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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

We’re so excited for you to hear this episode. It’s really important. So yeah, we.

Are talking about the balanced life myth and all that that can impact. Today we’re talking about the need for core habits that are established and prioritized in your family, as well as.

Modeling, resiliency and good communication when there’s change and not expecting everything to be like this idyllic picture because it leads to discontentment.

We also go over the seven areas that we like to evaluate and analyze or audit, if you will, with our kids and ourselves.

And how to avoid burnout. So we hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children Biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age of 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources, go to be courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Hey guys, what a good topic.

Today we are talking about the balanced life myth. I know that that might seem like a pretty vague title, but think about this for a second. Have you ever strived for having a balanced life? If you have, then likely you’ve found that you probably feel like you can’t ever fully get it balanced or.

You get it there and you’re like, Oh, hold the line. But then it, you know, something.

Happens, something gets tweaked, then you have a new baby. I mean, there’s you start doing something new. There’s so many things, seasons in life. Right? We’re going to talk about that later today.

So we’ve thrown out the idea of a balanced life in favor of something more that will describe as we go through the podcast, which I think there are seasons and things like that. And if we hold on to some idyllic picture of a balanced life, then it tends to lead to a lot of discontentment, a lot of discontentment.

Not only that, but we need to think about as parents, what we’re modeling for our children and what we’re setting them up for. We’re setting them up for success or failure in the sense of do they have a realistic perspective of what to expect out of life, or are they going to feel like a failure because they can’t navigate and have perfection, Right? So if we’re always striving for perfection, that might potentially be an idol in our life. So there’s going to be some really, I think, encouraging exhortations. In today’s podcast, we’re going to talk through about 3 or 4 different verses in the Bible that that encourage us to write biblical thinking. But this is super important because a lot of people struggle with hitting burnout, right? We’re going to talk about that at the end of the podcast, but I wanted you to hear that at the beginning, because this is a huge problem for people who are constantly trying to spin all the plates at the same time and hoping to have some kind of perfection in this, right? You called it an idealistic world. Imagine how tired you could get trying to keep up that act for a long time. So, okay.

So we’ll dive in. But we so appreciate you being part of the 10 million Legacies movement. And I just haven’t said this in a little while, but it’s so important. It helps the algorithms wherever you listen, whether it’s Google, Spotify or Apple or elsewhere, to hit the stars, hit five star. Hopefully it’s worthy of a five star review because it pops it up in the list. And more people that have never heard of the Courageous Parenting podcast get helped by it when you do that. And then the written reviews I think are really helpful for that too. But they’re also encouraging to us. We read every one. We share them sometimes. And would you just help be part of the movement in that way? Also, when the podcast comes out, we don’t advertise it. It’s all word of mouth. Would you share it on social media or just mention it to a friend or text the link to somebody? That would be amazing. Yes.

So hey, I just want to share a couple ping words so that you can kind of get a feel for what today’s podcast is about. Get excited. There are lies that we all believe, myths that we don’t know necessarily where they come from at times. Sometimes they’re imposed upon us through social media. Sometimes it’s what we grew up with and we think that it’s going to life is going to be a certain way. Sometimes we read things, sometimes we hear things from other people. It can come many different ways. We’re going to talk about those habits. Habits is another word that’s super important being courageous parents. You want to be equipping your children to live the disciplined life, right? There’s a challenge of the disciplined life. So habits are really important seasons and understanding seasons is hugely important. We talked about discontentment, burnout. We also are going to talk about communication today. And this is really crucial because as parents, I mean, this is a parenting podcast and we need to understand that our kids really sense and perceive a lot more than we realize or maybe think they do. And on top of it, if we don’t communicate clearly the season of life that we’re about to go into, if, you know, like if you’re choosing a job change, for example, you want to communicate with your kids what realistic expectations they should have. Otherwise they may think other things. They may perceive you being gone more frequently to mean that you’re not happy at home or you don’t want to be with them, or that something’s wrong in the in in their parents marriage or so forth. And so we’re going to talk about the importance of communication, because this is really critical for having a thriving marriage. The last podcast we talked about 10 or 6 tips to having a thriving marriage. But you guys, there’s this thing that can be a roadblock in a thriving marriage. And I think that that’s this myth, right?

So our first point is it is a lie. You can have this idyllic picture and the repercussions, I think are pretty large in a in a lot of people. If we’re if we’re it’s good to have goals and it’s good to have vision. You know, we care about those things and intentions towards things. And while there’s different areas of life, we’ll talk about the ones we talk with our family about. In making intentions for the year and checking on those and so forth, because we do believe in that. But at the same time, if if it’s too idyllic, if if if all these pieces have to be in a certain way at all times, then what starts to happen is an overly controlling life. Like you have to be in control of everything to be happy. And the truth is you’re going to feel like some things are out of control sometimes because who’s really in control? God’s in control. And we’re yielded to him. And I also think it’s a limiting perspective because it takes being out of balance during certain seasons to experience new fruitfulness or a new direction or a new baby or whatever the situation is. It it causes us to get out of balance. But where does the growth happen? I recently posted that comfort and ease doesn’t look good on people. And what I mean by that is I was in that reference. I was talking about our country, the United States. I know it’s not everybody’s country because people all over the world, but think about your country and relatively compared to past, there’s a lot of comfort and ease, a lot of challenging things happening, don’t get me wrong. But compared to.

Lifestyle.

Lifestyle and what we feel entitled to and these kinds of things, and I just don’t think the pursuit of that is really what God made us for. It’s okay to live a good life and have comforts and so forth. We’re not saying that, but I think this sometimes we can have a vision for this idyllic picture. And once I have that, then I’ll be happy. We don’t actually say that, but that’s the message we are kind of telling ourselves and teaching our kids our reactions to things and what we’re thinking about and what we’re focusing on. And so I think it’s really important to have a more realistic, healthy view of this, because I can think of the the best times for a marriage. And the best times personally is when we’re out of balance. It’s not when everything is harmonious and perfect.

Well, and I would just want to draw attention, maybe give an example as a wife and a mom and a homemaker for what it could look like to be limited. I liked your vocabulary when you said it can also lead to a limited perspective. And here’s one one way that trying to strive for perfection, for example, or expecting things to be perfect, can be limiting. Many years ago, when we first were married, I didn’t really know what hospitality was supposed to look like other than what we experienced when other people would invite us over to people’s homes. And so clearly having a clean home, having an organized all these different things were like an obvious thing that you would witness or be exposed to, right? And so that was like obvious to me too. I didn’t want people to think I live like a slob. And and by no means do I live like a slob. But but I had this like, expectation almost of perfection. And that limited me in even doing hospitality as frequently as I should have or could have, because I had this expectation that unless the whole house is perfect, yes, I did. I believe the whole house, everybody’s bedrooms and I’m talking under the beds, the beds made, the closets are clean, not stuff shoved in a closet. Right. Like I literally believed that unless everything in the bonus room and all the parts of the house were perfect, we couldn’t have people over. And clearly, that is not a realistic perspective, especially when you have many young children if you’re going to have a joyful home. And so it was very early on in our marriage that I that I realized I’m not making this fun for my family. Like, we enjoy having people over and we know we’re called to hospitality. But this is like more painful for everyone and hurting relationships. I need to change, not hospitality needs to stop. I need to change. I need to grow. My expectations need to change. And so that’s just one example. What’s another example?

Oh, I mean, you know, I can just think of times I’ve put us out of balance. Pretty much. That’s what comes to my head. Yes. Yes. Let’s do a vineyard. Big dreams. We’re going to start this business. And of course, communication. We were talking to each other and all those things. But I think of and I look at the times my best thinking, walking through the vineyard, that helped me in business in so many ways, unbelievable ways of just having that alone time in the vineyard, pruning early in the morning and and that kind of thing late at night and the times with the kids. And but that was there were seasons of being farming now back then of out of balance. I mean I don’t think any farmers expect life to be in perfect harmony all the time. Right. That’s not part of the.

Farming.

Life.

Well, you understand seasons too, right? And so you understand that there’s certain seasons, like in a pruning season when we have the vineyard that was like a really like there was a very fine line of amount of time that we had to get the pruning done right before things. Started budding. And it was the same thing with the harvest. Like birds and insects. No, when the grapes are ripe and if you miss that window of when the grapes are right. They’ll come and eat them. So that’s definitely been a limiting thing for me is just the hospitality thing. What’s something you can think of?

Well, you know, what comes to my mind is times I’ve thrown the family out of balance with dreams or projects or things to do. Oh, yes, like the Vineyard or, you know, businesses or, you know, now we’re going to go on do this thing or together we’ve decided to positive create a positive disruption of going on RV trips for eight weeks or three months while still. I’m still working full time. Yes. Wild. And you’re pregnant?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve done a lot of crazy things in our almost 24 years of marriage, for sure. But, you know, I think that that’s been part of the adventure of it. I think that we’ve grown a lot, and I know that for myself, I’ve grown in flexibility a lot compared to who I was when I first got married. For sure. You kind of have to. My life’s been a boot camp of that with nine kids for sure. But I would say that, you know, in all recognizing that like you don’t have to have everything perfect all the time to have balance, like, so for a long time, I struggled with trying to have balance, thinking that that believing a lie, that maybe even equal amount of time should be spent on in certain relationships, for example, or that there should be an appropriate amount of time for each thing that you’re doing Right. But that’s not realistic in different seasons of life, like when you have little kids or you have a baby, clearly they’re going to need more time from mom.

And obviously that’s not true because in a lot of cases, husbands are out working hard, providing spending more hours actually working than they actually spend with their kids. But that doesn’t mean they love their job more than their kids. Right. So there’s there’s appropriate time. But sometimes we might have this mixed up and sometimes we need to get out of balance because there’s a season of change, transition, something new, something important that’s going to catapult the family into a better position, better path moving, for example. There’s lots of things. You know, I.

Just I there’s something that’s just really impressing upon my heart right now that I want to share. You said something that kind of triggered it. And I think that there has been a movement in the last couple decades. You could give your opinion on this, but there’s been a movement in the last couple decades where there’s this great desire that for families to be spending, to be working from home and being at home and being together all the time. And I think that that is a really beautiful thing. It’s kind of back to the way things used to be in a sense when there was more of a farming economy, right? But the truth is, is that’s not a realistic expectation for a lot of people. And when you understand that there are different seasons and that it’s our job to embrace the season that we’re in fully, it allows you to have the freedom to go, okay, so right now Dad is working from home. What a blessing. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts. But let’s not in any way impress upon our kids that you’re not successful unless you make enough money on your own to be able to be working at home alone. Because the truth is, is that our kids need to see dad working hard, mom working hard. If we have this lifestyle of, Oh, I want to retire when I’m young and just spend all my time like at home with my kids and it’s this full, consuming thing, I actually think our kids are going to be hurt in a sense because they’re going to be raised to be entitled and and and have unrealistic expectations of themselves, actually, and then find themselves feeling like a failure, being discontented and maybe even worse. I just think that there I just need to speak to that for a moment because I think that a lot of times, because there’s so many people that have pursued that and it’s not a bad thing. I’m just saying like, make sure that we’re modeling the the character qualities that we want our kids to see, like working hard, even if we are working from home.

And you’re not saying that wives should go out and be away from their kids? No, no, no.

No, no, no.

I’m just making sure that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come across.

No, no, not at all. No, no, no. I think that what I’m saying specifically is for when you see couples that are designed for the husband to be at home too, because that’s really been a trendy thing that I feel like I see a lot more. And while I think that there is something that is powerful about kids growing up having a lot of involvement from both parents, you and I talk about that a lot. The truth is, is that having a dad model going and working and providing is a very healthy thing. And I think a lot of young couples forget that, that it’s a healthy thing for kids to learn that. And so if you’re in a situation where that’s primarily your what you’re living, there is so much good that’s coming from that. And I just want to encourage you in that to not have FOMO, if you will, or feel like you’re missing out because your husband has a solid job and is going to work and coming home, that can be a good thing, too. That’s a really. A good thing. It’s a it’s a thing to be thankful for and and to teach your kids not to despise Dad’s work, but to value that he loves them that much that he’s going and he’s providing for them. I had to say that because I think it’s something that could be a struggle for people. Absolutely.

Now, regardless of all the change, the seasons, the transitions and so forth, there are certain habits that we are called to have attention on at all times and to give our best to. And I would say that’s our relationship with God, relationship in our marriage, relationship with our children and how we take care of our holy temple, our bodies. We need to have the energy to be able to build those relationships, provide and do all the things. And so while there are seasons of extra busy and doing things and things get out of whack and so forth, and we need to embrace that. But at the same time, there’s certain things that we should always find a time, find the time to make sure the core habits happen. And you know what? Not with perfection, not with Idol idolization like on our health, for example. That’s got to give sometimes, right? Because there’s a certain emergency or certain situation. But you know what? Overall, as you look at the year over a longer period of time, those habits need to be there regardless of everything else happening. And you know what? That is so important. The times where I can think of the time where I lost everything financially and my business went under and there was debt following us and so forth, because I had still nourished the relationships with my wife and my children. They rallied behind me and we rallied together and we became even stronger in that. And my relationship with God was strong. And so I just leaned in even more with him and he provided and provided a way. And there was no big emotional battle, actually, even though I lost everything material in the world because I had really what matters. And so I think while there is transition change and there’s we’re going to be out of balance, sometimes we got to keep those things going 100%.

I think of those habits as being habitual rhythms, right? The core habitual rhythms that we are constantly modeling for our children, raising them up in. It’s the disciplined life, right? Like but not viewing relationship. And oh, I did a date. Check that off my list. Not not disciplined in that kind of way. It’s in the sense of like understanding what is eternal in life and that God has called us to value and prioritize those things above the fleshly things that are not going to make such a big difference. And we have a Bible verse that we want to share with you guys. It’s in Luke chapter 12, verse 15, which says, And he said to them, So this is Jesus, take care and be on your guard against all. Covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And I the reason why we chose to share this scripture with you guys is because the lie of the balanced, the balanced life myth and this idea of everything being perfect and and.

We’re moving towards this.

Moving towards perfection that lie creates a discontentment and God’s Word speaks quite clearly about discontentment in many different parts of the Bible. But this verse specifically says, Take care and be on your guard. We need to be proactive on guarding our hearts and our minds and our eyes and our children and our homes really from being covetous. And that’s like, you know, being jealous of what other people have or desiring desiring the thing that they have so much that you’re striving to make more money simply so you can have the same thing that the neighbor has or that the friend has or that you think you need to have. Right?

Or seeing everybody’s highlights on Instagram or anything like that.

So this encouragement, though, is for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Your life doesn’t consist of those things. Truly our life can. What does it consist of then? It leads you to that question. And and really, at the end of the day, when you pass, what do you want people to remember you for? What do you want them to think? Your life consisted of valuing other people, building up other people and and pursuing relationship, valuing the Lord, bringing glory to Him. What is your life consist of? Are you generous? Are you giving of the things that you have, knowing that they’re really the Lord’s and and seeing people in need? Like there’s just there’s so many things that we could talk about in regards to this that it made me go, okay, I have to step back for a second as I’m thinking about this balanced myth, this balanced life thing, because here we are, homesteading, you know, and on a on a pretty low to moderate scale, I would say we have over 60 chickens and we have 1000 square foot garden. And then we have a huge area of crop out in our pasture, which it takes a lot of work. And and so when you add. On new things like for us this year was adding more chickens and adding a crop pasture area. Last year was the garden. And so like every year we have been building a little bit more. But I also am looking at this going, okay, my expectations of my homemaking, for example, or the cleanliness level that’s in the home, clearly I can’t be doing both. I can’t be in two places at one time. And of course I’m going to put my relationships with my kids first. So then the other things are going to not be perfect. There’s going to be some weeds in the garden.

Yeah. And this is really important to executives always have more. Like in the business world, they always have way more to do than they could ever get done. Actually, they can delegate and that’s good. That’s a good sign of leadership, empowering other people to do things. But usually there’s way more things on the desk to do than they can. And so instead of fixing the chaos, it can feel like chaos. And you can relate this to yourself and whatever your jurisdictions are. But if you’re always trying to fix the chaos, sometimes you just need to manage the chaos. And that was a profound thing I learned as a young person in the business world is, you know, if I have to have everything tidy and perfect in my life, then I’m not going to have as big of a life and whatever that means, meaning I’m not going to dare to do more and to try things and things like that because it’s really hard to keep everything perfect at all times. Instead, I can understand what’s the priority and I focus on the priorities and what God wants me to do and my most important jurisdictions and take care of those things while there’s still peripheral things that are messy out there. And I’m not trying to make sure everything’s perfect. I’m managing it well and we have to manage our emotions and our and how we’re thinking about these things in Ecclesiastes. Oh, go ahead. Well, and I.

Was just going to say the last point in talking about the lie, I think one of the really powerful things we talk about biblical vocabulary and the Parenting mentor program and go into the depth of why this is so important for raising strong identity in our children, but even for ourselves and reminding ourselves of the truth when we start to think that a balanced life is actually possible and that it’s going to look a certain way. And then we hit a transition, a bump in a road, maybe we change jobs or we have a health issue or something good happens like you have another baby or you choose to start homeschooling or you start a garden. These can all be good things, but they are things that throw you out of your natural rhythm, right? It’s a different season. Having the correct perspective starts with having the correct vocabulary. So instead of saying things are out of balance, this is really, really crucial. Like I’ve said this before a couple times in the past, and I realized when we were preparing today that if you say, Well, I’m out of balance, then what you’re really saying is, well, when we get back to what we had before and that’s not healthy because then you’re living in the past and you’re not moving forward. But instead, if you have the vocabulary of, well, we’re in transition, we’ll find our new normal soon.

New normal, then you’re.

Looking, then you’re looking for, oh, you’re being proactive at finding good rhythms. You’re you are aware of what the core habits are that you need to keep prioritized. Those aren’t going to change. So your family’s going to have healthy emotional relationships and spiritual relationship and that sort of thing, because that’s a priority. But all these other things that are not eternal, like the weeds in the garden or, you know, if everything is looking super tidy and organized in my pantry, these things are going to be held open handed and loosely understanding, giving myself grace for the transition that I’m in and that I need to work a new muscle. Maybe I need to figure out some new things that are going to help me be more.

I’m sure when people come over, they wonder sometimes, Well, why the porch has paint, you know, coming off all over it. And they they probably want to know why is it Isaac take care of this? And I don’t even care because I know that I’m taking care of the most important things. And right now, the porch is not the most important thing. I have so many more important things. You know what? We just. Well, you just started a new thing called the Resolute Man podcast. Yeah, It’s way more important than the porch. Yes, you know what I mean. Yeah, well, you don’t get paid for that. Yeah, it’s way more important than the porch because, you know, what are we prioritizing? How are we prioritizing things? And it’s super, super important In Ecclesiastes three one through eight says for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and time to build up A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.

Time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. Interesting, isn’t it? And so we have to understand our seasons. We. There’s more chance. Than ever happening in the world right now. So it is so important that we’re resilient and we’re modeling resiliency. And if we’re pursuing balance all the time, some picture in our minds, then we might not be modeling resiliency for our children. And when they launch, they’re going to need to be more resilient than we ever had to be because the world is changing and there’s going to be the enemy’s got plans to try and take out Christians and destroy families and and confuse children and all these things that we’re seeing happening right now. How much worse are some of these things going to be down the road? And if we’re not modeling resiliency, how can we expect our children to They’re watching us. It’s more about what they see us doing than what we’re saying to them.

You know, when you when you say the word resilience, I’m sure that you guys think of a lot of different definitions of what that means. But one aspect of resilience that we don’t talk about very much is the ability to be content in any circumstance. That’s actually like a biblical version of resilience, right? To be content whether you have plenty or you have none, which Paul even talks about. Right? And isn’t this what we want for our kids? Because the truth is, is if you’ve lived any form of life as an adult for more than 5 to 10 years because it’s different when you’re a kid. It’s different when your parents are the adults and they’re paying the bills and you’re living at home. Yes, you’re living life, but you’re not fully understanding what it’s like to be an autonomous adult. Right? And so if you’ve just been married for a couple years, you may still have a lot to learn. I think back to the first ten years that we were married, even 14 years, and we learned a lot for sure. We had six kids. We moved twice. We owned a couple homes, remodeled, planted vineyard, had a business. Many, many lessons in life. But truly, the last ten years, I would say my perspective on the truth of living in a fallen world, what that actually looks like in a very practical sense, and how applicable scripture is regarding how to deal with enemies, how to handle persecution, how to, when suffering and pain hits your family, when grief hits your family, when when failure hits your family.

Those lessons have all come for us in the last ten years, actually. And so and I share that with you guys because it’s easy when you’re, you know, skipping through life and you’re maybe 14. For us, it was 14 years down the road of marriage and not really having a ton of hardships. I mean, other than a few health things here and there, God was very good to us and he’s been very good to us the last ten years as we’ve walked through life, because life happens. We live in a fallen world. And and the truth is, is the longer you adult, the more you have a realistic perspective on that. And I think that it’s important to be able to be content in all those things, but not just for yourself, although that’s where it starts, but the overflow of your contentment in Christ overflows to where you’re able to model it, talk about it, teach it to your children. And that truly is a resiliency. That is a gift to give a child, especially as they’re going into this uncertain world. Right.

And a warning, gents, this is not a license to have long seasons of being away from your family or neglecting your family to build something. I think short seasons are fine, clearly communicated and we follow through. But I’ve seen it happen so many times where it becomes a habit within the men of, Well, I’m going to build this, Oh, now I’m going to build this, and and now I’m going to build this. And the promise of a short season becomes a long season. And pretty soon they don’t even know their kids anymore. And they think they do. But their children are not growing in strong relationship with their fathers. And I think it’s really important at the same time to have this. One of the things for me, if we’re out of balance, we may not eat dinner is many times during a week, right? Because together as a family, together as a family, all together as a family.

Just not as a family.

Right. Thank you. And so, like, I’m traveling on business and past or these kinds of things, short term, we can we can miss that for a bit. But if after a while, if we’re not eating dinner together at least four times a week, just our family, then something has to give and we have to get back to that. There’s certain things I’ve certain like things in my sacred things. Sacred things that. No. Are we eating dinner together? Like a most basic foundational thing? Are we eating dinner together at home or are we 3 to 4 times a week or is it less than that? And while there can be short stints of breaking that, for me, this is one of my things, right? I can’t do that very long because what I find is it’s a deterioration of the family and my ambition, the thing I’m building or whatever, can’t interfere with that long term.

That number one mission that’s kind of been a popular quote of yours is don’t let your number one mission be affected by your ambition. Right. To not let one thing that it might be a passion, maybe even a calling from the Lord. Right. But see, this is the thing that people oftentimes miss out on. A lesson I learned aside from seasons of life regarding certain callings and passions that God puts on your life is that sometimes he gives you a dream to do something like writing a book, or that that was one for me, or even being in charge of a specific kind of ministry and just wanting to serve in a capacity, but understanding that sometimes God puts that on you so that you can start the preparing process, not so you dive right in and do it right then. Sometimes what he wants you to do is to wait on him and learn and be open to learning and growing so that you’re better prepared for writing that book or for running that ministry. And I know now as I keep getting older because obviously we’re not getting younger, right? That that’s just been a constant theme. And the truth is, is if you want to be in ministry, you’re likely going to experience a lot of boot camps in your life because you can’t speak to things that you haven’t learned yourself. Yeah, you can read books and you can reteach things that you see in books that you think are really powerful. But the truth is, is nothing is as powerful as your own experience in life. And I’m just so thankful that we’ve chosen to live a life that’s full of a lot of experience to where there’s not really a lot of time for other things.

Well, it’s because I really believe I really believe in positive disruptions. I think it’s very, very important for human beings to break rhythm on certain in certain areas so that their rhythm is upgraded the next time because we all and we all have a certain capacity capacity for what we can handle. And that capacity should not stay in the same place. We should always be growing in capacity for what we can handle with God’s help, right? And that’s a mix of surrender to God relationship with God, but also being willing to go beyond our strength to meet God where he’s strong and can fill us up and help us. And if we’re only doing things that we feel capable of, that’s a sure sign that we’re not doing things in surrender and reliance on the Lord, and we’re maybe not doing things that all the things that God wants us to do. And I think that breaking the rhythm sometimes is important. Having good stints of good rhythms is great, but every once in a while we need to break those and have a positive disruption. And maybe that’s a mission trip or maybe that’s being in a confined space for a month, like an RV or something like that. I just find it is so, so important because what families naturally do is they drift apart and you don’t want to do that. You want to if that drifting apart in a natural rhythm can get stale, we have to break. We have to recalibrate at times so that we’re growing back together.

Yeah. So let’s take this back to the courageous parenting mission. As you guys know, our tagline is Raising confident, courageous Kids for an Uncertain World. And we talked about resiliency, that one aspect of resiliency is being able to have an emotional intelligence, if you will, of being content in whatever circumstances. This is incredibly critical. It’s crucial. It’s essential, whatever fun word you want to choose to describe it. But think about the truth that we don’t know. We have an uncertain there’s an uncertain future, uncertain tomorrow, right? The Lord tells us not to worry about tomorrow, for today has enough worry of its own. However, we are to also be prepared. We want to be proactive parents. We want to be equipping our children. And part of equipping your kids is communication. We’ve been talking about this for a little bit here on the podcast, the importance of communicating when you’re going to be going into transition, whether that’s obviously, Oh, we’re having a baby, you want to communicate that with your kids, What is that going to mean? Oh, mommy might be a little more sick. You don’t need to worry about it. Mommy’s okay. Having morning sickness is part of pregnancy that that needs to be communicated to children just as much as well. We are going to be building another business because we don’t want to be 100% reliant on this. And we feel called to this and this is what it’s going to look like.

Our Saturdays are not going to be the same as they normally are. We’re going to be doing X, Y, and Z. Or maybe you want to start growing a garden or having a homestead and you talk to the kids and you go, You guys want to help, We’re going to do this together. And you start delegating things that the kids can do, but then also choosing projects that you can be teaching them. They can be doing it alongside you. The reality is, though, is that communication is the foundation of being able to parent and disciple and discipline and train your children to be prepared for this uncertain world that they’re going to launch into. That’s just the basic foundation is communication. We need to model for them what it looks like to have those core habits of being devoted to having dinners or. Whatever your sacred thing is as sacred family time, right? Like we also have breakfast together where we do family Bible time. We have our family meeting, we recalibrate, we communicate about the day that is essential to our family when it does not happen on a regular basis. I’m talking every day. Our days are a little bit off. Attitudes are a little bit off. Being in the word together helps us to have grace with one another and to communicate in a loving way.

For us, it’s a core habit in our family. What are your core habits in your family? Communicate with your kids about what change is going to happen, but make sure that you keep some of those core habits that they can hang on to that that are going to be healthy for them, that maybe they do in the future with their spouse. You The point is, is communication is a huge part of modeling and teaching to our children. I want to just share with you that verse. I found it. We were talking about how Paul was exhorting people to be content. Here it is. It’s in Philippians chapter four, verse 11 through 13. It says, Not that I’m speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content, I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him. Who strengthens me is so important. People take verse 13 and they just leave it alone and they read that verse. But it is so important to understand that it is tethered to a scriptural, biblical principle of contentment. Yes, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you because you’re going to be content. Amen. Right.

And we want our kids to live out that scripture. But are we living out that scripture and want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already? Is the date Night one sheet? It is a beautiful document you can download that will have some key questions on it for your date night to just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to courageous Parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at Courageous Parenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at Courageous Parenting.com.

Stephen, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

But Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in Scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

Gents, you as you lead your families, it’s important to have communication, not right when you’re doing something new or changed prior lough time. Consider the emotions and goals of the individuals in your family and think about where they’re at and think about ahead of time how this change is going to impact them positively and maybe negatively have the necessary one on one conversations before you have the group meeting with the family. Obviously you’re talking you and your wife are talking way ahead of the kids. Right. About these things. I think a lot of times people get rash in their decision making. We need to be a little more methodical no matter what our personality is and think about all these things and then consider the Lord, make sure we’re surrendered to the Lord, make sure we get wise counsel and most importantly, with our wives. And and we’re deciding together to move forward on these things. I might initiate something, but we’re deciding together. And sometimes she has an initiation. There’s something on her heart that God’s prompting her. And then we have a conversation and and and we launch this thing. And I think it’s so important that we’re really communicating well.

We’re communicating in detail and we’re laying it all out there. One of the things that I don’t like, because I have so many children, is getting asked the same question over and over and over again. And I need to be patient on that. And I’ve learned to be mostly you are pretty patient, pretty patient on that. But one of the things, if that happens, it’s actually my fault, like. It’s an initiative I’m putting forward. That means I didn’t communicate well. So I get everybody together and I communicate in a way that doesn’t manipulate, doesn’t spin, is not dealing in reality. That’s not what we want to do. I like talking about the hard parts of things up front because then when we’re all committing together and they’re following my lead, then they’re committing to the good and the challenging of the situation and they become resilient. You know, a way to create a lack of resiliency in your kids. Poor communication, rosy Pollyanna, talking about it, then they’re not ready for the challenges. And you don’t have their will. You don’t have their will. You don’t have their hearts and you don’t have their energy towards the change.

No, you’re so right. I even just think about not them not operating in reality. And then what are they set up for? For their future? They have an unrealistic expectation of the world, how it operates and how they can be in the world. And then when things are actually hard because they experience life for real, then they feel like they’re a failure when in reality they’re experiencing the exact same thing that every single one of us experiences. But they just had it all painted to them in this Pollyanna picture. It’s not healthy. Let’s talk about the last thing on our list, which is preventing burnout, because obviously we’ve been talking about how this balanced life is a myth. This idea of like everything spinning all the plates all at one time is a myth because there’s clearly seasons in your life, right? Like I’m thinking about my my garden and everything that we’re doing. That was not what we were doing back in October. Were we doing some things for it? Yes, we were harvesting, preserving and closing it up for the year, planting cover crops, different things like that. Way low maintenance compared to where I’m at today with pruning, fighting diseases, fighting pests, also harvesting, pruning. It’s like hands on all the time. And well, it could be if I didn’t have my core habits that I prioritize. Right. Because that’s important. The truth is, though, is that being able to be in the midst of it and enjoy it, you have to have a realistic expectation of the fact that this season’s just a short period of time and it’s going to be gone, and then the next season will be here.

And that will have its own kind of fun, its own embracing that is a perspective we need to teach our children so that we are not like setting them up for failure. But burnout can happen if you think you have to be doing absolutely everything at the same time and you’re constantly running, running, running, running, running like you’re trying to keep the plates from falling and breaking. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that kind of position before, but I know I felt that before, especially when you start talking about, Oh, now you also need to be planning the next home school year and you need to be doing this and this and this. There’s all these potential expectations I could put on myself that could lead me to go like berserk. I could literally go crazy if I was constantly dwelling on them and thinking about them while trying to do something else. So we have some things, some suggestions for how to prevent burnout, But this kind of goes we’re going to start out with intertwining it with communication, because if you’re feeling this way, you really need to communicate it with your spouse. They can’t help you come up with solutions and ways to do some of our like points of solution here. If you don’t talk about.

It, hey, it’s so important just to even be proactive too, and ask your wives how they’re doing. You know, Angie was just talking about homeschooling, for example. It’s the middle of the summer right now. And but to have some anchor points about the what how that’s going to play out if you homeschool in the wife’s mind is probably pretty important to be able to enjoy the rest of the summer and was just talking about this and we have a few days where she’s going to get alone time just to recalibrate that. I’m going to take time off. I’m going to have all the littles with me and all the olders are going to be gone too, because they’re going to something fun. So it’s it’s really important to be selfless, to realize that she has important planning to do, too. And our planning isn’t more important than her planning. And sometimes it can feel like that because we get time to plan because we go to work and these kinds of things. But we need to create space for our wives to breathe, to rest, to think, to journal, to write things out and so forth. And when you have that concrete, man, the rest of the summer is going to go so well because you already know how the next transition is going to go. And that’s important. And before you dive into these this list here, I just want to make sure we talk about here’s seven areas that we analyze as a family.

We we do If you want to go to I think it’s the episode two creating vision with your family, how we how we do this process with our family. Here’s the seven areas we rate all the kids rate we rate individually on how we’re doing. How did the last year go on the spiritual side? 1 to 10, ten being the highest. We rate these things personally and then we share it with each other and then we ask how we’re doing and we make new intentions on these things to to improve the numbers in these different areas. So spiritual, personal development and under personal development would be education. Things you want to learn, skills you want to learn these kinds of things, right? Relationships in the family and outside of the family. Financial, really important health habits and projects. So we have habits and projects because I think it’s so important as parents that we’re learning about the projects our children want to do because through projects they learn some of the most important experiential things that help them be resilient and have practical application and in the world. And it makes education so much better. So spiritual personal development, relationships, financial health habits, projects, those are the seven things we analyze. And as we’re talking about balanced life, the myth would be that all of those are a ten all of the time, right?

Because in season, certain seasons you might be working on a project and you might be like having a lot of success in it and think it’s a ten. But there might be another season where you’re just stuck and you can’t figure out a solution and you’re like, Man, that project’s a 0 or 1, right? But it’s still a project that you’ve been working on. And so having teaching your kids to have grace with themselves and to be, you know, diligent and continuing on and working through those roadblocks is super important. But, you know, the burnout thing is a legitimate thing. I just want to go back to what Isaac was talking about regarding home school and just kind of elaborate a little bit. But before I do, I just want to share something here. I’m really thankful that Isaac values me having sending me letting me have some time to be able to go and think and pray and be in the word and be rejuvenated myself so that I can then think outside of the season that I’m currently in and be able to prepare like purchasing curriculums that I need and things like that. And having that plan done where halfway for us right now, we’re about halfway through the summer and I know that a lot of homeschool conferences just got finished and there may be some more that are happening online through the rest of the summer.

They’re kind of always happening. But one of the things that I I’ve only been to 3 or 4 over the 19 years that we’ve been homeschooling almost 20 years now. And I, you know, while I loved going to them, there’s a reason why I only went to four. And part of it is that I would walk away with the I had gone in with the expectation of I’m going to get so much planning and I’m going to be ready for the next year and I’m going to have curriculum. I’m going to choose it at the vendor booths, all these things. And while it’s true, I did buy some things at those vendor booths, that was really the most productive part of my time there. Aside from connecting with other like minded women, that’s also very encouraging. The truth is, is I would oftentimes leave a conference feeling very overwhelmed, like I needed a whole weekend by myself to process what I had just been exposed to and then like suspend that thinking long enough to evaluate where each of my kids are and what is going to be the most beneficial for them individually for the next year. And so I just want to encourage you guys, if that’s where you’re at right now, or you’ve been overwhelmed by thinking about the next year, even if you don’t homeschool, thinking about additional reading that you want your kids to do activities that you want them to do, having some suspended, quiet alone time to actually think and evaluate where your kids are at, evaluate their character, where they are spiritually and go, What areas of growth do you want me to focus on? Lord, I am your worker and you gave me these kids to steward.

I only have so much time. Let me be realistic with the needs that they have. Once you do that and you come up with kind of a plan and you I cannot tell you there is a burden that is lifted off of you that can literally wear you out while you’re trying to do all the other things. Like I could be literally sitting out in my garden or in the pasture working, weeding with the kids, harvesting, doing whatever, and be thinking in my head how I need to be picking out these curriculums, how I need to do this, and now I need to do that. And that makes me tense. I don’t know about you, but if you have something that’s big like that, you can’t enjoy the moment when you’re out there weeding. Yes, it should be enjoyable. It is enjoyable for me most of the time. I know you might think I’m crazy, but what is it that you love to do that is productive, that is building character with your kids? You’re working together maybe, or even something fun, But like, we could go down to the beach and I could literally be thinking about the exact same thing.

I could be thinking about the 2023, 24 school year instead of playing Spikeball and enjoying building sandcastles with my kids at the beach. That’s not okay. That’s stealing my joy. If I if but if I have it done, it’s done. It’s no longer something I’m thinking about. And that’s why we’re bringing it up. You guys, like take a moment, pause, get some of the things that you know are inevitably going to be happening, Get those things done so that you can enjoy and embrace where you are today. And it’s so, so helpful. Hebrews chapter four, verses nine through 11 said, Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no 1st May fall by the same sort of disobedience. You guys, this is talking about the Sabbath day in verse nine. It says, So then there remain. Means a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered. God’s rest also has rested from his works as God did from His. And then it says, Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no 1st May fall by the same sort of disobedience. This is an important practice that we would have.

This is a core habit, actually a core habit to be resting on a weekly basis. You know, God worked six days. He took the seventh day to rest. Rest is our first like solution for preventing burnout. God knew it was God’s idea, not Isaac and Angie’s idea. He is. It’s one of the the main things that is taught in Genesis that we need to take time to rest. And when we’re not doing that, I just want to say something that I myself have been convicted, that when I’m not resting, what it actually is revealing that I think deep down inside that I can handle it. Well, isn’t that prideful to think that way? It’s not healthy to be thinking that we can handle more than what even God can handle. Now, I would never say that because I would never think that. But my actions literally say that if I’m not taking time to rest and so understanding that we we should be valuing that time to rest, modeling it for our kids so our kids don’t hit burnout by going, going, going, going, going all the time. And that’s that’s so crucial. You can’t even give to other people. You can’t do the things, the projects, the plans, the passions. You can’t do those things and do them well the way God would have you do them if you’re exhausted.

And sometimes you just need a little break, a little space to get your head up above all the noise of life, to be able to receive the vision of why all of this stuff is so important. It makes the mundane worthy, all the mundane things we have to do worthy again, when we recalibrate and see the vision and just get some space and some time to pray and and alone time is important.

The last verse we want to share with you is in Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30 it says, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I think that if you’re really heavy then maybe we need to evaluate if we’ve really taken on a yoke that was from the Lord or if we’ve taken on a yoke that was from the world or ourselves or other people. We need to lay those things before the feet of Jesus and evaluate not I’m not saying that life is easy and that it should be easy. That’s the that’s not what I believe. But I do know that when you’re doing what God has called you to, it’s never going to be at the sacrifice of your main missions, like Isaac was saying before. So it’s really important that we are evaluating these things. We’re taking to heart. We’re listening to the Holy Spirit being willing to say no at times so that we can have rest, so that we can sleep. For example, taking care of ourselves is also really important. And this is something that I have. I failed just like many, many mothers do. I tend to put myself on the back burner and then all of a sudden something big happens. I’m like, Whoa, shouldn’t have been doing that. Or I should have been doing something better. And so I just want to encourage you, as I’ve been striving to be more healthy with certain things, that taking care of yourself is a legitimate thing. God, like Isaac said, God’s Word calls us to treat our bodies like a holy temple.

So thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. And being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous Ministry Org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for believers.

Also we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at be courageous ministry org that’s be courageous ministry.org.