FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

So I worked with a woman one time who, on the way to work, said that her car was making some weird noises underneath the hood. She didn't know what to do and was kind of panicking. So, she just turned up her radio because she didn't want to deal with it. I laughed, just like you laughed.

But then I thought to myself, how many times do we do that? Oh, yeah, like something is rattling underneath the hood of our soul. Instead of pausing and saying, "What is that? What's going on? Why am I feeling this way?" we just turn up the radio.

And the radio station for us can be a million different things. I'll work hard. I'll get more hours at work. I'll turn on the TV or the news or social media. I will drown this noise out in some way.

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us@familylifetoday.com. this is Family Life Today.

Speaker 2

I think one of my favorite Sundays, whenever you would preach, you would think I'd say Easter or Christmas, but it's when you would speak on Father's Day.

Speaker 3

Why is that?

Speaker 2

Because this is your passion. Dads, men of kind of motivating them and casting vision of what God has called men to be. So I'm excited about today because Jared Lopes is with us in the studio.

Speaker 3

I think it's maybe his passion.

Speaker 2

That's what I was gonna say. You guys are very similar in this passion, and you're in two different stages of life.

Speaker 3

I was looking through your Instagram, by the way. If you haven't found dad tired, go become a subscriber Facebook.

Speaker 1

Yeah, if you just type in dad tired, we have free online community for guys and we have a podcast. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you do three a week.

Speaker 3

Wow. Okay. You can just interview us. We're not gonna interview you. Let's do it.

I was looking through it this morning, and I saw one of your posts was something like, I've interviewed or talked to thousands of men, which you do every year.

And here are the common things they have in common.

Speaker 1

Yep.

Speaker 3

We sometimes do five things around here. Okay, what are five things the best dads the best dads have in common?

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I do something called garage group on Wednesdays where I meet with a couple guys in a garage. Like, it's just any garage. Your garage, one of our garages. Really?

Speaker 3

Oh.

Speaker 2

I'm going to start a group called.

Speaker 3

Spa I think you already have that group.

Speaker 2

No, I don't.

Speaker 1

It's just you spa group.

Speaker 2

I don't have that. I need that.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

That's funny. Yeah. I don't know why Bible study felt like, I don't know, too intimidating to us or whatever. We study the scriptures, we pray for each other, we confess in. But garage group just felt more organic and natural. So we literally have lawn chairs in the garage. Kids are asleep inside.

But I actually made the list based on these guys. Like, these are the best guys that I know. They're my closest friends. They are pointing me to Jesus. Personally. I was trying to think, like, why am I so drawn to these men and what are the qualities that they have that I personally want and that I think, you know, if you're trying to be a good dad, a husband, man, what do they have?

So I don't know. You want me just to bust through some of these and we'll, we'll go through.

Speaker 3

Let's talk about each one.

Speaker 1

Okay. So the first one I have here is they know the end goal and why that's so important. We're recording this very close to Disney, in proximity to Disney. Right now, I live in South Carolina, so we can make the drive to Disney. If I told my kids, "Hey, we're going to go to Disney," they would get upset if we got in the car and I started to take every off ramp. Right? Because they're just like, "Just get us to our goal." The reason we're laser focused on getting there is because we know where we're trying to go.

Versus if we just got in the car and said, "Let's just drive," then every billboard would look enticing to us. "Oh, wow, there's a BUC EE's over here," or "there's a Dairy Queen over here. Let's pull us out." I think a lot of men don’t know where they're going, and so they just pull off every off ramp because it seems enticing. For the guys that know exactly where they're trying to go in life, that allows you to say no to the enticing stuff.

Some of the enticing stuff is good—work, a boat, fantasy football, hobbies, or whatever. Some of the enticing stuff is bad; it's sinful. There are addictions and distractions, and they're just pulling off because they don't really know where they're trying to go. A guy that's doing it well says, "I actually have guys write out as specifically as possible, on your deathbed, if God's gracious enough to give you a long life, what does that look like?"

Describe in detail your relationship with your wife, with your kids, and with the Lord. A guy that has that laser focus can then say, "Okay, that's where I'm going. So it must mean I have to say no to all these other things."

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 2

This makes me excited to hear yours.

Speaker 1

So my end goal is, and I've written this out, I want to be an old man holding my wrinkly wife's hands and her holding my wrinkly hand, and that we've had a long, faithful marriage to each other, that we have kids who love the Lord and grandkids who love the Lord.

Again, I don't have control of all of that. I don't know how long I'll live. I don't know where my kids will be at in their relationships with the Lord. But to the best of my ability, that's where I'm trying to go.

I want to be married, have a faithful, long marriage. I want to have kids who love Jesus, and I want to have grandkids. My dream is to be sitting in the house one day on a couch, an old couch, and seeing my kids and my grandkids, you know, share the holidays together.

And all of us are following Jesus. So that's where I'm trying to run toward.

Speaker 2

That's really sweet.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Wow. Do you think most men don't really know what their end goal is?

Speaker 1

Totally.

Speaker 3

Do you think it's important to write it down 100%? Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And the reason that's so important is because if I want my kids to love Jesus, well, that's going to shift my goals. If I want to have a long relationship with my wife, if I want to have a marriage of 50, 60 years, that's going to shift the things that I say yes to.

If I want my kids to be close to each other, which is a big goal for me, that's going to shift my goals. And we talked about that a little bit on the last episode that we did. Even having intentional time with each kid, that goes to the goal.

I want to have kids who are close to me and close to Jesus. And in order to do that, I'm going to have to say no to certain things so I could say yes to them.

Speaker 2

So have you broken that down into, like, okay, what am I doing for my marriage? And you talked about Your kids being close, Are you. Then do you have to get into specifics? But this is where you start, like, with a goal in mind.

Speaker 3

A strategy.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, strategy. I think that's my big goal. And so as I'm shaping the weeks or the months, it allows me to say, does this hit the goal or not? That goal has shaped sometimes our ability to say no, even to, like, sports leagues.

Like, if my son does really well and they say, hey, do you want to play for a travel team? It's like, well, what is our end goal as a family? We want to spend a lot of time with each other. We want to make sure that church is a high priority for us, because I'm trying to raise disciples.

If we say yes to this, it's going to be saying no to these things that are really important. Again, those are those off ramps that seem like, oh, cool, that looks shiny. Let's go over there. But it actually takes us away from the thing that we're trying to do.

Speaker 3

Well, so you're in the thick of it. Your oldest is 13?

Speaker 1

Yep.

Speaker 3

Down to.

Speaker 1

Down to 3.

Speaker 3

So. Wow. I mean, maybe you're glad you're here right now because, you know, Laila's taking care of everything back home, but, like, how are you deciding about that very thing?

You just talked about sports, other things outside of the home that are really good things. But families today are obsessed. And a lot of families I know are on every sports field every day of the week, on weekends, and a.

Speaker 2

Lot of travel teams, not just one.

Speaker 3

So they're trying to. They have the same end goal, but they're getting off a lot of exit ramps called sports. And you tell them that might not be the most important thing, and they look at you like, no, it is. How are you navigating that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, this is a hard conversation, because this is gonna feel offensive, but it kind of gets into idolatry. I think there are people who are worshiping sports.

And what's funny is I have friends who are professional athletes, and they would say we're going overboard because it's a moneymaker. Sports has become a youth activity and a moneymaker. If we can do tournaments, we can make money.

And I mean, for the organizers, they will never put restrictions on you. Like, hey, maybe you should spend more time with your family and not do this. Right?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I just talked to a guy who played for the Bengals, and he's like, I didn't have sports camps, and I didn't have a personal coach. He's like, you know, God gave me the ability to do it, and I played hard.

But he was saying, it is a high priority to me that my kids go to church every Sunday. And so if that. If sports are going to get in the way of that, then we just don't do it.

And this was a guy who played professional football, so.

Speaker 2

But the coaches will put fear into you, like, oh, if they're not on that team, they will never have any.

Speaker 3

Play at the next level.

Speaker 1

Right, I understand. Because you're thinking, I want my kids to play at the collegiate level. This could mean scholarships.

Speaker 2

Kids even want that.

Speaker 1

I know, it's just so tough.

But I would say, what's the end goal? The end goal for me is that I'm an old man with kids who love Jesus, and it doesn't involve them being professional athletes, which, by the way, literally 99% of them will not ever make.

Speaker 3

Whenever I see an NFL stadium or a basketball arena on TV, I go, yep, there's the new worship center.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are worshiping. I mean, it's great. I love it. I was a chaplain for all those years.

But I mean, it can become more important than the most important thing.

Speaker 1

Well, you could. I mean, you can make it. Even if your kids, if your family is not a sports family. Just think about if you don't know the end goal and your boss says, hey, can you work these extra hours, do this extra project, and your goal is more money in the bank account, then you just, that's an off ramp. And you say, yes, I'll do it. At the sacrifice of more time with your family.

Yeah, there's all kinds of goals that we're chasing after. And for a man, you might say, well, this is providing for my family. That would be a whole podcast episode. The amount of men who are saying no to their family and yes to work and all the reasons why.

Speaker 2

And they've done stats that many wives would rather live in a smaller home with a smaller lifestyle than to have their husband gone all the time.

Speaker 1

And then ask the kids, would you rather have a new toy or daddy around?

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 2

Okay. So that's number one. They know the end goal.

Speaker 3

And I would just say, if you heard this and you've never written it down, this could be a great assignment.

Speaker 1

We have a thing called the Family Leadership Program, which we offer for whatever you can afford or free if you can't afford anything, just sign up for it. It's free if you want it to be.

Speaker 2

I wonder. I mean, I'm guessing Moms and wives should have an end goal too.

Speaker 1

Absolutely.

Speaker 2

Sure.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

That's good.

Speaker 1

But in our family leadership program, we have guys go through a really specific exercise where they can kind of write out their goals. We'll help them figure out how to do that.

Yeah. The second one I have is they're self-aware, and this requires you to be introspective. So I worked with a woman one time who, on the way to work, said that her car, underneath the hood, was making some weird noises. She didn't know what to do and was kind of panicking, so she just turned up her radio.

Speaker 3

That is not what I thought you were gonna say. Wow.

Speaker 1

Cause you didn't wanna deal with it. And I laughed just like you laughed. But then I thought to myself, how many times do we do that? Oh, yeah. Like something is rattling underneath the hood of our soul. Instead of pausing and saying, what is that? What's going on? Why am I feeling this way? We just turn up the radio.

And the radio station for us can be a million different things. I'll work harder, I'll get more hours at work. I'll turn on the TV or the news or social media. I will drown this noise out in some way. And I think the men that I know who are really excelling as husbands, fathers, and disciples, they are the men who have intentional time about turning that radio down and sitting in silence.

Actually, I'm taking my son, he's 13. So we're going through a rite of passage kind of process. And one of the things that we're practicing is him sitting in silence. Incremental times of silence. So right now it's very short, you know, five minutes, just sit quietly. Eventually, I want him to be able to sit for a whole day. Can you just be able to, by the time you're 18, 19, be by yourself and in your thoughts? Which seems crazy, but that's a skill that's like in our world that is so busy and so loud to just be able to sit quietly now.

Speaker 3

Why? What's going on there?

Speaker 1

Because essentially what I'm doing is I'm asking the same thing that the Psalmist said.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Is there anything in me that is offensive to you?

It's so much easier just to turn on the radio and not have to ask that question.

Speaker 3

Right. Or look at porn or drink or whatever, escape.

Speaker 1

But for the men who are doing it, well, they have intentional time to turn down the radio to say, "Search me, O God, is there anything offensive in me? Is there anything that I need to repent of?"

And those men are just. They're the more solid men in my life. The guys who are actually self-aware enough to address their sin head-on.

Speaker 3

Wow. Do you also encourage other men in your life to point out maybe what you're not seeing as to help you.

Speaker 1

Be more self aware through my list?

Speaker 3

Man, you got that one going.

Speaker 1

No, I had that one. Yeah. I mean, we can jump to that. So I, I said the best men that I know have real friends. And it's not 10 friends, it's not 20 friends.

Speaker 2

It's.

Speaker 1

It can be just one or two other guys who are doing that. So. Yeah. And man, I do this at garage group pretty consistently as like, I'm just gonna throw out what I'm feeling and I'm giving you guys permission to tell me where my blind spots are.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

And the men who do that, I mean, they're just healthier men. And I will say the most unhealthy years of my life have been when I don't do that. When I live in isolation.

Speaker 3

It feels like women do that all the time, talk to one another, share stuff.

Speaker 2

Women get together, but they don't always go deep into kind of sharing maybe what they're struggling with. And especially if you see something in a friend. Like, I've seen it so often because I've mentored a lot of young women. Maybe a single woman's dating some guy who's not a Christian and she's like, but he took me on this date and I can see women like, oh, you know, that's so sweet. No, it's not sweet. Like you shouldn't be dating this dude. That kind of thing of. And you wouldn't say it like that.

You have to have the relationship to be able to speak truth to somebody in love. I remember having. This sounds terrible. This is the side of me, my other side of the brain that's pretty high analytical. And I was sitting with a group of friends. We know each other well and we all were young moms and we're talking about nothing.

After we had been together 35 minutes, like, guys, are we going to talk about nothingness the entire time? And because we only have so much time, like, I want to know how you're doing, what's going on. So I think that's important for men and women. And we don't always go there because it's risky.

Speaker 1

Yeah. One thing we said in our garage group early on is everything we say here stays here. Like, we don't even tell our wives.

If you tell me something about what's going on in your life, I'm not going to go home and tell my wife. And I told my wife that.

Like, she'll say, how was it? You know, what did you guys talk about? Like, I can't tell you.

Speaker 2

I know Dave and I had that with our groups too. And I respected. I didn't want to know. I didn't think it's any of my business.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So part of that is just building that trust.

And then I remember at one of the groups, we just said, like, I'm giving you guys permission to speak into my marriage, into my parenting. If you see me do something with my kids or my wife that you feel like is off, I'm giving you permission to call me out on it or even just, you know, call me out.

Sounds rough, but just like, give me insight on it. Like, if you saw something that you have a question on or didn't make sense to you or whatever, you can bring it up to me.

Speaker 3

I had a group of guys I did life with for three decades, and for maybe 10 years or so, we met once a month. I mean, we were always hanging out, but we had one formal meeting where we had dinner together and spent basically the whole night together, sometimes until one in the morning.

One year, I said, "Hey, I got an idea for this year's sort of agenda." They asked, "Yeah, what's that?" I replied, "Let's do blind spots." They were curious and asked, "What do you mean?" I explained, "If it's Jared's night, we'll have him leave the room, we'll talk about his blind spots, bring him back, and we'll give him a gift. We'll call it 'Give a Gift' because it's a gift to know what your blind spots are; you're blind to them, that's why they're called blind spots." I thought we'd do everybody in one night, but guess what? It turned into one guy per month.

And again, it sounds horrible. Yeah, it was. You talk about being self-aware. It was just what you said: "If you see me doing things in my parenting or my marriage, I want you to call me out." It was that kind of thing. But I tell you, the night they did me, they said, "Hey, Dave, go out in the kitchen. We'll see you in a little bit." I was out there for like an hour.

Speaker 2

And there's just one thing. They can only share one thing.

Speaker 3

No, they could share two or three things.

Speaker 2

The wives group, we can only share one.

Speaker 3

I mean, it was like three. And you come back and they say, here's things we love about you. You know, you start positive.

And they go, but let me tell you, it was a gift. It was hard. It was hard to hear. It was a tough year for all of us, but it made us better.

And you talk about self-awareness. We weren't aware. And again, that can't change you, but it can give you insight to say, okay. My best friends who love me said, I gotta notice this about how I treat people or how I come across or whatever it was.

Speaker 2

Share the time. You were at a basketball game with your friend and he was kind of obnoxious to the referees.

Speaker 3

Yeah. He's one of the guys in this.

Speaker 2

Group who gave permission.

Speaker 3

And you know, we had this like you. Did you see something? Well, his daughter was playing, and he was a jerk from the stand. There weren't a lot of people there. Some parents were yelling at the refs, and yeah, the refs were bad.

And I'm sitting beside him like, dude, you're that dad, you know? He's a college athlete, and he knew. I sent him an email, I think. I don't know. In the moment, I'm like, dude, settle down. He never did. He was sort of yelling, and people started looking.

So finally, I sent him an email. I think it was a text, whatever. But I just said, dude, I gotta be honest with you. It was a little embarrassing sitting beside you because of this. He totally said, you were right. I lost it. I was not a good representative of Jesus the way I did it. It was a good moment for him.

And you know how guys can be? It can go either way. Get out of my face. What are you talking about? Who are you? You think you're better? It was the opposite. It made him better and me better. But that's what you're saying—that self-awareness.

Speaker 1

Two things stick out to me about that. One is it can only come from a guy that you know loves you.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And you trust.

Speaker 1

You trust him. And the second thing is he knows the end goal. The end goal is I want to be a better man.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Actually, the guys I meet with are pretty much all military guys. And you do a lot of things that you don't want to do for the sake of the end. For the mission.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And even sports. You practice, you're running up hills and you're doing drills. I don't want to do this, but I'm doing it because I'm trying to win the game. Right.

And if you're trying to run the race, well, as Paul says, then you're going to do some stuff. It's like I don't want to feel, I don't want to hurt like this. I don't want you to tell me that I'm doing something wrong.

But I want to be the man that God's calling me to be. So I gotta hear this hard stuff.

Speaker 2

So we've got one, they know the end goal. Two, they're self aware. Three, real friends.

Speaker 1

They've got real friends. The other one is they're serious about their health. Holistic health.

Again, I was just trying to think through the guys that I know. So when I say holistic health, I mean they're actually thinking about their health in the whole sense of the word, meaning they're trying to sleep well, they're trying to eat well, they're exercising.

Again, you don't have to be a fitness guru to look it up. Me or you know, some of the guys in the group, we're not all like just big old fit guys, but we're trying to be holistically healthy. We're trying to be spiritually healthy, emotionally healthy.

Again, I'm just trying to think through the guys that I know and respect most, what do they do? And all of those guys in some way are serious about their holistic health.

Speaker 2

So body, soul, spirit kind of thing.

Speaker 1

A guy who's not sleeping well or who's not disciplined in the way that he eats or takes care of, he's probably not disciplined in other areas as well. And when you are disciplined in these other areas, it actually will bleed into spiritual areas too.

Speaker 3

Yeah. If you're not taking care of your body, you're probably not taking care of your eyes.

Speaker 1

Exactly.

Speaker 3

What you're looking at, what you're allowing your ears, I mean it's all. You're right. It's all connected.

Speaker 1

If you say yes. So another way of saying this, if you say yes to every impulse physically, you're probably saying yes to everything else.

Speaker 3

And taking care of your body is a lot of no's.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're saying no or I don't want to go in there and do this, but I'm going to do it anyway because I know it's better for me.

And that's fasting. Really, it's just the practice of saying no.

I'm saying no to this so I can say yes to the spirit of God in me, not my flesh.

Speaker 2

What's the last one?

Speaker 1

Last one is the best men I know have the least Amount of secrets. The guy with the most amount of secrets is usually the most unhealthy man.

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 1

I actually had a wife. When I said that publicly, she said, "Why would you say least amount? Why not just say no secrets?" And I agree.

Like, if you have no secrets, you're an incredibly healthy person. But you tell that to a dude, like, you have no secrets, he's out.

That doesn't feel like an attainable goal. You know, it's like, I'm gonna have something.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1

So I was just thinking about the unobtainable goal: the guy with the least amount of secrets is the healthiest. One thing that we do in our family leadership program is have participants go through a Venn diagram. On one side of the diagram, you put who you are in public, and on the other side, you put who you are in private, which would be in secret. In the middle, you explore whether there are any characteristics of you that meet both. This exercise can be really revealing; it’s like, oh, I actually have a lot of secrets.

The guy who can be consistent, wherever you find him, is usually the healthiest guy. That’s why I say the least amount of secrets is ideal. I want to be in a practice of being in community where I'm confessing sin. From a biblical perspective, if we confess our sins to God, what does He do? He’s faithful and just to forgive us. That’s healing.

However, James says that if you confess your sins one to another, you will find healing. I want to be a guy who is forgiven and healed. The goal is to move towards healing. I’m not going to sit with my garage group and tell them every sin I’ve ever done in one hour, but if I have a lifestyle of confessing sin, I’m starting to actually find healing and health.

Speaker 3

Yeah. And so you need guys in your life you trust.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And that takes time to cultivate.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Right.

Speaker 3

Do you have those guys? You've always had them or no.

Speaker 1

Most of my life in the Christian world was accountability groups which did not feel the same. It usually was, let's meet and be. Hold each other accountable. And so it was. We would meet together and have, like, a checklist. Did you cuss? Did you look at porn? How did you? You know, I either can confess it to you and it feels hard or awkward, or I'm just gonna hide it because this doesn't feel like you really love me.

What we did as a garage group was state the end goal. We're all trying to be men who love our wives, who have a long marriage, who have kids, who love Jesus, and that's the end goal. And now they just check in with me on my heart.

So we can confess sin freely to each other because we know we're trying to be the men God's called us to be. But I think most of my life, I didn't have real friends like that.

Speaker 3

Really?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So how do you have them now? Is it intentionality?

Speaker 1

I was gonna say that. I'm glad you asked that, because I think a lot of people listening are like, oh, must be nice for you. You mentioned you had friends for decades, and I'm mentioning this garage group.

I can already hear the pushback. Like, must be nice for you. You know, you guys are in ministry. You have these kind of friends.

I would go on a limb and say, if you're a man listening, even a woman, I bet you that you already have that kind of friend in your life currently. Probably don't even need to go find somebody new.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

It's just a matter of intentionality.

Speaker 3

Take it to the next level.

Speaker 1

These garage group guys were my friends for about a year and a half before we had that kind of friendship. And we shifted into that kind of friendship with one conversation.

Hey, what if we just. Like you said, I love the way can we just stop talking about shallow things? Can we have nothingness? And it was that one conversation that shifted it, and it was an actual one of the guys confessed some deep sin, and that moved us into a whole different level of friendship.

But there were guys who I already had in my life.

Speaker 3

And I think for a lot of guys, you know this better than anybody. They're scared of that.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

But once you step through that barrier, it's where life happens. It's like, I don't want to bring this up. I've got a secret, or I don't. And it takes guts to do it.

And once you say, okay, God, I'm going to jump. I don't know what's going to happen. Good things are going to happen because you're coming out of darkness into light and darkness, sin and secrets.

Secrets thrive and they grow. But in the light, freedom happens and joy happens, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Darkness is the playground for the enemy, and you bring it to light and you just destroy the playground that he can play in.

What was funny about the "confess your sins to each other that you would find healing" is we had a buddy kind of start off the group by confessing his sin. He has found healing in his sin, but he also, by his confession, allowed other guys the freedom to do that.

As a result, multiple guys are finding freedom because of his confession. That's cool.

Speaker 2

I think it'd be cool if you're a woman listening to this. I mean, I don't know how your husband would feel about you sending this to him. But to say this was a great conversation or if you think this was a good conversation or an interesting conversation, it'd be interesting for us as a couple just to talk about.

Do we have these relationships with you with their husband, with men, and me with women? Even to talk about these are really good questions and things to talk about. I'm like, I'd take this on a date now and talk to you about it.

You know, how are we doing? Like, do we know the end goal? Do you think I'm self-aware? Do you think I have friends? I think that'd be interesting. I don't know if a guy would feel intimidated by that.

Speaker 1

I think that would be a great conversation starter. You kind of put this episode as an idea to be neutral. You know, it's not me just pushing this on you, but as you were saying that, the first thing that came to my mind was I think that actually very few guys have this, but they can actually get it easier than women.

And when you just described that, from my experience, I don't know this to be true.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

But it seems like most women would say, I don't have those kind of friends. Most guys don't have that. But they can get the road to getting there is shorter or faster. I'm kind of rambling through or stumbling through my first thoughts here.

Speaker 2

I can see what you're saying.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

All right. So you can get all these thoughts from Jared and Dad tired. That's his book. We'll have a link to that@familylifetoday.com and follow his ministry. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2

So good.

Speaker 3

And if you give a gift, gift to family life, we'd love to send you his children's book called *My Daddy's Hero*. We'll send that to you.

Just go to familylifetoday.com; you can make a donation there. Or give us a call at 1-800-358-6329.

And Anne's going to tell you how you can do that on your phone. It's F as in family or football.

Speaker 2

L as in life. And the word today.

Speaker 3

And let me just say this. We want to pray for you. We have a team that will pray for you. And if you would like us to pray for you, here's how you can let us know. Go to familylife.com prayforme and we will pray for you specifically. Tell us what you need. We'll pray for that.

Speaker 2

Family life today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.