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For the Family: Loving Them Without Doing God’s Job · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest places that we love in our lives is our family, but it's also one of the greatest places where we discover that we're not nearly as spiritually mature as we say we are.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not going to pretend like there's a 30-minute sitcom version of family where there's a misunderstanding at minute five and everyone hugs it out at minute 28.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we've all learned a valuable lesson in that sitcom.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there's soft music underneath it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's all feel good.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I like those.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're not doing that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard the soft music when I'm dealing with conflict in my family.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I need to solve conflict in my family is play soft music.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, I'm Kimberly.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Elizabeth, and this is the Father's Business Podcast, born out of Sylvia Gunter's heart for people to know who God is and who they are in him.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: So wherever you're listening from today, we pray that you will sense his nearness and know that you are his beloved sons and daughters.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're really glad you're here with us today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, everybody, to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've been away for a couple of weeks, but we are so excited to be back with you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Kimberly, I was thinking it through.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And October of 2022 is when we started this podcast.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we are celebrating our fourth birthday.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, happy birthday! Happy birthday! And some of you have been with us from the very beginning, every episode.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: But several of you have joined us along the way.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've decided we want to go back to one of the first books that we talked about when we started this podcast called For the Family.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you know it as the Little Blue Book, but this is a book of prayers for families that my mom has written.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, over 30 years ago, which Kimberly loves to point out to me often.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: That means we're old, but that's okay.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is a collection of prayers for different things, praying for different people in your lives.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna spend the next several weeks going through this book again.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of the reason why I am a little excited about doing this podcast is three years ago when we first did this series, Kimberly and I were in different places.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And since then, we've both moved our moms.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: My dad has passed away, one of my adult children has gotten married.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of different complicated family situations that we have walked ourselves through.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And probably in the lives of people who listen to our podcast, you've also had things change.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's gonna be great for us to kind of revisit some of the themes of for the family and how do we pray for them?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because one of the greatest places that we love in our lives is our family.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also one of the greatest places where we discover that we're not nearly as spiritually mature as we say we are.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that so true?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can be patient and loving and gracious all day long and then walk into our house and somebody says one wrong thing in the wrong tone, and there we are.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently, all the fruit of the spirit that we say that we have somehow gets left in the car and a different person comes out when we get home.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know that happens with me sometimes because family has a way of exposing us.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we're coming back to this study again, I realize there's a question underneath so much of for the family that I don't think we articulated very clearly last time.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that is how do I deeply love the people God has given me without trying to carry them, fix them, control them, and surrender them to what only God can do in their lives?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're honest, those lines get blurry when it comes to family.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they can get super blurry.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because we love them and we want them to flourish and we want them to make wise choices and be healthy and have a relationship with God.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is, is that oftentimes I think I know how I can fix it and make it happen.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know exactly when it needs to happen in your life.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And exactly how it needs to happen in their life.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I am more than happy to give God very specific instructions on how he needs to fix the problem.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he appreciates that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he does, because I've given him some excellent ideas over the years.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, most of us discover something slightly irritating.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The position of the Holy Spirit in my family members' lives has already been filled, and it's not me.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: That one's hard to swallow.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth, one of the things that is also different about this 2026 version of For the Family is that we're on video, and that also is kind of like you're talking about you feel exposed, right?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like when we were recording this the first time, if you listen to our audio, you can't tell that half the time we didn't have on makeup or we're in our pajamas or whatever, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in a lot of ways, those first episodes were us in a laboratory, you know, really trying to figure out how to do life.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what the family is.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Our family systems really are a laboratory.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I still really like that picture.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: We used that word picture last time because I think family is one of the primary places where a lot of things in life get worked out.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a system.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Family is a system.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: We influence each other, we affect one another.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: The way one person responds changes how another person responds.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's patterns, there are roles, and there's a history to your family.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And every family has a culture.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where we learn how to do life.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think about it, the things that your family talks about, the things that your family does not talk about, that's normal for you.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: The way conflict gets handled in your family system, there's expectations, there's traditions, there are things that everyone in your family may understand without anyone having to say them out loud.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when you grow up and you get around another family, you think, uh, why are these people doing it like that?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, because you assume that your family does things the way that things are supposed to be done, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like how many, how many marriages figure this out, right?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like pretty quickly.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of them have to figure it out very quickly.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when Todd and I discovered that we got married and there were things that each of us thought were completely normal that the other one thought were not normal.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's marriage.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's you bring two family systems together and you discover that everyone has been doing everything wrong except for your family, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the way that you grew up, you feel is the right way because it's the only thing you know.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only family you've had.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is part of why family is such a laboratory for our relationship with God, because relationships reveal things like we were just talking about.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the spirit go out the door when you walk into your home.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: They reveal where we're secure or where we're afraid.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: They reveal expectations that we didn't even know we had until someone bumps up against them and doesn't meet them.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: They reveal how we respond when we don't feel heard or understood.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're saying, Kimberly, our conflict style, they reveal how we forgive or if we forgive, or do we hold a grudge?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much about who we are as a person that gets revealed inside our family, whether we're a control freak or not.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: They reveal what we do when somebody we love makes a decision that we would not have made.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably one of the harder hurdles that I've had to go through as you know, watching kids grow up and they become adults, and now they get to make decisions and you don't have as much control of that, or even your husband or your wife may make a decision that you don't fully agree with.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So family has this way of bringing what's underneath, and we're trying to hide when we're in public or at church, where everything's fine, it starts to come up to the surface.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and family is where so much formation happens.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Truly, before we understand theology, psychology, relationships, before we're learning any of that, we're actually learning what love looks like, what trust looks like, conflict, forgiveness, how people handle disappointment, how they handle emotion, what they believe about God.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we're absorbing things before we even have words for them.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: We are being shaped and formed in our family systems every day as we grow up.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which can be great and encouraging and also terrifying.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there is something I want us, Kimberly, to say pretty early, because you hear the title for the family, and you think we may be only talking to married couples with children living at home.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not the case at all.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This series is for singles, for married, widowed, divorced, remarried.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: If your children are small, if they're adults.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is about relationships.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never had biological children, or if you have stepchildren, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, just people you mentor.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you have friends who've become your family, this book for the family and this podcast series is for you because it's about us living in relationship, and we all do.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember when we interviewed Sylvia for the original series.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I told her how much for the family had meant to me, particularly because I had spent so many years in youth ministry and working with families, and it is, it's one of my favorite resources.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Sylvia's response was, that's amazing because you're single.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds like her.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she immediately made the point that I still live in family.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have a family of origin.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have a brother, a sister-in-law, nephews, I have a mom.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the privilege of being a spiritual mother to the lives of many, many students, and I'm in a lot of relationships, and we belong to the family of God.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So family, like you're saying, Elizabeth, is much bigger than just one idea in our head.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, this series and this book is for all people.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that matters because sometimes Christian conversations about family can unintentionally leave people feeling like there's only one ideal picture and everyone else is standing outside of it.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't want to do that because real family is complicated.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: It can be blended.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've all had loss, there's estrangement that goes on, there's people in our family who love Jesus and people who don't.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Families who have gone to church their whole life and followed God can have people who are flourishing and people who are struggling.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And none of that is a reflection or a report card on how good we're doing Christianity.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some relationships are close, some are difficult, some require boundaries, and some have changed over the years.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we used to be closer than we are now.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not going to pretend like there's a 30-minute sitcom version of family where there's a misunderstanding at minute five and everyone hugs it out at minute 28.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we've all learned a valuable lesson in that sitcom.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's soft music underneath it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's all feel good.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I like those.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're not doing that.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard the soft music when I'm dealing with conflict in my family.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I keep waiting for the music to play.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe that's how I need to solve conflict in my family, is play soft music.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But seriously, real family doesn't always get tied up in this neat 30-minute package.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that brings us to why prayer is so important.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Once I accept that I truly cannot control another person's heart, then I also have to decide what I'm gonna do with the love and the concern that I have for that person because it can weigh on me.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because there are people I love who I would absolutely fix if God would just give me permission.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I could make a list, as I'm sure you could too, Kimberly.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we treat prayer like it's what we do after we've exhausted all the other ideas.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked, I've advised, I've worried, I've sent the text, I've sent another text explaining the first text, I've stayed awake at three o'clock in the morning trying to figure out how I can make the situation better.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've done all the things and, you know, even taught to other people about it, uh, and tried to fix it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, okay, I guess I'll pray.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: But prayer was never supposed to be the last resort.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And prayer is not simply another technique for controlling the outcome.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that a lot this summer in our prayer unfiltered series, that prayer is a relationship with God.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's bringing all of me and the people I love into his presence.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's asking him to do what he's doing.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's listening, it's blessing, it's interceding, and most importantly, it's agreeing with his heart.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that means I'm releasing to him again because I've picked my people back up.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's up to me to fix them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which we do, we do that.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, repeatedly.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I can release someone to God at nine o'clock in the morning, and apparently I need to go do it again at nine seventeen, which is why my for Jesus to do box sits right in the four year of my house where I can walk by it all the time and just keep putting the same thing in the box over and over again.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when we recorded this series the first time, there was something I said that still convicts me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about how easy it is for me to have expectations of people I love talking about wanting to fix them.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I want them to respond a certain way or grow a certain way or make wise choices.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I definitely want them to know God.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want them emotionally healthy.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for my husband to respond to me correctly all the time in the way that Jesus would towards me, you know, it's just simple things.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that there are times when I'm asking a lot from somebody while not actually investing very much time spiritually in them.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost like asking someone to run a marathon, but I'm never giving them any water.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the question that still gets me that I asked on this podcast the last time we did this series, which is how much time do I spend expecting something from someone compared with how much time I spend quietly praying life and truth and blessing over them.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean God, please make them finally understand that I'm right, although that is a prayer I have prayed.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm talking about Father, meet them, reveal yourself to them, give them wisdom, strengthen them, heal them, like whatever God needs to do for them, and basically getting out of God's way.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's different.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really changing the focus because the focus has moved from me trying to produce an outcome to me actually joining God in loving that person.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is so true.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the other thing I've learned is when I pray that way for someone consistently, God often does something in my heart before I ever see a change in the other person.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have more compassion, I get less reactive.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he shows me that the thing that I've been so focused on in them isn't actually the thing that he wants to address first.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that, Kimberly.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: God might have a different agenda than me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes he shows me something in me, which is also uncomfortable and unfortunate, because I would prefer the other option, which is I don't have to change, the people around me have to change.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that is going to be a big part of this series before we start talking about what God needs to do and everybody else.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to allow him to search our own hearts first.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Elizabeth, one of the other things that I love about For the Family is that these prayers were not simply prayers that Sylvia, your mom, sat down one day and thought, hey, this would make a really nice book.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna write these down and write a book.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how she started any of this stuff.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you've haven't heard those stories, go back to our early podcasts and listen to us interview her and talk about that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: But she lived them.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you got a front row seat to that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I definitely did.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I saw her do over and over again was invite God into the ordinary places in our family life.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't just pray when there was a crisis.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer was just woven into life.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: How many times do I remember her praying in the car while we're driving somewhere?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or she would write prayers on a card and put them in her pocket.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: There were even times that she recorded scriptural prayers on cassette tapes.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm dating us, but we had cassette tapes in our cars at that point.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she would play prayers in the car.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: She would pray with other women for me and my brothers and their children.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like prayer was so much a part of life that she was doing the work.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: She was investing the time to pray for us rather than just expecting things to be different.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the other thing that mom talked about when she was on the podcast with us three years ago, and we were talking about family and praying for your family was the other advice that my grandfather actually gave to my mom when we were little, which is you can pray for your kids, invest in them, and be that voice of wisdom for them as they're young.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But as they get into those adolescent middle school teenage years, you remember those, Kimberly?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: We both remembered them from being in youth ministry, but the the part of the time where we feel like we know more than our parents know, that was a time where my grandfather encouraged my parents that they should invest in younger adults, college students, young marriage, those type of people.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: One, to be investing in them, but also to allow those people to become the ones who impacted my life.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I watched that happen in real time.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember they would invite college students home for Sunday lunch from church.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they were people that were older than me, but were still young enough that I thought they were incredibly cool.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to be like them as they followed Jesus.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then as we became teenagers and young adults, my mom and dad were always investing in young couples and had them around us.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love her advice that you're constantly praying for your family.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point where you've got to kind of take a step back in some ways and invite other mature adult voices that you trust to come into your children's lives and be a part of that process.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that there are some of those young adult couples that I could call today and we could still have a conversation.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw several of them actually at my dad's funeral a couple of years ago.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know my life is different because my parents invested in them and they invested in me.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful tapestry as I look at for the family.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't just see a book of prayers or techniques that are helpful or handy.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I see just the tapestry of the life that I grew up in, where my parents were praying for us like crazy from the minute they knew we were in the womb, and then allowing other people to be a part of that community.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we're not talking about family as just mom, dad, and kids.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's this whole community of people that come to surround us.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: As you're talking, Elizabeth, I'm thinking about a phrase that I've often used it a ton over the last 15 or 20 years.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's been around longer than that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that phrase partnering with parents.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a huge phrase for the body of Christ family members to recognize.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have baby baptisms and dedications, whatever your faith tradition does.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Many young parents are coming and saying, I want the church to help me with my child from an early age.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's incredibly important.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, you really start to feel that a lot more as they get older.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the older they get, the more you're like, okay, they're not listening to me as much anymore.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I, not having my own biological children, I have found it such a joy and a delight to partner with other parents and to help them be an to be an outside voice, to be someone that their kid can hopefully think is cool or whatever, and really point them towards God in a different voice in a different way than their parents would, but partnering with the parent to do that because God gave them their parents for a reason.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times we're like, God, why is this my mom or this my dad or whatever?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And God gave us our parents for a reason and they teach us things.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and even thinking about partnering with parents, I remember when we did the original series, one of the questions that I asked Sylvia was, what would you say to younger moms?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Looking back over all your years of family life, what would you want to say to younger moms?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And her words were pretty simple, but pretty profound.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Hang in there, baby.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not always gonna be like this.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hang in there, baby.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that because family comes in seasons.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's beautiful seasons, there's exhausting seasons, there's seasons where everyone seems connected and ready to come together.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's seasons where someone you love is struggling and you don't know what to do.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe there's a season where your family looks so different than you ever thought it would.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're inside those hard seasons, it can feel permanent.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It really can.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the gifts of prayer is that it gives us somewhere to stand when we can't see the end of the story.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: We may be in a chapter right now that it's frankly we didn't want, we didn't ask for, we and we never thought this would be a chapter of our story.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here we are.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Kimberly, prayer does not guarantee that the story is going to turn out exactly the way we want.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've learned that through life enough, and we talked about it a lot in prayer unfiltered.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: But prayer gives us a relationship with someone who sees the whole story when we can only see the page we're standing on.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes that is the foundation that we have to hold on to because we don't know what's going to happen in the story.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: So over the next several episodes, we're gonna come back to some of the prayers and the principles in For the Family.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: We are not gonna simply go page by page through the book, but we are gonna talk about what this looks like in real life.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about what happens inside of us when we pray for the people that we love.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: How do we check our own hearts before trying to fix someone else's?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: We know that.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: What does spiritual warfare actually look like inside family relationships?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we remember that the person in front of us is not the enemy?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do we pray for a spouse?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Without turning prayer into their improvement plan.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like we don't need to set the goals for them, but we need to pray for them.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we, how do we hold that tension?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: How do we love and pray for children while also releasing their lives and their choices to God because we know He's the one who's gonna do the work in them?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk through how do we recognize patterns that have traveled through generations and how and when we need to decide this pattern is gonna stop with me.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk through how do we forgive when someone never says they're sorry?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: How do we release someone without pretending that we don't care?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And what do we do when we genuinely don't know what or how to pray anymore?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the series, we want to do another question and answer episode.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: We find that those are helpful for you because as you're listening, you have questions that we may not have thought of.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: They can be practical questions, theological questions, something that you're walking through right now, but feel free to send us those questions because we want to answer those.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So as we're walking through the series, just know that will be available at the end.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So as we end today, maybe we give people one place to begin.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about one person.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You probably already know who it is, but one person in your family or someone who is family to you who you find yourself caring right now.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're worried about them, maybe you're frustrated with them, maybe you're replaying a conversation you've had with that person, or maybe they're making decisions that you don't understand or don't agree with, and you desperately want something to change.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the relationship itself is strained.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe there's nothing wrong in the relationship.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: You just feel that God is inviting you to pray more intentionally for that person.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice what happens inside of you when you think about them.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you immediately start planning what they need to do and how God needs to fix it?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel fear?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel responsible?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's up to you to help them get their act together.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel anger or do you want to rescue them?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some people may want to withdraw from the relationship, but I just want you to notice when you think about that one family member or someone who is like family to you, what bubbles up in you?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want you to ask, Father, what would it look like for me to love this person well without trying to do your job in their life?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is a easy question to answer and a much harder one to live, but that's where we're going to begin.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you add a second question.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, how do you want me to pray for them?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not what do I assume they need, but Jesus, what do you want me to pray?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So for this week, take the person that has come to your mind and ask, Father, what would it look like for me to love this person well without trying to do your job in their life?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And from that place, how do you want me to pray for them?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just see what God says.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't we close with a time of prayer today?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we want to thank you for the people that you have woven into our lives.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: We want to thank you for the gift of family and all the different ways that we experience family.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships bring us joy, and you know that relationships can also feel complicated and painful.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: God, you know the people that we're worried about.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know the stories that haven't turned out the way that we expected, and you know that we are tired from trying to carry things that we were never meant to carry.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So today, Jesus, we bring the people that we love to you, and we have open arms and open hands.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Show us where our love has quietly become control and where our concern has become fear.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Show us where responsibility has become carrying something that you never asked us to carry, and teach us what faithful love looks like.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Teach us to pray, teach us to listen, teach us to bless and to speak truth with grace.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Teach us to own what belongs to us and release what belongs to you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Father, for that one person who is on our mind, would you meet them?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give them a revelation of who you are and who they are in you?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Provide for them what we can never provide, speak where we cannot ever speak, heal what we cannot heal, and work in ways that we cannot yet see.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: We choose to trust you again and again, and to know that you love them even more than we do.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we look forward to seeing everybody next week, and we're going to start where that prayer ended, which is before we spend a lot of energy looking at what needs to change in somebody else, we're gonna have some fun letting God look at us.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sorry if that makes you not want to listen to next week's episode, but we do need to focus in on our own heart and getting our own heart right before we start looking into the hearts of others.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking forward to seeing you next week.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: See ya then.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: To donate, go to www.thefathersbusiness.com.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow us at thefathersbiz on Instagram and Facebook.