Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome once again to another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh, sitting in the co-host's chair today. We’re a broadcast division, of course, of the James Dobson Family Institute. We’re joined for another conversation about what it means to cultivate connection in a lonely world.

Our guest is author, speaker, and podcaster Becky Harling. Becky and her husband, Steve, have raised four children together and they’re still married and smiling, which is always a good sign. They have a growing number of grandchildren and make their home in the Colorado area. Her new book is called *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*, and that will once again be the topic of our conversation. Becky Harling, welcome back to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Becky Harling: It’s great to be back with you. Thanks, Roger.

Roger Marsh: I love this conversation because we were talking in our previous discussion about what it means to cultivate deeper connections in a lonely world. You talked a lot about the benefits and necessity of listening, of having a humble spirit. We were talking a little bit last time as we were wrapping up about the world of criticism that we live in, too.

Give us a sixty-second overview of how social media and a pandemic exacerbated things. People think they're a lot smarter than they actually are, and even Christians aren't quite as gracious as perhaps we should be. It’s all fueling an epidemic now that the US Surgeon General says half of the population is experiencing loneliness.

Becky Harling: Social media is not helping us. It serves a purpose, but we have to be really careful. What I’m finding is that a lot of people will say things on social media that they would never say in a face-to-face conversation. They are criticizing everything under the sun. They criticize churches, pastors, neighbors, schools, and politicians. The list is endless. They criticize anybody that doesn’t agree with them.

But God calls us not to be critical; He calls us to be discerning. We have to discern the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong, and our guide for that is the Bible. We discern what's right and wrong. That doesn’t mean that we start scolding everybody out there. Even if they’re living in something that we would discern as a sinful lifestyle, our example is always Jesus.

You mentioned in the last session the woman at the well. We don’t know what her whole story was. We know she’d been married five times, and we know she was living with a man. We don’t know her situation, but Jesus doesn’t scold her. He’s gentle with her. Eventually, she becomes the first missionary.

Roger Marsh: It’s a beautiful story of redemption right in that moment because we have to come face-to-face with our sin when we come to the cross. There’s no question about that. He doesn’t back away from that, but at the same time, He presents the gospel, the true salvation message that she needs, in such a way that she goes running back to her village saying, "I’ve seen this guy. You’ve got to see this guy."

That’s all we are really trying to accomplish. At the same time, we're living in a smartphone era where a lot of overly academic but under-educated people are taking it to heart that they know better than you. Therefore, they're right and you're wrong. They have confirmation bias because they've found a whole bunch of other people who agree with them.

Since you're that way, Becky, they just couldn’t possibly agree with you, so they have to cancel you. Wait a minute. There’s a big difference between repenting of your sinful ways and telling somebody else to pound sand. This is a phenomenon you were mentioning in our previous conversation about some great examples from your family of women who have modeled what deeper connection looks like for you. Talk about the difference between men who are lonely and women who are lonely. It doesn’t seem to be all one-sided, but it does seem to favor women more than men in terms of loneliness. Is that what your research has found?

Becky Harling: Not really, actually, Roger. I’m finding that men are just as lonely. Originally, it’s interesting because when I wrote this book, I wrote it for women, so a lot of the stories in there are about women. What I’m finding as men are reading it, they’re saying, "Becky, you are absolutely right, and I’m discovering as a man, I’m really lonely."

They’ve been so focused on their career, building their career, and rising the corporate ladder that they haven’t cultivated the deep friendships. They don’t have men in their lives whom they can really be real with. It’s been an interesting journey to write this book and then watch it play out in the world. Women and men are both lonely, perhaps for different reasons, but either way, we’ve got to focus on connecting.

One of the things that I think is robbing our connection that we haven’t talked about yet relative to the smartphone is that our attention span has gone way downhill. In fact, I read one study that says we now have the attention span of less than seven seconds, which is shorter than a goldfish. We’re in trouble.

We are so distracted. In the book, I tell a funny story about when our son was a teenager and we were in this store called Candy Kitchen on the boardwalk on the East Coast. The girls were looking to buy Beanie Babies, which was all the craze back then if you remember. This store had these huge plexiglass containers of candy.

Our son was playing with this little rubber suction ball and all of a sudden he pulled it. It was something like out of a Lily Hevesh video of dominoes. One candy container fell over on another and then another. Thousands of candies went all over the floor. It was the most epic candy fall of all time. I just got the giggles; it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. My husband was like, "We’ll pay you for the candy." We had ruined their store. The lady at Candy Kitchen just said, "Get out." We still laugh about it today. The point of that story is distraction breeds disaster.

It breeds disaster in a candy kitchen, but it breeds disaster in your relationships. Let me challenge you. If you’re lonely and you’re with somebody, is your smartphone on the table at lunch? Are you checking email? If you’re on the playground with your kids, are you focused on your kids and other moms on the playground, or are you scrolling Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube? At the dinner table, when your spouse is trying to talk to you, are you saying, "Just a minute, honey, I’ve got to check this email"? We are so distracted, and Jesus is calling us back to really focus on people.

Roger Marsh: It’s critical we do that. Becky Harling is with me today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. We’re talking about her brand-new book called *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*. Becky, I couldn't help but wonder. You’re talking about this happening with your son at a young age.

Now I realize that in the world that we live in with the ring cameras and all the different cellphone video technology that we have, that whole situation might have turned completely differently for the owner of the candy shop if the video had been released on TikTok. If it goes on YouTube and it gets millions of views, they can monetize it.

I bring that up only to say this is part of how culture has changed and how our brains have been rewired. The currency of the culture now is attention. When we were raising our kids, you had to be intentional about spending time with them and really investing in them. When the attention span of adults is seven seconds, the people watching this program are the exception rather than the rule.

We’ll put out a two-minute reel that's an excerpt from this and put it up on social media, and hundreds of thousands of people will go for it because they can give ninety seconds. They can't give twenty-six minutes. Becky, you’ve written a book that is well worth reading every page, and yet I’m sure you run into the same thing where someone says, "Just give me a pull quote. Give me a meme to change my life because I don't have the attention span anymore. I don't have the time." Technology can be a benefit to helping to cultivate deeper relationships, but it can also be a real burden.

Becky Harling: If you can only focus for seven seconds, how does that impact your relationship with God? I want to be all-in in my relationship with God. I want to be able to spend an hour or an hour and a half with the Lord in the morning. If I can’t, I have to analyze what in the world I’m doing with my time that is robbing me from the relationship that I need the most.

If I can’t find time to spend with my husband, what am I doing with my life that is so important? These questions are good to ask. They might be a little uncomfortable at times, but they’re really good to ask.

Roger Marsh: Talk to the mom who is saying, "Okay, but you don't know my kids. They are so active." We have six grandchildren, and two of them we have nicknamed "Search and Destroy" because they go everywhere. Zipora and Nazareth—she likes to search things out; she's always on a mission. He is just busy, so he just keeps going. He’s two and he’s trying to figure it out.

We’re trying to be purposeful with them; we’re trying to encourage their parents. With the short attention spans and always a screen or a video, what are some ways that we can establish some connection? At the end of the day, what you're saying is if you're feeling lonely, chances are your loneliness is because technology's gotten in the way or a critical spirit's gotten in the way. You can overcome that loneliness by being intentional with whom you spend time with, whether it's kids, grandkids, or good friends.

Becky Harling: For parents, we have fourteen very active grandchildren. I love each of them. I can tell you who their friends are. Some of them love sports, and we have a whole mob in soccer. Some are playing golf. They all have different activities that they love. It’s wise as parents to just spend time playing with them.

Get down on the floor, turn off the iPads for goodness sake, and play restaurant with them if they’re little. If they’re older, kick a soccer ball with them. We have some grandchildren that have tremendous energy, and they were like little tornadoes when they were toddlers. I love that energy because that’s the way God’s wired them.

Get them outside. They need to be outside playing with you. Play hide-and-seek, play tag, throw a football with them, or kick a soccer ball. If you’ve got little girls that like to do chalk, do chalk with them. We’ve got to bring back play without all the screen time. Kids that are on screens all the time then go to school and they don’t have the attention span. Read to your kids. Let them imagine what the story is supposed to look like.

Roger Marsh: That’s very interesting. I love the fact that you were talking about what I would say is good discipleship. Not once did you mention Bible lessons. Not once did you mention conjugating Greek verbs. It was basically being with them, being present, being engaged, and being the kind of person that they want to be with.

When you do that, all of a sudden you begin to realize that empty, lonely feeling that you had in your heart, God’s filling that up because now there’s a purpose and a meaningful connection. That’s what you’re talking about here. It’s all about cultivating connections in a world that has gotten so lonely. Not just superficial connections, but the deep meaningful ones.

Becky Harling: Recently, I was privileged to be able to speak to the Legacy Coalition, which is a coalition for grandparents. One of the things that I said is that the strength of your connection with your grandkids is going to determine the measure of your influence on your grandkids’ lives. If we want to be able to disciple our grandkids, we’ve got to be connected with them.

If we want to disciple our kids, we’ve got to be connected with them. As parents, if you’re always on your cellphone, if you’re always checking email, if you’re always in meetings, you’re going to miss out. Put it away. Nothing is that urgent that you have to answer it in the next ten seconds.

Roger Marsh: I was at a music event in Nashville many years ago, and a group of songwriters was there. They were asking everyone before they got into this little group where they were going to play these songs to please silence their cellphones or just turn them all the way off. One of the songwriters got up—he had written some major hits, like "The Gambler" for Kenny Rogers.

He said, "I can assure you that there have only been four times in my life when there was a call that I got that was so important I told everyone else to hold on a second. It was for each one of the ones where he found out the song had sold a million copies." He said, "Every other time, what’s more important is right in front of me as opposed to what potentially might be coming in."

When you think about the way these things are piped into us in the media—oh, you looked at this website, then you might like this video—all of a sudden it just becomes zombie scrolling. My wife sometimes says my phone is my third hand. When I get to that point with her, I’m like, "This goes on the charging station. We need a date; we need to do something if she's referring to it that way." Social media can be a good catalyst for knowledge and discernment, and discipleship. It’s just a question of how you use it. If you want to cultivate deeper connections, you have to control the media; it can’t control you.

Becky Harling: It’s interesting with the whole smartphone. We all have one, but all of the apps have been designed to be addictive. That’s our problem. It’s like the free snacks at the restaurant. You want some chips and salsa? Oh, sure, that’s great. It’s designed to get you thirsty so you’ll drink something.

We just have to be careful with it. Don’t throw the whole thing out. If you’re connecting with people you went to high school with, great. Then follow up with an actual phone call or go visit them. Don’t let it stop with social media.

Roger Marsh: Let’s talk about prayer because I know that in the final chapter of your new book you talk about how important it is to find what you call your prayer people. That’s something that I think is a new concept to younger adults, but for those of us who know better, maybe that church hurt led you to not be so open about sharing some of your prayer concerns with other people. You really stress that in the book. Talk about why it’s important to have prayer people in your life.

Becky Harling: I don’t know how you do life without prayer people. I have one friend whom I mention in the book. We met each other over thirty years ago when we were raising our kids and our girls were toddlers. We began praying together then. Since that time, she lived overseas, and I moved, and she moved, but we always stayed in touch and we always would share prayer requests with each other.

Now we both live in Colorado Springs. She lives here half the year and half the year in Phoenix, but we still pray together on the phone. I’ll get a text from her early in the morning, "Are you up?" or I’ll text her, "Are you up?" I get on my knees in my house, and she gets on her knees in her house, and now we pray over twenty-four grandkids together.

The depth of that friendship has gone so deep because we’ve become real with each other. It takes time to develop those relationships. The thing about prayer is as you’re both on your knees, as you’re both coming before the Father, your hearts are moving closer to God and they’re moving closer to each other.

My husband has a dear friend—he’s both of our friend, but they’re a couple in California—and Steve will say, "Man, I’ve just got to call Greg because we need to pray together over this." Prayer draws you closer together in friendships. No matter where you are in your journey, find some friends that you can pray with from your church. If you’re young married and you’ve got little kiddos, man, you need prayer. Don’t go to Google first; go to your prayer people first.

Roger Marsh: "I've got this AI response and that's good enough for me." No. I love the vulnerability you're talking about with finding prayer people. Something that doesn't always get a positive nod in the church is sometimes you'll approach somebody about prayer and the first response is no. "I don't want to open myself up to you," or, "No, I pray on my own, I'm fine."

I wonder how many opportunities for real evangelism and discipleship even that we miss out on simply because the first response is that way. I would imagine, Becky, you're running into people who say they're trying to reach out to these folks and some of them aren't really willing to open up, to be vulnerable, and to be humble.

Becky Harling: Then you know that those people aren't going to be your closest, deepest friends, but you can still pray for them. It’s interesting; whenever I’ve asked somebody, "Can I pray for you?" they’ve never said no. Even unbelievers are like, "Yeah, sure, go ahead." They don’t know if it’s going to make a difference, but sure, why not? I’ll try it.

We just have to be discerning. You can get to know people; don't go up to a total stranger and say, "Hey, want to be my prayer partner?" because they probably will say no. If you’ve gotten to know them a little and you know you have similar desires to grow closer to God, then you make the ask. You just have to be wise and not awkward about it.

Roger Marsh: There’s that wisdom thing again. Everybody has so much knowledge, but we’re kind of in short supply in the wisdom department, aren’t we? I appreciate this book so much. Becky Harling is the author of the book *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*. We have a link for the book up at drjamesdobson.org.

Becky, what was the big revelation for you? I always love to ask this question. You wrote this book primarily for women, yet you’re hearing from a lot of guys who are saying, "I have the loneliness thing going on, too." When you got to the end of the manuscript and this book was going to get published, was there one thing that you went, "Wow, I didn’t know that about me," or, "I didn’t think we were going to land at that conclusion in this area"? What was the big revelation for you?

Becky Harling: I think for me, the biggest revelation in my life is I have been a person who has been an achiever. I graduated high school in three years; I have written sixteen books. It’s always about accomplishment. It was good for me to say to myself, "You know what? I don’t have to be in a hurry all the time."

With achievement comes this internal rush. Why am I rushing? I have nothing that I have to be in a rush to do today. If I’m going to have the deeper connections, I have to slow down. That was the biggest revelation for me.

Roger Marsh: That whole "busyness is next to godliness" thing had to go by the wayside. It’s too easy. You have people asking you to speak; you’ve got publishers asking you to write. I’m sure there was a part of you that after a while you get into that rhythm, "Okay, this is what God wants me to do."

To do that work and then have the realization that God’s telling you, "Well, maybe I don't want you to spend that much time on that." You become that conduit for each of us to be able to see your life and be an example. I appreciate you modeling the humility and the non-critical spirit that you write about in your new book, *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*.

The brand-new book by Becky Harling is up at drjamesdobson.org. Becky, thank you for your honesty, humility, and vulnerability in writing this book. You’re helping a lot of people with the ministry that you and Steve continue to engage in. Thanks so much for being with us today and for the past couple of programs here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Becky Harling: Hey, Roger, thanks for having me. It’s been a joy.

Roger Marsh: Well, we certainly appreciated having this conversation with Becky Harling today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Her brand-new book is called *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*. I really appreciated Becky's honesty during our conversation, especially her insight that the strength of your connection with someone determines the measure of your influence in their life. That's definitely worth sitting in for a minute.

Today here on Family Talk, I want to encourage you to go to jdfi.net if you missed any part of the conversation today, or if you’d like to share part one with a friend or a loved one who could use some encouragement. You’ll also find information about Becky's new book, *Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World*, there as well. Again, go to jdfi.net.

Conversations like the one you just heard reach families all across America every single day because listeners like you make these broadcasts possible. Every broadcast, every resource, every letter of encouragement that goes out from the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute is the direct result of someone who decided that strong families and biblical truth are worth investing in.

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In these closing moments, a final reminder for today that the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and the Herzog Foundation have launched a national essay contest for middle school and high school students. As America approaches her 250th anniversary coming up this July 4th, we’re inviting young people all across the country to reflect on how faith shaped the founding of our nation and how God is calling them to carry those principles into the future.

Cash prizes are $1,000 for the grand prize for the middle school category and $2,500 for the high school category. Keep in mind, though, the submission deadline is one week from today, Thursday, April 30th. For more information, go to drjamesdobson.org/usa250. You’ll also find that same information at jdfi.net.

I’m Roger Marsh, and on behalf of all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

Guest (Female): This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.