in ministry will be decided on which group you choose to focus on.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: So when the bad ones come at you, stop and thank God for the good ones.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: Focus on them.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I think you got to raise your family, your earthly family, personal primary family, the same way.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: There's always gonna be something negative.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, try to find the positive to focus on because good things come out of the positive.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Don't want to have a life, you know, characterized by bitterness and wrath and anger.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: And slander that serves nobody well.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, it destroys your relationship with the Lord, makes you a very bitter person.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, nobody wants to be around a bitter person.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's no fun.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: Plus, bitter people tend to undermine themselves.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, as as we get ready to to finish today, I want to point out one thing.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you said you grew up in a in a very rough home situation.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look statistically, by every indicator, you should have grown up uh to not be successful.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and there's there's one there's one factor that changed that.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: Knowing how I grew up, because I do have several family members that are in prison, uh, knowing how I grew up and the trajectory I was on before I came to Jesus, uh, I would probably be in prison today.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't say that lightly at all.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was doing things at 13, 14, 15 years old that they send you to prison for.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: And um I praise God that uh January 5th, 1975, Jesus radically saved me.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I love to say it this way: Jesus will fork your family tree.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so he radically changed my life and the direction of my life.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh what I knew immediately after that, I didn't know how to explain it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't even understand it, but I knew God had a different path for me than than what I had been living and was exposed to.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I know all of all of us pastors here when we're premarital counseling or even marital counseling, we ask one of the first questions I ask is tell me about your your growing up, you know, because what you know about marriage is what you learn from your parents.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and so many times though, it it's it's a blessing to be able to say, now just because that's the way you raised doesn't mean you have to continue in that path.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus can Jesus can change that family tree.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: I do the same kind of thing.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'll I'll ask them, tell me, I usually start with the female, tell me how your dad treated your mom.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'll go through that with them, and then I'll look at the male.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me how your mom treated your dad.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because what most people do when they get married, because they don't think through it, they simply repeat what they know.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right, because that's all that's that's all they know.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's all they know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: They they don't have and I don't mean this derogatory, they don't have enough sense at an early age to understand they need to actually think about this, you know.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so from little things to big things, well, maybe why you just you're just gonna let this garbage run over in the floor.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't take the garbage out.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: My dad always took the garbage out.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Why would I take the garbage out?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so they come into a relationship with all these expectations, you know, and they don't think through them.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: So uh the greatest process for me, the encouragement I see, is if you have a genuine salvation experience with the Lord Jesus Christ, there's always hope.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: There's always hope.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you can work through most anything.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and so I would encourage anyone that may hear this.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's not about religion or church, it's about Jesus, you and Jesus.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, if you've not given your life to the Lord Jesus, I would encourage you absolute best thing you'll ever do, uh, your time here on planet earth.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of a better way to end our uh podcast today.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as always, thank you.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Very enjoyable, guys.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today, and we will see you next time.