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Handling Conflict & Disagreements That Uncertain Times Bring

Could 2020 be a year that shook Christians in a major way by having to think through how to handle and respond to so many new things in their relationships? We are hoping and praying that this is building momentum for 2021 to be the year that believers are more willing to reject passivity, stand for truth, and lead unapologetically for the purpose of the Gospel. But how do we do this well when there’s increasing conflict around us? The Tolpins address this and more in this episode. This will help you navigate the stormy waters of relationships in uncertain times.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Is being fully you, new?
  2. How to stand for truth in boldness and love
  3. The importance of discernment and not having pride
  4. What limits your freedom to be yourself?

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Scripture In This Episode:

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 – For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”

Matthew 5:13 – “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

Acts 4:8-13 –Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

2 Timothy 1:6-7 –For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

1 John 2:15 – 28 –Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”

1 Corinthians 16:13 – “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”

Luke 6:27 – “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children.

Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, guys, we have another topic we think will play off of the previous couple. If you listen to the last two on civil disobedience and you know what to do about church if it’s closed and how to run a home church if you need to, and all these different things, this is going to be a perfect fit in with that, but also stands alone, of course.

That’s right. So today we’re going to talk about handling disagreements in conflict the uncertain times bring.

Because obviously, if your standing for truth and we’re increasing uncertain times and your standing for freedom and standing for the rights you’ve been given in that God gives us to preach and share the gospel and so forth, then that’s going to create some friction potentially.

That’s right. So we’ve actually had a lot of people reach out asking about questions that are similar to this kind of topic, like what do you do when you don’t see eye to eye with family? What about friendships? I’m finding that my friendships are changing. Even some pastors are are realizing that some of their core people are not necessarily the same core people. Right.

And so there’s a reality where we’ve talked about this just in going through life.

Charles, you find out who your real friends are when you walk through the hardest, darkest days and trials. Right. And the truth is, as we know, we live in a blessed country, America, Americans. We are blessed. We’ve been blessed with a lot more freedom than a lot of people experience. And so for some people, what we’re experiencing right now as a country, even though this is a global thing. Right in today’s podcast is relevant to people no matter where you are. The reality is that some people are actually experiencing their very first trials ever or conflict for the first time ever on a really intense scale because certain kinds of conflict.

Yeah. Where you’re making a decision to wear a mask or not, you’re talking about if you’re going to get vaccinated or not or, you know, you might be feeling this conviction to go to church, go to church, or be more vocal about politics or to have an opinion about what you think is happening on a deeper level globally, political, geopolitically, relationships between different countries and all of these different things.

There’s so many topics. Even the topic of the election is a big deal right now. Right. That can potentially cause conflict. There are so many issues just today that are right in our face all the time. Our actions speak louder than words. And so sometimes just by way of how we are, if we go to a grocery store unmasked or depending on where you are, that could cause conflict. Right. Or if you are wearing a mask, I mean, literally, there’s just actions will cause conflict, words, conversation.

So I think in the past it was a little easier for Christians to kind of, you know, maybe not be out of the world, but be in the world and kind of float in a way where they can be diplomatic and agreeable no matter what. I’m not saying we should be that way, but I’m saying it used to be easier to do that. Yeah. And now it’s just not easy to do that.

Well, I think that a lot of people are being challenged with what they believe for the first time. I mean, let’s just face it. None of us know exactly what’s going to hit us in three months from now. Right. And the fact about the fact of how fast covid came on. Right. And then all of a sudden shelter in place came on proves that. I don’t think people necessarily all saw that coming months ahead of time or even a year. Right. People are starting 20, 20, and they’re talking about their word of the year. Right. And so it’s kind of fun to play it out.

Know this a scenario could happen in this scenario can happen. I got to tell you, my A and B, I think I did maybe in a previous episode, maybe five weeks ago. But but it’s interesting to play that out and to see and connect the dots and and look at what’s happening and have a biblical perspective on things.

So the thing that we want you guys to be evaluating right now is this concept of all of these different issues that are potentially happening right now in your world and that are affecting your relationships. How are you doing at handling disagreements with people in your life, whether that be family or friends or co-workers or neighbors or whatever? Right. Because that’s what we’re going to be focused on talking about. We’re going to be diving into about, I don’t know, six or seven different scriptures to give you guys some encouragement. And we have an agenda of four main bullet points. So do you want to just hit what the agenda is?

Let’s do it. We’re going to the first one is talking about you for a second is being fully you knew.

And so we’ll talk about that and will challenge us. You everybody on this topic. OK, how to stand for truth and boldness.

And love, what does that balance, what does that look like?

And it’s hard for certain personalities more than others.

The importance of discernment and not having pride, why that’s so important?

I need to hear that one super important. I always any time the word pride is involved, that’s something that’s just a good refresher for me. Honestly, it’s super important what limits your freedom to be you.

So interesting stuff, right, so we’re going to dive into a lot of stuff within that before we dive in. We are so thankful you’re part of the one million Legacy’s movement. We just surpassed one million downloads.

It was our two year anniversary million downloads. I can’t believe we hit that on our two year anniversary. It’s like, that’s crazy.

This is his ministry. Yeah, it’s pretty. Told us to do it, in fact, very directly by closing some serious doors.

It was very challenging. We’re going to write that in the email that comes out. Actually, some of you, if you haven’t already subscribed, might miss this email box is going out soon, but we’re going to tell our story a little bit. Maybe we’ll resend it later this week, because I think it’s important. Everybody knows that. For example, I don’t know if you guys know this, but we didn’t have a mic. So, friend, give us the mic because of something we just went through. Actually, he loaned it to us and the equipment originally, and then we didn’t have a table to put the mic on.

So I went outside and I grabbed a log. It was a stump, a stump that was cut. It was a cut.

And I cleaned it off and I put it right is actually giving him money for a coffee table for a little table. And that just stayed there for a long time. Look, look.

Yes, we shot our podcast from our from the baby’s room, which was like a den slash baby’s room attached to our bedroom.

And we did a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds so we could live what we’re trying to ramp up the ministry God’s called us to do. And it completely failed. And people some people would go out that some people will go, well, there wasn’t that a sign maybe that that’s not where you’re supposed to do?

Well, I think we are many people had challenges and they think that’s from God telling them not to do something. Sometimes that can be true. I have found usually that’s not true.

Usually it’s spiritual warfare and it’s a resistance or it’s just not the way he wants to do it.

He wanted to do it by blessing right away. The first month, the podcast had ten thousand downloads.

And the very first, you know, it’s interesting thinking about that Kickstarter to like that was to provide for our family because we had no income coming in because our income was being withheld right before we sold business stuff. And and because that was withheld, that was a huge motivation for a dream that we had ministry wise that we were going to do. But we foresaw in the future, which was to create the courageous parent mentor program. Yeah, but there was more of an urgency so that we could continue doing ministry to get that done so that we could actually do ministry, you know what I mean? And so it pushed us to get it done faster than we hustled late into the night.

We’ll share more in that email. But that’s not what this episode is about. But we do thank you for your support.

If you’ve shared something on social, if you’ve listened, if you’ve written us a comment on iTunes or elsewhere, we read all of them. If you giving us a five star review on iTunes, that really helps the main engine, 84 percent of downloads come through iTunes. So that really helps it there. So we’re just so thankful for all that. And if you’ve purchased any of our programs, the homeschooling blueprint, the friendship course encourages mom to the part time course, part time course to the parenting mentor program. Did you know I got to wait for the email? Maybe I’ll just tell you, over 2000 people took courses just incredible this year that we’re finishing right now. So 2020, it’s incredible. And we gave a ton of them away. I’ll share those. So yes, in the email, but we get a ton of them away. Right. When covid hit, we just started making things free for people that couldn’t afford it and people seriously took us up on it and we’re so glad they did it. So cool the back. So you’re supporting the impact and people that have given the donations unbelievably important. We could not do it without that. So courageous parenting outcomes reading it show. No, it’s all free resources, workshops and things, the things you can pay for as well.

And year end donations and you know, your donate button, your own donations or donate any time is so, so meaningful. So let’s dive into this.

Let’s kick off with First Corinthians nine and we’re going to cover nineteen and onward. For though I am free from all men, I’ve made myself a servant to all.

Well, that says a lot right there in the first sentence, where to be servants to all. If we’re following after Paul, let’s be servants that I might win. The more it’s kind of poetic, the more for Christ and to the Jews.

I became as a Jew that I might win the Jews to those who are under the law, as under the law that I might win those who are under the law to those who are without the law as without law not being without law, gub under a law towards Christ that I might win those who are without law to the week, I became as weak then I might win the week. I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some.

Now this I do for the gospel sake that I may be a partaker of it with you now. Partnership, partnership.

Paul is not saying he does the saving. You have to know scripture to know that. And you would know that Paul doesn’t believe that. But what he’s saying there is that he is partnering with God.

God is using him to share the gospel and God does the saving. And he’s he’s planting all the seeds and people are coming to the Lord. And it’s awesome.

Yeah. And I love that that following scripture is the famous infamous passage of running the race. Yes. Towards the prize. Because isn’t that what we all kind of feel like 2020 has been like a marathon every year and I think marriage has been a marathon. It has. I mean this has got to be so good. Yeah.

I mean to grown a lot for us has been like, well yeah that’s kind of like how our years go. Yeah. Really good things and really hard things. So true. We’re kind of makes us stronger in that. Maybe you are too.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run but one receives the prize run in such a way that you may obtain it and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things more temperate and all things now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

Therefore I run thus not with uncertainty. Less I fight not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection last.

When I’ve preached to others, I myself should become disqualified and so servant running the race well, doing all things for the glory of God and to share the Gospel.

And I love that. I think this is one reason why I think it’s so important to read not just one verse. I know that a lot of times it’s it’s good when you’re the expository preaching and sermons is. So that’s what we have always loved the most. That’s one of the key things that we have either if I ever give a sermon, that’s what. All right.

Yeah, well, you literally read a section of scripture and then you go, thirty five years, you may bring other verses in and you’ll make it right. A super interesting. Yeah. What’s the goal.

So it’s good. Like even in these podcasts, you guys, these are not sermons by any means, but we definitely do bring in other scriptures that kind of either go with the passage of scripture that we’re talking about or whatever. And here we’ve covered a few verses. We’ve covered about five or six verses. But what is so important that I wanted to share with you guys, as you know, we could have easily just shared two or three up here and you could have gone, OK, so Paul is maybe being a little bit of a chameleon here.

He’s going to be like this for these people. It’s going to be like this for these people and week for the team when the whistle blower. But then if you put your hand, you reading the word, he talks about a race and he ends it with that, I might not become disqualified. And that plays into what he was saying before about not being without the law towards God, but under the law, toward Christ.

And so never compromising, never compromising, never disobedient, what scripture says, never soft on matters of importance. Right. Right. That he would never allow somebody to end a conversation with him believing something counter to the Bible.

Now, why are we covering this? You guys might be going, OK, how does this have to do with handling conflict? Well, this is a big deal because when you’re in conversation with other people, you want to be all things to all people in the sense of being able to have conversations with people who are different from you, people who might have different viewpoints than you. You want to be able to have those conversations, but never compromising Christ.

And what you really believe biblically, it’s being what people need you to be so they can hear you. So you share the same message, you share the same truth and is in uncertain times.

There’s other things that we need to talk about sometimes to. Right. All the things we mentioned previously. And you you have to discern that. And that’s one of our points will get into a little bit. But let’s go into is being full of, you know, OK, this was really the only way to feel free is when you’re allowed to fully be yourself. Now, this isn’t the new.

Wage stuff that says be whatever your truth is, is true, or B, the best, you know, it’s more of the biblical God made you with the individual unique purposes, gifts, talents. He’s giving you spiritual gifts like you. Are you right? Yeah. And you’re here for a reason. That’s part of God’s plan. He put you in this generation. We’ve talked about this kind of stuff. These are all biblical concepts. But what’s interesting is you brought up the new agey thing, and we wanted to make a very clear distinction there because we’re seeing a lot of hypocrisy with some of the New Age teaching.

We are regarding that.

By the way, whenever I go to the airport, I was going to the bookstore and actually almost never buy anything. But I go in there to see all the book titles. I just want to see where culture that it’s scary and supposedly has to be the best version of yourself stuff, which I believe in an element of that.

If you’re talking about what you just talked about, which is the before Christ for yourself or you’re wired, be yourself, that kind of thing, but being fully is is being fully you knew to the people around you, meaning has your Christianity been dormant?

Have you been hiding all aspects of what your convictions are? And now are you feeling compelled to stand for them because they’re in front of all of us believers and nonbelievers?

People are sharing their deeper convictions and they’re willing to do that even at the sacrifice of relationship at times. And there’s rub in so people might be discovering more of who you are.

Right. This is an interesting conversation that I think that everybody needs to really evaluate. And you may end up having to evaluate relationships at the end of this. OK, we’ll talk more about that in a little bit. But the reality is that when we hide. So you said, are you hiding your Christianity? Well, it may not necessarily even be your Christianity. It may be you are have been a closet conservative. Maybe you’ve been a closet Christian. I consider those things two separate things that can sometimes overlap.

They should overlap in the sense that Christianity should always impact and impede on your convictions, regardless if they’re political or educational or whatnot. You’ve heard us talk about this concept of not compartmentalizing Jesus and how God’s word speaks to every area of life. And that’s what’s really at stake here, when people are not willing to be be willing to speak boldly, confidently, courageously, if you will, about the why behind why they believe certain things. There’s a problem. Yeah. And I think that, you know, a lot of Christians, for example, a lot of people who maybe they’re talking about something that would be considered a political topic. But can I just say your political bent or your conviction should actually be inspired, motivated and and molded by the word of God. Therefore, it is a Christian issue. It just it’s because that’s how we as Christians live our lives. We don’t go, OK, God, you can have my Sundays. No, he is in everything. Right.

And as we talked about two episodes in the podcast, God is the one who actually put in place the four different types of government. Right. And so the self family, civil and church. Right. So we need to realize that God is in all things. He created all things. Therefore, we need to be inspired to go. OK, so if I feel like a lot of people are going, I feel like this is wrong. Right. I feel like I should have the right to choose if I’m going to be vaccinated or whatever. Right. They’ll they’ll say that. And they’re just going off of feelings.

Well, I just want to challenge you. There is more to this than just feelings. You should, as a believer, go, OK, so is that the spirit of God? Is that the spiritual discernment that’s telling me this doesn’t feel right?

Because if that’s true and if it’s biblical, there’s going to be scripture that backs that up and you need to search for it, because if you’re in conversation with another believer, you need to be equipped to be able to have that conversation.

And I just think it’s important that you’re aware of where you’re at in relationship with other people and what they know of you and don’t know of you because maybe you’re just going along to get along and haven’t really been sharing some of your convictions and that you feel compelled to maybe share something on social media. You share one of our posts, you share something in the news, you share these things and people are like, wait a minute.

You wrote, I think you believe that you voted for this person or wait a minute, you think this I thought I knew you. There may be a feeling the person of a little bit of betrayal would be too strong, but a confusion. confusion maybe is better word and and so I think we need to own that, we need to recognize that it’s we may have been hiding a little bit in the conservative. You may be coming out of the closet in some new ways that people are aware of. And I just think it’s that helps us to have some grace, perhaps, in understanding that and to navigate our relationships.

But I think that there’s also an element to where maybe there are some people who are hiding, but there are also people who just didn’t know what they thought because they were never exposed to having to actually figure out what their conviction or their political view or their spiritual view was on a certain topic because it wasn’t something that personally impacted their life and now is for the first time. So they’re trying to navigate that. Yeah, I know that for a lot of us, we are all experiencing new things being imposed upon us and we’re kind of going, OK, what’s true, what’s not true, trying to discern things. We’re all trying to figure things out.

Right. So, Angie, how would you suggest people evaluate the relationships?

Well, I think that an evaluation of relationships comes down to one big truth. Are people still able to love you even if you disagree? OK, because that’s what we as Christians should be able to do. We should be able to still have conversations and go, hey, we just disagree on this. We can talk about it, but we’re not going to, like, get personally offended.

And generally, the nonbelievers in your life, family, friends and otherwise work otherwise.

What that also is, is this I do this and hopefully right. Otherwise there’s this. I can’t be in relationship with you unless you’re like me. Pressure. Yeah. Which there is a huge feeling of that.

And some people may mistakenly take that from you also. And so the reality is like when you actually have a relationship with someone and, you know, like, OK, they have a super strong beliefs or convictions on something. But I also know them and I know that they still love me. Yeah. Or they still care about me, you know what I mean? And so you’re able to have grace in that relationship and continue moving forward. And maybe your relationship has some boundaries. I don’t know.

But you need to really evaluate and go, OK, so are these relationships helping me to be a better Christ follower or are they challenging me to fall away from the Lord and to compromise like we were just talking about not compromising? Am I feeling pressure to conform to worldly perspectives in order to be in this community of people? These are all questions that we need to be asking. And honestly, sadly enough, people need to be asking that about their church communities, too, because there is a lot of lukewarm. I mean, obviously, Paul talks about that in the end of the scriptures as well and how he is talking to Lady Yoshia. I think it’s in Revelation three or four when he says some of you are hot and some are cold. You know, and if you’re lukewarm, I’d rather spit you out, right?

Well, that’s how that goes right along with Matthew 5:13. But he said that you were the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses flavor, how shall be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

I know you’ve heard that scripture before, but this is right on there. We are to be salty and so relationally connect be what people need us to be without compromising, but also sharing truth, standing for the things we believe in. But doing it in a loving manner, which is the next point is how to stand for truth and boldness and love.

I think that, you know, the love part of it when we’re talking about salt, one of the things that we’ve talked about a lot over the years is when you’re cooking with salt, you don’t want to add too much. Otherwise it becomes unpalatable.

Anything that’s way too salty, just kind of like, oh, you can’t get that flavor out of your mouth. Right. And so as believers, we definitely don’t want to cake it on right. It has to be seasoned.

Like I said when I started cooking, when I when I started losing weight and all that stuff and I started learning how to cook.

This is not too long ago, by the way.

He was doing like a 90 day cleanse thing.

So I learned the power of salt. You’re like you were only 40 and you were learning. Yeah, well, in cooking, you know, as usual doing it. So and I was in a big salt fan.

But what I realized is you got to put salt in as you’re cooking. It makes a difference if you put salt and only at the end. Yeah. It doesn’t season it the way. So we need to be salty as we’re building relationships and all throughout, not not just hitting them and dump salt on you right at the end.

Right. And that’s that, that’s what we’re talking about as far as like is being you. Something that’s new, like being fully you, have you been hiding?

I think that to continue that conversation, one aspect that I know has massively changed relationships. I know it’s changed relationships for us in the last decade has been social media like a lot of times. Maybe you have a relationship with somebody and you think you know them, but then you see them share something on social media and you’re confused and you go, I didn’t know they believed that. That’s really not like my dad to me. I’m so confused. Right. And then, well, you can have conversations with them later about that in real life, which is super important to do. But the reality is, is if you have not been sharing social media and like trying to be more of who you really, truly are, you might get pushback from people if you haven’t been fully you there. I know that I experienced that on my personal Facebook page just because I don’t use my personal Facebook page very often. I created the courageous mom Facebook page so I could be more fully me simply because that I knew that like minded people would be going to a ministry page, whereas I had many people from my past that a lot of them weren’t believers, you know. And so that is a good distinction right there, right in the house.

Like if you share something on social media and you’re starting to be more of you sharing, people are going to go, whoa, hold on a second. Right. And so you need to expect that don’t stop by any means. You need to be fully who God made you to be. But expect that there’s going to be a little bit of that happening at first.

Yeah, totally true. And this is interesting.

Acts for eight through 13. Peter is filled with real quick.

Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, said the rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this they are judged for a good deed done to help this man, by what means he has been made. Well, let it be known to you all and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth you crucified, it’s going to bold whom you killed, whom God raised from the dead by him. The this man stands here before you whole.

This is the stone which was rejected by you builders. It’s quoting previous scripture, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation and any other, for there is no other name under having given among men by which we must be saved.

Now the point isn’t that part, but I wanted you to hear that part before we go into this next part, which should be encouraging to you.

Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, he was just talking, Peter, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men. They marveled.

Now, what are they talking about right there? They’re talking about they’re not trained like the Pharisees, like in biblical or in law and religion. Yes. And and these kinds of things, these these are not people that went to the equivalent of those days.

Seminary there wasn’t called seminary then trained training in these things. And they marveled at it.

And so I just when you are bold and assertive and eloquent and you’re not eloquent speech, but what is the word concrete in your speech, but doing it in love and sharing the Bible and you’re not trained, that’s when God can use you the most.

I mean, I really do believe that, like and that’s such a huge encouragement. And we hope that you walk away feeling that today that you don’t have to have a Bible seminary degree to be able to biblically deduce why you have certain convictions on certain relevant topics of today. You literally can study scripture on your own and you can communicate that boldly to people in love. And God can use you.

You don’t have to just depend on I’m just going to share this sermon online with somebody you love and hope that they listen to it, because the reality is most people won’t listen to your words. But yeah, just sharing like, look at this. They literally were marveling at it because they realized they weren’t. There’s power in that.

So because the words can come from untrained people, because you share the Bible, you share truth. You sure you stand your bull.

There’s something when people are bold, it’s attractive actually to all kinds of people. Wow. Look at those people. They’re so free. They see what they want. They mean what they say. They’re not afraid to share the gospel. They’re afraid to share biblical truth. I kind of wish I was like that. OK, well, why are you not like that? What is holding you back?

And we’ll talk about that in a little bit.

So I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has 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 CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, at CourageousParenting.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 CourageousParenting.com.

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But let’s talk about boldness in love. Are we when we’re sharing and talking to people our conviction about something? Are we doing it in the flesh or are we doing it in the spirit? And I think that is the ultimate thermometer of whether we do that well. Mm hmm. Can you be bold in the spirit and have it be received as love?

Yes, can you be bold in the flesh and have it be received in a loving way? Possibly, but usually, probably not. I mean, I don’t want to rule it out, you can be really gifted orator or something and good at showing love and sharing truth in that might be true, but the spirit interceding for you.

And it’s not just how it impacts you when you’re sharing something, it’s how the spirit is impacting their heart. You see that let’s include God. If we’re going to have a hard conversation with somebody, let’s pray beforehand. Include the spirit. I know something really pivotal happened years back, a decade ago when I was I used to lead a bunch of leaders running physical office locations around two states and I would meet with them. And I used to have this big agenda right now. And then I threw it. The spirit told me to throw away agendas, no longer have them and pray beforehand and meet with them and the spirit would lead that conversation. A few were believers. Most of them weren’t believers.

And it was amazing what God would do. I would I would leave those meetings. I’m like, well, I had no idea we were going to talk about those things. But that is exactly what we’re supposed to talk about.

You know, it’s interesting because as we’re talking about speaking with boldness and truth, how to stand for truth and boldness and love, I think that the love part is why you speak the truth. It’s because you love people so much and you believe what the Bible says, which is the truth, will set you free, right? Lies will put you in bondage. And when you love people, you don’t want them living in bondage. You want them living in freedom. The freedom that truth in Christ can bring. And truly, there’s no peace in the Bible even says as far as it is possible for you to live at peace with everyone.

That doesn’t mean don’t talk about issues. That’s not what that means. Peace. We talked we briefly mentioned this in one other podcast because we heard an amazing sermon on peacemakers. But the reality is there’s no true peace apart from reconciliation with God. And people cannot have reconciliation with God unless they are walking in truth and walking in truth, leads people to repentance, leads them to understand their need for a savior. That is what we should desire for all people. That should be our motivation for. And it’s that love understanding like they are lost and they are not going to have salvation in Christ. Until they repent, until they know him, until they hear the gospel like understanding like and this is obviously for people who are not working with God, that’s what I’m talking about right now. Right.

Like we our hearts desire for standing up for truth always needs to be the base.

Motivation always has to be the great commission. Always needs to be about Christ, about salvation, about reconciliation, about people being broken free from bondage, living in lies, broken free from that and living in truth and freedom. And that’s why we speak up with boldness. That’s why.

And so so let’s take this to practical. Obviously, that makes sense. Sharing the gospel, talking about the Bible and talking about Jesus, all these things in relationships. But, Isaac, why why do you share so much on the stories about the political things and what’s happening in the world, all these things?

Because I see what’s happening as being a detriment to the gospel. Right. I see what’s happening.

Harming Christians and non Christians, too.

Yeah, it’s it’s harmful to how God made human beings.

We’re not being social. He made us social beans. The great commission happens through relationship. When people are not practicing hospitality, for example, the relationships are not growing. People are not being exposed to the gospel. Yeah. Lived out your acts like there’s there’s so many quotes out there. I mean, there’s all these patriarchs that were martyrs of the faith in in in some regards. Right. Where they say your actions speak louder than words. But if people are not together seeing one another, seeing the actions, there’s nothing being spoken now. So then people are left to just speak on social media or speak their mind through phone conversations or whatnot. And the truth, you have to be willing to speak boldness, write one verse that we wanted to share with you guys. You can go and read more of this.

It’s in Luke, chapter six, verse twenty seven says, but I say to you, who here love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.

It continues. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. I mean, this is going to happen on social media.

We experience it. So, so important to how you respond to things. I think it’s incredibly important. I’m not perfect at it, but I on the social media thing, I try not to argue on social media. I will make a statement. I will share something. I’ll be bold. But then when the comments come in and people hate and things like that, a lot of times I’ll like their post even I’ll hit the like button. You know, I don’t necessarily like what they said, but I just want them to feel my engagement and sometimes all right. But a lot of times I’ll say something like, I respectfully disagree best to you or something like that. I’m just not going to go into and hateful argument on that, especially with people that you don’t have in real life relationships with.

Yeah. Who I mean, you don’t know if it’s someone that the enemy is using actually to just try to catch you up in your words or whatnot. And that can happen sometimes to where there are people. There are trolls that are out there. I just have to say that. And so if you are sharing on social media, there’s a few tips or etiquette, if you will, for how to handle conflict on social media. One is, like Isaac said, to to to wait discerns right.

And the other thing is I usually wait quite a while before I do anything on social media because it’s better if someone else defends you than you defending yourself anyways. And so I wait for people like you to say something. And if I see yours ill you know, defend you so I think that that is beautiful when the body of Christ is backing each other up, but not in a hateful way, but a way of backing up truth and and what’s going on.

Yeah. So wait. Pray for timing. Pray for the other person. Pray for your words. Obviously, if you’re praying for those three things, that’s a period of time where you’re waiting before you respond and then pray for your enemies.

There’s this great a friend on Facebook.

Just share this. Tracy and I wanted to share it with you guys. Winston Churchill quote, which I think is super relevant to this. You have enemies. Good. It means you’ve stood up for something some time in your life.

And so I think that that’s a good thing to be retrospective on. Should we have enemies? I don’t think we should on purpose have enemies.

But the God does address enemies. Love your enemies. So that’s just kind of assuming we’re going to have enemies. And yeah, I will say that we’ve had enemies. You have we’ve had people literally praying against us. We’ve had people coltish, people hating on us witchcraft. All kinds of things, and you know what, we just pray for them.

We pray for people that and what’s amazing is activating God, but also is preserving our heart, our heart posture and not letting it control us. Because when you pray, you can’t you can’t have evil thoughts and be praying for somebody that makes sense. So it’s healing to you to when you pray for your enemies and is active in and God on them. And what is the purpose anyways is that people would know the truth.

It is about God.

I know that I just received a hateful message. It was actually a death threat on Instagram message this morning, actually. I heard. And so it I screenshot it it and then I reported it, the chat message. But immediately I prayed for them because I thought the first thought that came to me is how dark is their life that they would want to curse a family the way that they curse our family in their message to me.

And that is a present. Yes, it’s an evil place where they’re at.

We know where their salvation is at this current moment based upon obviously what they shared. And so and sometimes you’re not aware of that. Right. Sometimes there’s friendly fire. But the reality is, is I was led to heart of compassion for them realizing the massive bondage that that person was in and just prayed for them and their salvation and that they would be freed from the bondage of hate because they just have so much hate in them. And that truthfully, like there’s a lot of that going around right now. And while people are growing in the Lord and being challenged more than ever in their beliefs and convictions about things which hopefully it’s leading believers to the word of God and to seek wise counsel, there’s also evil rising and people being deceived and being led astray. And that’s another reason why it’s so important to speak boldly in love, because there are a lot of weaker Christians and people maybe who just say that they were a Christian and they aren’t saved yet, or maybe they thought they were saved when they were little because they grew up in a Christian home.

You know, the narrative and they maybe they’re being deceived, whether that’s by friends, community or media. If we don’t share boldly, then those people might not ever be exposed to truth.

Amen. And there’s a God says there will be a cost to your boldness, but that’s not a reason to shy away. If you know something is right to do and you don’t do it, it’s kind of already you’ve already missed the point. You already lost. And really someone else is lost and maybe lost to that seemed to be playing that they needed. OK, so in first Peter for seventh races, but the end of all things is at hand. OK, therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. We need to be serious and watchful in our prayers. Well and above all, things have fervent love for one another. For love will cover a multitude of sins and that goes on to be in the hospital and so forth. And so you might have family members where there’s challenges, especially raising kids. If you’re a courageous parent, which you are, and we’re in uncertain times, that is true. You’re going to have some family dynamics that are hard, probably. And when you’re, you know, setting some boundaries about what people can do or when they can be around your kids and how and all these things, you’re going to have to talk about things or the political conversations or masks or not masks or you know whats going on.

There’s so many decisions, whether your family, public schooling or not schooling.

I mean, there’s just so many conversations that people are having with family members right now.

Let’s have fervent love for one another. But that doesn’t mean we sacrifice the safety of our kids.

It doesn’t mean we compromise the truth that we know God has spoken to our hearts on, in our minds on and given us wisdom in.

It doesn’t mean you don’t protect your family.

No, you still stand your ground and you can explain things to people. Now, I think that one important bullet point on how to stand for truth and with boldness and love is that you need to first evaluate who you’re talking to, who is your audience. Right. Like, are you speaking to believers or nonbelievers because you’re not going to talk to them the same way? If you’re speaking to a believer, it’s important to stay as scriptural as possible because the reality is people are not if they’re a Christian, they’re not going to argue with scripture. That’s why Jesus always used scripture when he was answering questions that people have for them, even what the devil had for him when he was being tempted by the devil, he answered him with the word of God. Man does not live on bread alone. And we need to do what Jesus did as much as is possible. Right. And so being in the word. I cannot urge you guys enough to be in the word as much as possible so that you actually can have answers for people.

Absolutely. In a second, Timothy, one six through seven or eight for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Ok, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner share with me in the sufferings for the Gospel according to the power of God who has saved us and called us with holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time again.

And it goes on. You cannot do this if you’re walking in the flesh or operating in the flesh in the moment you are operating, the spirit. The spirit of God didn’t dwell on you. We have friends in Australia, we friends in Canada. We’re getting messages, people in Europe, all over the world of oppression on the church. Lockdown’s couldn’t meet with anybody for Christmas at all. All of these things, people dying of suicide. And I think they said euthanasia is way up and all of these things and a heart breaks for you. We’re praying for everybody around the world is pray for all of us, each other. And it’s tough times, but we’ve got to do what we got to do. We got to still meet for church. We’ve got to still worship God. We can still be around people to be able to share the gospel. We can’t stop doing that.

Right. So we talked about is being fully you a new thing. We talked about how to stand for truth and boldness and love. We had a bunch of scriptures for you guys. But next, we want to talk about the importance of discernment and no pride. And I think we’ll kick this this portion of it off by just bringing up the conversation of perspective, because this is one of the things that for me, I always it’s not even just in conflict, it’s not even in relationships. I’m always challenging myself with my perspective, perspective, perspective, perspective. What is eternal, right? The importance of discernment, what is eternal. That is a huge question that you need to talk about. Right. So if you’re in an argument with somebody, let’s say you’re talking about mask’s, for example, and you’re you have two different viewpoints you need to discern. Is this mask issue an internal issue? OK, and so from the surface, you may say, well, of course, it’s not an internal issue. Right. And you could even go to Romans 14, read the whole chapter together, talk about how people to one man, something to send to another. It’s not not to judge one another in that.

And to go, OK, listen, we have different beliefs. We talked about this last night. We might have different standing points on the science behind masks. Right. OK, and therefore come to different conclusions on our convictions. Right. One person might think, oh, I’m keeping other people safe from my germs and I’m not being exposed to other people’s germs, whereas somebody else might go. But what’s more important is how I actually feel when I’m wearing a mask and I get dizzy. It’s bad for my health. I feel like I’m going to vomit these things right. So there’s different health, even sciences behind them. Yeah, and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of articles on both. Right. And so you can sit there and you could literally argue that out all day long and still come to the same conclusions, both of you, and go, we’re never going to agree. Yeah, right. But this one issue has there’s actually a deeper issue that Christians need to think about, which is have I made an idol out of wearing a mask or out of not wearing a mask?

It’s kind of like the chapter I have in reading in childbirth. Have I made an idol out of having a natural baby natural birth or have I made an idol out of an epidural to save me from pain? Right. We need to evaluate the intentions in our hearts behind why we’re doing those things, because that’s what God calls us to an all things. Yeah.

And so if you’re sitting with a Christian, you’re debating and disagreeing on masks, you can easily go, OK, but are you making an idol out of mass thinking that you’re saving yourself and you’re putting your faith in your hope and a mask? Because that’s a bigger biblical issue. Right. And so you need to ask yourself, OK, what’s the eternal question? Do we actually have any place of point of agreement? Oh, you don’t believe that. OK, so we do find something that we can agree on and come to a conclusion on. That’s biblical masks. Don’t save us, right? Yeah.

And so having perspective is a big deal. Here’s a scripture that I want to share with you guys. It’s in first, John. So towards the end of the New Testament, chapter two, verse fifteen says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in them or in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of flesh, the lust of eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but as of the world, we’re talking about the importance of discernment and. Having no pride, guys, you cannot witness to people if there’s pride in you, right, because that is not of the father, it’s of the world and the world is passing away and the rest of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever, and then it continues as little children. It is the last hour. And as you have heard, that the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many antichrists have come by, which we know that it is the last hour they went out for us, but they were not of us, for if they had been others, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that they may might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the holy one. And you know all things I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ and then it just continues on you guys.

This is a really important passage of scripture because this gives his perspective on the things of the world that the wisdom of the world, if you will, which requires discernment today, discernment so important it’s judging well.

And again, we can’t have good discernment unless we’re involved with the spirit. And discernment will often cause you to do things counterintuitively in a conversation, for example, what you would normally do. You may not do this time because discernment is telling you to do something different. And I think we need to listen to the spirit and discern what we’re to do and sometimes be obedient.

Even if we don’t know the why, we’re not sure how it’s going to work out, even if it’s different than our normal response. I find sometimes the strangest ways I respond end up being the most fruitful as because those are the times when the spirits telling me to do something sometimes is to do nothing and to wait. Sometimes it’s to be bold and do something immediately. And no one else is doing anything around me. And sometimes it’s to ask questions and to really suspend what I think to not make judgment at all and just ask questions for a while. And I’m usually super surprised how how different things are actually with that person then maybe what they’re projecting. And I just think it’s so important because, Paul, I kind of envision Paul doing this and vision and being a great question asker in in conjunction with a great preacher in stretching the truth, I envision him being graded analogies and sharing stories with people that relate to where they’re at and then bring it to some conclusion and challenging them with a question. I think that we need to become better at having the Holy Spirit control us and not just being ourselves completely without spirit, if you know what I mean. In the flesh, just a knee jerk response to something getting hurt. Our ego gets hurt. And so then we get prideful and then we respond even heavier handed than they did. These kinds of things are not godly and they don’t contribute to them knowing God.

They just they might go on, look at that Christian hypocrite. Look at that Christian getting angry hypocrite, because a lot of people know what the Bible says, or at least parts of the Bible and a lot of them get it wrong. Right. Like, you know, is it OK for Christian to get angry sometimes? Yes, I see. But non Christians don’t know that.

They also think that Christians aren’t to judge, which we aren’t to judge outside the church. We do discern right between what’s safe and what’s not safe.

And we you know, but when it comes to judging, we are to judge within the church and where to pick our battles, which that’s why she says we have to dust off our feet sometimes and move on. I mean, sometimes we don’t continue the dialogue. We need to know when to stop any known to put up barriers, boundaries and on some relationships. And that’s just going to happen.

And unfortunately, this is another scripture that comes to mind, which would be an encouragement would be to look up the scripture that we’re warned as believers not to cast our pearls before swine. And I think that that’s an important one in regards to conversations like you have to evaluate. We’ve talked about this before. You have to evaluate your relationships. Who are you talking to? Are you talking to an unbeliever? Are you talking to someone who hates Christianity and you’re sharing scripture with them? You’re literally throwing pearls before swine in some regards. Now, you might go, oh, but Angie, that’s evangelism. Well, it can be. But for some people, that’s it’s not it. That’s why it requires spiritual discernment. Are you just going to make them more angry by spewing off scripture and pushing them farther away from Christ by going that approach versus a loving approach? And letting them see Christ through your actions and so there’s there’s so many things that you need to evaluate and it’s not cookie cutter, but you have to evaluate, you have to judge. You have to discern.

And so I just want to bring this up, because so many people misunderstand that those passages of scripture like Romans 14, where says where are you judging each other and stumbling block and all this, you know, and yes, that’s an important scripture on things that are not eternal. But when it comes to things that are eternal, we don’t condemn someone to salvation or not. We we don’t have the power to save Jesus.

Thank goodness he is the one that is on the throne advocating for all of us because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. That is his job to do the judging how. And but that’s the eternal judgment. We still have to judge. We have to evaluate who am I talking to? How can I best be Jesus to them? How can I set them free from the lies, from the bondage? How do we deal with the Antichrist? I just read a scripture about how there are many anti Christ people who are Antichrist, who are anti truth, who are for lies, who are deceived by lies. You guys, we have to discern and evaluate how we communicate with these people because we love them and we want them to be saved.

Now, in first John 2:15-18, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love, the father is not in him for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the list of lies, the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides for ever.

So how have you maybe been too much in the world? One of the great things about twenty twenty. There are wonderful things about 2020 and one of them is Christians waking up, being more bold, being more loving, sharing more truth. And I think that the wake up was twenty twenty in twenty, twenty one is the action. And so I hope that you perceive that as a challenge and we’re starting to see that and it’s so exciting. What an exhilarating time, what a fascinating time for your kids. And I hope you’re sharing the goodness of twenty twenty as well as the challenges with your kids as you’re navigating. So let’s talk about what limits your freedom to be you.

Is it work, maybe it’s pressure to provide, which is the work, right, right, fear if you’re not providing if you are full of yourself, maybe there’s friendships, whether it’s online or in real life, maybe.

You know, I remember in the 2016 election, there were people that went to church with people that they thought were like minded.

And then they realized, whoa, wait a minute, why are we voting so differently? I thought that you believed the same as the difference opinions on abortions.

And that’s really a great contrast to you, right?

I mean, there’s so many issues that you could pull out of a hat and go, wait, what what what? You believe this? And going, I don’t know where is like minded, biblically speaking.

And so I just want you to realize, like, that could be impressing upon you a fear to actually be fully who you are. And that is not from God, that is from the enemy. What God wants is for you to be broken, free from that bondage of not speaking the truth that you know from the word of God. But he also wants the people in your life that are being deceived to be broken, free from the lies that they are believing that lead to death.

And so but sometimes it starts with us as believers being willing to go, oh, I need to repent, I need to apologize to God and go. I haven’t been willing. I’ve been fearful of losing friends, of family hating me, of losing my job, whatever.

How good are those friendships if you actually lose them because you believe in biblical truth? And if it’s family, you fear of losing the love of family, you’re sacrificing potentially the strength of your kids being raised by you, of your legacy, your legacy, because you’re fearing the love of other family members. And so I think you should test that in love. You should you should you should be fully you and but do it with discernment. And maybe you have an older kid that’s getting won over by the world and the pressuring you in changing you’re adjusting your doctrine and things like that. We can’t do that. No. Right. So we’ve got to love on our kids and and pray for them.

But God first, it’s always God first you guys maybe your community around you, maybe you go to church.

That’s secret friendly or that, but not really disciple making and not standing for truth. And there’s a lot of people that are nominal believers around you, maybe of a small group where there’s a lot of nominal believers and you can’t even be truly there with them. What are you doing? Either you need to be in an answer to that group or if that doesn’t work, you probably need to find another group.

I would say even you know, another thing that for a lot of people, especially in the Western states right now, their neighbors might be holding them back from being fully who they are. And what I mean is that with these spy lines that they have set up to like, oh, turn your neighbors in, if they’re having people over, if they’re practicing hospitality, turn them in and we’ll find them next.

It’ll be like if you find out someone’s not vaccinated, turn them in. Right. And this is the kind of trajectory you have to look at the trend. You have to look at the trajectory of to understand what’s going on and see where things could go. And and we have to act before it gets too radical.

It happens in stores. Right. Like, OK, so let’s just take ourselves back to last January for a second. No one saw a shelter in place happening, but then when the shelter in place was happening, did you expect that you would still be forced to be wearing masks a year later? A year later? OK, now, did you ever expect that people would be so fanatical about it that they would tattletale on unmasked people in grocery stores to go get them kicked out of the store? Did you ever hear that happens all the time.

Did you ever think that people could go into a grocery store and walk around, walk beside each other, hold an apple, put it back down? Someone else picks up the same apple. Their germs are everywhere. But in restaurants, you have to shut down half of your tables and you can hardly be open and not walk near each other.

And in colleges aren’t going to serve any fruit anymore because somebody could pick up an orange and put it back where the colleges are closing down.

It was a school.

There’s many schools that are closed down right now and many more that probably will close down everywhere here. Yeah. And so you guys, there’s so many. Did you ever think that there would be government provided spy hotlines to turn in people for having people over in their homes in America and Thanksgiving like I like and all that?

Anybody thought that when the shelter in place was having our in Australia can’t even fly, as I heard, unless they have, you know, tested negative or something like that or they have a vaccination.

Yes, I think we’re there. And so there’s just so many things like, you know, people are just taking this stuff, but we forget where we were at months before and not anticipating where right now we’re just taking it.

Well, look what’s going to happen in four months, what do you think is going to happen in four months? And are you OK with it now?

So how about the media? You know, how about non, non Christians? You know, are they limiting your freedom because you’re worried about what they’re going to think, the non Christians around you? How about governing authorities? Are you acting a certain way just because of fear of the governing authorities? We have no fear of the governing authorities because we live well, we do well. We parent well, you know, but we’re not going to live in fear. Any decision made in fear is most likely going to be bad decision. We’re not to fear God says to fear him only. And so do you fear. What do you fear? What is giving you anxiety.

Anxiety is. Fear.

And so you have to think about that now. It’s OK, I’ve said this before. Sometimes we get fearful. All of us do. I do. I have anxiety. Sometimes it comes in and then I know what’s true. I go, OK, what’s true? And then take those thoughts, capture those thoughts and turn it into faith. You know, I trust God. I’m not going to not do what’s right, even though there could be a cost because I trust God and sometimes we have to go, OK, this fear is here because this is a realistic thing that’s happening.

We need to not just shove it down and ignore it. We need to literally look at it and we need to proactively take action.

And so there’s but every every every situation is different and it requires us being proactive about evaluating. So ultimately, guys, we just want to challenge you with a few things. We want to encourage you to be in prayer for all of your relationships. We want to encourage you to be who God made you to be, not for yourself, not even for your relationships, but because God placed you in this generation for a purpose. We want you to evaluate your relationships. Do they actually encourage you to be more of who God wants you to be or do they hold you back? Do they stifle your spiritual growth? Do they prevent you from utilizing your spiritual gifts?

And what do you want your kids to see you doing? Because they’re going to probably do the same watch. Stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. All that you do be done with love.

First Corinthians 16:13. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom dot com for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line.

Where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone if you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program to secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com. 

The Church Meeting & More On Civil Disobedience

Too many times in history Christians have misunderstood what the Bible says about submitting to government authorities to the point of being inactive in the moments leading up to tyranny upon the people. Government unchecked seems to navigate towards tyranny unless there are checks and balances to preserve it as Lincoln famously stated in his Gettysburg address “… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In this episode, the Tolpins share examples of civil disobedience in the Bible and modern ones as well. They teach what to do if your church closes and how to be prepared to run or participate in a Home Church.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Biblical Examples of Civil Disobedience
  2. Modern Examples of Civil Disobedience
  3. What To Do if Your Church Closes
  4. How To Do Home Church
  5. Resources That Teach Your Kids History

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Scripture In This Episode:

Matthew 2:12 – “Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.”

Daniel 6:10 – “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.”

Acts 5:29-30 –But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: ‘We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.'”

Esther 1:15 – “What shall we do to Queen Vashti, according to law, because she did not obey the command of King Ahasuerus brought to her by the eunuchs?”

Esther 4:16 – “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”

Ephesians 6:1 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

Romans 13:1-2 –Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.”

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Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 1 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting.

Welcome to the podcast, we said a little prayer before this one, didn’t we, because this is take to take to it’s going to be even better.

Lord willing, you guys, we shot this this morning, and it was it went so well. Yeah, it was awesome. And then we found out what I found out a couple hours ago. I don’t know how long you knew.

Yeah, but there was a crackling in our audio so we couldn’t give that to you so late at night, sir. And again, 10:00 pm.

Yeah, here we go. So this is a good one, though, and it’s furthering the discussion from last week’s when a civil disobedience biblical.

And this one is the church meeting and civil disobedience, which is about more than just church, whether we’re able to go to church or not and so forth. But such an important discussion right now. And if you’re wondering why are they talking about this at Christmas time, if you’re listening right now, I know historically people will be listening to this all parts of the year. But, yeah, it’s because we did a Christmas episode a few weeks ago. You can go check that out. And, you know, we felt called to talk about this. We get lots of questions about this. And we wanted to make sure we’re giving you timely information that is most satisfying to you.

That’s right. So we’ll also we will be sharing a passage of scripture that actually has to do with the Christmas testimony, historical aspect of Jesus coming into the world because some people were actually disobedient to the king.

Yeah. And at the end of his life, as promised, we’re going to give you the practical if you need to know how to participate, find or start a home church, we’re going to give you a practical, simplified what to do on that. And that’ll be at the end. We all often give really good stuff at the end. So stay engaged all the way through and we’ll give it to you.

So I think some people might be listening to this one for the first time, listening to the podcast. Yeah. And so because I was thinking about that, I thought it would be good to just share with them that we were about to hit our two year anniversary of the podcast.

I think it’s this week and it is this week. We we launched our first episode, Christmas Week two thousand eighteen.

So one episode at the end of eighteen. Yeah. So, so funny.

So funny. And so, you know the numbers better than I do, but we are getting really close to hitting the smiles.

Literally.

This episode will put it over a million downloads likely.

So you might see us celebrate a little bit on social media.

So we’re very close, just about over a million just a day or so away from a million downloads. And that is so exciting. We might even be there right now. I haven’t actually looked at it real, real close, but we’re so close to that. And what an incredible experience God is doing this. He told us through this, he’s blessed it. And you are part of the one million legacy’s moving one million legacies movement.

Now, one million downloads doesn’t mean one million families. Right. But actually, it could mean one more than one million legacies because of all the kids that are impacted by all the parents that are listening, because this is a generational ministry. That’s the vision at least. So you guys are a part of that. That’s very exciting. I was actually telling our kids this on our way home because we were finishing. Yeah, some Christmas shopping.

And Andrew goes, Mom, how come I’m just now hearing this one million? That’s huge. Why do we celebrate it?

Because it’s been a family effort. Yeah. The big kids have helped with babysitting the Younger’s when we’ve when we’ve shot podcasts during the day. Right now, most of them are asleep.

And it’s about way more than the podcast if you’ve been around for ages, parenting dot com. We have a parent mentor program. Actually, a library, of course, is now books and more to come. We’re going to send an email out and a really detailed and good update out to everybody. So if you’re not on our email list yet, I would do it to get that, but also just to stay in contact with us. You never know which social platforms will be on and how things change and all of the different things. I know some of you build on Facebook and Instagram, for example. You know, we noticed that actually because of some of the new rules going out, we’re going to stay on Facebook and Instagram for the time being. But we are switching to rumble soon for video and parler and parler. And we’ll be looking at other things, too. So it’s an interesting times and we’ve got to adapt to change doing so. That’s right. Anyway, so let’s dive into this. Why don’t you go through the agenda.

Awesome. So we are going to be talking about biblical examples of civil disobedience. So in last week’s podcast, we didn’t really go into detail of what we covered. And if you didn’t listen to that, this is really a part two to last week’s. Episode, and they’re both on similar topics, but when we finish that one hour episode, Isaac and I both were like, we need to talk about actual examples that are in scripture where there was biblical civil disobedience. Right. And so we are going to cover quite a few scriptures today. This one’s a meaty podcast.

Yeah. And then we’re going to go over modern examples after the biblical ones and then we’re going to talk about church and you’re going to end it with and I’m going to end it with some resources that you can use for teaching your kids and many of you.

I know how intentional are following those are amazing people, like minded, courageous parents, actually. And so I. I know that many of you guys, for example, have had some of your kids that are ages eight to 12 read Why Wigwam biography. Right, of Missionaries of Heroes of History. And so anyway, we’re going to be sharing some other resources that we have used, which are actually testimonies of people who have been, in a sense, disobedient to some of the governments that they were under.

Yeah, they’re good examples. So we have to equip confident Christian kids for an uncertain world. It’s growing and uncertainty all the time, not in fear, but the anticipation of being an impact for the gospel in the world. And sometimes that involves standing for truth and sometimes that involves standing for truth and protecting certain rights so that it doesn’t lead to tyranny that hurts future generation, future generations.

And, you know, it’s interesting because we’ve used the word disobedience multiple times where parenting ministry and we teach parents how to teach their kids to be more obedient. That’s one of the things one of the things that God has laid on our hearts. And here we are talking about biblical reasons why. So before we dive into our agenda, we thought that it would be really good for us to be clear with you guys what we are not condoning, what we do not condone regarding civil disobedience and what we are condoning. So what we don’t condone is any form of violence, disrespectful meanness, anything that would be the opposite of what God calls us to actually as children of God. What we do condone is obedience to God and not bowing to any other gods, not submitting in a way that is actually an act of disobedience to God’s word. We also condone resistance to sin. We condone that. We condone we say, hey, yes, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We also are for resistin, been participating in the devil schemes, for example, and doing all of this in such a way that is still loving and still able to share the gospel or be a light for justice and hope.

But hey, guys, we totally believe in protecting our family and we believe in, you know, arming ourselves and if needed and all of those things. And if you don’t, that’s OK. We can disagree, but we do believe in protecting our families.

That’s right. We believe in those things. But we also don’t know. Yeah, and protecting people, protecting those who can’t defend themselves. Yeah. We are not condoning in any way, shape or form what we see from the left side, right. Where there’s looting and there’s no harmfulness happening to people. You can protest in a peaceful way. You’ve seen it done well. And just recognize, though, that there is a chance that the the corrupt media will probably portray you as not being the peaceful protester that you are.

So let’s dive into this biblical examples of disobedience. It starts in Exodus.

Ok, so this is one I’m going to start with because this is my favorite go for it. As you guys know, I have been able to be a doula for a while, over a decade. And this is the story of some midwives. This is a huge ministry.

So we’re going to talk about Exodus Chapter one. I’m not going to read all of it, but I encourage you guys to write that down and go read it yourselves. I’m skip down to verse six. This is the portion where it’s kind of always the same.

So Joseph has died, his brothers have died and all of his generation.

But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased, abundantly multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them.

This is what the Bible says. And then you sit down almost to verse 10, but it’s the end of verse nine. And the new king of Egypt is speaking here. He didn’t know Joseph. Remember that? And he says, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we come. Let us steal shrewdly with them lest they multiply.

And it happen in the event of war that they would also join our enemies and fight against. And so go up out of the land, therefore they sent out taskmasters, and this just describes for the next few verses what he did to afflict them. He was very much a ruler.

That was it was a grueling how they had to work when we celebrate the Passover and sometimes we’ll do like a messianic Passover, you guys can learn about that in a different podcast. And we’ll make like a traditional harissa dish, which is to resemble the brick and the mortar.

And that’s what it’s actually talking about here. And this scripture. And it says they made their lives better with hard bondage and mortar and brick and in all manner of service in the field. And all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Ok, so this is the important part.

Verse 15 says then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives of whom one was named Shipborough and and the other named Puya. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and you see them on their birth stools, if it is a son. You shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, you shall let them live. But the midwives feared God. Notice how they did not fear the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, they feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing and saved the male children alive? And the midwife said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women for their livelihood, give birth before the midwives come to them. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives because of what they did. God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.

And so it was because midwives feared God that he provided households for them. And then it continues on. It’s very interesting because in Chapter two of Exodus starts talking about Moses, Moses might not have been born in the first place if the midwives had not disobeyed the king of Egypt.

So sometimes we have to have civil disobedience. Sometimes what we’re being asked to do by our government where the law of the land is against what God is calling us to do. And we have to be careful to pay attention to these things. Yeah, it’s really, really important. Can be very, very easy just to go along. And unfortunately, sometimes if you go along, there’s a cost to that.

Yeah. So the second example that we wanted to share with you guys, this one has to do with Christmas. Yeah, that’s great. OK, so we’re going to flip with you to Matthew Chapter two, OK, this is where the wise men are coming from the east right now after Jesus is born in Bethlehem and Judea in the days of Herod the King. You can go on and read the whole story, skip down to verse eight. This is where he sent them. So King Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the young child.

And when you found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. Yeah. And we know that he wasn’t going to worship Jesus. Instead, it was his plot of how can I find him so I can kill him because he was worried about the prophecy. Right. And then it continues on. And then here it is, verse 12, then being divinely warned in a dream.

That they should not return to Herrod, they departed for their own country another way so important to be close to God right now, so important to be in your word and praying so you can hear from God. Sometimes we get so clouded when their own selfishness, worry, doubt, fear of things in the world, concern about things, anxiety all clouds us from faith. And when we’re growing strong in faith, we can hear from God.

They heard from God, thank goodness. So they knew to disobey the king.

Mm hmm. Yeah, they did. And I think that it’s also important that we see, like, you know, God is the ultimate sovereign one who is saving Jesus in this situation, just like he was saving the babies back with the midwives.

What’s interesting about both of these stories is that following that is when there was a decree of Herod to kill any child under the age of two through all of the Bethlehem districts in his attempt to find Jesus and kill him. But again, God intervenes by way of an angel.

To Joseph, it says in verse 13, if you just continue says now when they departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed.

He fled and they weren’t supposed to. This was a time when everybody was being counted. This is a time when the authorities said you need to stay in your city that you know, and covered some places like stay in your state, stay in your place.

Right.

It is similar in that regard. There was governmental control and they were trying to count people.

Right. And so a census and Joseph disobeyed.

He fled after the baby was born. And so sometimes God calls us to do countercultural things. Yeah, we’ve talked about this in many regards. I just find it interesting that the the father of the earthly father of Jesus chosen Joseph. Right. Heard an angel. God commanded him to leave with Jesus to save his life. And you guys, we’ve we even hear of modern day stories of missionaries in remote places where they wake up just before, you know, gunmen come into the village and they hide and they get out in time. Right. This kind of stuff still does happen today where God reveals himself to people all over the world. We hear about these stories of the persecuted church all the time today.

You guys are probably thinking, well, how do you deal with Romans 13? We talked briefly about it in the previous episode. We’re talking more about it here in a second. But, you know, this goes against how a lot of people read Romans 13. Right. But the Bible is not hypocritical. It doesn’t go it doesn’t contradict itself. And so we’ll talk about that.

Yeah. We’re going to dive more into actually the Greek meanings in a second, which is really important for understanding the true meaning of what God meant. OK, so our next example is actually in Daniel. Now, I just want to say, if you parents are needing to teach your kids some exciting stories, you know, that they’ve probably heard in Sunday school the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.

You know, they’ve probably heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Bendigo. But do they know the actual biblical, the real story, the real account opened and understanding that it took courage, it took bravery and that they actually had to stand up to.

I love this thought dive into it.

So this is Chapter six, but again, you could read all of Daniel and just your kids be on the edge of their seats. It’s so great.

So this is the story of Daniel Linson. But we’re not even going to get to the very end because you get to read that on your own. Verse three, it says, Daniel was distinguished himself above the other governors in Satraps because of his excellent spirit.

And the king gave thought to settling him over the whole realm. OK. Mm hmm. Then I’m just going to summarize. OK, so in verse four and five, guess what happens? Ultimately, other governors and satraps become a little jealous. So they want to try to find some fault with Daniel. But he’s so faithful because he was faithful, says in Chapter four, nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, we shall not find any charge against Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.

So they start I envision them probably if they don’t already know the law of his God because not their God, they study it in the scheme.

They are schemers here. That’s what the devil does, right? Evil people around him. And he’s listening. So these governors and satraps thronged before the king and said to him, Hey, King Dariusz, live forever. Right? OK, so they’re playing into his pride here. All the governors of the kingdom and administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whoever petitions any God or man for 30 days except EWO King shall be cast into the Den of Lions.

Oh, that’s a puffing up of the king there right now.

A king established the decree and sign the writing so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Métis and Persians, which does not alter. Therefore King Daria’s or Dariusz signed the written decree. And then here you are. Have a little star next to verse 10.

Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, my favorite part down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom sincerely to open those windows so everybody could hear him.

He’s like, no, I’m going to I am going to disobey. I’m going to continue praying, as I always do every day to to my God and my God, only not going to pray to anything else. Bam.

And you guys, this is such an amazing story. I’m not going to continue reading it all.

But he has words with this king because the kings like, oh, man. Well, Daniel, why did you do this? Right. You were my favorite governor. Governor, there may be actually a time for governors, congressmen, representatives today to stand up and go, no, I’m going to stand for truth and people, we need to do it.

There’s some starting to do it. We need more and more doing it.

We need more boldness of people going. I will not bow to lies. I will stand for truth. And we need to do this. And Daniel is a perfect example of this. OK, so he did not pray to King Darius. Instead he went and he prayed out his window where people could hear him, OK? And then of course, you know what happens to Daniel in the lion’s den and then what ends up happening in the end? You guys should go and read that with your kids, but God is glorified and God is glorified. Another awesome story that we or I don’t like the word story.

Why is it that we go back to my upbringing from childhood, a historical event? That’s right.

Historical testimony, an event that happened in Daniel three is a story of Shadrach Meshach in Bendigo. OK, another very famous story. OK, we’re going to read chapter three, verse fourteen. We’re Nebuchadnezzar. This is the King, OK? He speaks to them and says he is. Wait, let me just make sure I’m not giving anything here. In verse fourteen, he spoke to them saying, is it true, Shadrack, Michigan in a Bendigo that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up? So obviously he had created this gold image that he had set up. He had declared that people needed to worship it.

They needed just an opportunity, a moment of truth. Am I going to stand for truth or am I going to lie and save my skin?

Ok, then if you continue on, you guys have to read this whole chapter. We just don’t have enough time to really dig into it. But I got to share this with you. Verse fifteen, but if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you from my hands? Verse 16 Shadrack Michigan. Abednego answered to the king and said, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

See how nonconfrontational this is? We are not condoning needing to yell and get all upset. That’s not it. No, they do this in a very loving. The way they say, you know what, we have no need to answer you in this matter, if that’s the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us from your hand, OK? But if not, let it be known to you OKing that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. So this is the thing so clear you can still choose to obey God, disobey authority that’s trying to get you to disobey God’s word. And you can do it in a respectful way because they did it in a respectful way right here. Yeah, they showed respect to the king, but they also said, but we will not bow to your gods. We will only worship our God. And we believe our God has the power to do it. But if he chooses not to, he will still be glorified. Look how they’re not testing the Lord. My God, they’re having faith in him. But they’re also saying. But even if he doesn’t, we will not bow to you and your God. And then what happens, you guys, that the fire, this furnace, he ends up telling the workers to make the fire seven times hotter than it normally is. And what’s crazy about this is that the guys that are outside of the fiery furnace end up dying because it’s so hot. Well, Shadrack, Michigan abednego are inside it. They’re walking around and there’s a fourth figure in there with them, which reminds me of a really beautiful song that’s out right now in Popular.

There’s another one in the fire right now. And this is this could be Jesus, right? This is Jesus in the fire with them and he saves them so awesome. And God is glorified.

How can the Lord be glorified in times of when tyranny is happening, when authority figures get prideful and they try to get people to go to to magnify their name? Yeah. Instead of the true God. Yeah. How is God glorified? He’s not going to be glorified if we just go along with what the authorities are telling us to do those cases. And so we have to choose. And the thing that is so important, they really hope you guys go and listen to the last podcast, because usually there was something that you were wishing that you would have really emphasized at the end, the last podcast. And that was that aspect of being proactive.

Oh, yeah, we have to be proactive because there’s all these little events that are happening. We have to ask for wisdom, see things clearly because Christians need to stand up in the small things sometimes because they’re leading to greater tyranny. They’re leading to greater problems down the road. Too many Christians are allowing things to happen. And this has happened throughout history. I mean, there was the case will go into modern examples, but one of them is the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, there’s too many people standing by when small things were happening that led to a huge problem, massive extermination, really horrible situation when it becomes, you know, kind of too late to take action. So we need to be taking action before the tyranny and be seeing the things and not just be the slowly cooked frog that’s doing that.

And, you know, Isaac, you’re going to share some some scripture from the New Testament here in a second. But I just want to encourage you guys, because there are signs today. Well, Isaac is talking about where you have to see the signs proactively and make decisions ahead of time. There are signs today there are people that believe that there are too many people on the in the world today and they would love to see the population diminished. Oh, yeah. Heal the earth. And if you don’t think that that’s true, it’s everywhere. The great reset. Well, and it’s not even just that. It’s literally been the agenda of environmentalists for how long? And not that we shouldn’t take care of the Earth. We should, but to have this belief that humanity is destroying the earth and they’re worshipping the created instead of the creator. Right. And making their political beliefs, their personal convictions are all based upon that, actually.

Yeah. If you look at the even in movies depicted a lot of the movies, the the the evil person is often along those lines of believing there’s too many people and you like Santo’s like Infinity or so.

Just watch a film any way if you want to get a sense for what’s happening behind the scenes in the world right now.

That’s my opinion, but I believe it. OK, so x five twenty nine. But Peter and other apostles answered and said we ought to a big God rather than men. So it’s so important you can read what’s around that. But I just love that because we no matter what we God and if somebody’s an organization, a government, anything is asking us to do something that is disobedient to what God says in his word, then we are not to do it.

And this is an important passage of scripture. Did you tell him where we were? And. Yeah, OK, you guys, this passage of scripture, this is when Peter and Paul are being told not to preach the gospel. Yeah, they are. Preaching Jesus, that he died on the cross and that he resurrected from the dead, and then you have Caiaphas and a bunch of these high priests coming in and threatening them with prison, saying you can’t preach this, worried that it’s going to spread because thousands of people are getting saved and coming to the one true God. Yeah. And they’re threatened by this, right?

Well, and Paul wrote Romans and Romans 13 is the submit to government authorities. And here you see Paul saying we need to disobey if it’s causing us to disobey again.

What’s interesting is as you read more and acts, you see him well in this particular situation, an angel ends up breaking them free because they do get in prison. Right.

And an angel breaks them free, literally takes the shackles off his arms and breaks some free. And why was he imprisoned for preaching the gospel when he was told he shouldn’t? You can’t. He they arrested him and Angel came and released him an angel that God gave know authority to do that. So also, Paul escaped a city governor. You can read this and he you in the wicker basket and lowered himself into a window. It’s hard to picture how that worked out, but he basically evaded being arrested by city government or two.

And a recent Instagram post I wrote is, if we fail to make the right decision out of fear of what we will lose, then we’ve already lost.

I wrote that because I feel strong conviction that too many Christians are fearing what they’re going to lose. If they do the hard decision, that’s the right decision. If they say the right thing, that might cost them something. If they make the right decision about taking their family to church or finding a home church or finding a different church instead of streaming, they might lose something. They might lose some think they’re going to lose relationships or a job, a job or things like that.

So but you’ve already lost because you’re acting not in faith. You’re acting in fear. And if it’s the right thing to do, whatever it is, you need to do it. This is the time. This we’re made for it. Right? This is to glorify God. I mean, what have we? Because he comes through and helps us.

And we’ve shared so many times, like I even think of the podcast we did when we shared some of our greatest life trials and parenting through life trials and sharing those experiences. And that’s when your kids really get to see what it what your Christian faith means to you, what you’re made of, what is truly there. And right now, the world is being tested by fire. And are you going to stand firm in your strong conviction that you’re not going to bow to any other God?

Yeah. Or because your kids are watching? This is so important right now.

It is. I I wasn’t going to share this, but I just share this with our kids. Reminded them of this when our business at a big business failure with forty three employees. And and there was this one creditor that where we had a half a million dollars in debt following us and there just one creditor there it was about one hundred and thirty thousand of it. And I consulted with a bankruptcy attorney not because we wanted to do that, but because it appeared there was no other option. Everybody was pressing me to at least meet with them. And but I we felt like God would take us through it and totally solve the problem and pay everybody back and and all that. And that’s and that’s what we worked hard to.

That’s what ended up happening. But I was very proactive, working with creditors. Spreadsheet spent 15 hours a week, probably a year and a half to two years on it, and God took care of it. But this one creditor never called in. The bankruptcy attorney had originally told me, these guys are the worst. There’s nothing I can do to help you, nothing you can do to help you. They just will destroy your life and come after everything until all of it’s paid. And I never heard from them for a while. And it’s been like six months and so bothered you. And it bothered me. And because I made a commitment to be honorable and to work things out with everybody and I remember calling them, but I needed that six months to to work with everybody else would be too much of had to work with them too. And I called them. They’re like, this is the weirdest thing. You your account is just not attached to anybody. It’s just like floating like it disappeared. And I’m like, well I need we need to work it out because I owe you the money and you find it. Can you find it? And then they call me back and they found it and they attached it to somebody to work on with me. And they were super nice because I was so proactive. And I said, you know, there’s no way I can pay that, but I want to pay you something. And we settled at like eight percent of the total and unheard of with this company.

But I do believe that there was a part of that was because they were blown away, that that was the company that was blown away. They’re like, wait a minute. So we didn’t contact you first. You don’t have a case? No, you don’t have someone you’re working with. And Isaac was like, no, I’m contacting you because my business is going under.

Oh, yeah, these are guys. And they were just like, you’re contacting us.

This is like six months down the road. Yeah. So anyways, God totally did that the right timing and prompted me, the Holy Spirit prompt to me and worked it out. We just. Fear you have to trust God, and when we do, he wants to be glorified. So if he knows you’re going to give him the credit and it’s in his will, he’s going to come do it.

That’s right. Amen to that.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 parenting dotcom and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a courageous parenting dotcom. 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.

Dotcom, Steve and 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 physically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things at 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.

And 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 the lights, to be leaders for the next generation. So you guys have to go and read Acts Chapter four and five because those two really go together. The verse Isaac was sharing is verse twenty nine and thirty, which is the one that was really specific about obeying God.

Yeah. Now let’s go into Romans thirteen and then we’re going to talk a little bit about it. So important, a lot of times this is the verse that I believe causes passivity in Christians.

Paul wrote it. And here we have stories of Paul disobeying authorities, continuing to preach the gospel, evading the governor, angels, breaking him out of prison. And by the way, when he’s in prison, he’s definitely a light, as some of the soldiers say.

It’s pretty awesome. So he was, you know, using every circumstance in every circumstance, showing his joy in hard circumstances.

And he says right here and this is accurate, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities and some translations. It’s Simit for there is no authority except for from God. And the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves. And it goes on to talk about it.

So the one thing that really hits me hard is actually at the end of what you’re doing now. I know we’re going to go into talking about submission part, but the part that says it’ll bring judgement on yourselves. This is the thing. Yeah, there is going to be consequences for disobeying authority. So as a believer, if you are called by God’s word to disobey something like they say, don’t preach the gospel anymore or don’t meet as a church anymore. I mean, this is we’re talking about months on end, you guys. It was March when the quarantine started. It is December now, right? Yeah. And if we think that it’s not going to continue, we have got to be living a lot. Like the reality is, is even if covid was a twenty twenty thing, guess what? There’s going to be a new flu in 2021 and 2022 because there’s a new flu every year. Yeah. And so I, I just I think that we have to become aware that, you know, at first we we talked about this at first our home church went on Zoome for a period of time during this first six weeks. Right. You know that we talk about it in the podcast, but then you start to discern what is truth, what is not, what is going on, when is tyranny starting to step in?

And once it’s clear you’ve got to take action and obey God, not the government.

And you might experience consequences. But just like Shadrach Meshach in Bendigo, just like Daniel, just like Paul, they all submitted to the consequences, but God delivered them.

And I agree with like Dan Crenshaw and Rand Paul and some of the congressmen and so forth, that businesses should be open, like we should not be shutting down businesses. And I actually believe that businesses should define. Their government and state open. This is a tyranny that should be resisted. Why? Because where’s all this going? The election stuff, everything is going towards socialism. And how good is socialism for the church? How good is socialism for freedom of speech?

And being able to talk about do is look at any country that’s ever become a socialist or communist. Right. Because a lot of times they go hand in hand. Have any of those countries ever come out of it? Yeah. Ever stay open.

Open your businesses. Stay open. So important. And so right here, let’s break this down a little bit. So in Romans 13, the word simit, right. Your subject in the Greek is Hippo Tozzo and Hippo Tozzo is different than the word obey. So sometimes people think this is you need to obey the governing authorities. Being subject or submit is a little is quite different actually, than obey the word obey, which is let me see here.

It’s a hippo. Cool, cool. Thank you, honey. Hippo cool is much stronger, way stronger and is to literally conform to what somebody is telling you to do. And so that’s why children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.

Which is Ephesians six one you can look.

So that’s, that is a different word. And Paul could have chose to use the word obey here, but he did not on purpose because subject or submit is much softer. It is to come under. It is to listen. It is a range in order. And why is that so important? Because in God put this in place in government is good. Why? Because God is a God of order, not chaos. And he knew unless there was government in place that chaos would ensue. And so it’s so important to realize that. But he’s what Paul is not saying is do obey whatever government tells you to do. Absolutely not. He himself did not know.

And even when you when you look at a subject and submit. So we really want you guys to have the tools to be able to do these kinds of research yourselves. One of the reasons why this is such an important thing is because so many people out there are saying, why are you disobeying the government? Right. Like, if you don’t wear a mask or if you are going to church, you’re disobeying, but really you’re not disobeying. You’re not submitting. Right. Or you might be subject to them, but you’re not actually called to obey them in that regard, biblically speaking. And so when people start using that word obey instead of submit or subject, we are going hold on a second, that people are interchangeably using these words. And this is the thing. Yes. You said Paul is the author of Romans, but we all like Bible believing Christians believe that God’s word is holy divine. They he wrote it. He chose which word to go where. And he has done there. There are there are other passages of scripture where God chooses to use the word obey and obeyed him is actually one of them. Right. And another place where this gets messed up is in marriage.

Also, wives submit to your husbands. Right.

And so which is the same word as subject.

And thank goodness God didn’t say wives obey your husbands.

That’s more of what you see that in the patriarchal that is horrible, right?

You know, it is much different like in our marriage. And she definitely submits to me. But I try hard to be worthy of submission. I try hard to lead. Well, not perfect. I make mistakes. She gets frustrated sometimes. I get frustrated sometimes. But we work things out.

And the end of the day in and I think she it’s easier for her to submit because I discuss things with her where I look at us as a team, which God looks at at the same way, and we discuss things. I don’t hide anything. We talk in detail about things, any big decisions we’re talking at length about.

And then a lot of times it’s hard to make that final call and she’ll she’ll say, hey, I trust what you decide to do, which is interesting, because in a democracy, isn’t it like, for example, voting and having an election process? That’s honest. You let the people speak. Yeah. That’s letting the people speak by having a vote. And then the people that are put in office speak for the people. And they have committee meetings where people can actually go and they can express their thoughts to their congressmen, their legislators, their committee leaders. Right. We have a voice. The problem is that so many people have become passive and not being involved, not actually exercising their voice, not communicating, not sent by email or phone call, going to a committee meeting, a community meeting or whatever. But the reality is even government is actually in America set up because it was founded by our forefathers who were trying to create a constitution that was based on principles found in the Bible, like religious freedom, freedom of speech, things that would not that would protect individual liberties. Right. And so when you have government crossing those boundaries that were put there for the protection of the people, so there’d be accountability for the government as well as for the people write laws or for for people for protection. Yeah, usually. Right. But the reality is that when government goes unchecked, there is no accountability. And one of the things that’s so important about hospitality and we didn’t even bring this up in the last podcast, you guys, I just have to share this briefly for a second.

Are our daughters doing writing a paper on all kinds of different topics? And she was sharing with me some of what she had been studying for one of her final papers at Liberty. And she she said, Mom, you know, you realize when people don’t have hospitality, when they don’t get together with other people, when they don’t gather together and communicate, there’s no accountability for the government they have. And so if the government stops people from meeting, there’s actually a bigger reason behind why they don’t want you meeting is so that there isn’t accountability. Let me give you an example. If you hear something on media and let’s say maybe you don’t you’re not walking in the spirit that day, your discernment is kind of low. You kind of you believe whatever you hear, OK, you’re going to have dinner with your brother or your neighbor and they go, but hold on a second. I saw that in that protest that was actually very peaceful. Yeah, right. When the media portrayed it as vicious and outrageous, then all of a sudden what happens? They are the truth is revealed through a testimony of someone and the government and the media are held accountable. That needs to continue to happen. Otherwise, anarchy happens.

So now those corrupt media right now, there’s a lacking of people meeting, meeting, gathering, creating fear of each other. And so now it’s easier for the government to get more control in these kinds of things. I recently was reading the part of the Gettysburg Address and I wanted to read Lincoln’s words here, that we are highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. What is government of the people, by the people and for the people. It’s not trying to take it’s not trying to overly control. It’s trying to create as much freedom for the people as possible because the government trusts people that they can make the best decisions for themselves and help one another. And instead of people becoming enslaved to the government. So there’s a real challenge right now. So let’s just take in the United States and know people listen all over the world. But the United States does impact the whole world. Whether people appreciate that or not. It has done some evil things, too. I totally know that. But it is a beacon of good in a lot of ways. And right now there’s a seeming to be a lot of evidence of election fraud. If you’re looking at mainstream news, you’re not going to see that.

But it appears to be very, very true. And let’s say it comes out that. There’s this widespread election fraud in the United States. What are people going to do? What to do something? What do we do? We surely should be praying about it, but why is this important? Even if let’s say let’s say there’s election fraud and Trump gets in and this next year Antifa goes berserk and it causes chaos and all kinds of problems this next year. Is it worth it? Well, yeah, it’s not about who’s in office at this point. What it matters now and why Democrats and Republicans and people around the world should all care about this is because there is no longer integrity in the United States election election system that is proven. And what happens then is people don’t believe in their vote and they stop voting and it moves towards dictatorship or socialism or both. And so that is what you’re seeing. If there’s a breakdown in the election system, it’s a breakdown in the very republic. So this is a really big deal. And I can’t believe I’m not hearing from people that I know are Democrats. I don’t see them on social media being concerned about this. I don’t see any concern. I’m trying to post every single day to share the news like they don’t care if they win by cheating.

And that just breaks my heart. If if it was the other way around, I would be outraged if it was the other way around. It’s not about your guy. It’s about truth. It’s about the fairness and versus cheating. We don’t do things this way as Americans. Right. And so it’s just so disheartening right now what is actually happening and that more people are not speaking out and actually standing up and going, you know what, I might not have been for that guy, but there is too much evidence.

Another thing in the news today, more than 70 cadets at U.S. Military Academy accused of cheating on the online math exam. Have you ever seen a headline about our military cadets ever like that? Ever. I’ve never seen that. There’s usually honor and integrity. Well, of course that’s happening. Why? Because at the highest level, any whatever it takes to win and get your way, that is what’s being model. This is atrocious behavior that’s permeating our culture.

So before we move on, I think that it’s really important that people know the tools. This is so simple and give you one resource. There’s one resource you remember from this is blue letter Bible, Doug, because this really brought clarity for Isaac and I. We were so encouraged as we are preparing for this podcast, you guys, if you go to Romans, chapter 13, verse one new King James version, King James version, whatever, and you click on that verse, every word will be distributed evenly. If you click on the word subject, it will come up and I will say Strongs G five if fifty to ninety three. OK, and you click on that, it’s going to give you the definition, which is the word hepatocyte. He went over that. It means a range under two subject. OK then if you write all this down then you change the verse and you go to something like we used Ephesians six one children obey your parents in the Lord. You click on the word obey, it’ll it’ll show you hypocrite. OK, Strongs G fifty to nineteen. It means to obey, to hearken to a command, to conform to it. It tells you specifically what it means. Two totally different words. Let’s not use them interchangeably because the American language is weak compared to Greek. I’m just going to say it.

Yeah. The Greek language had a much richer, deeper meaning for both of those words, which is why they’re not used interchangeably in scripture. And so we need to be careful not to be putting a word in a different place. So before we move on to modern examples, I’m going to rattle off some verses that we thought would be encouraging for you guys to look up together. Esther, chapter one, verse fifteen. This is where Queen Vasti decides, no, I’m not going to strip before the king. So he banishes her, potentially kills her again. Esther for sixteen, where Esther again, civil disobedience approaches the king uninvited. You can read that Certificate’s first Samuel fourteen Surles soldiers disobey him and don’t kill Jonathan. OK, Jeremiah. Twenty seven where Jeremiah he is disobedient and he wears a yoke in public. Then of course we have Jesus who heals people on the Sabbath, which is against the law of the day. He also overturns tables on the steps of the temple. OK, this is our God. Don’t mistake God’s church. OK, so there’s just a few and there’s a lot. You guys, it’s an exciting study. When you start reading through Scripture and you talk to your kids, they may even have other examples from reading the Bible themselves you guys need to be talking about.

We got to reject the passivity and stand for truth and lead unapologetically. Let’s go into modern examples so really quick. And we’re going to spend the next 15 minutes, most of it, on what to do if your church closes and details about doing home church. But a modern examples are obviously the Holocaust. Martin Luther King Jr., you know. Segregation superimportant.

And imagine if he, I don’t know, tried marching alone.

Yeah, these are examples of work. These are examples of one before these things, like Christians being passive. And then during these things, Christians standing up, like in the Holocaust, there was Jews and Christians that were helping people.

Right. And so, you know, I but this is the thing when I think of the Holocaust, I think of another biblical example, which is Rahab when she was hiding. Mm hmm.

Keep the civil war, obviously, you know, we have to act, remember, we have to act before these crazy things happen, we have to see what’s happening and not just allow even small things to happen. We need to band together and pray and take whatever necessary action.

So before you jump in to talking about the church, the last modern example that where we’re going to talk to you guys briefly about is a conviction and all of you guys should should relate to this. If you have sat in a church in the last 20 years, you’ve likely heard a pastor talk about the persecuted church somewhere in the world. There’s something called the ten forty window window to the World World Vision. Why wham! Tons of different ministries, voice of the Martyrs. They share stories from people who are missionaries who go to countries where it is illegal to be a Christian with the purpose of defying that government for the purpose of sharing the gospel and the great commission, because God commands us to go to all the Earth and share the Gospel. Now, my question would be, has your kids ever seen you pray for this persecuted church? And this was a question that I was thinking about. I was just this really hit me hard because we’ve used a lot of resources. I will share them with you at the end. But you guys, I guarantee you, you’ve not sat in the service praying for the persecuted church and prayed, God, I just pray that you would help my brothers and sisters in Christ to stop disobeying the government.

I pray they’d stop beating in their house churches, and I pray that they would really obey their communist tyrannical governments.

No, no, no.

None of us have ever prayed that way for anybody in the persecuted church. In fact, we’ve prayed for perseverance, for courage, for bravery, for protection, for the gospel to expand, for more house churches, to start popping up everywhere. We’ve sent money to support missionaries we like.

That is what the Christian Church of America of has been doing for decades. And we’ve been teaching this to our kids. Yet are we living what we pray for our brothers and sisters to do? Because the reality is, is right now so many people have not been going to church for nine months. Yeah. For eight months. Not OK or not practicing hospitality, which is another command. We talked about getting together with friends, not evangelizing, not actually being a participant in the body of Christ, not you in the great commission. This you guys, we have to awaken. We we have to open our eyes and see the great cost of what is happening not just in our nation, but all over the world.

And and we need to ask ourselves the hard question, are my prayers for the people in the persecuted church hypocritical to the way that I’m actually teaching my children by how I’m living?

Yeah. Or am I the same person?

So we got to dive into the church here. This is super practical. First of all, go to your church. If they’re open, if they’re not and they’re only screaming, don’t go to that church, go to a different church that’s actually meeting. You can also listen to your church’s stream on a different day or something like that. But when when you go to church, go take your family and go to a church where there’s actually people. I would not go to a church that requires your kids to wear masks during the entire service or something like that. I wouldn’t allow my wife, who’s pregnant, to wear a mask that will hurt her and our unborn child. So definitely don’t do that. Find a church, no masks where you can participate. We can be there. We can worship together. If you can’t find that, if you can’t find a Bible believing church where you are, which is true in many cases, unfortunately, then you need to pray and seek a home church, a group, a gathering of people.

If you can’t find a home church, you’ll need to start a home church. And it might start with just you leading your family. And I’m going to give you some details on that. And then maybe after a while you invite another family and pretty soon God’s going to do whatever he wants. It’s his church, not yours. Right. And so you’ve got to be committed to that. And so the first and second, Timothy, are great chapters.

My first advice to you is to read those over and over again, study what is being said there about the church. Remember, in the early days, the church was in homes. You know, that’s where the church was.

So Sutent, it is in persecuted countries right now. Today.

Yeah. And you might find that you light after doing this. You like home church even better. In fact, there’s a lot of things we love about on church. We were part of a regular church, non-denominational churches, for the most part for the first six years of our marriage. Then we had a few years of a. Home church, and I think two of those years was the church we planted or year and a half and and that grew and is going strong, we moved. So we’re not part of that anymore, that church. But now we’re going to a church with three thousand people and we don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but we’re enjoying it. And so, so but let’s say you need to start a church. So so read those scriptures and then get some music sheets, just a few so you can worship together, get communion bread and juice. That’s it. You know, you’re ready to go now. The house just, you know, get the house ready, talk amongst each other. What you want to announce is like where the bathrooms are and maybe some rules about, you know, kids not being upstairs with doors closed, things like that. But other than that, any safety things just to have those prepared ahead of time. And then here’s the structure. And this isn’t legalistic by any stretch of the imagination, but this is just how we’ve done how we’ve done it and seen it work really well, very fruitful, which is and this is super cool. First thirty to forty five minutes, whoever’s hosting the church, because it doesn’t always need to stay in the same house, they usually kind of make it start the meeting, that kind of thing. They’re not running it, but they’re kind of keeping it moving. And so let’s say that’s you in the beginning and you pray in the beginning and in the first 30 to 45 minutes is prayer time, testimony, time, praise reports what God’s doing, healing. We will pray over somebody and then anoint them or worship while worshipping together. So awesome. Singing Well, what if nobody has instruments like the big church?

Well, we’ve actually been a part of a home church where there were no instruments.

No problem. You just sing. And you know what? That’s not my strength. But you still let it out. I still let it out.

And I just make sure I’m near somebody louder like my wife because she’s so beautiful and she sings.

So it’s awesome.

We all have different strengths, but so thirty to forty five minutes of that. And you know what, during that time you have to be OK with silence in some of your wird in a high relational way where five seconds of silence seems like five minutes and you try and fill it. But you know what, you’re good at filling it. Why not let the gifts be spread out and let somebody else speak? And some people takes 30 seconds of silence before they ask for the prayer request. How beautiful is that? Get used to some silent moments. You will think it’s awkward. Other people think it’s safe.

You know what? It’s not awkward when you come with the perspective of wanting to hear from one another in their hearts.

Hey, man, people.

And you sit and maybe you don’t have anything to share at that moment and you’re curious what’s on other people’s hearts. And there is some silence. I found those to be the best times to just be praying for the Holy Spirit, to give the parts, to help people to recall scripture that really meant something to them that week. If they were to share that. Yeah. Or exhort one another with that.

And it just was such a special time. Isaac said that this time usually ranges thirty to forty five minutes. This is the cool part is led by the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. And men and women are praying, which is awesome. And you might read scripture differently in that that’s where we landed. And then there’s time for teaching and you might do this in different ways. We saw so much fruit from opening it up for men to prepare and give sermons and the people with the gift, the and sometimes people are learning to see if they have the gift. Right, which is cool. And we love that. And two or three men, you know, bring a sermon, sometimes one and they give a sermon. And you know what? Nobody coordinates it ahead of time.

That’s how we’re got. Although because the messages always complement one another in such a really beautiful way and because the Holy Spirit is driving it. Yeah. And sometimes one of us will give a sermon and that’s good. And sometimes one or two. Sometimes three.

And a lot of there’s not three full sermons. Usually one of us brings something really meeting and then someone else brings something and they might adjust it a little bit for time and someone else just pipes in because it’s something they prepared. So it’s just really a beautiful thing and rock solid teaching. By the way, what if you don’t know if your teacher what if you are trying to clear that up picture? We believe in going through the scripture, not topical, but literally teaching what’s in the scripture. Yeah. Share stories when you can and yeah. Apply it, make it relevant.

And all these things bring in other scriptures, you know, strictly expository preaching. Absolutely.

Yeah. And it’s neat when you when the guys are sharing that sort of thing. I know that. It’s just it’s a special time where even the the young kids, they tend to learn more about what’s on the people’s hearts they actually have relationship with.

And so it’s a good example to all of the kids on what it looks like to be an adult Christian so that they can envision themselves being that when they get older and then somebody sees.

Is someone different, you know, does communion and it’s very simple, they can if you’ve never done before, just read what the Bible says about communion is read the scripture about it and pray and pray and do it.

And sometimes you can do a little more and that’s fine. Just keep it simple and then announcements and then we do potluck and some prayer then. But we have a we eat together and we hang out together. How beautiful is that? And so one thing that’s important is that whatever the preaching is, is biblical and is sound. And how do you make sure. Well, I don’t believe people need to get seminary degrees and these things people weren’t doing that when the church was spreading like crazy.

Think of who the 12 disciples were. Yeah, some of them were fishermen. I mean, they all have different backgrounds because God can use all people.

So don’t doubt yourself. Be encouraged by the Bible, teach the Bible. You’ll learn as you’re doing. And you know what? Have a midweek time where the men get together and reflect on what happened on Sunday and ask questions. And if there’s any disagreement about doctrine, you can talk about it. What you don’t ever want is disunity, cultivating because you’re not open and talking about it. And those are such fruitful times where we dig. We’ll dig into the word together and talk about a subject. And it’s amazing how the spirit, when we have humble hearts, brings us all in unity together as we talk about it.

So and I know the women will get together, too, and it’s just such a fruitful thing. So, hey, maybe you’re supposed to start a home church. I just gave you the simple you’re like Isaac. There’s not enough detail. No, that’s plenty more knowledge. Doesn’t necessarily lead to implementation. Usually excuses. It gives you a excuse. I’m telling you right now, you could prepare to run your first home church with just your family. And you could do that a few weeks. And pretty soon another family is joining you because they’re starving for it.

And you’re perhaps the answer for that. Or maybe you’re learning how to participate in one in search one and pray for one. Super important. We’re going to finish this off with some really cool resources.

And I’m just going to talk about, OK, so you guys, we had mentioned the importance of recognizing what we’re teaching our kids and what we’re modeling for them and our prayer life when we go to church and we hear about the persecuted church and recognizing that there is persecution beginning to happen in even in America, but it’s happening in other countries. I know of Canada right now that is not meeting as a church in many provinces. In some provinces, it is meeting. People are not able to celebrate Christmas with their family members in the same kind of way. They have a quarantine going on beginning in some places. December.

Twenty third again, I know that Oregon, for example, is in there. There are restricted guidelines through March, right?

Yeah, but the Supreme Court just came through and kind of forced Oregon to allow churches to meet, which is pretty cool.

That’s awesome. So you guys. But that didn’t happen on its own, right? That only happened because people disobedience, people were being disobedient, but they were also speaking up. Yeah, it’s it’s not just civil disobedience.

Ok, and so I want to share with you guys just a few. I know that this has been a long podcast, but I want to encourage you guys to look up the whilom biographies that I briefly mentioned. We have hundreds of these things. You guys, you’ve probably seen them as Christians, Christian heroes then and now, OK? They have them on all different people. You can get one on Amy Carmichael, Gladis, all Wollard, Jim Elliott, Hudson, Taylor, all of these different missionaries who they put their life on the line for the gospel. OK, and then there’s books like Praying Through the One Hundred Gateway Cities of the Ten Forty Window. This is one of the Reserve’s first resources that I got before we had the biographies. And I loved it because it’s a smaller book. So it was easy for us to take when we were traveling as well. And it has every country in here, along with a map. Prayer points talks about the population of the city.

Another resource that’s very similar to this one is the window to the world or Operation World, which is an even bigger book. They just came out with a new one, and this one has a lot of illustrations in it, which is great for kids. They can actually see the people that they’re praying for from different countries, talks about their culture, the religion, the persecuted church, what to pray for you guys.

These are modern day stories of persecuted peoples that we need to be praying for. But I will warn you, all of these people are being disobedient to their governments in meeting as a Christian people. They are. And so when you are reading this with your kids, that’s what you’re teaching them. Another devotional stories for children here. I heard good news today. This literally has a couple like one page that you read to your kids.

Here’s the good news in China. It’s a story of Hudson Taylor. It’s a one page story about eighteen thirty two. This was another tool I used with my kids. And then there’s voice of the martyrs. They have torch lighter DVDs, which are animated biographies of missionaries and stories of heroes of the faith. But I would recommend that if your kids haven’t. Watch those that parents watch them first, because a lot of those persecuted missionaries became martyrs, and so some of the other animated, they can be kind of scary for kids, some of them, some not scary, obviously. And then, you know, voice of ours also has these books. I share this with you in the St. Patrick’s Day episode podcast that we did see. Patrick was actually kidnapped and he was made a slave. And guess what he did?

He ran away and he became a missionary. He went back to that land as a missionary. And God used him to spread the gospel to all kinds of people. And so I just I see aspects of civil disobedience for the purpose of the gospel, for the purpose of obeying God and participating in the great commission. And we just have to be aware that we went over the four main reasons why it’s biblical to be disobedient to authorities in the very first episode. And so if you haven’t listened to that, you need to go back and listen to episode one of this or the first part of this series, I guess. And then, you know, I would encourage you guys to to listen with your spouse, listen with your kids, have good conversations about all the things we were just talking about, dig into the word together, read the stories that we were able to dig into super deep, like the stories of Esther. You guys, I know that a lot of you are scared about the futures of your children. I’m a mom of many. I’m pregnant with my ninth. And I think about what this world is going to be like in 20 years for this baby. I get it. I think about my great future grandkids. And I would be lying if I didn’t say that. At times I struggle with fear, but then I preach to myself the truth, which is that God created them for this generation for a purpose. And right now, my purpose as their mom is to equip them to be confident, courageous kids ready for the uncertain world that they are going to be inheriting from us. So join with us. Thank you for being a part of the One Million Legacies movement, and we’ll see you next time. Merry Christmas. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom Dotcom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program, ICIC and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. And I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

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When Civil Disobedience is Biblical

We live in a time where the most relevant parenting advice involves a discussion about modeling civil disobedience to your children. The Tolpin’s dig into the four governments; self, family, church, and civil while sharing when would it be Biblical to disobey the civil government. It’s a thought-provoking episode that every marriage should discuss right now wherever you live in the world.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. God first, then country
  2. Self-Government
  3. Family Government
  4. Civil Government
  5. Church Government
  6. When are we to exercise civil disobedience?
  7. What’s coming in Part-Two to this podcast series.

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Scripture In This Episode:

Isaiah 1:17 –Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.”

James 4:7 – “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

2 Peter 1:5-7 –But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”

Ephesians 6:1 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

James 1:26-27 –If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

Matthew 28:19-20 –Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.”

Genesis 9:6 –Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”

Hebrews 10:25 – “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Romans 12:13 – “Distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.”

Psalm 35:18 –I will give You thanks in the great assembly; I will praise You among many people.”

Ephesians 5:18-19 –And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,”

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 –You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.”

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Full Transcript:

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 I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Welcome to the podcast. Hi, guys.

So we are continuing down a path of parenting topics, who would have thought these would be the parenting topics we’ve been talking about in 2020?

I know it’s been insane. It’s been a crazy year. Last week, I just want to encourage you guys, because we are in December and we’re covering a topic that will be relevant.

All the time, just during the December holiday season, but last week, we did do a podcast on Christmas resources and traditions.

And so I just wanted to encourage those of you who are listening to this podcast, maybe you’re listening for the first time. Yeah, we are courageous parenting. I’m @courageous.mom

Step mom Isaac is @resolute.man on social and right. So we’re talking today about when civil disobedience is biblical. The reason we are is because that is a major question. So many Christians have, as they’re faced with all kinds of new situations with the government around the world, governments around the world.

Now, I will say I really like our title, but we did have a few other ideas for this particular podcast, because we’re talking about we’re talking about four different types of government. Right. And a lot of people may not have ever really thought about this. I know our daughter. She because she was a government major. She was learning all about this as well. So a lot of people do actually know about different types of government that God has put in place. And that’s gonna be part of our conversation today, because that is a huge part of knowing when civil disobedience is biblical. Yeah. Is understanding that. So we will talk about that today. But we’re also going to talk about four main things that are getting threatened even today. That’s kind of our agenda.

Yeah. So it’s important as we go through as parents, leaders of our home to know when or to submit and be obedient and when we’re to exercise civil disobedience. And it surrounds any time that government or anyone asks you to do something that is the opposite of what God has asked us to do.

Right.

When when they are asking you to disobey his word basically is the epitome of the reason and what we’re going to talk about and why why are we talking about this is parenting. You talked about how we’re parenting ministry.

But you guys, this is an important topic because you need to equip your kids and understanding when it is relevant for them also. And we will dig more into scriptures as we’re going through this. But I just want you to be thinking about this in two parts. Yeah. What is this? Speaking to me as a child of God, a party, a part of the body of Christ, as a Christian individual, as a leader of my household. But then as I am modeling for my kids and verbally teaching them these things, what should I be teaching them?

And is such an important marriage conversation right now? You’ve got to be preemptively talking about these things before you have to or faced with a decision, because if you don’t talk about them ahead of time, you might not be in alignment and how you choose to proceed in challenging situations.

So super important and first of all, I just want to say, Angie and I believe in government. We love government. God gave us government to submit to. Totally. And Romans 13. We’ll talk about that. But so we’re pro government. Very much so. And especially love our country, the United States, because of the Constitution and the freedoms that creates to live a life mostly free of government intervention, or control, I guess is a better way of putting it.

Yeah, I would say, too, that a lot of people have been asking me questions and and just us as well. Through the courageous parenting Instagram page, they’ve been giving examples of what’s going on in their churches and saying, is this time for me to leave my church and things like that? And so we will briefly talk about that, because some of what the government is doing is actually overreaching churches authority and preventing people from obeying God’s word within the context of church.

And so we will be getting into that. I just wanted to briefly mentioned at the beginning, because this is a really relevant podcast for everybody to be listening to as the months go on and we start seeing potentially even more control.

So I will dive in in a second. But thank you for being part of the one million Legacy’s movement and on iTunes. If you’ve given us five stars or written review so encouraging we read every single one often repost them on your insta stories on Instagram and Facebook. Also, again, make sure you’re part of our email list. We don’t know how much longer will even be on Facebook and Instagram or be allowed to be, for that matter, so super important that we’re connected. Let’s make sure we have each other’s email addresses. You can do that going to CourageousParenting.com. Also, all the show notes, resources, everything free and the things that support our ministry are CourageousParenting.com and CourageousMom.com too. And so we sure appreciate that as we support our family and our full time in ministry.

So let’s dive in. OK, so first and foremost, and I think that it would be worth repeating a couple of times, we hope. And if there’s one thing that you take away from this, it’s God first, then country, not the other way around God first, then country I recently I don’t know where I read this, but I recently was reading something online. This was probably a couple of months ago just about the context of priorities and how priorities was not actually a word priority means there’s one thing that’s most important and that it’s God actually, and that all other things are not actually a priority because there was only one word for it and it was priority was singular, not plural.

And it is still everything down to how does this align with what God says for my life, what God wants for my life? Is this God glorifying?

Right. And is this loving my neighbor? Yeah, OK. And so I’ll just, you know, something that’s been on my heart before we dive into this topic is that the concept of the second and greatest commandment? Right. The first commandment to love the Lord, your God, to throw heart, mind, soul and strength. Right, God first, then country second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Can’t forget the neighbors. And we have now some states that have created spy hotlines to turning your neighbor. So no one feels safe amongst their neighbors anymore. No one feels like they can even imagine if churches had to go into full-on home church model because churches are not allowed to me. Let’s just say that that was to happen and you have spy hotlines available and you have neighbors that even if they are Christian, they they’ve kind of fallen for this narrative of not meeting with more than six people or whatever. And then you have some people over to obey the Bible on the topic of hospitality and you have fellowship and then your neighbor turns you in. Yeah, right. Or even just being able to help your neighbors. There’s going to be times when we all need help. Absolutely. We’ve experienced that. And so knowing and loving your neighbors is the second greatest commandment. And now now what has been created is a fear of one’s neighbor. Yeah.

So, well, the four governments we’re going to talk about are self-government, family, government, church, government and civil government. A lot of times people when you hear the word government, just think of the government, the civil government, and really there’s four governments and they all submit to God or should.

And when you say civil, it actually encompasses both state and federal. And within those there are different branches and so forth. And so when we just use the word civil throughout the podcast, but that’s what we’re referring to is both state and federal and they’re supposed to be working in collaboration and cooperation with one another. Yeah, but what we have witnessed this year is actually animosity between the two and oftentimes being at odds with one another. So that’s an interesting concept also.

And we’re hearing things from you guys all over the world. It’s really fascinating because we kind of have a bird’s eye view of what’s happening all over the world because of your private messages to us. We love that people in Canada can’t get a haircut. They’ll be arrested for someone. One guest comes into their home. I recently heard that’s coming up to, you know, just all kinds of things all over the place. Australia, crazy things. They can’t even fly out of their country unless they’re they get a vaccine. We heard. So lots of stuff going on around the world. Again, we’re not to fear we’re not fear based parenting. We don’t have fear of things in the world. But we are to be in wisdom and we are to trust and obey God first and foremost. And just because we’re not fearful doesn’t mean we don’t take concise action on things in wisdom. So super important.

And it’s important to know the word more now than ever because we need to know what God’s word says so that we can react biblically and and be proactive. A lot of what we talk about here in this podcast, the greatest parenting podcast, is to help you guys to be proactive in your communication, in your marriage and in your parenting so that you’re not reactionary parents. Yeah, OK. And so as we are talking about these different things, I just want you guys to know we’re not trying to, like, stir up any kind of fear in you guys. In fact, the opposite. We want you to be as prepared as possible. And part of that is communicating about these things.

Knowledge erases fear.

So when we’re knowledgeable about these things, we already know what are the points where we need to have civil disobedience. Then there is no fear. We already understand what we’re supposed to do and what we’re going to do and what we’re going to do as a married couple.

So for our families, that’s pretty important these days. So let’s talk about self-government. So self-government. This is the first government that God, which is the individual We are to have self control. Another way to look at it is human beings are to have self-control. They’re to govern themselves.

Well, in the obedience of God, so this is like a personal responsibility mandate. Yeah, and what’s interesting about this, so whenever we talk about responsibility for your own spiritual growth, right? Yes. As a parent, for example, it is your jurisdiction to be discipling your children. However, at the end of the day, they’re going to stand before God and they’re responsible for their relationship with God. And same goes for wives, right? Husbands are to lead their families, to wash their wives in the word. But wives are responsible for their independent individual relationship with God. And it’s not just your relationship with God. You’re also responsible for your actions, for your mistakes, for your sins, for the things that you commit or whatever your convictions. You’re responsible for personal research. Right. And this is an important, important aspect of government that I think is overlooked all the time.

It’s not an entitled thing. It’s the opposite. Self-Government is when it’s operating well, when individuals are proactive, are taking care of themselves. Now, are there situations where people can’t take care of themselves even though they give their best effort? Absolutely. There are situations where family and church need to come into play and help people. Absolutely.

And all people need accountability for different things in their life as well. Right. There are different aspects. And and the other governing authorities, I guess you could call them that God put in place were to help with that. They’re actually there to help with that so that we are living biblically. So we’re living morally.

But an interesting thought when regular able bodied people are look to the civil government as a means to get something, as a means to be taking care of it dramatically skewes how they choose who they vote for, for example, it dramatically skews what they care about and we are not to be reliant. It was never intended that we’re trying to be reliant on civil government.

That’s a way in a position of hierarchy that it is not intended. No. Have you? Correct.

Yeah. And the reason when we’re looking to get something and gain something from government and that dictates how we choose and what we choose, then it’s it’s a self focused choice and it’s actually a entitled perspective, an entitlement attitude, a heart attitude of not wanting to necessarily work in.

I mean, you guys know, the scriptures that say things like it’s it’s it would be better for an unbeliever than for a man not to provide for his family, for example. Right. And so to be voting for and choosing a and voting for an officer to be put into office, who’s going to be governing that is going to create that kind of life where people don’t have to work and then they’re just given money and they’re dependent upon the government is not a biblical thing to be. Well.

Well, the global reset that’s being talked about is the even as at one time in my past I helped found a software company. And so I was in the tech world for a bit. And I remember sitting in a meeting in Bend, Oregon, actually four years ago, five years ago, and then talking about the future and how there will come a time where it’s actually a good thing and an important thing, that everybody is given a certain amount of money every single month because technology will advance so much that there will be less jobs. And we need to take care of people in these kinds of things. And I remember looking around the room and people are just nodding in favor of this. This is four or five years ago. I was outraged inside. I’m like, what is going on? Right. This is crazy. This is defying this is crippling self-government. This is a form of socialism. This is this isn’t the way we need to go. But this is being embraced today because there’s a breakdown of self-government.

It’s embraced and it’s been embedded what they are trying to teach the younger generations as well. And so that’s something that we need to be aware of and to be communicating with our kids about this. So this concept of individual or self government is an important thing that you need to be teaching your children. And that’s what Isaac and I want to encourage you guys in. Obviously, we want you to be aware of it, this personal responsibility, this self-control. So any scripture that talks about self-control, you brought this up, any scripture that potentially talks about self-control is referring to self government, how to govern yourself well.

Well, that’s right. And that’s something that we want to teach our kids. We want to teach them emotional self-control. We want to teach them self-control over their thoughts, take every thought captive under the obedience of Christ. That’s a skill that we need to be teaching our kids and practicing ourselves. Right. Which every thought that’s coming through social media, when you take those thoughts captive that. Is a form of self-government, another aspect of this is the creation mandate, which you and I were talking about this earlier, and you called it the dominion right of how God gave dominion over the Earth to Adam and Eve.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s biblical Genesis. And it was just interesting how the Dominion software is, you know, in controversy right now and the election and potential election fraud and all that. I believe there is election fraud. There’s so much evidence. But you can believe differently and we can still love each other. It’s fun. But the Dominion software, just the name of it, was uncanny.

I know. So when you think about the first mandate that God gave to man, he created Adam and Eve and he gave them this mandate to take dominion over the Earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to preserve, to take care of. And it’s called the Dominion mandate, really. And we also know that Satan is always trying to he’s in this competition. He has this competitive spirit with God. Right. He has been trying to be like God since he was cast from heaven. That was actually the argument between him and God.

So let me look good in twist things to be evil.

Right. What’s interesting, though, is that you’ve got this Dominion software, like you said, just the title of it alone makes you go, OK, we know that Satan is a counterfeit and he always tries to do what God has done, but he does it in a counterfeit way. That’s going to fulfill his goal, which is to steal, kill and destroy. Which interesting enough, I mean, you said that the Dominion software is part of what we believe as the fraud or stealing of the election.

Yeah. With the overall bigger purpose. What’s behind it. You heard the deep state or the global effort at a global reset build back better. By the way, the Biden uses is used by the World Health Organization, I believe, or something. You can look it up. And he’s adopted the slogan that’s used around this global reset thing. And so you just look at this. And what the belief is, is that there’s overpopulation, that we have to curtail that and actually decrease population.

And obviously getting the United States, the stubborn America, they’re so stubborn in wanting things, which, again, this is the opposite of what God the mandate that God gave Adam when he gave him dominion over the earth to be fruitful and multiply. And here’s them using this Dominion software and their whole agenda of overpopulation and to decrease populations, literally the opposite of what God set up.

So let’s buy let’s buy America, let’s influence America, and let’s get the right person in charge so we can control it. And so let’s use fraud in this election. Now, if you disagree with some of that stuff, no problem. Again, we love you. We can disagree. I hope we can still disagree in this world. Right. And still like each other. So self-government. We have some scriptures.

Yeah. So, well, first we wanted to just share from Isaiah chapter one, verse seventeen that says.

Well, OK, the end of verse 16 says cease to do evil, OK, right there, let’s just cease to do evil people, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless and plead for the widow.

This is part of what we’re called to as individuals in our self-governing. But this is also what every institution that God has laid in place is also called to do this. Right.

And what I love about that scripture, part of why we chose that one is because it’s action orientated and we are all about rejecting passivity and seeking justice.

It’s important. rebuking oppressors, liars and fruads.

Yeah, we believe in proprietorial. God hears our prayers. It doesn’t mean we don’t take action.

Yeah. So, you know, we have some other scriptures we’re going to go over as well that are really important. But before we jump into those, we wanted to bring up this point that we it’s a question that as we’re going through each of these different governments, we should ask what happens when these things get out of order?

What happens when these different governing authorities that God has put in place get out of order? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super, super, super important to think about that, because we’re seeing it right now, which is they infringe upon each other and then the government needs to be more controlling.

When there’s a breakdown in self-governing, then the people, the populace, the government believes they have to step in and control more things because human beings aren’t capable of governing themselves. And so as erosion of morality, as erosion in society happens, there’s a belief then that we need to come in and make up for that.

But the negative aspect of the individual not taking responsibility and understanding that they’ve been given by God a responsibility to self govern when self governance goes down, then there’s a need for more civil governance.

So, hey, you know, take prayer out of school, take the Pledge of Allegiance. Let’s get rid of that. Let’s, you know, let’s censor Christianity.

Let’s do all these things in churches down. I mean, all of it really.

And so is going to be a decrease, a further decrease in morality, a further decrease in self-governing, a belief that government needs to take care of everybody, control them, be even a deeper part of their lives. And people gradually, like the slowly cooked frog, go right along with it, including believers sometimes.

So a transfer of authority begins to happen where there’s overreach from one authority into the other. But really what we’re seeing now is overreach mainly from civil into all of the other pots, if you will. Right.

And that’s something that we as Christians need to be aware of when we’re thinking about when is it biblical to be civil or to be disobedient to this civil governing authorities and the mandates or whatever that they’re asking of us. Right. Yeah. And so we need to ask, is this an overreach? We need to ask what happens when everyone is being controlled. Right. What if everyone does do this? What will be the consequences? What will be the potential ramifications? We just need to be critical thinkers. We need to ask these questions, have discussions about it.

So second, Peter, one five through seven. Great scripture for your kids, by the way. This is so good. Lead your family in the Bible. You could do a whole conversation just around this one. Scripture, by the way, when you’re teaching the Bible to your kids, into your family, don’t overthink it. Pick one little scripture and just talk about it. You’re so capable. And you know what? In the moment, if you pray beforehand, God will the Holy Spirit will help you. Just like in Jeremiah. I’ll put words into your mouth. Do not fear, right. Said a little differently. That is the basic meaning right here says. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence. Add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control, perseverance to perseverance, godliness to guidance, brotherly kindness and brotherly kindness. Love for if these things are yours in a bound, you will be neither parent nor am fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that is a great scripture for self governance. Governance. So super, super important. Let’s dive into the next one, which is family.

So this one is the God placed the family in order, obviously in Genesis when he realized that was not good for man to be alone. So he created Eve, who was the the helper suitable, if you will. Right. That’s what Genesis calls Eve. Her name also means mother of the living, which I think is really beautiful. And then she was gifted with the ability to bring forth life, her and Adam together as partners and with the Lord, he brought forth life from her womb.

She even says, with God’s help, I brought forth life. Right. And so. This is the second government, if you will, is the family government that God created in Genesis.

We already talked about the Dominion mandate, basically, that he gave people right to be fruitful, multiply, expand, preserve assets, these sorts of things.

And if you’re if if we’re not doing the mandate of God, then, you know, we might be missing the mark. We are to be fruitful, multiply. We’re to have families.

And obviously some people there are some people that are called to different things outside of having immediate family and fruitfulness is not just numbers of children.

And you guys can go and listen to our other podcasts on that as well. Fruitfulness is also like if you have a bunch of children and none of them are following the Lord, is that fruitful? Right. It’s not really fruitful. And so to be fruitful, you can look at all other scriptures. I mean, we could rattle off a bunch of Deuteronomy six, go read that entire chapter. Right. That that commands parents to teach the commands of the Lord to the children and their children’s children and write them on the doorposts. Yeah. And I mean, there’s there’s tons of encouragement in how to do parenting. We talk about that in many other podcasts.

Yeah. We would never judge someone else based on their family size or dynamics or. No, no. That is between you and your spouse and God and everybody’s family looks a little different.

But the point, though, to preserve assets, to have dominion over the earth, to be fruitful, to multiply, it’s just interesting that the opposite agenda that’s being pushed by some governments right now, like even look at China, they limit the amount of kids that families are allowed to have. There are many other things that are probably going on that we dare not speak of. Right. And so we need to be aware of what is what is the spirit that is behind the governing authorities, because if they are telling us to disobey God’s word, that’s when we don’t obey them. Yeah, actually.

So I remember our first child when she was young. I this is probably one of the first scriptures I taught or I remember teaching, which is in Ephesians six one children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.

And I remember that being so important because I didn’t want our daughter. And I know we should say we didn’t want our daughter just to obey us just because we’re her parents. We wanted her to obey us because it’s also what God commands.

Right? And because she loves us, because she loves God. And we talk more about that in the parenting program in the heart of behind this. Right. The heart of parenting. Yeah, but you guys listen, if children are obeying their parents, do they obey them in everything? Actually, there is an exception. Yeah, right. Because it’s God first, then country God first, then family God first, then do you see what I’m saying? And so if parents were to command a child to do something that is disobedient to God’s word, let’s say an addict is an addict and they tell their kids to go steal food. Right. Or they send, let’s say, a corrupt but corrupt business. Right. Family business. The mob. I’ll just use a mob. Right. And they send a child out as a hit man or something. I mean, these are things that we would never think would happen. But obviously, those are things where the child should disobey the parent. Yes, right. Because it’s disobedient to God’s word. It’s immoral. It’s sinful. Yeah. And I think that all Christians would agree. Of course, a child should never just obey their parents and something like that, right? Yeah, absolutely. And the same goes for within the family, too. Right. And so when we’re talking about the the government of family, we want you guys to understand it’s always God first.

Amen in the rest of the scripture says honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with the promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the Earth.

I think it’s so important that God usually tells you the why. And as parents, we need to tell our kids the why. So children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. But don’t leave out. There’s a promise that it may be well with you.

You may live long on the earth because you obey your parents because your parents are loving and they know what’s right for you. And they’re hopefully reading the scriptures. They believe in God.

You know, it’s interesting as you’re reading that it’s something else just kind of sticks out to me about that particular passage of scripture. It’s not just a word for children. It’s actually a challenge for parents to be the kind of parents that are leading their children in the ways of the Lord that are we have a responsibility that we will be held accountable to where we are supposed to be teaching our children, having our children do things that are going to bring God glory, that are going to fulfill what God’s purpose is for us here on Earth, not for selfish things, not for selfish gain, not for entitlement, not for hurting others, not for anything that would be disobedient to God’s word.

Yeah. Amen. I want to take a moment and give you. Something for free, if you haven’t got it already, is the date night one, it is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at CourageousParenting.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 CourageousParenting.com.

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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.

And 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.

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So there are jurisdictions of the family government. And let’s just talk about some of them. Safety and protection is on the jurisdiction of the family where to protect our families were to provide safety for them. Does that mean the civil government can’t also do that? Absolutely. That we love the police and.

Oh, yeah, I mean, imagine we are 100 percent behind supporting lawfulness. Yeah, justice. And Isaiah said to seek justice. Right? Well, sometimes you need to have well, always we need to have a civil government where we can trust those who are going to be seeking justice in providing protection right in the community.

Well, after the arc, Noah and his family get off. Shortly thereafter, the civil government was created by God and, um, you know, talking about genesis 9:6.

So you can go look, that’s super, super important.

And you know that that’s there. But safety and protection provision. Right. Should be that’s under the family jurisdiction if that breaks down. Yeah. Hopefully other people help people. Right. That’s the way it was originally set up. Education is up to the family. It doesn’t mean everybody needs the homeschooled, but the choices and the options for should be under the parents jurisdiction if they want public Christian homes, what they want their kids to remember, what kind of education they want for their kids, that is in the family jurisdiction, super important health, welfare, spirituality.

Family jurisdiction.

Yeah, and if if the civil government comes in and says it starts controlling those things.

So this is the difference. This is where people have to actually decide now. They need to communicate with their spouse about what the Bible says regarding these different governing authority so that they can come to the conclusion of realizing, OK, do I believe that my child is my child or are they the states? Who do your children belong to?

And based upon that belief, you are either going to hand over readily your children for whatever the government wants for them, or you’re going to take on the jurisdictions and the responsibilities of safety, protection provision, education, health care, welfare and spirituality. Now we realize that there’s obviously families and communities all over where the family unit is broken.

Yeah, and like I said, there is actual biblical authority that talks about Christianity, churches getting involved in that and offering support and involvement.

Yeah. So just think about that. How are you doing with your jurisdiction’s leading your family? You should get together with your spouse in these different areas. How are we doing protecting our family? How are we doing with safety and protection and safety? I mean, are might have different things based on our environment. What’s going on now that we’re not, you know, greater on certain times? You’ve really got to think about what is prudent to protect and keep my family safe, not in fear, but in wisdom. Things are so obvious. Right. And so if you’re not doing anything in that regard that reacts to the uncertain times we’re in, you might need a gut check. And to think about that. OK, so superimportant. How about health, education, welfare, spirituality? You know, some people when your churches got closed down, it’s kind of a gut check, OK? There’s not a pastor leading my family right now.

So now who’s leading my family spiritually? What’s interesting about this is also the concept of community and the importance of church, which we’ll talk about that in a in a few minutes. But when churches get closed down, you start. That’s when you realize, oh, do I have real relationships with other like minded believers or is my community actually not like minded? Right. Like, if it’s just people from work or neighbors or whatever and they’re not like minded, it’s time to get serious about developing solid relationships with minded believers.

You’ve got to break out of your comfort zone. And obviously we moved and we’re visiting churches and we’ve been going to one for a while now. We really enjoyed. And, you know, you got to go in with a smile on your face and look forward to meeting people and get to know people. And like, he’d been there for a long time. You just got to jump in and break out of your comfort zone. You might think, but I’m introverted. Well, me too.

He is. He really is.

So a lot of people don’t believe that. But I’ve pushed a lot of the work I’ve done in my life has been the opposite of introversion on purpose, because I want to be able to be what people need me to be like Paul says. Right. I want to be able to break out and be able to connect. And obviously I need times without people. And that’s important. Where Angie is kind of a mix.

I confuse people sometimes because I am more extroverted often. Yeah. But then I, I kind of get my fill and I get, I do get worn down at times. So I like to claim ambiavert which confuses people, but that is it.

And I don’t like labels either. I don’t think anybody is just like introvert or extrovert. There’s more to it than that.

But but the next government that we want to talk about is actually the civil government, because that’s the next one that God set in place. And so do you want to just drill us about that?

Well, the civil government is it’s so important that it’s not impeding on the family, government or the self-government. And it’s super important. And the purpose is justice. A lot of the purpose is justice.

Justice needs to be served in situations where there needs to be mediation, there needs to be reconciliation. And these kinds of things, hopefully, obviously, believers need to reconcile with each other outside of court and things like that. But there needs to be that reconciliation and ways to do that. People that do wrong need to be caught and they need to be punished. Their needs that God set that up.

And it’s called sowing and reaping. And it’s a spiritual law that no one gets to hide from. Yeah. And when people don’t experience the consequences, natural consequences of sowing and reaping. And this is an important word for us as parents, all of us, because we need to allow our kids to experience those consequences of sowing and reaping the natural consequences. Because if we if we cushion it from them, then when they’re older and they we can’t cushion them anymore.

The fall is much greater.

Yeah. And the government’s there to preserve the good the government’s there is to allow people to live. Freely, at least, the way our Constitution was written, the United States, it was really set up to allow people to be free, but at the same time not infringe upon other people’s property, on other people’s rights, on other people’s freedom of speech, freedom of religion, all of these things. It was actually a protection against tyranny, against the people, but allowing people to live and be prosperous, whatever that means. So that’s that’s really what government was set up for in the United States.

It was really, truly believing in the best in people, too, that people could self govern and that the church would be very involved as well for teaching morality and biblical truth. And so when those two things are are are shut down, in a sense, we’re not allowed to actually exercise in the functions that God gave them. You start to see immorality rise and you see the ethics go down the tube, really.

And I think we have to get back to what we’re starting to see more and more of is is actually a fear of people. Actually, a people are can’t be trusted so that we need to control of them more. We’re starting to see more of that seep in. And what happens, what I’ve seen in humanity, especially in leadership roles I’ve played and so forth, is that when you give trust, people become more trustworthy when you don’t trust people because people become less trustworthy. It’s really interesting. It’s it’s like if you like giving respect, if you give respect people become more respectful. Not absolutely. But in general in a generality. If you give more responsibility, people rise to the level of responsibility God put in human beings, a desire to do meaningful work, a desire to provide, a desire to contribute, a desire to be proactive, however evil does to overtake some people. And they just do evil. And that’s why there needs to be justice there in protections with the government.

And it’s also why there’s a huge need for the church, because the church is the next governing authority that we wanted to talk about. Yeah. And you guys, this is really primarily what is the purpose of church. Let’s just talk about the purpose of church is instituted by Jesus, ruled by elders, limited to what the Bible says. Right. It’s a spiritual authority.

And the purpose of the church is to exercise evangelism. The great commission is really like the ultimate goal, but also it’s to its discipleship and glorifying God to worship him.

And so in Matthew, obviously, the great commission, Matthew 28:19-20 go therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.

Amen.

So you guys, this is the thing with this is where the question comes in.

Oh, what do you do when your church stops meeting and when do you know when to find any church? And we are going to jump into four things that we have kind of narrowed it down to just in our conversations that we’ve been having with one another of the things that we’re seeing happening with civil government overreaching and shutting down churches, limiting the way that they can meet, how many can meet this sort of thing. And it’s different state to state in the United States. It’s also different country to country. We’re aware of that. And so but this is an important conversation because when. When one of these governing authorities, one of these four governing authorities, is not fulfilling its purpose.

The importance of its existence ceases to exist.

Think about that for just a second, when the purpose for which it was created is no longer happening. Then what’s the purpose of its existence?

And we ultimately know that the devil, our enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy.

We know he doesn’t want people worshipping God. He doesn’t want evangelism happening. He doesn’t want people getting discipled. He doesn’t he’s against the great commission. He’s against personal responsibility. He doesn’t want people getting saved. We know this is true about our enemy. It’s important when you are in any war to know about your enemy. And these are just truths that we know from scripture about our enemy, the devil. We also know that Jesus has overcome the enemy and that we have the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to discern these things.

So right now, more than ever, Christians need to discern they do. They need to discern what is happening to my church. And is this being used by the enemy? Is this fulfilling the enemy’s agenda or is this fulfilling God’s agenda?

Let’s read in Romans 13, because this is the scripture used a lot and it’s all scripture is true. So let’s read it. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God was paused there for a second. There is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. Rulers are not a terror to do to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same, for he is God’s Minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword. For he is God’s Minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake.

So by the way, in the next section is Love Your Neighbor and so forth, which is pretty awesome because, you know, we should be taking care of each other versus the government taking care of people. Right. Ideally that be works. So if all the governments were working in harmony and doing their best, we wouldn’t have such a need for the government to help out.

One of the things that I think is so important that people forget is that this scripture is actually talking about the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Yeah, right. And so they’re appointed by God, but they are also called to submit to God. Yes. And so, again, God first then country. This is a message for everyone in every country, everywhere. When you are a Christ follower, you follow his word. And if the government is calling you to do something that follows the the word of God loving your neighbor or something like that. Right, then yes, you want to follow it. But if the government is having you do something. That for a different reason, other than loving your neighbor, you need to discern that biblically and you need to teach it to your kids, and that is the point where you would have been civil disobedience.

So let’s talk about civil disobedience and things you need to think about. The first one is neglecting to gather as believers.

So this is when the government requires you to disobey God’s word. These are the four things that we think are worthy of disobeying the government.

And the first is neglecting the gathering and Hebrews 10:25 it says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another.

And so much the more as you see the day approaching other places and scripture talks about it’s important to get together and stir up good works and sing psalms and worship together basically is what I say, right?

Many places it says and don’t forsake the gathering.

And all these things are so important because we need each other. God knows that we become unfruitful apart from each other.

So this is the thing when you think about how the actual body of Christ functions, let’s just talk about the body of Christ, right? One of its purposes, the gifts are dispersed among the body for the edification of the whole we know this from Corinthians, Chapter 12. You can go and read that.

And you guys, if we’re not gathering together, we’re not using our gifts. Yeah. So how is the body edified? It’s not. The answer is it’s not OK.

Now, some people can be using their gifts like you guys are listening to a podcast here. Isaac and I are teaching or sharing from scripture where hopefully this is edifying to you, maybe challenging you to think deeper about some things. And that’s great. But true discipleship does not happen over social media. And the great commission is not about converts. It’s about discipleship. Says Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations disciple making happens face to face in real life relationships. And that’s that. There is no substitute for that because there’s no accountability through social media. There’s no accountability virtually.

You can listen to a sermon online, but no one’s going to be holding you accountable if you’re not walking in a body of people that can go, Hey, brother, what’s going on? Yeah. And so there are multiple reasons why we need to be gathering.

Just using your gifts and being obedient to that passage of scripture is one of them.

So it’s been a long time that churches have either been shut down depending on where you are or people aren’t going that are streaming and listening to messages that way. And because of that, it really falls on your shoulders. You are responsible for the spiritual condition of your families. And part of the healthy spiritual condition of your family is your gathering with other believers that aren’t your immediate family. And that is really important. And if you’re not leading your family to do that, I believe you’re disobeying God. I 100 percent believe that and you’re also setting an example that is an enormous mistake for their futures, this pandemic that we’re in, that whatever you believe about it, is small in comparison to the things in their futures. And people still need to meet. We need to gather.

God created us as social beings. This is another aspect that comes to my mind. He created as a social beings because he’s a social being, a triun God.

Yeah, he’s three and one. We were created in his image and we need one another. Yes. You may have your spouse, you guys, we have eight kids. We are in community just within our home. But I’ll tell you, our kids need friends. They need communication. They need in real life people. We need that. I need that with sisters in Christ. Isaac needs that with brothers in Christ. We spur one another on towards good works. For the kingdom of God, there is an element. Of being in each other’s lives, that is irreplaceable any other way. Here’s here’s an example carrying one another’s burdens. Isn’t that a command in scripture to carry one another’s burdens? But you may not know about that person’s burden unless you see them sitting in church crying during a message or during a prayer time or during someone’s testimony.

You may not be able to actually connect with other people and go, whoa, that that like maybe a woman drops off her baby in the nursery, right in the woman who takes the baby realizes, oh, man, this baby’s really colicky. I’m going to check in on this mom, find out that she’s postpartum, needs help, needs mentoring.

You’re not going to know that unless you’re together in real life.

Now, if you’re streaming at home and you have been for a long time and you aren’t noticing a real big difference from when you were going to church, that means there was some kind of corruption in your experience in the first place when you were going. It means that you weren’t taking responsibility to develop relationships or you were. And maybe there’s some challenge with the church. That could be. But I always would want to check myself before I blame it on something else. Right.

So, you know, it’s your responsibility to be transparent and what you put in, you will get out of meaning in relationships. It can’t just be a take, take, take. It has to be more about.

So let’s not be too comfortable staying home. Right. Let’s get uncomfortable and really pursue the deep relationships, accountability, spurring one another on. So your kids experience that, too. And so you can be better leaders for your family and we need it right now. That strength to have by knowing our Bibles and living it out to stand up and not fear when we need to in this society is super, super important. So don’t neglect the gathering is important. The next one second one is hospitality.

Yeah, hospitality is a big one. I mean, we talked briefly about the importance of discipleship and how that happens face to face. And I’m just going to give you guys a brief rundown of something that God really taught me. When I did an in-depth study in hospitality, I realized that hospitality, bringing people into your home, strangers or people who you go to church with or neighbors, is really where heart connections are made.

It’s where people feel comfortable opening up their lives and sharing about their hardship in their marriage or what’s going on in their parenting and actually get discipleship. That is where discipleship happens, is in the home. And so the reality is that if we are being told by the government not to have anyone over for Thanksgiving. Right. That’s just happened in some states or there’s fines if you’re meeting with people and there’s more than six and a home and they have these spy hot channels out, then and you’re choosing not to practice hospitality, you are disobeying God’s word.

Here are a couple scriptures, Romans chapter twelve, verse thirteen, which is right before the Chapter 13 scripture that talks about obedience to civil authorities. It even says here. That some of our call as Christians is by kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love.

How can you do that when you’re not in person, in honor, giving preference to one another? How are you doing that if you’re not in real life seeing each other, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer. Are you praying for other people? Do you even know what other people’s needs are? Maybe you are a part of a prayer team and someone has sent you a text and you’re praying for somebody. That’s awesome. But are you moved to tears because you personally know this person and it is a conviction on your heart to be praying for them every day because you have a personal connection. There is a difference. There is a difference in verse 13 it says distributing to the needs of the Saints and given to hospitality. Given to hospitality, there’s another passage of scripture, I believe it’s in Titus talking about elders and their qualification, where it says they must be given to hospitality to be qualified to be an elder.

We just talked about church authority and how it’s supposed to be the elders that are ruling it. Right. But an elder becomes disqualified if he does not obey God’s word and is not given to hospitality. So these things play hand in hand and this also massively impacts the great commission.

Well, and I think that if you if you’re not going to church and hospitality doesn’t happen, our doctrine gets off. We start if there is an accountability, if there isn’t that positive pressure of other believers in other Bibles on our lives, we tend to veer a little bit from scripture sometimes. And we need people to pull us back because a little bit of veering, a little bit of veering, a little bit veering over time, which nobody’s going to admit to right at first. But a little bit over time is a big distance later. And so it’s super important in hospitality is crucial. We need each other.

And and so if you’re not if wherever you are, they’re saying not to have people in your home, we believe you should disobey, disobey or move.

And I’m just going to say it. You actually have a choice. You can be living in a place where you’re not disobeying the civil authorities. That’s one reason why we moved, because our heart was to want to obey as much as is possible, as much as it is possible for you to be at peace with everyone.

And there was a possibility for us. Did it cost us? Oh, yeah. It cost us big time to move a family of ten. It cost us in community. It cost us money.

It cost us time, physical exertion. It cost friendships. And we still have friendships with those people, but we’re far from them. We’re in a totally different state. But you guys, as much as it is possible for you to be at peace with everyone and to be obedient to God’s word, you still have the choice on where you’re going to live today. You actually have that choice. You might not have that choice in a few years.

I would rather be in a place where we can live freely as much as is possible and make less money. I’d rather do that and have to make new friends. I’d rather do that over a lot of things. Yeah.

And I think that part of it is recognising it’s a bigger thing if you listen to our why we are strategically relocating podcast, which to this day is like our top podcast. Right. And you can go find that if you’re new listener is very interesting. But we recently moved out of Oregon for many reasons. For years we’d been thinking, we don’t want our tax money going to support abortions because we’re pro-life. They can go right up. But yeah, there are many, many reasons. So we moved to Idaho. And you know what? We haven’t been having to be as disobedient to civil authorities here as we would be if we’re living the way we are now there. Yeah, like at Thanksgiving.

We could have been fined. Yeah, but but really, we weren’t. And so here’s another passage of scripture, psalm 35:18. I will give you thanks. In the great assembly. I will praise you among the many people I love that I will praise you. Among many people there are churches that are masking and telling people not to sing right.

Because that’s what the government is telling them to. And pastors are bending and bowing.

I just I just think of the church and Iran churches, outlawed Christian church, and it’s spreading like crazy. And they could get killed if they’re caught. The same thing in China and these places. What must these Christians be thinking of Americans submitting to the government. They learned how to handle persecution and obey God’s word.

Yeah, no, I mean, I’ve been to these countries and I’ve seen it firsthand, the persecution that they experience. Another passage of scriptures in Ephesians 5:18-19, which reads. Here we go, and do not be drunk with wine in which dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God, the father, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God, not in the fear of man in the fear of God.

And so this is an important passage of Scripture. How can you be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs if you’re not meeting together?

Yeah. Hey, pastors, have a just quick message for you. It’s probably the most challenging time you’ve ever had because there’s people that’s very divided, people with the mask thing. And should we meet should we not meet all these different things? And I would just encourage you to operate in a no fear mentality.

Is it God’s church? Yes. If it’s God’s church, is he in control of it?

Yes. Is he stewarding you and others to make good decisions? Absolutely. But if he wants people to meet in person, then what are you supposed to do? Well, you might be thinking of the cost. Well, any time you never want to make a decision, not make a right decision because of fear of the costs. We’re in that time now. What would Paul do? Yeah, so we make the right decision and trust God will take care of it. What about the nine thousand dollar fine and the next nine thousand are fine and it adds up and not so much bigger. Well, OK, bring it to the congregation. I’m sure everybody will cover it. God will provide in some way. And maybe there’s a news story that happens because you’re doing it and maybe it prompts other churches to start meeting and then you’re able to share the gospel on the news story, why you’re doing civil disobedience. And perhaps that starts to create change.

Maybe you get more fines, but God will keep it going if it does if your church ceases to exist because you take right action, in my opinion, based on biblical truth.. We have to trust the Lord. Happening in the churches today for sure, and God says the road is narrow. For those who are going to follow him, truly, the fourth thing that might require civil disobedience and a reason for you to switch your churches is evangelism.

Yeah, if evangelism is not happening, we’ve mentioned the great commission multiple times. You guys know on our podcast, we’ve mentioned it almost in every single podcast because it is the thing we need to be equipping our children. We need to be equipping the saints. We need to stir one another into, because that is one of the purposes of why we are even alive. Right? We don’t live for ourselves. We live for Christ Jesus to know him, to make him known. It’s Christ glorified at the purpose is the great commission.

And if churches are not able to do the great commission because they’re not meeting, then what is why is the purpose? Why does church even exists today?

It ceases to exist for the reasons that God gave in the Scripture.

I want to I want to read to you something that was so encouraging to me, so convicting 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 says You are our epistle written on our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ.

An epistle is like a book in the Bible ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart.

This is discipleship. This is evangelism. This.

Not on a blog post, not on a TV screen and not in an audio that you’re listening to, it’s written on your heart. And you touching lives by being social, by gathering together, stirring up good works and each other, reminding each other of the purpose, why you are here and how to respond to persecution, that is God’s will for your life.

If you are a believer today, amen and by the way, you probably wanted some practical information on if your church isn’t meeting, what to do. There isn’t another church you can find to go to. How does home church work? What are the other options? What should we be doing? How do we do hospitality? How do we initiate that? How do you know talking about evangelism with your kids? So this is a part one of a two part series. And so in the next episode will go into the practicality of those things. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com and CourageousMom.com For free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast, and the courageous parenting text message line where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone if you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program to secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com

Parenting Tips for Christmas

There’s a lot of hopelessness in the world right now, but Christmas is a time to celebrate the greatest hope that exists for human beings. The hope that salvation brings through Jesus! This episode will encourage you to think through how to instill generosity, share the gospel, create traditions, and keep the focus on the Lord during Christmas with your family.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Don’t judge other believers’ Christmas traditions.
  2. Discuss your family traditions as a couple.
  3. Ways to keep the focus on Jesus.
  4. Helpful resources to use with your kids.

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Scripture In This Episode:

Colossians 3:14-16 –But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Romans 14:4-6 – “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, o bserves it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.”

Luke 6:38 –  “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Luke 12:15 – “And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

2 Corinthians 4:4-11 – whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Luke 2:2-20 –This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children.

Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting.

Welcome back to the podcast. Hello, everybody. We’re excited to talk about Christmas today. I know I can’t believe it’s already that time of year. Oh, we’re loving it.

We have our own Christmas tree story already, but we may or may not get to that kind of hoping.

We don’t get to that one little bit.

There is no maybe so we had some experiences, but we’re super excited to be sharing this because so many people have been reaching out asking for resources, haven’t they?

That’s right. Yes. So many people know that over the years, just blogging and writing and even teaching in moms groups, we’ve shared I’ve shared a lot of different resources for helping you to keep the focus on Jesus during this holiday season, during the Christmas season.

And so I’ve been getting a lot of messages, people saying, where are those blog posts? Where are the links to those books? What are your favorite advent devotionals? What kind of traditions do you do? And we actually have articles written on all of those questions. So we will put links to those in the podcast notes. Yeah. Which you can find at courageous parenting dot com. If you just go to the hamburger menu button and you push podcast, you’ve probably been talking about Christmas for a dozen years now.

Yeah, probably even more.

Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of good stuff packed in here before we get into it. That world is changing. Obviously everybody knows that. Right. We all have different opinions about what’s happening. I sense probably a lot of us, a lot of you with us are in alignment about many things, actually about what seems obvious. Someone just messaged me right before this podcast saying it seems like a lot of people have blinders on more on the non Christian side of things. But although there are some Christians with blinders for sure, just not seeing what’s going on. And so it’s a lot going on. So with that in mind, we want to have a direct connection with you. We don’t know how much longer we’ll be on Instagram or Facebook, for example. We don’t know how much longer will be allowed to say beyond Apple iTunes podcast or Google Play or these kinds of things. So what’s really important these days is that we have a direct connection with each other. One way we have a direct connection is through email. So if you’ve not signed up for our email list, I would encourage you to do that. Egregious parenting, dotcom. Also, all of these episodes with all the resources and everything we talk about is on the podcast Under the Tabs. But if you’re new to the site, a pop up should appear to sign up for or subscribe. If that doesn’t happen, you can message us if you want to be part of that. Also, another way to be directly connected with us in a better way, more safe way maybe is to join us on parler. We haven’t done a lot in the parlor app, but we so far are seeing that that’s a more safe place to be able to continue on social media, perhaps these kinds of things. So anyways, we encourage you to do that. Also, we’re getting settled in.

But you could be praying for Angie because she has some serious morning sickness.

Yeah, I’m thankful because it’s a sign that the baby’s healthy, but it’s been rough, I think, for everybody in the family on different levels. Definitely an opportunity for growth and sanctification again.

But, you know, even last night was a really hard night for me. Yeah. Really, I was really sick last night, so I just continued prayers for me because we’ve got a lot on our plate and it’s hard to get up the energy to even shoot a podcast.

Yeah, sometimes just talking makes me feel like I’m going to vomit.

So which you would even know more about if you got our email today, which was an update on the Tobins in the ministry. So make sure you get that stuff, because we do share CampbellI there, too. All right. We’re talking about parenting tips for Christmas. And we’re going to start by talking about not judging each other, other Christians, about their traditions.

Yeah. So Christmas has become, I would say, over the last while we’ve been married.

Twenty one years. Yeah. And I would say that it’s increasingly become a contentious subject among many Christians. And obviously everyone carries their own baggage and their own traditions, both, you know, things that they are really thankful for and maybe things that they’re like, oh, I definitely don’t want to do that with my family right now.

And so in knowing that, I think that it’s just really important that we have Grace with one another. I mean, it doesn’t mean just even judging other people takes energy. And we don’t want to waste energy on that during especially when there’s so many good things going on during this time of year. And so Isaac and I thought it would be really encouraging just to share a few scriptures with you guys and to maybe challenge you in your perspective. And so. For us, we have shared you guys know, if you’ve been following this for any amount of time, we did a podcast on why or should Christians celebrate Christmas. That was last year. Adaptions beforehand and put a link in this in the podcast notes to that one also, because it’s a totally different podcast than this one. And you know that that is definitely our opinion based upon our personal convictions. And we are good friends with people who have different convictions than we do, but we’re still able to be good friends. And so I just want to challenge you with that, that, yeah, it’s important to be in fellowship with people who are like minded.

Hey, we is like mindedness. We know people that don’t do the Christmas tree. We know people that do the Christmas tree, but not the stockings. We know people that do the tree and stockings, but not the gifts.

Yeah. You guys, at a point, we know people don’t do any of them. Yeah, exactly.

And you know what though, that we’re looking for us, maybe to them we have seemed different than them. Maybe. I have no idea. Yeah. But what we have experienced is love and grace going both ways. And so we just want to encourage you guys, challenge you guys with that as well. Now, does that mean that we just do every tradition or every cultural thing that comes our way without researching it and praying about it?

Absolutely not. Well, no, like, absolutely. And I might make a little judgment if someone’s doing this.

Absolutely. Don’t lie to your kids about Santa Claus. That is one place I might have a real strong opinion.

I mean, we’ve talked we talked about this on the Santa versus Grinch podcast so you could go back and listen to that.

But, you know, we don’t want to create a pathway of lying about something magical, miraculous, something with a superpower or something, because they see they can’t see, which is kind of what we encourage them to believe about Jesus later, right?

Yeah, it can just cause some well, for especially for certain kids that are more logically analytically minded, it can become a real thing that they struggle with in knowing what to believe is true and trusting mom and dad later.

So but we do teach about Saint Nick because he was a real dude. That’s right. Yes.

We share those resources to in fact, we have a whole article on courageous mom dotcom. We’ll also link to that. That is on the Santur controversy.

Just make sure your kids don’t tell other kids where maybe their parents are wrestling with this and haven’t worked it out yet. Always believe parents should be the leaders, their kids. That’s right.

Can we talk about that in the article, too, you guys? So if that if Santa is a big question in your mind, we have a lot of resources on that. We talk about it in both the podcast and on articles on courageous mom dot com. So we’re not going to dive deep into that. But we do just want to challenge you guys that while we should encourage one another not to judge what other people’s convictions are, that doesn’t mean that you don’t do research.

You don’t pray about and evaluate different tradition opportunities with your spouse and then come up with some personal convictions, if you will. Yeah, and I would also say hold some of them loosely. I know that over the years we didn’t have it all together the first five.

So it I still don’t you know, we’re still navigating this thing some years.

I’m like, wow. Even though we tried hard, the kids seemed a little too focused on presents. That’s happened before. And then we kind of recalibrate. Absolutely. I think on the judging thing, though, we we are to judge make judgments about other believers in terms of judging the fruit, the fruit, you know, and then the local nature of things, maybe how much fellowship we have with them or exposed you are to make judgments about these things for the protection of your family or fruitfulness of your family. But when it comes to issues like whether to have a Christmas tree or not, that is just not something that we should care about if somebody is doing it or not.

Doing what we’re saying is this is one of those open handed versus a close handed issue when it comes to salvation. OK, now some people say, but whole Christmas trees are pagan idol worship right now. And we’ve done the research on that, you guys. And the reason why I’m saying this is because people will end up emailing me saying I just really wish you would do your research on that. And, well, I actually have. And so as Isaac and we get that there is a history of pagan worship behind that, the history of people using Christmas trees. But guess what? There’s also other stories in there are redeemable aspects to having a Christmas tree as a traditional item.

And this is the thing. That’s why if you judge it and you don’t know the intention of the person’s hard behind, then you could be judging in accurately. Yeah. And it could make you potentially judge a person and make other boundaries or whatever based upon your inaccurate judgement. And so we need to remember that man only sees outward appearance. God judges the heart like it says in scripture. But there are other ways. I’m just going to go there, I’m going to say I view a Christmas tree the way I view a pumpkin. So if you’ve listened to should Christians celebrate Halloween, we are definitely not Halloween celebrators. No, you can go back and listen to that podcast. But I am not a I’m not about to give any good creation that God made to to the devil. He’s not allowed to own it. OK, so he can’t have a pumpkin and he doesn’t get the Christmas tree. It says in Genesis that God created the plants in the trees. And what did he say? He said, it is good. It is good. And so it is all in the eye of the beholder. It is all your responsibility. Right. It’s your responsibility to not make an idol out of things, to not make an idol out of a Christmas tree. And if people did do that, you can do something different. And you know what? We actually have tools. There is a book called The Legend of the Christmas Tree. This is an awesome book that we’ve read to our kids on that points to Jesus. And we also do another tradition now, just since we’re talking about Christmas trees. Yeah, we have for years, I think since I was four or five, saved our Christmas tree and allowed a different kid each year to turn it into the resurrection cross that we use at the the Resurrection Sunday.

Yeah, come April. And that’s just a fun craftsy project where they take all the branches off the tree using a little saw and then they turn it into a cross. And it’s a special thing to remember Jesus’s birth and how it’s connected to the resurrection, the death and resurrection of Jesus. And so there are ways that you can actually make it a memorable thing that gets kids hands involved, that they look back on their childhood and they remember Jesus and it points to him.

Kanfer Unity here. Colossians three fourteen through sixteen. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body. And be thankful that the word of Christ dwell in you richly and all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So, so important. Let’s have unity and. But let’s figure out what our convictions are with the Holy Spirit prompting us to do. And let’s celebrate Christmas. Let’s have great Christmases superimportant. By the way, side note, you have to be, you know, going to church or with other people to sing hymns and spiritual songs.

So don’t let go of it.

There were rules somebody is imposing upon you cause you to disobey the Bible must be with each other in person. It’s streaming songs and worshipping together through an Internet is kind of what I do.

Just want to share one last thing when it comes to the Christmas tree thing before we move on. Yeah, because I was thinking about this just, you know, critical thinking and logic. You know, one, God doesn’t want to be worshipped the way that idols were worshipped. But he also talks about food that was sacrificed to idols in Romans Chapter fourteen. I’ll just push that out there. Isaac is actually going to read from a different part of Romans Chapter fourteen, I just realized. But that particular chapter talks about not judging someone else because in their conscience, it’s not sin and really evaluating. It’s a challenge actually for Christians to evaluate what is sin and what is not sin.

Right? Yeah, right here. Says says not who, but not him. Who eats despise him. Who does not eat and let not him. Who does not judge him. Who eats for God has received him. Who are you to judge another servant to his own master. He stands or falls. Indeed he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another another Systèmes every day like let each be fully convinced in his own mind, he observes the day observes to the Lord, and he does. Who does not observe the day to the Lord. He does not deserve to observe it intoxicating and all this so and so.

And one of the reasons why it talks about eating is actually it talks about this is an important part, says he, who eats eats to the Lord, for he who gives God thinks, and he who does not eat to the Lord. He does not eat and gives God thanks, for none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself. And that’s an important aspect.

So one might not like to eat bacon and another likes to eat bacon.

I’m on the bacon side, the bacon side. And you know what, though? This is the thing I when I was thinking about Christmas trees and I was thinking logically, I was just totally a God thing that you put that Bible. Isaac looked up the Bible verses for this episode and he put it right there. And I on a totally different note, I’m like writing notes in our podcast is just how we function team work. But I wrote down like people used to sacrifice food to idols. Right. And we don’t do that any more today. We don’t need to because Jesus was the final sacrifice. But does that mean we stopped eating?

Now we still eat food. We still eat food. And so you can still have a Christmas tree, just don’t worship two idols, don’t don’t do it in a way that is going to make an idol out of your Christmas tree, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about traditions more. So it’s super, super important to really think about it.

We encourage you to reevaluate, hey, what are the traditions we’d be doing that we like? And I know we’ve had that discussion before and I would think of a couple. And then as you get a little frustrated with me and go, we have way more traditions than that.

And and then I’m like, yeah, oh, yeah. There’s all these awesome things we do. That’s true. Oh, that’s true. Oh, that’s true. And some of it has to do with how she grew up. Some of it might have to do with how I grew up, but more of it has to do with the Bible and what we decided together. Yeah. And and that’s really cool.

So and I think that, you know, if I had an encouragement for a young couple that’s just starting to have their kids, I would say don’t try to do too much and put pressure on yourself to make it this huge thing that you have to keep up with every single year you can if you want to, if you have the energy. But just give yourself grace as the years go on and you’re adding kids to your family. Because let me just say like that, we’ve had babies during the month of December, we just celebrated two birthdays. Solman was our Black Friday baby. Megan was December 5th. And so they were two times where I was in postpartum, very fresh postpartum during the Christmas season. And I remember having to preach to myself to give myself grace, that it’s not important to do all the things so and to have to limit those were years that I had to go, OK, so maybe this year we aren’t going to do X, Y and Z, but instead we’ll do these things that are important.

And one thing for us, because Isaac’s not really the cookie dough maker kind of guy, Christmas cookies, this is a big project. And when we had Kelsey was four and half when Megan was born. Austin was just 18 months old and here was postpartum, starting with mastitis even. And my mom came over and she did Christmas cookies with the kids.

And I remember just being sad that I wasn’t in there doing it with them and I couldn’t even eat one because I had sugar and that would agitate the mastitis. And so I was just so sad. And I remember thinking, you know what? I got to let it go. I got to give myself grace. And so I just that’s my message to young moms or moms that are pregnant or in postpartum. You have to give yourself grace. You need to reevaluate and maybe limit yourself, change your expectations so that you’re set up for success and not failure. And don’t let there the peer pressures of cultural societal things. Activities make it difficult for you to keep up with the things that are truly the most important.

That’s a good message. So when you’re talking to each other, you’re analyzing, you know, what traditions are we doing that we like and then what traditions do we need to change and what do we want to add? Those are maybe three good questions around the same thing. That can be a very powerful date night conversation and things we have visited over the years. And really because otherwise you just go through the rhythm. Sometimes that has to do with how you spend Christmas, you know, where are you Christmas Eve, where are you the day of Christmas with different family members and things like that. And we had that was probably the hardest discussions we had in our early years because we really had to figure out, OK, are we driving here or driving there? Yeah. Is it is Christmas actually happening in a relaxing, focused and Christ way are we allowing that to be deteriorated because of the travel and pressure from others to be all over the place? Mhm.

Yeah. And so I you know, and this is again over and over again I Isaach and I want to encourage couples that this is something you have to re-evaluate every year because every year you’re potentially in a different season of life. Right. For us in five years I’m excited to be thinking about, OK, how do we potentially we’re going to have more kids in the family. Maybe some will even be married. Right. We might even have grandkids in five or ten years, lord willing. And so there will be we will still be having this conversation. That’s my point. I hope you guys see this as like a growing point in your marriage where you evaluate how did the kids handle it last year. And part of that evaluation process is actually an important family meeting or maybe one on one conversations that you have with your kids before you have your date night where you ask the kids this one important question, what is Christmas all about? And based upon how they answer, you’ll be able to kind of tell what their spiritual thermometer is regarding what really made an impression on them the year before. Yeah, absolutely. So it’s really important that you ask your kids that question, because then you. Come to the meeting together. Also going, OK, but I’m concerned about this kid and this kid because their focus was on this or, you know, they were gone a lot that year because maybe they were in a play. So they weren’t a lot of the functions. You just need to communicate.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 parenting dotcom and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a courageous parenting dotcom. 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.

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

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just a 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 basically like our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of 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.

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

So let’s reel off a bunch of traditions that we have.

So we do have a Christmas tree and there have been years where we’ve gone to cut them down and then there’s been years where we just bought one.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we moved that. You guys know that. And I’m like, oh, this can be the year we got cut really awesome tree down. And so we went and I got the Tendler license and we went and I couldn’t find the areas where you can drive off. So to cut a tree down. So how long were you gone? We wasted like three hours, just trying to find like. Yeah, because you have to be a certain number of feet off the road in these kinds of things. I went the wrong direction. I went the direction I knew were trees, wasn’t the direction that would work.

I even had a map and the map said I could get trees in this direction, but there was no place to turn off. Right. So I’m sure I just messed up. But then I asked a neighbor and he said, Oh, you got to go this way. I go sweet the next week. So the next week we go and we there’s lots of trees and we have this beautiful drive and up on this kind of ledge, not a ledge, but a hill. I made it some more you guys did to have to trek. We had a trek in, you know, there’s like two or three feet of snow. So we’re trekking in. Drew and I and Ethan were up on this hill. And, you know, we’re looking down on some of these trees. And this one looks, you know, the best, looks the best.

So I cut this tree down and wait and it looked the best. Why did it look the best?

It was full and the branches were like coming out the proper way. And it was because snow was on there. There was some weight.

I wasn’t thinking about the physics of the situation, but there’s weight on the branches. So because of snow and they always get the tree down is a little bigger than I thought. But anyways, we want to talk more about that. But I bring it home and we put it up and now it’s there’s no snow on it. So the branches are like sticking not straight up, but yeah, pretty much mostly. Basically very vertical.

All of them and all like, well, this tree just chill. The lawn needs to chillax a little bit and it would not chill out.

Right. It just, just was a springy. And then the next day he’s sitting and then it got brown, it started browning them mean kind of brown right from the beginning.

You just didn’t really notice because the snow.

Yeah. So anyways, big error and the family was so supportive they didn’t say anything negative. In fact I heard positive comments which was funny.

And, and then the next day they were all sitting there and I go, that is just the absolute ugliest tree I’ve ever seen.

And everybody starts laughing. So we ended up buying a Christmas tree, buying a tree.

But right down the street from where we live was this awesome place. And I met Marty, one of our neighbors, yet one in town, and he’s a pastor, so was fun to meet him. And I met this other family meeting people. So anyways.

What we’re talking about, traditions, Christmas tree, so we all that to say we get a Christmas tree somehow. Yeah. And we decorate it as a family, which we’re still kind of working on. Yeah.

And because, you know, in and then we do we like the stockings. Absolutely. But everybody knows the parents. Put them, fill them.

It’s kind of like a fun way to easily wrap a few little small gifts.

That’s the way for us to be secretive about small gifts that we can give them, because sometimes as kids get older, we kind of ask them, you know, what they need, want things like that. And they they’re kind of more particular. Yeah. So we can be, you know, surprise them with stockings and then and it’s fun and we do gifts. And what else do we do beyond that stuff?

Well, the kids people have asked me a lot about gifts. And so yeah, we do do gifts but we don’t go overboard. Not to say we haven’t gone overboard in the past. We have. Yeah. And we will never do that again. We just you know, as far as evaluating spiritual thermometer things and realizing, oh yeah, I don’t really like the focus was that year, but we typically have the kids draw names for each other so they get one special gift for one sibling. So that just it helps with cost wise because there’s so many of them. And then they really can put a lot of thought into that one gift. It’s not that they can’t get gifts for others, but they’re kind of assigned to get one gift for one sibling. And then we will do typically about three gifts for each kid, which that wasn’t until like four or five years ago. Everybody’s counting up like we have, you know, ten people in our family. They’re not huge, huge gifts. That’s a lot. We do have a budget for each family and we have a budget for Stockmann kid. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for each kid in our family. And so we we pretty much stick to that budget. We’re pretty, pretty careful with that. But Christmas shopping in the past always started for me, like in September, so that I could get good deals.

So but we do lots of other things not related to that. So you mentioned the Christmas cookies, a lot of things around food. We often will do the Christmas boxes. Franklin, Franklin Graham does, you know. Yeah. Stuffing Christmas boxes, Operation Christmas. We’ve done all kinds of things in a in the generous category that are, you know, trying to stir. Giving gifts is more powerful than receiving gifts.

And in the kids, it’s always been a focus in the past, whether it was remember, one year we we collected sleeping bags. Yeah. Like a Christmas party. And we asked everybody to bring a sleeping bag or a pillow for the homeless for the gospel mission. Yeah. And so we’ve done stuff like that. We’ve also done fundraisers for the Pregnancy Resource Center at Christmas time and taken that with the kids to drop it off. Those are always like memorable things where the kids are hands on involved. I especially when your kids are little, those are like the best memory type things. But we’ve also had times where another idea is to take as an amount of money and talk to the kids about who they want to give it to or what ministry they want to give it to when we do that for it.

Yeah, I remember this one year where we kind of started that where I had a thousand dollars in cash and it was a time of abundance, you know, for us. And so this was just an extra thing we were doing. And I said, I really want you guys to think and pray about how we use this. How can we use this to have the maximum blessing on other people?

Right. And we had multiple ministry like catalogs, like World Vision was one that we had like to donate to. There was why wham, we did The Voice of the Martyrs. We had catalogs and they all have like, oh, by go or buy chickens or different things like that.

And so there’s so many ideas out there, we’re just rattling off some things to get help.

Local families sometimes you can find through your church or something like that, or even a neighbor as somebody that just needs groceries and needs or they have money or a single single moms.

My heart goes out to the single moms. I remember my mom was single a lot of my growing up. So my heart goes out to them for sure.

Yeah. Project Angel Trees, another awesome ministry. A lot of churches do that. That’s something that is fun to wear. I don’t know if they’re doing this with covid, but remember how that one year we were able to get gifts for a child of a prisoner and then go to a local community center and we were able to meet the kid and give them the gifts and do a craft together. And so there’s things that you can do that are really in person.

Suggestions to things like that. Serving just depends on the kid’s age. Right. And what’s going on. So you have to be the judge of that. But super important to think about that traditions, what other traditions are hosting gatherings and worshipping.

So she always thinks the more that we do, we’ve done different things over the years for a long time. When you had your big business, right. We always did the Christmas party. That was a huge I mean, it was a ministry. We had over one hundred people in our home. We would feed them and.

We even had some artists come play music and I mean, it was always such a good time of bonding and building community with people that Isaac worked with.

That was when we really were involved in more you, as you to called marketplace ministry in that sense, where you were in the business world, but still trying to be a light and love people.

And so opening up your home for hospitality has always, I guess that that would be the best way to describe kind of what we’ve done in the past, over the years. But even like last year, we had something new where our church was going to go caroling and we couldn’t go caroling at the center. So we ended up caroling in our home together spontaneously. And it was really fun, too. And so, you know, there are different things that you can do. Things have changed this year because caroling may get harder for people. Right. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.

Yeah, you can just sing from the street and maybe you can amplify it. I’m just brainstorming right now. Maybe you can amplify everybody’s singing with technology and people will come out onto the porches. I wish people had porches, front porches, not a lot of them, but maybe they’ll come outside.

Yeah. Yeah. So another type of tradition is doing Advent devotionals or during an Advent calendar, we’ve done a Jesse tree before. In the past, we’ve the giving manger was a new one that we did last year, which I’m really excited about. If you’re watching the YouTube version, you can see me hold up like giving Manger is it was super, super cute.

It’s just a little ceramic doll of baby Jesus and it comes with all of this straw and a little wooden manger. And then it comes with a book that has a really beautiful, detailed biblical encouragement about baby Jesus.

And then it also comes with a deck of 52 cards that you can go through with your kids that are just service opportunity ideas. And so as your kids are serving at the end of every day, you can ask them what they did to serve and they can put a straw of hay in the baby’s manger, which is kind of a fun thing to do.

There’s also organizations you mentioned the PRC, so obviously we’re very much pro-life, which I know you are as well. And so putting your money where your heart is and so and where God has placed convictions and, you know, organizations you benefit from. So we always have focused on that, too.

Yeah. So, you know, blessing those who are in spiritual authority over you also is a great thing. Your pastor and a pastors. Oh yeah. And and those who serve diligently, like if you you guys know that where we kind of stand on like Sunday school and that kind of stuff, we usually take our kids to church with us. But if you have been ministered to by this, someone specific that’s always in the nursery when you drop off your toddler, what if you were to get them a special Christmas present as a thank you? That would probably just really bring them joy and feel appreciated. There are different things that you can do to love on people who have blessed you, the person who led the Bible study at your church.

I remember there was a time one of the traditions I used to have when I was a leader of people, numerous people, is I would handwrite two cards, Christmas cards.

That was a big job and I would have to handwrite each one.

And for me, that was a lot. Maybe that’s normal for you, but it was just important to me. I could have like ordering online, had them printed and things like that, which I’ve done before. But at that time, I just really felt like, wow, let’s just get back to personal. Mm hmm. So how can you be personal and touch people’s lives and sometimes through cards? That’s a way to do it.

Yeah. So it doesn’t have to be a big, extravagant thing. It just needs to be thoughtful and from your heart, other things that have come to mind. When I think of just traditions we’ve we’ve tried to do together as a family, I think of just even when we when we are hosting or when we’re going to other gatherings and bringing a gift, a special gift that blesses the hostess and her family. Right. And so, for example, last year I gave probably five or six different giving major sets. But you can get those on Amazon, you can find out the giving major dotcom. But, you know, whatever it is that you feel like is going to help that family be a blessing to them, maybe introduce them to something special that’s centered around Jesus. Yeah, it’s a great way to do that. Also, calenders, the Advent calendar or the advent candles that go on the table. Those are really fun to do with your kids as well. We’ve done that in the past. We’ve done it for a couple of years.

But there are certain traditions that you can do. And over the years, ours have kind of changed.

And we will come back and revisit one, three or four years later. You know, we have favorite Christmas books if you guys want a list of resources. That’s kind of a tradition as to read a lot of Christmas books, that’s about Baby Jesus books that point us to Christ books. The point is to salvation and to the true meaning of what we are focusing on during this time. And we have a huge basket full of those books. So you can find all of those on courageous mom dotcom at the link that we will put in here for those.

And we try to go to community events, too, whether it’s a Christmas tree lighting or something at a church. Sometimes it’s not the church we’re going to, but they have a really good nativity scene. Live Nativity. Oh, yeah, those are going on. Bend, Oregon had a really cool one when we lived there. So just being out there involved and connecting with people and bringing the true meaning of Christmas to life with your kids and nothing does that better than the Bible. So definitely Bible reading during this time leading up to Christmas. That’s part of the traditions, is all. I mean, what I talk about scripturally towards, you know, the Jesus birth and what that means and all those kinds of things. So traditions are fun. Let’s see where we are. So, Luke, six thirty eight and three that will give in given to you good measure. Pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your bosom for with the same measure that you use it’ll be measure back to you. I just thought this was cool because it’s not like an equation.

We’re not like prosperity gospel people. But we do believe in what the Bible says. And when we give there’s things that come back to us. It’s not always money or physical things, spiritual blessing.

It’s the spiritual blessing always count on.

You can always count on. And it’s just amazing. And you want your kids to experience that giving all year, don’t you? But here’s a time where giving can come to life. Now, is it OK to give? Presence to your kids at Christmas is giving, OK?

Well, yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about this a lot over the years because we’ve even had years where we didn’t actually there was I can think of one where we we were struggling financially the year before we were not. And we were just like, you know what? The focus was too much on gifts. And so we wanted to focus more on giving. And it ended up being an awesome Christmas year. But we were convicted after that year to bring it back. And part of it was just the conviction that when you think about the birth of Jesus and we think about God’s gift to the world, was he gave us this right. He gave us that gift. And that as we are giving gifts and being generous, we are doing that in honor of the greatest gift that was given to us through Jesus Christ, which was salvation. And and then, of course, you know, thinking about the actual nativity, a lot of people call it the nativity. But the story, the recounting of baby Jesus when the wisemen. Yeah. And they give gifts. They give expensive gifts, actually lavish gifts. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to give expensive gifts to your kids. It’s not what I’m saying. But the point is, is that they traveled far. They sacrificed much to give a gift to the king of kings.

And so there definitely is this element of how when you’re giving a gift, you can point it back to the story of Christ.

Mm hmm. I like what it says in Luke here, 12, 15. There’s a great scripture, by the way, to jot down and have on hand for your kids during this time. Take heed and beware of covetousness. For once, the life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.

So setting things up there is a positive, I think in a lot of respects, energy about receiving something from your parents and excitement in the kids.

We just don’t want that to become the focus, the focus and overwhelming where we want Jesus to be overwhelming. It reminds me of before the birth of Jesus, what we’re generation upon generation upon generation waiting for. They were waiting for the Messiah to come.

So because those generations were indoctrinated by their parents in a positive way to wait for the Messiah to come a savior. Because that was happening traditionally all throughout time. When Jesus was born, now not ever be accepted it, right, but when Jesus was born, wow, what an amazing thing. But now that that is in the past from where we live. Maybe there’s something hurting about the anticipation in our kids. Maybe there’s something hurting and the anticipation of celebrating Christmas Christ’s birth in us.

Well, and I think to now more than ever, like for us, a lot of what we’ve been talking to our kids about in year twenty twenty, I’ll be honest, is the second coming of our savior, right? Yeah.

And there is a lot of, um, biblical imagery of actually aligning the first coming and the second coming. And so that could be a beautiful city. They could do with your kids as well and be really good. And it’s something that we should always be looking for and desiring is for Jesus to come back.

Yeah, absolutely. So the focus is what we’re talking about. So what is Christmas about in your family? Might be something good to talk about. What do you think about that?

Well, I think this is a part where we talked I just want to bring up we talked about not judging others, but we didn’t say you can’t challenge others. Right. And the Bible does say as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. And I do think that there’s an element of like sharing with others what you do and don’t do and and why. And it doesn’t have to be a forced conversation. But if it does come up, it can be something where you can learn from other people, which is one of the reasons why we’re sharing, too, is just to give people ideas in the midst of all the craziness that’s happening in the world. Hey, don’t forget, it’s December and this is when we usually take time to really focus on this, on the birth of our lord and savior. And I think that challenging one another to remember that and not to get overwhelmed with what’s going on with the election or the unknowing of what’s going to happen afterwards. Right. But instead to pause and to go. You know what? I’m not going to let this overshadow this time. I’m going to focus on this with the Lord in my kids.

I’m going to teach my kids. I’m going to be purposeful. We’re going to switch things up. Maybe we’re going to change what we’re studying with school and we’re going to study the scriptures even more. Maybe we’re going to we’re in do some kind of community service as a family because we need to get outside of our needs and thinking about what is happening to the world and serve other people and their needs.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s that’s right on. And so what can you do to keep the focus on the birth of Jesus and what he did for us and why that’s significant and the love of God? And do they see do your kids see you leading up to Christmas? Just loving God, reading scripture focused on that? Or are you scrambling, trying to get everything done and make sure the house is perfect for all the hospitality and all that stuff?

Yeah, I just would encourage moms that you can you can practice hospitality. You can still keep the focus on Jesus without having to do all the glitz and glitter and all the things. And so if this is a year where you just can’t do it all because of other responsibilities right now, it’s OK. It’s OK. God looks at the heart and he knows your intentions. The other thing I would say is that there are many resources that you can use to help you if you are just feeling like I don’t know where to go. First of all, I would say make sure you have a Bible because this is the greatest tool. Just reading straight from Luke every year. Isaac reads from I think it is a different places.

Yeah.

Some years you read from Matthew, some years from work. But the gospel stories are recounting.

I keep correcting myself. I don’t like Saints story because it’s history. But just reading the history of the coming of Jesus to your kids out loud, you don’t need any other tool. But if you want something else that’s fun, that’s split up for you, that maybe is a little easier. Maybe you do better being disciplined. If you have something that’s laid out for you where it’s like day one, you read this day to read that there are some great devotionals out there. One thing that we’ve used over the last ten, well, I don’t know, maybe it was seven or eight years. Is the unwrapping the greatest gift by an Basecamp? You can do it with a Jesse tree or you can just do the book another another great devotionals. Then came Jesus by Laura Williams. And then there are some other resources, like there’s a devotional by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. That’s one that I’ve done personally with just by myself. That’s been a real encouragement to me and we have a link to that in our resources.

Also, I just want to encourage you, moms and dads, that when you read scripture, it is more powerful than when your pastor read scripture from stage. Your pastor has an important job to do, and it’s so important that they go to church and hear the pastor preach. Not saying that it’s not important, it’s very important. But what’s more powerful and more influential with your kids is when you read scripture to them, you are the parent. You are the God authorized influencer in their life, the most important ones. So when you are leading up to Christmas, I encourage you to go through like Luke Chapter two, which is the Christmas story.

And I would read through it and talk about how to bring it to life. I’m not going to read through it right now. You can listen to or other episode if you want to hear that. But there’s some incredible things happening like the Angels in the Sky and the multitudes and how they’re celebrating the birth of Jesus. There’s some incredible things that you can really bring to life if you think about what you’re reading.

So read it yourself, think about it, and then teach it to your kids. And it’s going to be awesome. Even if you’re not used to doing it, do it.

It’s great. And then you can also Google other passages they have to do with Christmas or Christ’s birth or in Isaiah or talks about the birth of Christ. And these are the messiah coming and these kinds of things, so super important because then they’re what are you tying in the Old Testament to the New Testament prophecy happening? All these things are really, really cool. So I think that’s a really important thing to do. So any more on resources?

And, you know, I just encourage you guys to go to courageous parenting dotcom, click on podcasts. You’ll see a list of links to our resource blog posts that have it courageous mom. You’ll see links to our two previous podcast, because I think we did two podcasts in season one on the topic of Christmas. And we just really are praying for you guys. And we hope that this is a memorable year, but that you are blessed in that the true, true thing that we are all focusing on. Remember, this is the thing when it comes to Christmas, we’ve been asked many times, should Christians celebrate? And I’m just going to drop this one sentence. And we talked about this more in depth in the podcast, but. Do you think that God. Is delighted any time his people are worshiping him. Yeah, any time, so if there is a reason to focus more on him.

We should do it and what an amazing hope we have in Christ and in uncertain times, sometimes it can feel like there isn’t a lot of hopefulness around us, but you can be a beacon of hope because of what you know, you know, the good news and you have the good news.

You have salvation. You’re a Christian. You have the gift of the Holy Spirit in you.

So we don’t have to rely on our own strength to read the Bible to our kids. We have to rely on our own strength to share the goodness with others. We don’t have to rely on our own strength to protect us when we proclaim the gospel and work settings. We don’t need to worry about anything. We’ll do it on the Holy Spirit. We’ll do it and we’ll be protected. And if we run into some trouble, God will redeem it. Absolutely. Sometimes I think about the pastors and the churches right now and in and them not meeting.

And I’m like, well, sometimes you have to have civil disobedience. Why? Because the the state the government should never call you to disobey the word of God.

And that’s kind of when, you know, you need to do something, we need to be fellowshipping with each other, we join a home church, join a church that’s meeting. If you can’t finish this meeting, invite people over, preach the word.

It’s so it’s so important as you are sharing that I actually had this vision in my head because I’ve seen a lot of people posting. Well, yeah, Joseph took Mary because they had to go and be registered for the census in their day. True. But then what happened when Jesus was born? The ruler Herod. Who is an evil man? He was a schemer and he was scheming to do the devil’s work. He was going to try to slaughter baby Jesus and he slaughtered many babies. So what did they do? What did Joseph and Mary do? They fled the government. They fled. And so sometimes we are called not to just stay right some. So we just have to be discerning. And so I think that this story, the story that we’re counting and the recounting of history of Jesus’s birth and how he came into the world and how he lived and how his parents, you know, took care of him is more relevant now than ever.

So there was a great migration back then and God was using it. And there’s kind of a big migration happening now. Guess what?

God is going to use it and he is using it.

But wherever you are, yeah, we should be meeting for church and trusting God in that because this is an important time and we need to be around other Christians. It’s super important to spur each other on, to sing songs together and to rejoice in the good news. And your kids need to witness that, because what do you want them to replicate in their future, which may not be likely isn’t going to be easier than today’s present. That’s right. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom dotcom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program, ICIC and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video 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 where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line.

And I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone if you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program to secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com

That’s CourageousParenting.com

Family Health In Uncertain Times: Preventative, Vaccinations, & Covid

Parents are discovering quickly that there are fewer and fewer things they can delegate to professionals that help with the care of their children. Family health care is a growing potential challenge during uncertain times. It’s more important than ever to take preventative health efforts and understand how to treat things naturally so that the doctor becomes a last resort and free them up for helping those who can’t help themselves. In this episode, the Tolpins give practical insights and give the raw story of how they dealt with Covid and Angie dealt with each of the different symptoms.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Preventative Health Tips
  2. How to find the right doctors
  3. How to learn so you are equipped to help your family
  4. Tips to a healthy home
  5. Our Covid story and what worked for us

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Scripture In This Episode:

Romans 14:14 – “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”

Revelation 13: 16-19 –He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.”

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Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 1 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children.

Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effectiveoEllen parenting in a fallen world.

Welcome, everyone, to the podcast. How are you doing? Hey, guys, we’re happy to be here with you. Another topic that we felt is pressing. By the way, how do we pick our topics Ang?

We’ll talk about what we are talking about normally just in our our marriage and with our kids and our family and looking into the word for guidance and direction. Obviously, what we’ve been talking about a lot in the podcast and in our family is very relevant to today’s uncertain times and the things that are just changing on a regular basis.

Seems like every month there’s a responsibility of parents to figure out a new way to handle something. Does that feel that way? Sometimes. So we’re trying to we’re welcoming you in our journey and we’re also giving you our thoughts based on our experience, biblical understanding and awareness of what’s happening in the world. So today we’re talking about family health in uncertain times, preventative vaccinations and covid. And so although we won’t go deep into vaccinations, we’ll touch on it. But you’re going to get some practical wisdom from mostly, I would say, Anjou today, although I’ll pipe up here and there, because she really has studied, been studious for the last 21 years of our marriage, having eight kids and really being focused on preventative medicine while fully believing in doctors and medicine, of course.

Yeah. I mean, we’ve tried to always have a very well, in our opinion. Right. We’ve tried to have a balanced perspective. We have family that is even in the medical profession, right? Absolutely. And we love and appreciate them and and and, um, seek guidance before. Oh, for sure. I mean, if it wasn’t for the diagnosis from close family, we wouldn’t have necessarily found that next benign tumor that I had.

Yeah. You know, 15 years ago and press to have it extracted in biopsy and all the things, which is a totally different story. But my point is, is that there is a time and a place for seeking Western medicine help. Yeah. But over the years I’ve definitely been on a journey of learning. Now I was not raised with alternative medicine in any way, shape or form. I was very unfamiliar to me other than I remember Grandma VI, my great grandma was great. She was all about, you know, she lived through the Great Depression. She was born in 1914. Tough lady. She was a tough cookie. So she can she had her own garden, of course, took her cod liver oil and apple cider vinegar every day, made us kids take it when we were at her house. And so there were some things like that, obviously, like supplements, vitamin C, vitamin D, all those things getting outside in the sun. And her she had these opinions like, well, you can take vitamin D, but it’s not to replace playing outside your child, go outside, you know. And so it’s funny how those little things impacted my parenting. Yeah.

And over the years, as I’ve just had common conversations with other young moms, moms that were my generation, they didn’t have the blessing of having someone that had those strong convictions and was trying to live an independent life and was a believer.

And so I really look back on my time. I mean, because Grandma VI helped raise us. She took care of us every summer. Right. Yeah.

So so we’ll jump in in a second. But why don’t you give us a brief overview of the agenda?

Ok, so as Isaac and I were talking about, you know, just encouraging moms, the first thing that comes to my mind that we’re going to dive into is the importance of really embracing your role as the wife and the mom, understanding that your jurisdiction is a gatekeeper of the home. But it’s also another terminology that’s used in scripture is that this is your your home manager, right? You’re the maker of the home keeper of the home. And so I know that a lot of women understand that that’s part of their jurisdiction. And a lot of women get overwhelmed by what that entails because, you know, there are so many different things that can fall under that jurisdiction from cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids, cleaning the home, hospitality.

There’s so many aspects of that. And for every marriage and family can look slightly different to. But one thing that I think gets overlooked, which is why we’re talking about this today, is the importance of really being intentional and learning about preventative health and how to have a healthy home as much as is possible.

Yeah, right. And that’s part of our jurisdiction. So that’s kind of where the inspiration for today’s podcast came from. We’ll talk about some really practical things within the agenda. We’re also going to talk about the importance of how to find the right kind of doctors. And I think that that’s a good conversation.

We’ve had some crucial people in our lives that we really have. Set of skills.

Yeah, yeah, we’re going to talk about being an independent learner, we’ve talked about this before in the past regarding just encouraging your kids to be critical thinkers and independent thinkers.

But as moms, obviously, we can’t teach our kids to be that if we’re not being that. And one of the funnest things, I’m just going to dive into this for a second. One of the funnest things for me as a mom has been being having a teachable heart, getting books, asking questions, being an independent learner of natural health and of just preventative health. And what does it mean to have a healthy home and then teaching those things to my kids and then watching them, it becomes part of their daily life or their lifestyle, Lord willing, they’ll take it on to their families, too.

So it’s generational and legacy. We’re also going to talk about some specific things you can do to have a healthy home. And you thought it would be a good idea for us to just kind of reminisce about how we handled covid our whole family had covid.

And while we’re never going to say Angie knows how to treat covid, actually nobody can say that. Nobody can say that.

But there are things she did that massively helped our family. And we all had unique different symptoms, symptoms. So we’ll go into that. And it’s so important as we go into this agenda, it’s so important today because we are in increasingly uncertain times, as you know, and there may come a point where you’re not even allowed to go to the hospital unless you’ve been vaccinated with the covid vaccine. You may have differing opinions on that than us, but for our family, we’re not going to take that. And so so you need to be equipped more than ever. Like, we can’t just delegate everything. More is on the shoulders of parents. And in some ways, that’s a beautiful thing.

Yeah, it’s a hard rise to the occasion and become more skillful. I mean, if we think about our ancestors, our forefathers, even just a few generations ago, they were much more educated in how to live off the land, for example, and how to be self-sufficient versus being dependent upon other people. And that is actually something that the Bible advocates for as much as is possible to not be in debt to anyone. Yeah. And so it also talks about it’s worse for an unbeliever than for a man to, you know, to not be providing for his family.

Yeah. And so this this aspect of providing for your family and from my perspective as a gatekeeper and looking through Proverbs thirty one is that this is just one other part of the jurisdiction. And I’ll be honest, Isaac, right now there are a lot of people we’ve been talking about in the podcast the last few episodes about uncertain times.

We’ve encouraged people to even be prepared because we could have another massive shutdown. Right. It’s looking likely that that could happen so many places.

That already is the case right around the world and the United States.

Yeah. And so and there was a lot of things going on just even with Thanksgiving in specific states. And we talked about that in previous podcast. But one thing that really hit me hard is that while people may be preparing and getting food, toilet paper, they might be getting extra gasoline, a generator.

I know family members who have bought generators. Right. These are all good things. But are people actually being educated themselves and being prepared to take care of their family’s health at home?

Because you said something that’s very important. And this is I’ll just share part of our recent conversation. You guys know I’m pregnant and I have had three hemorrhages in the past. And so it’s been difficult for me to find a midwife that would be willing to take me for like a home birth situation. So I’ve had my last couple of babies at hospital and this is something we’re praying about. I would invite you to pray with us. We can always use prayer, but we were just talking like, what if the regulations come June in the hospitals are that we have to be vaccinated to even have a baby at the hospital. Yeah. And like, what do we do from then on? This is just something that we recently it was a conversation we have literally like the day before.

Yes. You got to plan ahead. You got to talk together. Yeah.

And so I’m bringing this up to you guys, because the reality is, even if you are independent in your family, as far as, like, knowing how to treat things as naturally as possible, maybe you make your own elderberries or maybe make your own herbal tinctures. Right. Maybe use all the things. Yeah, but when it comes down to it, if someone is chopping wood for fire and there’s an accident with an axe and you need to go to the hospital or somebody needs a massive surgery like that heart attack or something, what are you going to do? This is just a conversation that I think is so crucial that we need to have with our husbands. We need to know our convictions. And you guys, one of the reasons why women talk a little bit about alternative health is that a lot of people today have different perspective. It’s an essential oils, herbs, homoeopathy, different forms of healing practices, and a lot of Christians especially are kind of especially if it’s unfamiliar to them, they’ll oftentimes be like, oh no, I’m not going to do that, because that’s Eastern world religions like practices or whatever. But the reality is, is that as believers, we need to cling to what the word of God says. And I just want to share something that is in Romans 14. I know a lot of you have been reading Romans 12 to 14, now 13 in particular, probably. Right. But Romans 14 is one of my favorite chapters just regarding how to have grace with other believers in regards to things that are not eternal, OK? And so Jesus is using food that is sacrificed to idols as his example for not creating division among people thinks.

And I think that it’s really important that we recognize what the Lord has said here himself in verse 14 of chapter 14. It says, and I know and I’m convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. And then it talks about if your brother is Greived because of your food, you’re no longer living in love. And this is the whole chapter talks about not tempting your brother to sin, but at the same time, like understanding that things are amoral. Things like a flower is an amoral thing. It’s not good. It’s not bad. Some people would say, oh, no, it’s good. Right. God created in Genesis. You look at what God said and he used the word good after he created the plants. He said they are good.

So another controversial thing that’s amoral is money. Right? And so the love of money is the real value. Yes. Not money is a resource that can be used for all kinds of good.

Yes. And so we need to understand that something by itself is not unclean, which is what Romans 14 is saying. And if we remember what Jesus when it comes to the things that God himself made now, did God make a meal of Pad Thai? Well, your hands made it, but with the tools to which God created for the food. Right. And he could say that about any specific thing. Same thing goes for an herbal tincture. Yeah, right. You used the herbs to create that herbal tincture. And so you use things that God made. Yeah. And so I just wanted to put that out there because this is a sensitive topic among many women. I get a lot of questions from people asking me about what my biblical perspective is on these different things in my flat out answer is, it’s actually our responsibility to use the tools God has given us, recognizing that they’re neither they’re not evil, but they can be used for good or evil.

And it’s our responsibility to use them for good. Let’s not idolize health and worship the tools. Let’s use tools that God gave us. Hey, we’re going to start in just a second. But first of all, thank you so much for being part of the one million Legacy’s movement. So incredible all you sharing out there, social media sharing, you know, the parenting program and the homeschooling blueprint for parents equipping them for that and the, you know, pregnancy and birth course, and all the things. Right. So we’re so thankful for that. It is how we provide for our family. And God is blessing the ministry. We’re approaching one million downloads for the podcast. So thanks for being on this journey with us. I do want to mention a free resource just because it connects to the topic today. So whenever that happens, it’s a nice thing to do is Angie did and she has this incredible resource, a free workshop with her talking about healthy home hack’s herbs, oils, supplements, national supplements, plants.

I think so, yeah.

Really, really good stuff. Very balanced view on all those things, actually. And she shows examples of things she uses in her home and so forth. So the link to that will be a courageous parenting outcome under this podcast, hit podcast and under this episode. And you can hit that and go sign up for it.

That sounds good. Yeah. So a lot of people have a lot of questions. And one of the things I didn’t want to get too in-depth on the topic of a biblical perspective on alternative medicine, although I do in that workshop.

So if that is a conversation that you’re just like, oh, Angie, just brush the top, I want more, I really would encourage you to go to that workshop because I do dive more into it, share more scripture on that. OK, so maybe what would be a good idea for us to talk about next would be preventative health, because I do think that this is potentially one of the most important things as far as preparing goes in. And I also would say this is a lifelong thing that I believe every homemaker or keeper of the home should take on as their jurisdiction. So, yeah, when it comes to having things on hand, I make sure that I have our most frequently used homeopathic remedies, I make sure that I have our most frequently used nutritional supplements, whether that’s certain vitamins or herbal tinctures or like things like cod liver oil, apple cider vinegar, elderberry syrup, those are extra things on top of vitamins. Right. I also make sure that I have things like astrologists, echinacea. Again, I go over a more in depth view in the workshop. In fact, you get a forty five page workbook with that workshop as well where all of these things are listed out. So if you’re like scrambling to take notes, there’s no need for that. Go watch the workshop, get the free. Actually it might be a twenty five page workbook.

And so anyway I just wanted to encourage you with that but we should be there. There is a chance. Remember what happened during the shelter in place back last spring. Tylenol went out of stock. Vitamin C was nowhere to be found. Vitamin C was nowhere to be found. Why do you think that is? OK, we need to make sure that when we’re thinking about stocking up or being prepared for our family, that we’re also thinking about preventative health so that we can stay healthy and be as independent from the medical profession as much as possible so that people who really are sick can get the health help that they need to.

And I just wanted to add to husband’s listening or if you want to share this with your husband, is that in our early years of marriage, I would say it was a little immature in this area, meaning it’s never been a strength of mine. It’s been Angie’s strength. But in the very beginning, I would say I wasn’t encouraging enough of her strength in this area. And I was kind of ambivalent about taking things and preventing and she would have to kind of shove them down my throat.

Not really, but I would say, did you take them?

You take the day.

And and I would say that I’ve shifted and realized I have seen the massive benefit of all of this and increasingly so as I get older. So I think it’s so important that we’re encouraging our wives to be this. And, you know, it’s interesting. Preventative health, I think, of proactive health is preventative health. We talk about proactive thinking a lot. Think ahead of what’s happening, leaving a legacy, doing things today that tomorrow requires. Well, this is proactive health, doing things today.

So when pandemics, whatever happens, lose your immune system is hopefully as strong as it possibly can be because you’ve been doing the things possible. Another aspect of being ready. So if I was to say being prepared, which is different than preventative health, but being prepared for things is making sure that you have all the ingredients to make bone broth. I mean, it’s not just about medicine, it’s about a healthy home. Do you have a humidifier? Do you have maybe a couple of those? Do you have an air filter? Do you have household plants? Do you use essential oils and diffusers, cross ventilation? You guys, that is the oldest trick in the book for cleaning out the rooms and what’s going on in your home and airing them out. Now, I get that when it’s really cold and it’s wintertime, especially if you have someone that’s sick, you don’t want to open up the windows necessarily. Right.

And so it’s these are actually in my mind, these are essential tools that every mom should be utilizing every day and not just in the naturopath stuff.

The right little thing, white things you give us. Well, that’s the homeopathic remedy remedies. Those I mean, incredible.

It’s so funny, you guys. And another aspect of this is making sure that you have the right team, OK, as a wife, as a mom. But like, I’m not a doctor. I’m not I did not go to college for medicine at all. Does that mean that I can’t be a learner, though? Definitely not. I mean, we obviously need to always be growing and learning and stretching our capacity. But one of the best ways to learn is to have the right team of people that are advocates for you. And so finding like minded doctors is an essential thing. And I get that it’s even harder and harder as the government has put regulations on doctors. Some of the really good doctors that we’ve known have retired early because they did not want to adhere to what the government was impressing upon. That’s happening a lot, unfortunately. And so it might be harder, but I would say that it is very like, look, in your ask for recommendations, first of all, OK, so if you’re looking for a naturopathic doctor or a functional medicine doctor, a holistic doctor, these are all three ping words that I look for when one when we are in a new place. We recently just got a new naturopathic doctor, but it took research. It took asking for personal recommendations. It took interviewing people. Yes. And that did cost a little bit of money because you have to pay for a new patient appointment. You go and you interview them and you can tell right away if they are going to be like minded or not. Obviously, if they’re walking in fear and. They are full on masks then they don’t really have very much confidence in their ability to actually be a doctor in my opinion.

What are some things you do in that first meeting, which they don’t look at as an interview, but you’re looking at an interview eye out of them, personal opinions and personal convictions.

I flat out ask them if they’re Christian. And a lot of doctors are shocked by that question. But if I’m a customer and that’s an important thing to me, I should have no qualms about asking that right now. Doctors legally can’t ask us what we are, but they actually even have the question on all of your new patient appointment.

They ask what your heritage is. If you’re you know, if you’re Caucasian or Asian, they ask these questions that are very personal. They even ask what your religious preference is.

And so if they’re going to ask you, you have every right to ask them as well. And so I always ask what their personal beliefs are. I ask them what their personal convictions are regarding natural medicine. This is especially an important question. If you’re not interviewing a naturopathic doctor, obviously, if they’re naturopathic, most adhere to the same convictions regarding natural health.

But the reality is, is there are still some that are very much on the liberal side of things or even new agey. And so this is an important question to ask, because if you’re going to be taking your kids, you do not want that doctor to be impressing upon their new age beliefs on you or your children. Right. And so finding like minded doctors is just super, super important. I would say that those are my two most important questions. What are your personal religious beliefs and then what are your medicinal convictions regarding natural health?

And then during that visit, you can get a feel if they’re pressing you towards things that don’t make sense from what you know and what you understand or if they’re only pressing you towards the medicine.

I would say to another big sign for me is if the doctor is willing to invest the time in actually getting to know your medical history or if they just make assumptions and try diagnosing without actually getting enough information. So I’ll give you one example. I took one of our kids and who was having some allergic reactions. We weren’t sure if it was related to diet or allergens or both. We kind of had a feeling it was both. We we had gone to visit multiple doctors, but it wasn’t until we found this one specific naturopathic doctor that asked many diagnostic questions and kept asking questions. She wanted to hear the history of how we had treated it, what the outcomes were. She wanted to know his entire history from her childhood about allergies. She was she would ask questions like, what is your experience with homeopathy? What is your experience with herbs? She wanted to know because it’s easier to help someone on their journey of preventative health and in healing if you educate your patient versus making them dependent upon you.

And so I would say that’s a third most important thing in finding a doctor, that they don’t want you to be dependent upon them, but they’re willing to educate you, give you information, and they care about what knowledge you already have or if you’re new at it and they’re willing to walk alongside you.

And so that was a huge thing. One of my most favorite naturopathic doctors that we had for almost a decade when we lived in the valley in Oregon. He walked beside us. He checked in on us. He even stopped by the house one time to drop off medicine. So and I know that that’s a very rare thing. But you guys, there are good people out there like that. And so I would say search and ask for personal recommendation.

You know what’s interesting about that experience? I remember you were so studious. You didn’t just go see the doctor, but while you were there, you’re going to pay for an hour anyways. You asked lots of questions, not for the purpose, just knowing for the purpose of you implementing without having him around at some point. And so you learned so much. You got this basically a free education directly from a doctor by, you know, asking the questions and harnessing that knowledge.

And I think part of the reason why he did check up in on us was because I took such an interest in what he was most passionate about as well, which is something you got to understand.

It’s kind of like when you go to the haircut, right? You go to the salon, you recognize that most hair stylist see themselves as artists. And so you compliment them on that and they always do a better job.

Hey, guys, if you want a really good haircut, you need to empower the stylist, the person cutting your hair with what they care the most about. So you need to notice the good qualities. And I usually ask them what aspect of cutting hair do you like? And they say the creative aspect or something like that, we’re talking to people. It’s different based on how they’re wired. And then I just go, well, I don’t really view use someone’s cutting hair.

You’re more of an artist, and then they always give you an amazing haircut, but do you see how they take the time interest in them versus that, like the haircut, the stylists asking the questions and being a counseling session for the person in the chair, which is what it often turns into. You can hear it all around the salon. Right. But it’s the same with doctors. That’s a point is like taking interest in what they’re interested in, asking them the questions. Why do they like being a doctor? Like hearing the core, helping them to remember what they’re doing and then they become personally invested in you if you become personally invested in them and it becomes a different kind of relationship. So that’s a really brief conversation about how we’ve kind of chosen doctors over the years.

And I cannot urge you enough. You have to have the right team. You just have to have the right team.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. It is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.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 for 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 CourageousParenting.com.

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

What Angie and Isaac have done and creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just a 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 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 the lights, to be leaders for the next generation. I think there would be really awesome if we talked about our experience with covid.

Yeah. So Isaac mentioned that we had this in March. We believe our daughter had it in February when she was at school and she came home the same week Isaac was in Atlanta, Georgia, running a meeting.

I was running a meeting on the business side of my life doing consulting. And I came someone there had it got tested positive at the hospital at 104 temperature and some severe conditions. He was there for a long time. Once they wanted to let me know I was a little older than me, but immediately coming home, I felt it. I called the I think it probably was a couple of people sick. And this is right. When everything was breaking, the school was starting to close in Atlanta and we decided to have me come home versus a hotel. But anyways, I gave it to everybody and we quarantined for six weeks because we don’t want to give it to anybody. Yeah, we want to be loving other people. Other people come. Covid is real. And but during that time, we all had very different symptoms. And I think two or three of us never showed any symptoms.

Actually, there’s four kids out of ten that never had any symptoms. I mean, if I can’t, Kelsey, when she was at home, she didn’t have any symptoms, but we think that she had it in February. And part of the reason why we believe that is because she’s been at college this whole year and been around people who tested positive three times, been quarantined three times herself as never. Three times. Yeah.

So so on that point since we went there is we also did a six week RV trip after we quarantine ourselves and we were over it and we didn’t want months later and nobody we were around people and we didn’t get sick. We have been sick since.

We actually haven’t had a cold since March. Praise the Lord.

So so it doesn’t. So it appears, at least from our experience with ten people and having two little germ magnets, that you do build immunities to this.

But that’s our personal conviction based upon our personal experience. There’s no scientific evidence behind that, obviously. But you guys is a thing. No one’s really talking about natural immunity to this because it’s not about the virus as much as it is about compliance and order that they’re trying to implement in the United States right now and control. And so, you know, one thing that we are going to. They should be seen here in a few weeks, even his vaccinations coming out. And this is a this is a big topic because we’re talking about health, OK? We’re not going to dive into all the things regarding vaccinations, but we do believe that it’s an important conversation that you and your husband have together. You need to have a conviction and you need to stick to that conviction. And the truth is, it may become difficult to stick to that conviction, right? I mean, there could be, you know, a point where it becomes difficult to go grocery shopping if you don’t have a vaccination. Right. The airlines are already started.

Quantas already said you’re going to have to have a vaccination proof of that before you get on a plane. Ticket master, that’s just the beginning of things. There’s actually apps already out there I’ve read that can be used to verify your health by and retailers like a QR code or something. Well, they can scan if they can prove it. It comes from a reputable thing that shows you got the vaccination and things like that. So these things are reality. So we have to be thinking, talking about that. And maybe you’re listening. You’re like, I have no problem. I’m excited to get the vaccination hey wherever your conviction lies. We respect that, as I would hope you’d respect our convictions.

I mean, I will I will say I’m not going to hold back on this particular topic I was just looking at. I get that a lot of people are not sure if the vaccination could be the mark of the beast. I’m just going to say it.

So I’m going to read a little portion of Revelations 13 for you. And you can see how closely this relates or not. You make your own decision. OK, so revelations thirteen, verse six. Tammy, obviously, I want you to read way before that, read the whole chapter. But it says he causes all both small and great, rich and poor, free, enslaved to receive a mark, is talking about the beast, OK? Which is why it’s important to go back and read. He causes all both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads and that no one may buy or sell except the one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man he is number 666. And so the thing that I found most interesting about this passage of Scripture is the control over someone can buy or sell something.

Yeah. And that is the one aspect that just made me go, wow, there is something going on. I’m not 100 percent sure if this is the mark of the beast. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying it’s important to understand scripture and to see what the reality of what is going on today.

Well, and there’s already technology. The Gates Foundation, Bill Gates is partnered with a different company, health company that has already accomplished creating a chip that small enough to go through a needle to be used in vaccinations. And he’s been trying to be part of the whole solution globally of this and other things. So so that already exists.

We don’t know if it’s in what’s coming out from Pfizer and other companies, you know, a few weeks or not. But there’s also talk about those nanobots that that can be in the vaccinated vaccine too that may adjust your DNA and things like that. We don’t know. Like I’m not saying that’s factual.

These are things that you need a research. We’re just bringing them up, because the reality is some people are just so not aware of what’s going on because they don’t know what’s true and what’s not true. And so it’s important that we are doing due diligence and we’re getting educated and we’re not just letting someone do something to us, but there is something called luciferase.

Right?

Right. Which is a protein. It’s a bioluminescent protein.

You guys can Google that and get your interest on the surface.

Look at it, says Lucifer, and then AC so spell Lucifer and then AC on the end. You can look into that. And so there’s there’s a lot regarding the vaccination that’s coming out. But the thing that is most concerning to me is the control that is going to potentially be happening based upon if you comply or not, and the forcefulness of what could potentially happen if you don’t comply. Yeah, OK. And so we’re bringing it up because the reality is where is one of the places that most people end up having to go to at some point in their life? A hospital or a doctor? Yeah, right. And so that’s why it’s important to become as educated as you can and how to treat symptoms and how to be as healthy as possible and then to be investing in those things. Like you guys, I’ve been buying house plants since we moved because it’s one way to clean your air. If you want more information on the science behind that, go listen again to the Healthy Mom Home Hack’s workshop. But I. I cannot urge you enough. These are serious things that we we as. In it, I view this as my jurisdiction. Isaac is doing research on other things that we need to have in place and in store to be prepared for our family of 10. I take on the food in the medicinal and all that kind of stuff.

That’s the way our family works and it works great. We come from each other. We encourage each other’s strengths, super important. And by the way, we’re not saying we’re not discouraging anybody from going to the doctor. You absolutely should see a doctor when you feel a need to see a doctor. That is never what we’re saying. What we’re saying is, hey, let’s try and maintain health and treat things early in preventively so that you don’t have to see a doctor is often right.

So I’ll just share a little brief history of what happened during covid. When Isaac came home, he had a fever right away. And within probably 48 hours, I also was down with a fever. Our youngest kids were actually the most asymptomatic, which praise God because it would have been super hard for me to take care of them and and myself and Isaac. And then it took a few days to hit the teenagers and it didn’t hit them all. And so, yes, there was some about four of us that were asymptomatic out of 10. And I’m thankful for that. Then there were those. The rest of us all had fevers, I would say. Seventy five percent of us, because I think I was the only one that didn’t have a STI in my eye. And this was before they were saying that was one of the original first symptoms. And so I treated the STI using hot compresses using rice milk, which is something that Isaac’s grandmother from Venezuela taught me, to boil down rice and to use that water. And so I’m I’m I’m sharing this stuff with you guys because this is that was one thing that we treated Kelsey’s pink eye with when she was like a six week old baby visiting family. And they taught us how to do that. There are natural home remedies that you can do, you guys that are nutritional.

And then people lost the sense of smell. And then like a few days later, they came out saying this is one of the symptoms. Right? Right. We were kind of getting things as they were learning.

And and this was also during a time when everyone was saying, if you have symptoms, stay at home, don’t even go to the doctor. We tried calling the doctor’s office.

They wouldn’t see us, but we did have some pretty good teleconferencing with doctors validating that we had.

And yet so they I mean, obviously, they tried to help as much as possible, but they literally couldn’t help. They didn’t even know how to treat it themselves. So that left me in a position of needing to do research, getting out my prescription for natural healing book, getting out other research resources, which I share. Again, all of those resources are in the workbook, in the workshop.

So and it’s what we know now about covid happened to us, which is it?

It attacks any of the body’s weaknesses. And so I had a kidney stone a year ago and that was one of the spots that it attacked me. Right. Felt like I had that same kidney stone again, even though I didn’t it was extremely painful.

And this was after you had the heavy chest, had all the stuff, the fever, the STI, all of the total fatigue for five weeks. Yeah. I mean, he was just like lethargic. It was super difficult. But treating the kit like I had a look at each symptom separately, go to my medicine box and then give him the supplements. So he was taking all kinds of things from astrologists. And of course, garlic. We were all taking garlic supplements every single day. You need to have that in bulk. All the vitamins, B, C, D, A, like all the things you know. But then using essential oils was a huge, huge the and so like I need a hot compress with Robyn Star Thyme, oregano and we did a hot compress. I think we did it three times in one day and then you have the pain anymore. And so sometimes that does work. I’m not saying that that cures the kidney kidney stuff. I’m just saying that what we used helped Isaac in that time. But you guys see this is the thing like everybody like Isaac was saying, we’ll have different kinds of symptoms. Potentially I had vertigo, which was crazy. Was the first time ever having vertigo is really scary for me.

The room was spinning in three different directions. I didn’t know what to do. Every time I tried to lay down, I thought I was going to vomit, had a massive fever. And so I just asked Isaac to Google homeopathy and essential oils for vertigo because I didn’t know no one in our family had ever had it. I’m good at Googling. And so he little that’s how easy this is. You guys, he Google that and he said, oh, put a drop of ginger behind your ear lobe and I drop a peppermint on your thumb and press it to the roof of your mouth. And I’m like desperate you guys. So I tried it and it helped. It worked. And so I’m not saying it’s going to work for you. I’m saying it worked for me. And I’m so thankful for these tools. Right. But using raw honey and in and drinking tons of tea, they were saying drink lots of tea. But that’s a practice that we normally do when you have a cold hydrotherapy as another. Ancient form of helping get your fever’s down and opening up your airways, we did that on a daily basis with everyone.

Now, Megan had the serious she had the worst. She had walking pneumonia. Also pleurisy. She was 15 at the time. Yeah, and she had this scarred up lungs.

You know, that’s what Kova does, is it attacks the lungs and it really injures them. So even after covid, you still have recovery with the lungs. And it took a long time to recover. And it was like hard she really struggled to breathe and stuff.

And we I mean, we tried to get her into the doctors. The doctors literally had no help for her. We had her on Zenk, which we all take just as a supplement anyway. And we were here and it was helpful. Yeah. And she was on high doses of vitamin C because I had them in bulk. They were not available, but I had them in bulk. Praise the Lord.

So this is why I’m saying you guys like, yes, we need to be praying and asking God to bless our efforts and it’s in his will if he heals us or not. Amen. It’s up to him. But he has given us wisdom. He has given us tools. And if we just sit around and do nothing, that’s not honoring what he’s given us.

And it’s so important to clear the air. Right. So what were you doing to make sure the air was constantly clean?

Well, I mean, that’s one of the huge conversations that I talk about in the actual workshop.

I think it’s a 20 minute talk, so I’m not going to dig into it completely. But three things was I have a lot of houseplants because they clean the air. We did cross ventilation and then we diffused thieves.

We diffused lemongrass, we diffused all the purification. Aroma ease really purifying cleaning oils in the air in hopes that it would help the disease from spreading. Do you think it’s important to explain what diffuser is? Yeah. So you put essential oils into what’s called the diffuser. It’s an actual tool and you put it in with some some distilled water and you turn it on and it turns the oils into an aromatic diffuse. It diffuses into the air.

So people are breathing on healthy air versus the sick air, right?

Yes. Yes.

And so I do believe that there is an element that, you know, when when we’re trying to stay healthy, we need to look at all aspects of our body, what we can take internally, but also what we can apply topically, being clean. Obviously, having Epsom salt foot soaks are really a big deal because Epsom salt can help detox your body’s. There’s so many things like, again, taking elderberry. There’s there’s a lot of different things out there. And I know that there’s been a conspiracy or I don’t know if it’s been a conspiracy or not, but there was for a long time, people were saying, don’t take elderberry because it makes covid worse. And I didn’t want to make it worse. And so we refrained from taking it. But we’ve then since been on it non stop because that’s just always been a part of our regiment. And so you can also add certain vitality, essential oils to your elderberry and take them internally.

Anything else on how we treated covid? And then after that, it would be great. I’m sure, since you just mentioned that people want to know what your regiment is.

Well, OK. So one of the things that I was really concerned about that we kept was I was concerned that if I got sick, I would not be able to take care of my family and that they wouldn’t necessarily know what to take if they started getting symptoms.

And so we had a family meeting where I gave brief instructions and I actually typed out what our daily what we need to be taking daily to stay healthy. And then if you start getting these symptoms, this is what you take.

If you get these and this is what you take, you taped it to the door

Yeah. So it is in the medicine cupboard. And every day the family would go to the cupboard and they would get out what they were supposed to be taking and they would take that medicine, whether it was one to three times a day.

And what percentage of that stuff was natural? All of it.

None of it was chemical based or, you know, none of it was like medicine. It was all nutritional supplements, vitamins, herbal tinctures, tonics, stuff that had honey and apple cider vinegar in it. Elderberry.

I mean, it was it was all the things to stay healthy that we normally take. So if somebody wants to see that, is that possible?

Maybe I could probably share it on my courageous mom essentials page. Yeah, possibly.

Yeah. I mean, I know none of it. I mean, it’s like vitamin C, vitamin D, you know, originally olive oil, olive essentials and garlic, different things like that that are part of our daily regimen. But, you know, with little kids too, it’s like different. So I actually have like a section that was for kids that are little because we had Ella was eighteen months at the time. So we obviously can’t take the same vitamins that Solomon is taking that the other kids. Taking and so everybody kind of knew what the Younger’s needed if I got sick and see, this is why it was such a crucial thing, was because it actually helped us to equip our kids and for them to understand the importance of being healthy and taking care of themselves. So this really became an educational thing for the whole family. And, you know, I feel empowered. I felt really encouraged because treating symptoms a symptom. While Megan was still struggling with her lungs, we were doing hot compresses for that. We did hydrotherapy. We did Epsom salt baths. We had the humidifier going. We had the diffusers going. We were doing the raindrop technique on her back with oils.

She’s taking all the supplements, bone broth, you know, staying hydrated, drinking lots and lots of tea and water. We we did all the things and she was still struggling. And so we did take her to the doctor. And that’s kind of been our approaches, do all the things that we can do. And then if you need help, you go to the doctor’s right and then going to the doctors. We told them all we are doing and they’re like, I don’t know what else to tell you. That’s what you’re doing. All the work you’re doing, all the right stuff. Just keep doing it. And we’re like, OK. And so I, I just think that walking away from this experience, I went, you know what? There’s going to be more pandemic’s the Bible even says epidemics, plural, not one many are going to happen in and times. And so we need to be aware of that and understanding it’s our responsibility as the gatekeepers, keepers of the home that we need to become educated and we need to take on the responsibility because it is our jurisdiction that’s so cool.

Anything else on covid or move?

No, I think that that was probably pretty good. I mean, yeah. And again, what we were sharing is not necessarily like this isn’t how you treat or cure. We’re not claiming any of that. I’m just sharing with you guys what our experience was because I get asked that a lot. A lot of people remember that we had it because we shared in the podcast that we were walking through that. And honestly, I worked a ton. I was up till 2:00 a.m. reading different medical books. And so it’s kind of redeeming for me to say, hey, you guys can handle this, you can take care of this, but you got to put in the time. You’ve got to get educated, you have the right resources.

What would you say to the mom out there that’s just feeling incredibly overwhelmed after listening to this?

Well, I would say, you know, I’ve been there before, I’ve been in situations where you feel helpless, like you’re not getting answers from the doctors, but you you love your child enough or your husband that you want to find the answers. And so I would say do the work before you’re sick and try to research like how do you handle ear infections naturally.

Like, you don’t have to go get antibiotics. I mean, our family hasn’t used antibiotics since I had one child that was chronically having an ear infection. So they were three years old. And I was like, I can’t do this anymore. Them now they’re getting yeast infections. Their guts totally messed up, trying to heal that with acidophilus. And so I screwed it up. Well, yeah, they have like chronic bladder and yeast infections from the antibiotics. So as soon as we started fixing their gut flora, it that helped tremendously. But learning how to treat ear infections at the first sign of them using garlic and using essential oils on the outside of around the ear, putting on a cotton swab and just holding tangerine lemon and, you know, being really careful. The thing that people need to understand is that all of these things were given to us as tools. But we don’t just like use them without caution. We have to we have to totally be cautious with how we’re using these tools and get educated for energy.

Know a lot of moms are already feeling overwhelmed. So how do you add this? Doctor, Mom, natural doctor, mom, how do you add this to your title and fully embrace it, like at a new level?

Well, first of all, I don’t think that you want to compare like I am sharing just off of my this is just off the cuff. Right. Like what we’ve done over the years and what we’ve experienced recently. And if you’re your mom, that’s been like maybe you just had your first baby a year ago and you were not raised with anything natural in your listening going, oh, my goodness, I don’t know.

I don’t know how to do this right. I’m just figuring out how to cook. Yeah, I was that mom. Yep. And so if I can do it, you can do it. Like I did not know how to cook. I did not know how to be a mom. I made so many mistakes with our first kids as far as just being a mom of littles, trying to figure out structure and all the things but do not compare to other people. Instead, look at other people as resources to learn from. I’m sharing as Titus two older woman that’s been down this road longer. And so for me it’s easy for me to just share what we’ve done. But twenty years ago I didn’t know any of this stuff.

And just remember, someone once said how you spend your days is how you spend your life. And so if each if you spend your days striving and learning and growing in five years of spending your days, well, just adding a little bit of this to your days. Yeah. Then you’re going to have knowledge. There’s a there’s something called experience and wisdom that can only happen over time. But you have to start.

You have to search. You have to get it’s not just about reading books. I definitely would say, yeah, you can use Google sometimes, but don’t believe everything that you read online either.

I mean, obviously we know this especially today. But I would say that’s why it’s so important to have the right people on your team. A lot of what I know I know today and was encouraged in an empowered and equipped by because I had the right people on my team, I had the right mentors in my life when I was a young mom that were in real life, people who taught me how to can, people who taught me how to garden, people who inspired me with their own green thumb. And then I started growing my own herbs, making my own teas, you know, and so having that knowledge and then going into the doctor, a naturopathic doctor, and then teaching me something new, which was homoeopathy, I had no idea what homoeopathy was. I had no idea what herbal tinctures were. And you guys, these are not things that are so that are impossible for you, because if I can understand them, you can understand them. It’s just a matter of having the right teachers, the right team around you.

One thing you might have heard me say this before, but I’ve always told Andrew we’ve we’ve been with much. We’ve been with not enough. Yeah, but God makes it up and anyways and all in between financially. But I’ve always told her food and books, let’s invest in those things even when things are tough. Let’s always invest in good food. I count all these things in the food category, all natural medicines. It all comes from food, from consumables, consumables. Yeah. So so I think that’s super important from a financial perspective, is that we need to invest proactively in the health. Because even if you have health insurance, what’s your deductible? You know, you’re still going to you’re going to pay it one way or another, we might as well not pay the the pain side of it because we have a lot of it.

Yeah, that’s true. And I would say even like pregnancy and postpartum, like right now that I mentioned our concern as far as like, are they going to require vaccinations to be seen by a doctor to go and have a baby at a hospital or at a birthing center postpartum? What if you get mastitis and you don’t know how to treat it at home and you’re like literally desperate for medical help and you’re so desperate that you just say, OK, I’ll get a vaccination so I can get help? You guys, I’m I’m bringing this stuff up not to scare you, but to get you to think and to prepare ahead of time. One easy tool that we created was a postpartum course. And I’m not I’m not trying to sell you. I’m just being really honest right now. A lot of women are not educated on the most common postpartum discomforts, things that are going to potentially prevent postpartum depression, things that are going to help people with mastitis healing from having a baby vaginally, things that are going to actually help you. I’m talking about the natural remedies, the things that have been passed down from midwives to midwives, from grandmas to daughters and these like that. That course comes with a forty five page workbook where a lot of it is literally lists of things that you should be taking from sunflower lecithin to help you with your breast milk to moringa, to help increase your milk supply to what essential oils you can be diffusing to help you prevent postpartum depression to even tools like using a Hauschka to help with milk supply. Right. Like there are so many tools that you can use to learn so that you’re not having or forced to have to go get medical help where they’re just going to say, oh, take an antibiotic. Instead, you can use cabbage leaves that are blanched at home and your homeopathic remedies, a lack of the kandra.

Yeah, that was a huge project. And there’s six hours of teaching on video and the work is like 16 videos of teaching on different topics. Yeah.

So it’s a it’s a huge project and we’ve kept it a pretty low amount compared to the value.

I mean, the reality is, is that there’s as a mom, you go through these seasons, right? You’re pregnant, you’re post-partum, you’re nursing, you have children, your kids get common colds. There are more severe issues than there’s viruses. We is this is part of our jurisdiction, is all we’re saying. And there is help out there for you. We’ve tried to help as much as we can, while at the same time I’m still taking care of my brood. Right.

So what are some final thoughts for you?

Well, I would encourage you guys that all of the tools that we’ve been referencing are just tools given to us by God, and it’s our responsibility to use them for good and. I would encourage moms to really first have a good conversation with their husband about the importance of preparing your home to be ready to handle colds, everything from the common cold to injuries, to fevers, to viruses, to illnesses and diseases as much as possible in regards to proactive preventative health, having the right team in place and also, you know, having some things to be able to treat symptoms when they do hit you at home. I remember at one point when we were dealing with covid just saying to, you know, this is the first time in my life I’ve actually been thankful that we had H1N1 and that we had those harsh colds 10, 12, 13 years ago because it taught me right. And I was thankful in that moment that I dealt with the kid who had had croup chronically for six years because it helped prepare me on how to treat throat, chest congestion, colds. And I just I know a lot of moms who went through the same thing, but they didn’t learn how to treat it naturally. And so they’re in the same place that they are, you know, 20 years later because they didn’t choose to grow through it. Yeah. So I guess my encouragement is choose to grow through this. This is something that we can redeem. This is something that can become a legacy that we passed down to our kids. It can be something you never know. Maybe one of your kids just ends up becoming a doctor or an herbalist or or something like that just because of how fun it is to learn how to create these different tinctures.

Well, thanks for joining us. And please share this. If you’re on iTunes, give us five star. That’ll be amazing. Helps the algorithms get it out there. And we always read every comment. There’s so encouraging and inspiration. So thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com and CourageousMom.com for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line.

And I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone if you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program to secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com.

That’s CourageousParenting.com

8 Current Issues That Could Hurt Who Your Kid’s Become – Part 2

Every change has a corresponding positive/negative effect in the future. As parents, we must respond to changes by first reflecting on what the potential costs to our kids could be, due to changes imposed upon us. Last week we discussed the potential consequences of masks, lack of churches meeting, and the challenges of having a good community on our kids’ futures. In this second part of the series, we cover the other five challenges we are anticipating if parents don’t respond well to today’s changes. You have more of a choice than you might realize in what changes you submit to and don’t. You do have control of how you educate your kids regarding changes happening, giving them the right perspectives from a Biblical worldview that will combat the negative outcomes.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Don’t let their belief about their career paths get hurt
  2. Handle more digital and less activities
  3. Prevent a lack of belief in our election process
  4. Make sure they are equipped to share unpopular opinions
  5. Don’t let a decrease in the value of freedom hurt their belief.

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FREE Healthy Home Mom Hacks Workshop

Scripture In This Episode:

Luke 10:9 –And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city.”

Hebrews 10:24 – “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 –Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up.  Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Ephesians 5:15-21 –See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Proverbs 13:4 – “The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”

2 Corinthians 10:5 – “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Proverbs 16:23 –The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips.”

Galatians 5:1 – “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

FREE COURAGEOUS PARENTING WORKSHOP

Resources:

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  • DONATE, to become a bigger part of shifting the culture of future generations through impacting 1 million families and their legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a family of 10, everything makes a difference.

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 1 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

8 Current Issues That Could Hurt Who Your Kid’s Become – Part 1

In this two-part series, Isaac and Angie share about the repercussions they believe will harm kids in homes of parents who succumb to societal covid pressures and don’t effectively lead their families around 8 current issues that could hurt who kids become. You’ve probably heard them talk about the need for proactive decision making today that the future will require for your family to thrive. They reveal 8 issues they are thinking about and how they are handling them in their family.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. How are masks and fear impacting your kids?
  2. Why and how we should be meeting for church.
  3. Lack of community will hurt their futures.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Subscribe

* indicates required

FREE Healthy Home Mom Hacks Workshop

Scripture In This Episode:

Luke 10:9 –And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city.”

Hebrews 10:24 – “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 –Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up.  Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Ephesians 5:15-21 –See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Proverbs 13:4 – “The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”

2 Corinthians 10:5 – “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Proverbs 16:23 –The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips.”

Galatians 5:1 – “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

FREE COURAGEOUS PARENTING WORKSHOP

Resources:

Support The Ministry

  • DONATE, to become a bigger part of shifting the culture of future generations through impacting 1 million families and their legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a family of 10, everything makes a difference.

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 1 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to Courageous Parenting podcast. If it’s your first time, welcome, and I just want to let you know that we are talking a lot about uncertain times lately, but we also have lots of episodes about all kinds of things, right Ang?

Oh, that’s true. I mean, we were just talking about what are we going to talk about right now? There’s so many things going on in the world, but also we’re about to embark upon Thanksgiving. Yeah, Christmas. We also didn’t really promote a ton of our podcasts on Should Christians Celebrate Halloween. We had a ton of resources that were available there. Just so much going on in life. And so we had talked about all the different ways we could go. So we just really want to encourage you guys to check out season one at the podcast, because we have a lot of resources for people regarding parenting during the holidays and also like why kids won’t obey you just really critical, important stuff.

So if you’re wondering, hey, how do I handle when kids are disobedien? Or how do I handle raising up toddlers or kids ages 6 to 12 or these kinds of things, you can look back and find those things. But right now we are in times that are increasingly uncertain. But that doesn’t take any of our joy away, any of our hope away because we’re Christians.

That’s right. And so we feel charged with this.

The specific challenge we you guys might not know this, but Isaac and I pray before we do the podcast. And today he prayed something that was just really hit me. We Lord, we want to encourage families to be courageous while still being loving and that that’s a fine balance. And that just hit me like I wanted to share that with you guys, because that is God’s heart.

We know that, that he wants us to be courageous. His words says so and Deuteronomy and Joshua, and also not to have a spirit of timidity or fear right in First Timothy. And so we know that that’s something that God calls his people to, but he also calls us to be loving, to be selfless, to be sacrificing. Right. And so especially with the issues we’re going to be talking about, we’re going to talk about some crazy issues.

So the topic is eight current issues that could hurt your who your kids become. This is part one of a two part series. There’s eight points here. And we’re so excited to give you the first three of them because the first three are a little heavy right now. Big, they’re big. So we’re going to dive into that in a second. But first, we have a couple of things that we want to remind you of is that you’re part of the one million legacy mission.

What’s that about?

Well, if you think about it, a mission is something that you are striving to do together. Right.

And the reason why we wanted to remind you guys that you’re part of this mission because we’re all a part of the body of Christ. We’ve all been given different gifts and we’re all called to the great commission, which is a mission by Jesus.

Isaac and I have had different seasons in our life that were more focused on evangelism and the season that we have been in as of the last couple of years, though, we still do try to witness to people.

Right, and love those who don’t know the Lord. We have felt a strong calling to equip the Saints, and that is really what courageous parenting is about. Now, of course, we do have listeners who are not believers who have really gleaned a lot from the podcast and from parenting program. Praise God for that. But I pray more than anything that that is a witness to them. So we just wanted to remind you guys that as part of the body of Christ, you’re part of this mission, too.

And so when you leave a review, when you do five star tap tap on iTunes, when you share on social media, it is a huge, huge help to us because you are the hands and feet also in this body.

And this mission helps the algorithms for more people to see and expand the mission. It also helps us continue because frankly, it’s encouraging. We read every single one. We cling to some of those messages I shared with Angie because she doesn’t always get to them, but I make sure I share them with her. And she just he always shares them with me when I’m, like, discouraged or just kind of like, oh, do we have to search your words directly spur us on. And it’s so important because we get other words more recently, last six months, we also get negative words towards us. And it’s not that, you know, that’s normal, but some of them are like death threats and crazy, weird, demonic things that have been coming at us, which is sad. And and so your prayers. Yeah, I’ll be praying for us. But we are committed to continuing on and doing this. And by the way, if you’ve been through the parenting program, if you could share about that would be amazing. We created that a year and a half ago and it is even more relevant today than it was a year and a half ago. God gave us wisdom in what to create ahead of time for what parents need today. So CourageousParenting.com Has. All the free resources, also the resources like the parenting program, home schooling blueprint and and so forth, you can also go to CourageousMom.com for tons of resources and the postpartum course and book redeeming childbirth and so forth. So all of that stuff helps the ministry and great news. Our fundraising efforts already surpassed 40 percent of the need. So that’s great. Let’s dive into this here. So we’ve talked a lot about point one we are going to talk about a little bit differently and you’re going to get a lot of value out of it.

Mm hmm. So, you guys, we have a couple of questions for you. And I think the first question is actually about questions. Do you ask yourself the important hard questions? Because it is important to do that. Yeah, this is going to require introspection.

Taking rose tinted glasses off, looking at yourself and how you’re reacting to issues, whether that be your emotional response, your opinion and how you are physically reacting to some of the issues that are going on today, whether that be how your state or county is handling covid or how you are reacting to censorship or the way that this election is going.

We all have a responsibility and how we react. And so we’re going to we want to ask you, do you ask yourself the hard questions? And one of the hardest questions is.

Is my child seeing me react in a God glorifying way to the uncertain times, to the situations, as you mentioned, or others, which is glorifying or was the opposite of that? Frankly, the opposite of that. I was responding in fear.

Right. The dread, kind of fear, fear of something happening to me. Fear of the world we’re living. And it’s a lack is the complete opposite of hope and it’s the opposite of what God’s word causes to, which is to fear him only.

And I think that this is an important conversation we’re going to be talking about. The first point we’re going be talking about is actually fear. Right. We’ll dive into the masks. We’ll be talking about masks in this part as well.

And how, you know, I just I have to ask another hard question.

And this is something that I actually was first, I guess this is an introspective question that I was first struggling with, exposed to in my own personal devotions many years ago when I was pregnant with our first child when I was so sick. And I had hyperemesis gravidarum, diarrhea and vomiting 14 times a day, getting IVs for six hours, it was a very hard time for me. I felt isolated. We were newlyweds. We didn’t know anyone in the area.

I just moved back from school and I was working seven days a week, which I would not recommend nobody, nor is it biblical. Yeah, and we’re young.

Yeah. There was a spiritual immaturity that was there and not knowing, you know, to to practice the Sabbath and what that meant, which we quickly learned within our first year. But you are a hard entrepreneur at the time, and I was very isolated. Now, the reason why I’m bringing this up is because today a lot of people are feeling very isolated. Yeah.

And when you are isolated, it’s easier to fear things because you don’t have like mindedness of people encouraging you and spurring you on to remember what’s true, what’s good, to keep your eyes on the prize, which is Jesus, and to be asking yourself the hard questions which actually focus more on eternity than they do on today at the present time. And so I I just want to I want to challenge you with this question. Why am I struggling with fear over losing my life? Is it because I’ve made an idol out of my life? Is it because maybe I don’t have eternal security? This is a really big, hard, deep question that we all need to ask ourselves. But we also need to have grace for other people who are acting out of fear, understanding that maybe they don’t have that eternal security.

So just think about today what’s going on and think about, let’s say your kids are three or six or 10 or 15, 10 years from now on. Any of those ages, they’ll be 13, 18, 25, you know, do you want them to respond in fear when things are probably even worse ten years from now or more challenging or more uncertain ten years from now from a worldly perspective? So or do you want them to have to have experienced how well you’ve handled things?

We have been transparent in teaching others, so they’re trained and so as we thought about the things happening right now and how people are responding or not, we go, OK, here’s eight things and that we need to respond well to. So it catalyses how our kids respond 10 and 20 years from now.

Amen. And I think that this comes down to our other really big question that we there’s some overarching questions, right? The first one was, are you asking yourselves a hard question? And I want you know, one of the things Isaac and I agreed that we wanted to challenge you guys on throughout this episode. And the next one is to ask these same two hard questions on every single issue that we go over. Right. And so ask yourself the hard questions, but then also think ahead about the result or consequences that your kids will experience based upon how you handle this issue, which is what you were saying is just another way of saying this. You have to ask yourself. You have to kind of think ahead. You have to go, OK, wait a second. So if I’m fearful and we decide to always wear masks everywhere, like even the two year old, which isn’t mandated, how is that going to actually impact my kids when they’re 10 on a social level?

How is that going to impact them on a spiritual level? How is that going to impact them on a fear level? Are they always going to be walking in fear now of getting some kind of disease? Are they, you know, like what we do, how we handle this is going to have massive impact on our kids and how they view the issues that come up in their lifetime.

Remember, when kids are young, they the the messages and experiences are really powerful and they really have long term impacts. And so if consistently your kids wear masks now, you might go, well, this is just temporary. Well, weren’t we kind of told that eight, nine months ago? This is going to be temporary, maybe. I hope so, but just realize what are the repercussions we’ve just been talking about? What are the repercussions on kids when they consistently wear masks? And more importantly, everyone around them has a mask on?

Right.

And there are a few different categories here where we could talk about what are the consequences, ramifications, results of them wearing a mask. Right. One would be the health side, like the physical. What what are they going to experience physically? Then there’s the element of socially, right?

Yeah. I wonder we’re not health experts from a doctor or nurse perspective, although you super studied natural home remedies and so forth and all that stuff.

But it’s what is that doing to the development of their lungs? I don’t know.

Yeah, I mean, you guys just some of us all I’m sure that everyone knows at least one person that literally they do have a medical exemption or they should from wearing a mask for many different reasons. We I mean, you guys, we have a family of 10, like for me, I’m pregnant. You guys know this. I am nauseated all day long. I am on the verge of potentially vomiting. Different things will trigger it. Right. I can be in the grocery store, walk past the coffee aisle and I can lose it literally. And so for me, wearing a mask actually makes it worse for me.

But just breathing in that carbon dioxide, I get lightheaded, I get dizzy. It can’t be good for me. It can’t be good for the baby, actually. And so that’s one of the convictions why I don’t wear them. Just one. There are many we have a son gets massive headaches. Right. And so when like in the past when we did the whole quarantine time, way back in March, we realized right away he can’t wear them like at all. And so you guys, though, this is the thing. Think about kids, young kids. Are they even aware of what’s going on in their body? No, a lot of times little children are actually not aware of the difference of how they actually physically feel and they don’t know how to describe that to you. It’s like the child who’s been dairy intolerant their whole life. They’ve got issues and they’re just in pain. But they learn to live with it, thinking it’s their normal when it’s really not good for them and they need to be off dairy. Does a child know that? No, it’s the same kind of thing regarding the physical aspect of wearing a mask.

So educate yourself. You can Google is wearing a mask healthy for kids and you can find probably pro stuff and you can find negative stuff on it. You just have to discern what you believe on that. Common sense tells us it is not good and you might be going. We don’t we can love each other and have a different opinion on masks. OK, and there’s many other points that you’ll love here. But after this. But we have come to our own conclusion that masks are not effective from what we’ve read and so forth. And therefore there’s other problems, too. So you talked about the health of the kids. What about the the social the social health fact? You’ve been actually starting to wonder and think about little critical thinking. This could likely create social awareness problems.

Ok, so what we mean is socially awkward. And the reason why this is, is because the psychology studies of body language and being able to learn how to communicate with other people based upon how they’re receiving what you’re saying and how you’re saying it, your tone of voice. You look at someone in the eyes, but you also look at their face, you look at their facial expressions. You you tend to get cues based upon this communication process of how someone’s body language, including their smile or their frown or their teeth clenching or whatever it is. Right. Like you can see this now when someone is wearing a mask, all of that is hidden. And if kids are only around other people when they’re wearing masks, how are they ever learning those positive cues that teach them how to actually socially interact in a in a giving kind of way, in a loving kind of way that is sensitive to how the other person is feeling if you can’t see any emotion on their face unless they’re literally crying.

Right. And so this is a really big deal for me. This is one of the first things that for me became a huge red flag with masks was stranger danger. And this is something I’ve never heard anybody talk about. This is a really big deal as a mom that teaches my kids, my little kids, especially stranger danger. It’s just simple stuff like, hey, if somebody comes to the door and I’m not home, don’t answer the door, that kind of stuff. Right. But also, how do we what is the instincts that every human has regarding being able to tell if someone is a safe person or not? You judge. You have to judge. You have to discern. Right. And so a lot of times people will actually naturally, without being taught, look at someone’s face and they’ll see, oh, are they a nice person or not a nice person based upon if they’re smiling or not? We can’t see that. Kids can’t see if someone is a safe person or not safe person when everyone’s wearing a mask. And up into this point, who were the people that wore masks before other than doctors? It was burglars and robbers. So now to a little four year old. And the reason why I’m bringing this up is because we have a little boy, Solomon, right. Who’s watched some of the really old lone rangers where the burglars come in and they’ve got the mask on. And so for him, at first, he actually said to me, oh, no, all these robbers when we went to the grocery store and I was like, no, people have to wear anyway. And so I’m bringing this up because this is an issue and no one is talking about it. How is this going to impact your children? Are they just going to trust everybody or just not trust anybody?

And I think this social awareness and the social awkwardness in the lack of confidence, oftentimes, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but your eye contact wanes with other people even more like me. That’s true. Shifts away from people. When you have a mask on and they have a mask on or they have a mask on. And where I have purposely tried to maintain really strong eye contact and smile with the eyes and they say, well, I don’t wear a mask, but, you know, in these kinds of things. But just to really connect with people the best I can, but it takes effort. And imagine your kids on that and how that’s going to go into the future. Now, I do want to say that covid is real. We’re not not believing in covid. It’s real. We had it in my family. And so you can’t even relate our experience to people who are immune compromised or lost loved ones. And in tragic things that have happened, it’s real, it’s challenging and so forth. But we can’t let the.

We can’t create worse things than the actual virus to happen to people at a broad level across the United States and across the world, like imagine if all four year olds were socially awkward and not able to make eye contact with people or were shamed because they weren’t wearing a mask that covers their face.

Now, there’s lots of other issues, like closing down businesses, which this episode isn’t about, which we’re super opposed to.

And these kinds of things we will talk about in Episode two, because it causes so much problems economically in lifestyle and marriages falling apart and parenting problems and provision problems.

And now this. The mask thing is not the end of this topic of fear. There’s also other aspects to living in fear. Why someone would say what other things would they potentially do if they had fear over covid and different things like this? They would not practice hospitality anymore, potentially no more playdates. And so than their kids are not actually getting together and socializing with other children. Right. Which also adds to the social awkwardness and future isolationism.

So there could be a culture. Remember that the behaviors of today create a future culture. So the future culture of their families in a society and generation could be of more isolationism.

And so I just have to urge you guys, like God’s word commands us not to make decisions out of fear. Yes, we want to be realists. Yeah, but do we avoid everyone and become isolationists because of the potential of being exposed to a virus? The reality is that we as believers should not be making any of our decisions out of fear. And this is you know, I’m going to bring up something. You know, a lot of times these people are called anti vocoders. I personally do not like that title. I prefer pro medical freedom. OK, and one of the things that I have seen among this group of people is that they aren’t as fearful of covid in this sense, not all of them, but a lot of them. And I think that part of it is that they’ve lived for a long time. In a sense. They’ve been living, realizing that polio, measles, tetanus, all these different diseases are still in existence today, maybe not rampant in the same kind of way. Right. But the flu, like we’ve never gotten the flu shot. Do we get the flu? Yeah, we’ve gotten the flu in the past. And then we get over it. And some of the some of the viruses that are out there are harder. We had H1N1 13 years ago. That was extremely hard on one of our kids. And so we’ve experienced those things. But you guys, this is the thing. If you believe that God has ordained the number of days of your life and that you’re not going to go a day before or a day after you’re called to go home, you walk in that kind of trust of the sovereignty of God and understanding that he is the one that’s in control no matter what, you know what I mean. And so but at the same time, you also are doing all that you can because God’s word also gives us responsibility.

And we have to be wise. We have to take care of ourselves.

If somebody gets sick, covid or anything else, we shouldn’t be going anywhere. We should quarantine.

Oh, because we love other people and because we’re taking care of ourselves.

We quarantined for six weeks.

Well, yeah. I mean we had it for that long, you know. And so the reality is be wise, not your own eyes. You take in the reality the information that you’re getting. And I know today it’s hard to know what’s real. Right. So you do your best to discern what’s real and you make decisions using the real information that you think you have. Right. You do what’s best for your family, do what’s best for other people. But you also need to understand that at the end of the day, you’ve done everything God’s called you to do in taking care of your bodies. You’re trying to live healthy, you’re getting rest, you’re treating things. Then you pray and you give it to God and you don’t live in fear.

Amen. And a lot of your asking, OK, easier said than done. You don’t live where I live. You know, there’s lockdown’s there’s mask mandates. There’s all kinds of things and we get it. You got to go grocery shopping in some places. You literally will not be able to go to a single grocery store unless you wear a mask. That said, you can still practice hospitality, you can still practice, practice hospitality, do what you can. I have been even though we were in Oregon, we got kicked out of a lot of places and now be kicked out of probably every place in Oregon. I know you went on serious lockdown and Kate Brown is threatening jail for a month. Wow. Serious this time it sounds like. Who knows if it really is serious, but and then we moved to Idaho and. Yeah. I mean, I know of anywhere in the country, it’s probably the most free, but some of the nationwide companies, sometimes I get kicked out.

There was a day I got kicked out of Target. Our whole family got kicked out of Red Robin. Yeah, I’m never going to go to Red Robin again ever, because they were going to force every single one of us to wear a mask. Just to the table. Just to the table. As if. Oh, but that’s because covid knows to stop spreading when you’re eating.

Yeah, but so can’t do it. I can’t do it. And it’s more of a principle now that I just I just won’t do it. And you know, if eventually I’m just not going anywhere, I guess I’ll just we’ll go do things not in stores.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.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 for 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 CourageousParenting.com.

Steve and 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 and 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 physically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of 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.

The reality is you guys were talking about is how is fear impacting your life? And then how are those impacts on your life impacting the way your kids are going to operate in the world in five years tomorrow, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, because reality as the Bible actually predicts that there will be epidemics and it is actually plural.

It’s not singular. So we’ve had a most recent pandemic epidemic, right? Yeah, there have been many in the past and there will be more in the future.

And so we need to be aware of how we are walking and and to represent the freedom Jesus Christ died for. And and what I mean by that is, yes, we should have the right to choose if we’re going to wear masks or not.

Right. That there is a freedom that comes with that and potentially that being taken away, that freedom. Right.

But there’s also the element of walking in in a way where you have joy and you’re not full of fear that that represents a freedom in Christ. And that’s one of the greatest things that can impact your kids.

If you are the person that has high anxiety, high stress on the way to the grocery store, trying to make sure that your kids masks are on properly because you’re walking in fear and you have anxiety that they’re going to get sick in your overly sanitizing all these things. I’m not saying sanitizers bad.

I’m just saying overly. What is that going to do to your child? Yeah. Psychologically and for them in the future and how they treat their kids.

Other human beings are dangerous. All of them. That’s kind of what you’re teaching.

Yeah. Yeah. Or if you see someone walk by not wearing a mask and you’re Judgy in front of your kid and you’re like, I can’t believe that they.

Oh what is that teaching your kid. What is it teaching your kids. Yeah.

And so there is a danger. It teaches them division, it teaches them gossip. It teaches them a judgmentalism that is not biblical. Because let’s just face it, you know, I’m going to bring up another topic regarding this covid thing that nobody’s talking about, which is immunity.

The reality is for us, we got covered in March. And then you guys, we went on a six week RV trip, June and July. We visited eight states for two and a half of those weeks. We were in Texas when Texas had the highest rates of covid in the country if one were going to get it. Yeah, ten people, two of which at the time were four and two years old. I mean, we’re talking germ magnets. If we were going to get it again, we would have got it again and then we went home for three weeks and then we went to Idaho for two more. OK, we were all over and we did not get sick again. Praise the Lord. Yeah, but is anybody, like, assuming the best of other people? Like, our personal belief is that, you know what? We had it. We can’t get it again and we can’t give it. So are we going to wear a mask? No. But do other people assume virtue and one another when they see someone not wearing a mask? No, they don’t. They think the worst thing of people.

Yeah. So division is large, unfortunately.

And that’s impacting kids. Yeah.

Secondly, church. Let’s talk about church. OK, these are some of the biggest questions we’re getting lately to churches are getting closed all over the country, all over the world. And, you know, right now we just because we just moved from Oregon, they’re saying that it has to be 25 people limit for a church right now indoors, 50 outdoors in Oregon. Other places are more extreme, less extreme. It was beautiful. We visited a church on Sunday that had probably a thousand people at it. And it was big, maybe 500. At least a thousand people service. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, it was just so freeing. So great to be there. Worshipping worship was awesome. It was so fun. And I just think it’s so important to be human, to human. Do you guys know even if you don’t see a single word to anybody, which I hope that’s never the case, but your hearts communicate with hearts. There’s actual studies where when you’re near someone else’s heart, the there’s there’s connection that happens. There’s something that happens. And that’s what hugs are so powerful because the hearts actually get close to each other.

That’s why it’s so important that moms get together, too, because a lot of times and before covid, before all this stuff was happening, one of the biggest topics that women stay at home moms, especially of young kids, would talk about is that they felt isolated and they struggled with depression actually. And the biggest cure for that is hospitality, opening up your life, but also just getting together with another like minded person is a huge positive impact. And that’s because of actual physical interaction, right? Yeah.

And being in proximity to one another, it is so important that we get together. Fellowship is critically important. Hebrews 10:24 is very, very important verse and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Well, how do you stir up love and good works in each other if we don’t see each other? I mean, you can do it kind of.

And then to continue not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So as we see the day approaching, as we accelerate in and times, because the day what’s the day when Christ comes back, as that accelerates, we need to be meeting with each other. It’s even more important to meet with each other and we need to be there. And it says we need to stir up good works in each other. How is that happening? Isn’t it encouraged when someone else stirs up good works in you? Aren’t we supposed to use our spiritual gifts? How are we going to use our spiritual gifts if we’re not if we’re just streaming it?

Right. Well, and this is this is a really big deal, this concept of when you are part of the body of Christ, that you’ve been given specific gifts that are supposed to be used for the edification of all.

Not that invocation of you. Right. For the edification of the whole. But you’re not actually getting together with the body, so you’re not exercising your gifts, and we all know what the parable of the talents talks about, which is a warning for those who have been given talents and gifts and they don’t use them. We know what God does. And so, you guys, this is a really crucial element we need. We can’t stir one another up, like Isaac was saying, at least a depression.

If we’re not using our gifts, we’re connecting with people.

We’re not communicating is where we were made social beings to be social with one another. So then isolated.

So what are the repercussions then? So we’re trying to protect each other by not meeting from a virus that you OK, you can think whatever you want about the virus, but the repercussions are far greater. Think about this.

So what does the Bible say to do? Says to love your neighbor as yourself. Right. So this has been one of the verses that people use all the time for wearing masks and for quarantine. Right. On loving them by not potentially exposing them. But the reality is, is that God made us social beans. And when people are isolated, they become depressed. Did you know suicide rates are climbing like never before? Is that really loving to not connect with your neighbor? I’m sorry. That’s not actually what’s loving. If you’re sick, don’t go right. But you should be reaching out. You should be having human connection because that’s actually what is loving.

More kids have died of suicide during this period of time than have been hurt by covid.

Ok, so let’s this is a big issue, this isolation thing. You guys have to realize that this is a scheme, a tactic of the devil is isolation. Yeah. He wants people to be in bondage, isolated so that other people cannot help. The Bible says that were to carry one another’s burdens. How do you know if I’m burdened and what burden to carry if we never see each other and we never talk? Right. How can we obey that passage of scripture? The reality is, is if you’re getting together and even in small communities, you guys, if you’re getting together in house churches, you’re getting together couples to couples and then someone doesn’t show up.

You know, something’s wrong. You can reach out to them and go, Hey, brother, sister, what’s going on? How can I help? Right. And then, oh, they’re sick. Well, let’s take them meals. Let’s help carry the burden.

But when there is a bigger community, but nobody’s getting together, nobody knows what nobody needs. And then guess what? The only way people know if there’s a need is put on the needy person’s plate to actually be transparent, vulnerable and reach out and ask, which is hard, which is really hard to do, especially when you’re isolated to be meeting together, you guys. So this is a huge like literally people are not obeying God’s word to carry one another’s burdens because they’re not meeting. That’s a big deal. They’re also not obeying God’s word and exercising their spiritual gifts for the edification of the whole. That’s a big deal. Isolation also prevents spiritual growth. Yeah, it prevents spiritual growth because how do you grow? There are lots of ways that you can grow. Right. But one way is accountability. When you offend someone and someone points it out well, you’re not going to offend anybody if you’re never around anybody, and then you’re never going to be held accountable and be challenged to actually repent, confess, change and grow.

So look at the enemy. Point one, he’s going to make them socially awkward, isolate them, too, and create a pattern of that for kids, make them judgmental so they to be around other people and point to make it OK when there’s a challenge to stop going to church. Right. And and see their parents not going to church. And it creates a habit. I think it validated that streaming is just fine. You know, once in a while streaming is great. In addition to church streaming, more spiritual things is fantastic, but it doesn’t replace that human to human.

And if we’re creating a pattern, there’s no replacement for our kids. It’s just dreaming, what is that going to do?

I mean, guys, let’s just talk about streaming for just a second. Kids everywhere are streaming their education and they’re hating it. Yeah, they are hating it. Do you want your kids to hate church? I’m just saying what could happen? I’m not saying it. Well, I’m saying it could happen. They need connection. They need to worship. They need to pray. They need to be a part of the body. They need to take communion. We took I mean, taking communion is such a gift.

And I there’s so many things I could go off on regarding this. But we have to we have to look to God’s word, to Proverbs 18. One says A man who isolates himself seeks his own desires. He rages against all wise judgment, slowly, slowly, slowly.

A lack of accountability leads to worldly selfishness, selfishness. Yes, we have the spirit of God. But God uses people to do his will in our lives, too.

That’s right. And again, I just want to share from Ecclesiastes, chapter four, verse nine through 12. It says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, for if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who was alone when he falls for he has no one to help him up again. If two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one be warm alone, although one may be overpowered by another two can withstand him?

Right.

And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. You guys, this is one of the things that we see happening is isolation, people not being able to get together. Let’s talk about the Thanksgiving for just a second. People are not able to gather together. Right. Which will get into more. But if you’re not ever able to gather together, then what slowly happens to your support system, which is what Ecclesiastes is talking about. He’s saying if a three four chord cannot be easily broken. Right.

If something bad was to happen, let’s say, and two people are standing together against one, who do you think is most likely to come out the the victor?

The two, right, that’s what the Bible is literally saying here, though one may be overpowered by another two can withstand him. So but but isolation breaks those bonds.

So let’s talk about the reality here where you are. What if churches aren’t meeting and things like that? Well, you should get together with a group of people. You should read the Bible. You have the same Bible your pastor does. And if your pastor is not meeting, then you need to go to a church that is meeting. And if you end up permanently there, that’s fine. It’s actually biblical. If a pastor isn’t going to stand up and go, my flock needs to meet. And if they’re not willing even to defy the government, we are to submit to government to the point that it doesn’t interfere with our obedience, with ingredients to God. And God says don’t forsake the meeting. OK, so there comes a point. There’s a period of time where, yeah, you obey that, you see what’s going on, you get more wisdom. But then there comes a point where you’re like, OK, this is definitely interfering with what God is telling me to do. And the repercussions way down the road for the kids is horrific.

You guys, we have to ask the harder questions that are actually more about, OK, so for these pastors, I just want to ask some really hard questions, which is. Have we put pastors in a position, have they actually created themselves a position of co-dependency where their congregation is not able to actually function Christian like walking as Christians, studying the word, have they not been equipped to where their codependent upon the pastor and him alone to where they have to meet collectively? Because if they’ve done that, that’s not biblical.

A shepherd, a good shepherd is going to go. My people need community. They need to be activated as the body of Christ. They need to be using their gifts. They need to be experiencing accountability. They need to be experiencing fellowship. And that desire for the goodness of your community and for the flock that God put in your care has to be far greater than you being the one on the podium.

Amen. And if you have a bunch of small groups that used to meet, why not equip the leaders of small groups or pick leaders that understand the Bible the best and let the spirit of God work in them and have them over for dinner, hospitality and train them over the next three weeks and have a whole bunch of home churches? That’s right. Why not do that if if you’re just leaning on streaming you talking and you’re just going to continue not meeting, just realize that is not good enough. It’s not good enough. It’s not what the Bible says. So you continue doing that. But also let’s have people meeting together or meet together and deal with it. You know what? God loves his bride, the church. And so do we believe he’s going to protect you?

Yes. And can I say, too, that I just have to ask these pastors, are they making decisions based upon if they’re going to keep their people coming to their physical church and they’re thinking that it’s theirs? Because the reality is, if you’re doing what’s best for your church and you’re equipping leaders and you’re having them meet in in homes, in smaller groups so that they’re like able to actually obey the law. But they’re meeting together. They’re having fellowship. They’re exercising their gifts within the body right there to find one another.

They’re studying the word if they are supposed to come back to the church, if things change and go back to the way that they were. I’m saying if there is a loyalty there that you shouldn’t have to worry about if you’ve been a good shepherd. Right.

And and they were never yours. They were it should have always been about the ministry with God.

So don’t fear losing anything. Fear for the spiritual condition of your flock weighs so much more that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that spiritual condition is growing versus receding, to make sure the needs of people are being taken care of versus being forgotten. It’s so important.

So this is the other thing I want to bring up that we haven’t really talked a lot about, but has been huge on my heart. I think I mentioned in one other podcast before, but I just want to bring this to your attention, to be praying, to be praying specifically for the tightest two men and women. I get that the older that you get, sometimes you have a more compromised immune system. So I want to be sensitive here for. All right, I get that. I get that. I want to be sensitive to that. But can I also just call out the white elephant here, which is that the devil is so strategic that he has now wiped out a massive population of Titus, two men and women with this thing called covid with the fear that’s associated with covid.

Yeah. And the reality is that’s not from God. It’s not from God. And if we truly believe that God is the one that is in control of when we go, we’re going to we’re going to walk in that kind of faith and hope and trust.

But also, you guys, this is the thing, you know, meeting in smaller groups is actually going to be safer for the tightest to actually than meeting in huge groups.

Now, if they’re Titus’s that are willing to go and do that, I want to applaud. I will be the first one standing up, jumping, hooting and hollering and going, praise God that you’re here because we need your wisdom. Yeah, but look at how the enemy just wiped out all that wisdom.

Yeah, crazy. And so another situation for pastors by the way, we love pastors. It is the hardest leadership job that exists in the world, maybe except the present United States or something like that. But it is a very, very difficult job because most people are volunteers and you’re leading a group of volunteers. And it has to do with the spiritual condition in the spiritual world is so different than the real world. In fact, the gap is larger than ever of how different they are. So it’s so it’s very, very difficult and it’s very challenging right now. And there’s probably if any pastors are listening or people go to churches, there’s people that believe in masks, people that don’t believe in mass. There’s conflict that happens because of these things. And I think we need to realize maybe we have. We need to draw a line in the sand and go, you know what we’re meeting, and if that causes you to lose some people, then it’s better that people are meeting. Some people are going to go somewhere else. And that’s fine, actually. Yeah, it’s OK. And they can come back when it’s, you know, perceived to be safer or whatever the case may be. And the people that want to meet can meet.

But and if you’re streaming that, those people that really feel unsafe, they got to deal with it on their they’ve got to deal with that. We all have to challenge one another to deal with these. He has a lot of the things that are bringing up. These are hard things and I get that. But they’re all stemming from our first two questions. Are you asking these hard questions? Are are the people in your lives asking these hard questions and how are the consequences of how we’re reacting going to impact our kids? Think about that. No to people in the church when your kids are growing up.

Yeah, that’s a huge, big deal.

The disobedience of Titus, Chapter two for all those old people, that is a big deal. What about kids not going to church on a regular basis? There’s an element of now we never want to go to church out of legalism, but we all are aware of habits.

So what kind of habits are being created? If you only stream every single week? Maybe you’re sitting in your PJs, you’re eating breakfast while you’re sleeping in.

You’re doing all these things that are maybe of more of the flesh that feel good. Right. And then when church is back running full force again, you’re tempted to not go and just watch the stream because that’s what you’ve created as a habit.

I would say the bigger value of going to church is the human to human connection than the message. OK, I’m going to challenge this real quick and bigger value. A lot of times in this being tested right now. Right. The message is very important. Teaching, training, very, very important, don’t get me wrong. But if it becomes just a game of streaming. You’re right, your message is going to fall quiet to the the best pastor in the world, the best the best entertainer, the best entertainers, or the most eloquent speakers, which Paul said he wasn’t an eloquent speaker. It wasn’t about that. But it’s because there’s a difference in your message in person that’s unique and powerful, because you’re in person. That happens in the spirit being part of that. Right.

It’s about relationship. That human connection is relationship, knowing your pastor. But if it’s just about stream elders, people are going to shift to whatever the most eloquent speaker is, which is one, I think that a lot of people are starting to realize that, like megachurches were not the way any way, actually, because you can’t possibly have a personal connection with every single person in your church when you have 6000 people. And what is necessary today is personal connection.

And I want to clarify what I said. I think it’s your message with the humanity, with the personal connection is what matters. And because teaching is very important, but if it’s just streamed, then people just decide who they want to listen to now.

Now, let’s just bring up the main reason why we even go to church in the first place. Is to worship God. Amen.

It’s to honor him, it has nothing to do with us, it actually has nothing to do with whether we have personal connection or not, actually on a human human level in that regard, it’s about God.

And so if it’s about if you really love him and you want to be.

In his presence, you want to worship him, you want to take time in your daily week to learn about him, to be with other believers, because you know that that brings him joy and delight.

Then why why wouldn’t you go? Right. Are you sad, are you bringing delight to the Lord not going, and what are your kids watching?

What are they going to do in the future? It’s not like things are going to get easier. We want to meet together as the day is approaching. So important in the final point of part one is community, the importance of community. So we felt it was so important to talk about that because right now, at least in the states, probably worldwide Thanksgiving, I guess that’s, you know, more in the States. But people have different Thanksgivings and different dates around the world. But our Thanksgiving is coming up and it’s getting hit a little bit by some.

It’s almost canceled. I’m just going to say it. It’s almost in my mind it’s almost canceled when state legislators start saying only two families can meet together, which is happening in some states.

We are 100 percent encouraging you to have the biggest Thanksgiving you can possibly have. We’re encouraging you to have the needy over people in your homes, open your homes to people who need a warm, warm meal and to be loved and to hear the good news and hear what we’re thankful for. And that’s right here to worship God and thankful have family together and aunts and uncles, you know, with your kids.

Don’t let the enemy isolate you on Thanksgiving. Yeah, let’s. Because that’s what he wants.

Yeah. I hope that you have to go buy more chairs from Costco. We will. I was just looking online chairs because you have people in your own.

Yes.

That’s so important. Community is so important. So if if we start hurting the holidays, if we start not letting even the holidays happen where families get together, I mean, this is what’s going to what is going to happen to your kids. That’s a lot of times where your kids actually get to see the extended family.

Right. Or friends or where there’s a real OK. And it shouldn’t be this way. I’m just going to preface what I’m about to say with it. Shouldn’t be this way. But a lot of people don’t really hear about God very often, except for if they’re at someone’s house, either a friend or family member for Thanksgiving. And that person is a believer and they are praying, worshipping God and being thankful to him. A lot of times, those kids of the parents, those nieces and nephews, sometimes that’s the only time in the entire year that they hear a prayer to the God Almighty.

Yeah. And that might be canceled. That might not happen. Right, like we need to realize this is a really big deal evangelism wise, but also for our kids, this is a this is at what point do we stop and go? This is getting out of control. This is insanity.

It’s out of control, the the kind of control is out of control. Yeah, and we need to teach our kids how to respond. We are not going to stop Hosteen. We’re not going to stop hospitality from happening. We as believers should understand that God’s word has a whole lot to say about hospitality and what a blessing it is.

I hope we see pictures on social media of Thanksgiving with couple families together, big turkeys, and someone was laughing about a meme they saw of, you know, oh, 20 pound turkey. We got to go investigate them. They’re going to have more than two families at their house.

So, so so, I mean, if you’re thinking about buying a turkey at one store in a different turkey at another store, I think just to be under the radar. Just to be under the radar. I mean, come on.

I wonder, though, strategic turkey buying.

Oh, you guys community is just so important that we have to realize that the enemy doesn’t want us in each other’s lives and he will stop at nothing to isolate us. And so we have to be at war against that attempt to isolate us.

And if there’s somebody immunocompromised. Yeah, maybe there is some mask wearing to involve them, maybe you have to be discerning.

You have to understand the uniqueness of your situations in those kinds of things, which is really important. But let’s not be fearful and let’s have full homes and let’s go to other people’s homes in that kind of thing.

And let’s end with Ephesians chapter five, verse fifteen through twenty one.

So see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God, the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Read that Scripture leading at Thanksgiving. Read other scriptures. I love Thanksgiving because I get a craft a few scriptures that put together share about what Thanksgiving means and all these things. It’s such an important time. I love Thanksgiving. I love going around and talking about what we’re thankful for. I love the impression on the kids. I love the games and hanging out, eating too much. Let’s not let that go. Let’s do it. Let’s do it well. And let’s love people while we’re being courageous and standing for truth and rejecting passivity in these crazy times. And in the next episode, we’re talking about point four or five, six, seven and eight really issues of the Issues Act. Your kid that could hurt who your kids become. Remember, what happens now impacts the future. Let’s be thinking critically about this couple episodes back. We talk about critical thinking. It is so important that we are not just the slowly cooked frog that we actually think and we actually think about what conforming is doing to hurting the future of our kids and who they become. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com And CourageousMom.com For free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranjini, I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com

That’s CourageousParenting.com

Life Planning In Uncertain Times – Part 2

The world changed in 2020 which makes life-planning more important than ever. So what decisions do you need to be making right now that will have been required to handle four months from now? The Tolpins let you into their mindset as they encourage you to navigate a rapidly changing world. They cover what it looks like to operate in wisdom versus fear, how to be flexible along the way and what to do now with your family as the new year approaches.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Make Decisions in wisdom, not fear.
  2. Understand when to be flexible.
  3. What to do now with your family.

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Scripture In This Episode:

Colossians 3:16 – “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Philippians 4:8-9 –Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.  The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey, everyone, welcome back. Hey, guys. Well, the part two to a two part series this year and part one was launched on Election Day last week. So obviously part one was done with prior knowledge or not knowledge of what’s going to happen in election. And this one is with knowledge. So that’s kind of interesting. Make sure you catch up on that. And this is an important two part series, because we really need to be proactive in how we make plans and how we make decisions, how we lead our family into the future to maximize our impact for the kingdom of God and provide safety and a thriving family.

That’s right. And I think that this is an important topic for a lot of people because they are in a position now of going, what should I be doing with my family? How should I be reacting when there’s a ton of unknowns right now? Yeah, this election still kind of hanging. Yeah. Even though the left side has already been declaring their victory in many regards, which is unfortunate. But I know that a lot of moms have been reaching out to me, sharing about their anxiety and their worry. And I just want you guys to know that we’re praying for you, first of all. Yeah. Secondly, we are not to be anxious or worry about tomorrow or be anxious for nothing. Right? We’re supposed to be anxious for nothing. And so I hope that today’s podcast is an incredible encouragement to you. That also gives you some things to prayerfully take to the Lord, talk to your spouse about and also lead your children in. So we’re going give you some very practical what to do now with your family ideas topics at the end of this podcast. So stick with us.

And I think it’s really important. Of course, the encouragement is God is sovereign. Isn’t that amazing? He’s completely in control.

He’s the supreme authority and he’s our creator. And he’s not surprised by what’s going on.

And we know things deteriorate towards accelerated in time. So as we get closer. So we’ve been talking about this for six months. So now it’s like we’re starting to see how we are responding. So you should look at your spouse. You should look at yourself and go, how are we responding to these different times that are going to continue to change?

Yeah, and for Christians, what’s interesting is that you oftentimes see two different paths, right? There’s the passive road. Yeah. And then there’s those that actually are trying to be a voice of encouragement and stand for truth and take action.

And let’s not mistake God’s sovereignty for a lack of responsibility on our part. Like what I mean is, is that just because God is sovereign, which is absolutely true, doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to take action, make decisions, proactively do things. You’re getting excited. Yeah, we have to. I just think that there has been somewhat of a movement in some circles that because of the way things are preached and talked about in the Bible, it creates a Christian passivity.

What’s interesting is there’s an almost and I mean, I’m going to say a very intense word. It’s an ignoring of certain scriptures that actually do impress upon the importance of being obedient to God. Yeah, I think that part of God’s and this is my opinion, my opinion in studying all of scripture is that part of God’s sovereignty in our lives is that he has placed the body of Christ active here on the Earth Day during this generation, and that he has people, that he has touched their hearts, he has moved in their lives, and they are loyal, faithful followers of God that want to be obedient, not just in their hearts, but also in their actions, because faith without works is dead and works without faith is dead.

And while sovereignty, sovereignty should give God, sovereignty should give us this lack of anxiety so that we can be proactive and take action and sometimes take risks for God. So superimportant now. Hey, by the way, thank you so much for being part of the one million Legacy’s movement. We are as committed as ever, maybe more.

Actually, I would say that this whole situation for sure has lit something, especially in Isaac, but in me for sure.

And it’s just we are getting so much feedback. Thank you for being bold. Thank you for sharing the truth. Thank you for the biblical wisdom. Thank you for, you know, sharing things that sometimes, you know, make people uncomfortable. And we never tried to make people feel uncomfortable. We never we want unity, but we don’t sacrifice truth for unity. Right. And so that’s really important. Just think about that. Do you sacrifice standing for the truth for the sake of unity or or do you sacrifice truth because you yourself are scared?

Right. And so I think that there is there’s something that we need to take personal responsibility, because I’ll be honest with you, I’m human. Yeah. I struggle with fear sometimes is where I come back to. Can I go? This is happening. And he’ll look at me like an. We respond how and I’m like, OK, yeah, OK, so we need each other to encourage each other on.

And so but we need to be in the word to be able to do that. Now, we talked about that last time, so but anyways, if you’ve given us a five star review on iTunes or written a review, that’s huge because that’s where 80 percent of people listen, at least today, that might change. And, you know, if you’ve shared our social posts, we know you’re part of it. So we thank you for that. And by the way, CourageousParenting.com has tons of resources, and so does CourageousMom.com. And there’s a lot of free resources and there’s resources that are incredible value and will absolutely help you that also support the ministry. And we so thank you for the donations. We will give an update, too, on that situation. So. All right. So last time we talked about the first three points, when we talked about the next three points, now the first three were draw closer to God. But there’s really good stuff in that last episode. You want to get a couple of scriptures. Key things like the second one is vision is more important than ever right now coming from you for your family. So really important. And that’s both husband and wife. Yep. Right. Three, evaluate areas of your life and how to do that in a date night and these kinds of things in a way that’s relevant to right now. OK, now the next three points we’re going to cover.

So let’s start with the first one not fearing, but planning in wisdom. Super, super important. Now, last time we talked about this, I think we should revisit it for a second when we fear that is going to put in us emotion and feeling and the ability to sense danger and the ability to respond because we sense danger. So sometimes it starts as fear, but that quickly needs to turn into faith quickly, turn into trust in God. Yeah, but it should prompt us into prayer and with reading with the Bible and wisdom seeking wisdom. And it should prompt us into trusting God and taking necessary actions.

Yeah, and a lot of times for some people just turns into trusting God, but it doesn’t turn into creating some change.

Well, and it’s not that. It’s just trusting God. That is really a powerful that is the most important thing. All right. Just trusting God. But when you do trust God, there’s fruit that comes from that, you know, I think is what we’re talking about. Right. And so that’s actually the evaluation point. Are you trusting God? So if we were to ask, are you trusting God, we could look at the fruit in your life. You should re-evaluate the fruit in your life and how you’re reacting, how you’re talking, how your prayers are, how your conversations with your spouse are about the things that are going on in today’s world. Yeah. How are you talking to other people? How are you viewing people who speak boldly? How are you viewing people who are just like are are preaching other other messages? And how is that actually impacting how you are reacting?

Yeah, absolutely. By the way, I just want to say it point your pastors need encouragement. You people who are proclaiming truth need encouragement. I know, because we need encouragement and we’re getting it. And we appreciate that from you. But let’s not forget anybody out there that needs encouragement, that’s standing strong for what the word of God says and is not afraid of the pushback of today’s world, make sure you’re encouraging them. Part of encouragement is action. Make sure you’re, you know, supporting them even financially, if that’s what God prompts you to do. And I think that’s really important. Anyways, Colossians 3:16, it starts there. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. What does that look like for the word to dwell in you richly? Wow.

When I think of that. I think of just an abundance of the knowledge of the word of God dwelling in you like you have written on your heart. You have your mind. Yeah. So you can’t recall what you haven’t read. So you need to read a lot.

And if you have a hard time memorizing scripture, just teach your kids to memorize scripture and guess what happens. It happens to you. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

That was my biggest. I mean I’ve done a lot of that. Yes.

There’s a practical step for you. Yeah. And then it goes so the word of Christ dwell richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. How do you do that if we’re not going to church?

Right. You’re not singing worship songs. So I mean, what is this, right. Singing Oh yeah.

Singing with grace in your hearts and souls to the Lord. In some places, singing is outlawed.

Would you have ever imagined and six months ago, or I guess longer eight months ago, that worshipping God would be outlawed in some places.

That is I mean, it has been overseas and we’ve talked about how Americans haven’t really experienced the same kind of persecution that other people have experienced overseas. Right. And now some of that is beginning. We’re in the beginning birth pains of that which we shouldn’t be surprised by. But the reality is, are we going to disobey God’s word and not do that? Mm hmm. Right, because that has a permanent impact,a massive impact on people’s spiritual walks with God, kids, us, just so you guys know, we will continue obeying the word of God.

So that’s what we will be doing. Yeah, and we think that’s important. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord and whatever you do in words or do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the father through him.

So it’s almost impossible to have anxiety when you’re thanking God. White with grace in your heart.

Well, it’s interesting that this is almost like a repetitive verse, not fully, but it goes along with Philippians four, right? That says with all prayers and supplications with Thanksgiving, make your request known to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Oh, so good. That’s verse six and seven Philippians four.

I love that I preached on that a while ago and then right below that, if I can find it quickly enough. Philippians I got it. Philippians four. This is super important. It has to do with this is that when you’re challenged and this right below what you just memorized by leading by example.

Finally brethren whatever things are true. OK, so when you have anxiety you go OK God what’s true. Isn’t it hard to know what’s true today.

Right. Because a lot of people, their anxiety is not necessarily based upon the truth either. Yeah, right. Like, I’m just going to say it as of right now, when we’re shooting this podcast, which is Monday, November 9th, there is not been a president that has been certified, declared or inaugurated into the White House for the next presidential four years. And so a lot of people who might be having anxiety about it are potentially believing the lies that are being spread on social media that is already claiming victory.

You can’t claim victory when it’s contested with evidence in absolute validity to be contested.

And as of right now, I’m pretty sure that none of the states have certified winners.

Now, our viewpoint is, regardless of either side, we have to protect the integrity of the election process, because if that if people don’t believe anymore, because we don’t allow this process to go through, then people in the future will not vote.

Right. Because we’ll be like, well, doesn’t matter.

And we do not want people leaving this experience, frankly, on either side because having multiple sides is so important for democracy. And then and so there has to be checks and that’s part of checks and balances and people with different opinions, viewpoints and so forth. That’s all great. That creates a democracy. But it has we have to keep the integrity of the election process. And right now there’s probably about 71 million people that are having a hard time believing the election process right now, not because their side lost, but because there’s actual accounts of fraud happening that are being validated and further. So we have to go through that. So finally, Brethren, but regardless of the situation, here’s the things to meditate on is finally, brother. And whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, this could be just you in a relationship with someone else. OK, what’s true? Let’s get out of my bias. Let’s get out of my experiences for a second. What’s what’s true. Whatever things are noble, whatever things are, just whatever things are pure or whatever things are lovely, whatever things are good of good report. If there is any virtue and if there’s anything praiseworthy meditated on these things.

So it gives you some things and says anything praiseworthy, let’s meditate on those things. So are you a cynic or are you an optimist?

I believe both of those can go dangerously wrong and a good balance of those is good sometimes. But, you know, we need to meditate on good things that are true because that hundred percent so we need it and we lead by example.

But we also need to verbally teach this truth to our children.

Now, this podcast episode is about life planning and uncertain times. Why is this so important in regards to life planning? Because I think almost all decisions made in fear end up being bad decisions were inferior to best decisions. And so if you’re operating in fear, not biblical wisdom, then your decisions are not going to be great. And by the way, a lot of people make decisions because circumstances happen to them. Now, that happens to all of us because we can’t foresee everything coming to us. Right. But if all of your decisions are made after circumstances happened, you’re not being proactive enough and you’re not making hard choices ahead of time and potentially creating more stress in the future because you’re setting yourself up to have to make more reactionary steps.

Yeah, I’ll just share one for us personally, because of our size of family, this is actually one of the main reasons, but also because Isaac and I have always tried to be more proactive in our parenting and in our vision for our family. Our move. You guys know we have a podcast called Why Are We Strategically Relocated? We move out of state for many reasons. Some of the most, I would say, pressing reasons were the politics, which is why we moved very quickly, we moved within five weeks.

We find we sensed and we prayed about this. We feel like God told us things are going to go away worse. Yep. You need to get out of here and you to get away. And it wasn’t fear based at all with such peace about it. And then he opened we took action before we had clarity on where we’re going to live or. Yeah, that’s going to work out.

We prepped our community, we prepped our family.

And we had a two week trip after telling everybody we’re going to move and we don’t know where we’re going to move up and and we just walked in faith more looking for God to show us where he wanted us. And we have a miraculous story which we’ll share in the future once everything is completely panned out. And I’m you guys, this is the thing is that for some people, they might have been like, wow, that was a quick decision to move. But Isaac and I have been knowing that we were going to be moving out of Oregon since we got married. I actually didn’t want to live there. I got married. And so for twenty one years, we were waiting on God patiently, 21 years of waiting on God to show us when was the right time to move. And for us, we had a little short list of if these things happen, these are the trigger signs, the birth pains for us, that things are going to continue to get even more dangerous politically for our families liking.

And they either happened or we can see them happening. Right.

Right. And so we took action beforehand. And this is why because if we would have waited, we would be trying to move as fast as possible, potentially in the winter or right now. Right. And that would have been more reactionary. We would have ended up paying more for our house. Yeah. Who knows what it’s going to be like in the spring. And so for us, especially as a family of ten, it’s not like you can go and get like a townhouse and fit 10 or 11 people in a townhouse. You have to be wise and move ahead of time when you have a big family.

And frankly, I don’t know where you land on the mask situation. This is an episode isn’t about that. So we’ll talk about that some other time. But for our family, we don’t want our kids growing up always wearing masks.

I think there are some challenges that are going to happen in the future with humans growing up that way. And so I think the costs of that are greater on the kid level than we might be thinking about. So so definitely that is a big deal and so forth. So so not fear, but in wisdom and reality.

Yeah, a lot of times some people who will you know, they just don’t know what to do or they feel like they can’t make a decision. Right. Like there’s some people that might feel stuck, whether it’s because of a job or whatnot. Right. Instead of like trying to step out in faith and do something and look for opportunities to see if it’s even an option to move right. Some people might go well, but it’s not really that big of a deal. And you know what, though? This is the thing, you guys, we have to operate in reality. The reality of what the Bible tells us is going to happen in the future. The reality of what we know is happening today, the reality of how humans are treating humans, which unfortunately, I feel like the morality is on a massive decline all over the world. And it’s I feel like my eyes have been more open to it. I hope your eyes have been more open to it as well. And it’s something that we really need to be praying and fasting for is is people’s hearts, because this is a really a reflection of hearts not fully submitted to God.

Yeah, and we’re just you’re talking about access fresh on our experience, but there’s all kinds of other decisions you have to make smaller decisions on, you know, that need to be made in wisdom, not fear. So if you feel fear coming on, that’s when you pray. You reach out to God and you talk to each other, too. That’s super important.

Ok. I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. It is a beautiful document you can download that Will has 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 CourageousParenting.com And subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.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 CourageousParenting.com.

Steve and 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 and creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just a 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, basically like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things at 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.

And 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 and 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 the lights, to be leaders for the next generation.

The next one is be flexible. So when you make life plans, you have to be flexible. I can’t think of a single life plan that worked out along the path that I envisioned it.

No, and and and it’s gone both ways. Right. So you might have a vision for something and it might not go your way because it might not be as good. Right. It might not go your way because it ends up being better, which is actually the case that we’re in right now. Right. And so I just want to encourage you guys that it’s a matter you have to be flexible if you’re giving your plans back to the Lord. Right. And so we call that scripture verse in Proverbs. It says that a man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. And we want to be those kinds of people who follow heart after God, right where we’re willing to take action. We’re willing to make decisions, but we’re also willing to. Say, Oh, I’m on this path and now I’m turning and going this direction, and in Philippians it’s really cool, you can go and read here for ten.

Ok, on down to here.

So OK, so Philippians four, verse 10 says, but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last you are care for me has flourished again though you surely did did care but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in regard to need for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.

Let’s pause right there real quick. So so good right there. That’s, you know, Paul getting taken care of and flourishing. He taught the word flourishing. So he has a contrast in his life of being totally taken care of by God through people and them taking action. Right.

Because if they weren’t caring for him, then he wouldn’t be testifying to it and flourishing.

Yeah. So that fruitfulness can continue. And then he’s also had the most worst situations happen. And I think that’s a kind of although it’s not exciting to some people when I first say it, it’s like that’s kind of a vision for where Christians, what Christians are going to be increasingly dealing with, which is, yeah, flourishing, but at the same time increased challenge. And so how are you talking about that in your marriage? Are you talking about that? I think it’s important. No longer are there just conspiracy theories or crazy thoughts. There is new realities that we have to talk about.

Yeah. So it continues. So Paul was talking about how he’s not speaking in regard to need because he’s learned in whatever state he’s in to be content. And then verse twelve, it says, I know how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere. And in all things I have learned to have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What’s so cool is I think we all need to experience that to be strengthened, meaning that if we’re going to be strong Christians in people God uses to influence and to lead our family and her kids in the way that makes them strong, we need to be seasoned and seasoned in understanding the flourishing and understanding how we respond when we’re extremely challenged. And it really is very much the same response, which is pointing to the father trusting God, living with joy in our hearts and taking necessary actions in wisdom to take care of one another. And if you think about ourselves, what we what gives us anxiety, what brings in fear, maybe we need some strengthening. And maybe the things we’re going through are for equipping us for bigger things in the future.

Now, you want a little tip on growing in maturity when maybe you’re not walking through a valley, walk through a valley with someone. And this is why if you continue reading in verse 14, it says, nevertheless, you have done well that you shared in my distress. Hey, man, they did well because they shared in his distress. Now, you, Philippians, know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed for Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving. But you only need just continues on talking about providing necessities, all kinds of things. And I think that that is something that I know for us over the years as we have walked through hard times with people or and walked through blessing times like I even just think about all the women I’ve been able to serve at births and just there. Right. Like, that’s such a beautiful time. But I’ve also walked through miscarriages with people too, and that’s been hard. But have I learned from both 100 percent and it’s equipped me to be able to do more work for the Lord. And so I just want to encourage you guys, if you want to be equipped, if you want to grow your capacity, which I have to exhort all of us in, we all need a greater capacity for what is coming because that’s the reality and our kids do, too. So don’t hide the distresses that you’re walking through completely from your kids. In fact, we did a podcast on this, How to Go through life trials with your kids in parenting. You got to you have to listen to that.

I teach you the growth cycle, which is just a way I’ve looked at growing your capacity and how to handle things correctly and how to be more equipped for the bigger challenges coming.

Yeah, which is something you’ve taught a lot of businesses, too, you guys. This is such an important topic. So go back to season one and find how to parent through life struggles because that podcast was a good one.

It was super good. So this is all under the point of being flexible because Paul is flexible. He’s saying no matter if employers matter, if I’m challenged, if I’m suffering, I’m sorry. I learned how to basically glorify God and all those situations and and continue the same mission that I’ve been on.

And so I think we need to analyze ourselves, are we on the same mission or do we get derailed and change our mission? Right. Yeah, OK, we see that happening. We see things happening now. Sometimes there’s wisdom in that and sometimes it’s fear and that wouldn’t be good. OK, only you can know that. Answer that. OK, and final point of this two part series is what to do now with your family.

This is where we get super practical. So I hope you guys have your notepad.

Ok, so just in the first episode, draw closer to God, visions more important than ever. We talked a lot about vision, evaluating areas of life on a date nights, having a marriage meeting to really stir things up and talk about things way ahead of time of doing things with your kids. And then and then for not fear, but wisdom. Five, you got to be flexible and adjust along the way because God is doing something that we can’t perfectly see his image sometimes of what he has for us. And finally, what to do now with your family once you’ve done the steps. And first of all, I would do another date night. Yeah.

So, I mean, and this might potentially get harder. I know that in some places there’s a curfew. Yeah. And so you’re going to want to plan to have your date night early enough that you can be back then your coffee away from you and. Yeah, I know. Sorry about that, sweetie. Yeah. So you’re going to want to this can be planning and talking about all kinds of things from how each kid how are each kid doing. Right. Like you’re evaluating where each kid’s at on all the different levels. Again, this is super important. We’ve gone over this many times in the process having conversations with both the mom and the dad. Where you’re going, how is Johnny doing? How is Suzy doing spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, educationally. And you’re evaluating those different areas in your talking together, one another and going, OK, what is one area that this kiddo really needs to grow and what is something that they’re struggling with? And how can we actually help them to not struggle with that? And the reason why I’m bringing this up is because one particular topic that is heavy, heavy on my heart right now is depression and anxiety and worry of children. OK, as you guys know, with the economy getting shut down, we saw not just covid cases, but there were deaths of suicides. There were people that were getting addicted to drugs, drinking alcohol when the rates went up. There’s been all kinds of issues. Right. And so caring about your kids, like we need to seriously evaluate and not just assume and be overwhelmed ourselves by what’s going on, that we’re not paying attention to where our hearts in the spiritual thermometers are saying about where our kids are at. And so we need to really evaluate. We need to talk and we need to come up with a plan potentially on how to help them get out of that.

Now, one thing that is that I’m just going to bring up on a side now that’s a big deal, is socializing, socialization right? Kids need to be around other kids. And when they do things like one family or immediate family quarantine, that can be either a good it can be OK for families who have good, healthy relationships or it can be really bad for kids who don’t have good, healthy relationships. And so we as Christians need to care for those who are not being cared for. We need to keep our eyes open for those needs. And I know that can be hard, especially if there is an intense quarantine. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because friends who live in Canada have recently just shared the new covid restrictions with me. Right. Sent me over some of the information and well, I’ll just briefly share a couple of them. This is in every province. This is in specific places, but that there is an immediate family only quarantine that is happening in some locations where you cannot have anyone outside of your immediate family in your home and you cannot go to anyone else’s home. And so there is no socializing happening. And so I think about those kids and I think about the potential for them. If this continues on the depression, anxiety, the worry, how they’re going to become even more addicted to social media, because that’s probably the only way of reaching out to people and how bad that can actually be that studies have shown for all people that if you’re already feeling a little depressed, social media dramatically increases that depression.

If you’re really joyful and happy, it also is either neutral or increases that. So it just accentuates how you’re already feeling in that direction.

Yeah, so I’m bringing this up because when you are having communication time with your spouse and you’re evaluating where your kids are at, you guys have to be willing to talk about the hard thing. And sometimes parents don’t want to admit that their kid is depressed. So don’t be that parent, because if you’re that parent for too long, you might pay a really big price. And so I’m just saying this hard word right now, because I care about these kids, I care about you, I know you care about your kids, so really be aware and try to engage more. And, yeah, it’s going to it’s going to mean that you might have to work harder as a parent.

So a practical thing, because we see different things in our kids, because we’re around different parts of the day or involved in different things with them, or one of us has a conversation, the other doesn’t. So in that date night, it’s important to write down the name of the kid and have a discussion about them. What do they need? How are they doing? How’s their spiritual life? Right. Are they are they feeling the like? They’re on purpose because everybody needs to feel valuable, like they’re contributing to society. Well, how can your kids be contributing to society if there’s lockdown’s. So you have to be creative and figure out ways within your home of how they can greater contribute.

Actually, I have a whole blog post on this, so we’ll put that in the notes on courageous parenting during in the podcast notes, because there that is one of the greatest things that every teen, every child needs, is they need their parents to lead them and what their purpose is and and be like, hey, how do you think my relationship is going with someone? So. Right. You have to evaluate each other because sometimes we all have I mean, we have blind spots. Yeah, right. And so I think that it’s it’s might be a hard question to ask, but you have to be willing to go there.

And if you guys are a little bit at a loss because you’ve been busy, occupied, things like that, and you’re not quite sure, at least you discover that and you can go, hey, how are you doing? How are you how are you feeling about everything that’s going on in the world? How are you feeling about what’s going on? Her family, how are you feeling about that relationship? They haven’t been able to connect with, you know, these kinds of things. You really need to ask deep questions. Three questions deep. We’ve said that before. OK, so you need to do that. Other things to talk. There’s a lot to talk about right now as you bring them to your family. I was just this morning talking to our family about, you know, if Biden actually wins because he got all the Electoral Electoral College votes that were legal because this could spit it out. And that’s true. Which is possible. Then what are things that are going to be happening based on what he said he’s going to do? And we went through some of those. And then if Trump wins, which actually is what I think you guys might think I’m crazy, but I actually think there’s so much fraud that’s going to get uncovered and this is going to be really good overall into the future, no matter who’s present way in the future, because we’re going to get the integrity back of our election process. So but I actually think Trump’s going to win. It’ll take about 30 days or so. And but the problem is the big challenge is you have to think ahead is that half the country has already embraced and accepted Biden as president because of what media has done to further implant that in everybody’s minds prematurely. And so now, if and when we have what I believe is going to happen to happen, Trump gets in continuous re-election, it’ll be the greatest upheaval that we’ve seen in modern times. I hope not.

But but that’s just the reality of when we know the character of that side. I mean, the reality is, is so there are a lot of people who are following Trump, Christians and non Christians. Yeah, obviously they are all conservatives. And there are some really hardcore extreme patriots who maybe don’t have the faith that other conservatives might have. And if Biden was elected, those people might get mad and do something right. They might. They might, but they might not.

We’re not seeing things on Patriots and.

Exactly. And so the reality is what you can see in the actions and what you see in the actions is that if this was to turn around, you will see looting, you’ll see fires, you will see more police.

And we’re not trying to create fear. We’re just realists. We’re just OK.

Well, I mean, what’s what’s what’s been happening in the history of the last year. Yeah, OK. And so the reality is those who have a strong hatred, I’ll say it, they have a hatred towards Trump. I mean, the reality is this is sad to me that when Trump had covid, there were people literally saying, I hope he dies. And that is that should never be something we ever hope for anyone.

We’ve had that same thing said to us, too.

I know. And this is not OK. This is not morality. This is not how humans should treat humans. I don’t care if you’re if you’re not even walking with the Lord and you’re just a good person, you would never wish anyone to die. That’s just pure evil and satanic.

Ok, and so there’s this element of when or if what Isaac is predicting could happen. The reality is we all know that that side, the left side will freak out. Maybe not all of them, but many will. Yeah. On social media. They’ll get vicious, there will be businesses that will be hurt by this. There will be people who are physically harmed because of this.

So, so, so either directions you have to think about if A happens and if B happens and what are what do we need to do? Nobody can tell you what to do. Nobody should tell you what to do.

And we’re not. That’s part of you reading your family sort of thinking. It’s part of praying and getting wisdom as part of having people beside you that you’re running with the trust.

And you’ve got the same thing for every person that’s right there. Right. Like, that’s the thing. Is that part of God’s sovereignty? We said this at the beginning, part of God’s sovereignty is that he has placed his body here on Earth. God’s word is alive and active. His Holy Spirit is here among his people. He can guide you and he may guide you to do complete opposite from what he’s guided us to do regarding where we take our family and things like that. And that is a good thing because that’s God’s sovereignty playing out for all people. Right. But the reality is that we are never called to just be passive in this life. That is. Otherwise, what’s the point in being here? What is the point?

Yeah, if God if we believe what the word says and some one twenty seven that children are heritage, that God in what is in someone thirty nine, that he knew us before we were created in our mother’s womb. But he has a plan for us like in Jeremiah. Twenty nine, eleven years. There are so many scriptures everywhere that prove that God has a plan and a purpose and that you are part of his plan and his purpose, and that he’s placed you where he has in this generation for a reason. And the minute we become passive, we deny that purpose.

We are denying not being obedient, being fully passive, and we have to take ownership over that because we are going to be held accountable. Yeah, we are. And if you’re a teacher, you’re held even more accountable, stricter judgment. And so we have to be aware, guys, and this isn’t like a legalistic oh, what are you doing?

Kind of message? Not at all. Like when you are fully sold out for Christ, don’t you just want to serve him to be a part of the great commission? Don’t you want more people to know about God? Don’t you want to see good happen to people, don’t you? Or do you want evil to happen to people?

Right, because the reality is, is if good people are quiet and they do nothing, then more evil is going to be loud.

So where’s your doctrine at? And does it contribute to passive Christianity in the next generation? Coming up, watching that and being even more passive. Remember, whatever parents do, a generation tends to do way more overblown.

So, yeah, so if they’re passive, then their kids are likely to be even more passive.

Right. That’s the point. So now other things besides politics, because you’re probably tired of that or what do we see in our family? What is the culture of our family right now? Culture is the ethos that actually what is not what parents think is is the actual real behaviors in the kids, in the parents, in the individuals, in the family team. And that actually get played out, not what you post is or share is with other people necessarily. It’s what’s true. And what is it that you don’t like in the culture of your family, the behaviors, the real attitudes, these kinds of things, and what needs to be changed. You should discuss that and you should start to reflect on that because it’ll help prepare you to drive forward maybe one, two or three at most initiatives next year.

You need to start evaluating and trying to figure out what those are now so that you can give real vision.

Yeah, so we’ve had things like generosity was one of our initiatives. Eagles, not Seagull’s producers, not consumers. Those are just some examples from memory of some of our initiatives that drive the culture forward in the Tolpin family. And so why did those those those weren’t just thought up of happenstance or prayed about thought discussed? And they really solve some of the things that we did were cultural issues, cultural issues and that and we were honest with ourselves that we felt like how can we improve that? Right. And again, parents have massive influence over their families and kids.

And so you are the difference makers. And as quarantine and more of this stuff buckles down because it probably will, you guys. Yeah, the reality is that you’re going to have even more influence because other people have less in seeing less people.

Yeah. Amen. Deuteronomy six six through seven. We’ve said this before. It’s definitely in our parenting mentor program as a Key verse and these words, let’s start from beginning hero Israel. And for the Lord, our God is the sorry, the Lord, our God. The Lord is one you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. Now, the key part here and these words which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them.

Sit in your house. Oh, my Bible. Sorry guys. My Bible got wet so it was crumpled over. She’ll talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as Frontalot between your eyes. You shall write them on the door of your house and on your gates.

So what are we doing here? We’re we’re writing. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

Because when that’s true, the overflow of that wisdom fruitfulness.

Right. Action, action, love. Like that’s the thing. It doesn’t just stop here. It’s saying you’re going to go talk to people about this. You’re going to teach. Those are doing words, you guys. These are verbs. These are action verbs. You’re going to write them. Writing is an action verb. Write them on your doorposts, your house. That means you’re declaring to the public. Back then, there was no social media. Guess what the closest thing was your doorposts. Any signs that you have out in your front yard are probably the closest to social media or the closest to declaring to the world. Right. What you believe in the the Lord is your God. Yeah. And so this is what God’s telling us. Yeah. You can translate that into. Be bold. People should know that you are following Christ.

Amen. Now we’re preparing you for a future episode. We’ll do closer to the New Year about what to do next after you’ve prepped for reflection on this year, the culture, the attitudes, behaviors reflected on each kid reflect on your marriage is another thing that we need to remind you to do.

How is your marriage? How are you feeling about it? How am I feeling about it? What do we need to work on? Let’s not try and fix everything at once, but let’s work on what matters and come to agreement on some things. Maybe out of that comes you’re going to read a book together. Maybe out of that comes you join our parent mentor program because you know what people are finding. It equally works on marriage as much as it does your parents. Yeah, that’s true. And it does serve single parents too. Equally, too. It’s amazing. But anyways, we’re prepping you for that. And you’ve got to communicate you’ve got to communicate more now with each other and with your kids than ever before.

You’ve got to lead now more than ever. You’ve got to do life planning more now than ever. And you go, well, how can I do that when everything’s changing so fast? Well, if you’re not proactively changing to handle the coming change, you’re even more your family, even more potentially could get hurt. You guys got to be thinking and you know what is so cool? It’s not in own strength. We get the Holy Spirit.

We had God going before us prompting.

Visiting our hearts of things that don’t even make sense, maybe to you, even I know some of them and you start listening, you start listening because if you only listen when it makes sense to you, you’re not listening to the Holy Spirit all the time.

We need to be listening. It’s not always going to make sense to us.

And then as we entertain it, as we ponder, as we talk to each other, as we do it, then and then becomes reality.

It becomes reality, and it might make a lot more sense down the road.

In hindsight, I think of hindsight, right? Isn’t it always easier for people to look back on something and go, oh, that that I would have changed that? Or maybe they look back and they go, Oh, that’s why that happened. Yeah, right. You can’t say that until hindsight, but this is the thing. You can’t live in hindsight all the time. Sometimes you have to make decisions today in faith and trust in God with the promises that you know are biblical and you follow him. You don’t follow man, and you do what God’s telling you to do and then guess what? And maybe a month. Maybe in a week, maybe in a day, maybe in a year. You look back and you have that hindsight and go, praise God, praise God.

Now, a reminder, if you are thinking of moving to southern Idaho because we get so many questions and requests on this, we’ll put a link to the person in the company that helped us to relocate. And it was an absolute blessing working with them. So you can check that out. Akridge parenting that come under this episode or the relocation podcast, even part one. I believe this has it in there. So thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com and CourageousMom.com for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 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 where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast, and the courageous parenting text message line. Where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com

That’s CourageousParenting.com

Life Planning In Uncertain Times – Part 1

It’s more important than ever to be making sound decisions during these uncertain times. However, if your plans are made in your own strength, they are more likely to fail in these times. Embrace the power of the Holy Spirit to guide you through the life decisions you need to make for the benefit of your family. In this part one of the series, you will get insights on how to do this well and practical insights into what the Tolpins have found helpful in making the best decisions out of many good options.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Draw closer to God.
  2. Vision matters now more than ever.
  3. Evaluate areas of your life.

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Scripture In This Episode:

Psalm 33:20 –Our soul waits for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.”

Acts 18:9-11 –Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent;  for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.” And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”

Proverbs 3:3 –Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart,”

Habakkuk 2:2-3 – “Write the vision, And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, But at the end, it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.”

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    Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Hey, guys, so we’ve been in our new place for a few weeks now, huh? Yeah, three. So thanks for everybody’s prayers as we move to Idaho. If you have questions about that, hit the relocation podcast. But today we’re going to talk about life planning in uncertain times so we can cover a lot of topics, right?

Yeah, we did a podcast a while ago on on should we continue having babies during uncertain times? You remember that? Oh, yeah. And so I’m just drawing attention to it because. Well, a lot of you guys have been reaching out since our announcement that we’re expecting another baby and congratulating site. We thank you. Appreciate the support. But it just this this topic reminds me to just for those of you who have recently reached out to me about like, you know, oh, my gosh, you are pregnant, aren’t you scared because of what our world is going through? And I think a lot of those messages recently, especially yesterday, actually, and I I just want to encourage you guys to go listen to that podcast. It’s 45 minutes of encouragement on that particular topic.

Yeah, it’s really good. So this is a two part series and this will be part one. I’m going to go through the agenda really quick for both parts. So we have six points in. The first one is draw closer to God, but there’s a reason for that that you might not expect. We’ll talk about that in a second. Secondly, his vision is more important than ever. Thirdly, evaluate areas of your life, how to do that on a date night and really do that well and how to make decisions together. Sometimes making decisions together can be hard as a married couple can. Yeah, and not fearing, but acting in wisdom. But we’ve said that before, but we have a new little piece to that we want to talk about and the importance of being flexible in uncertain times and how that looks when you make life plans and flexibility and dealing with that in the marriage. And finally, probably the most important point that everybody wants is what to do now with your family. Yes, that would be in the second part to this two part series, the practice, those practical things on that, too. So but there will be practical stuff throughout.

That’s right. So before we dive in, we just wanted to thank you guys for all of your prayers, your support, the encouragement, the awesome reviews on the iTunes podcast. That really is an encouragement to us, you guys, and it helps us to get this podcast out to other people to encourage them. The last few podcasts which were on the basically on the election and on Christian passivity versus taking action, those two podcasts are doing really, really well. And we are so glad that they were an encouragement to you. You also know if you watched my insta stories that we have experienced a little bit of censorship. So just be Prain against that. We really appreciate your encouragement as we were just sharing the reality of what we do experience.

I think most conservatives are being censored right now that are rejecting anything about the elections, anything about things, our culture.

Yeah, and I think that for us, it’s not that we want pity at all regarding that. Like, we we know that it’s going to happen, but we just want to make it aware if we’re quiet about it, that doesn’t help anybody. But if more people who are experiencing that were to draw attention to the realities, to the truth and showing the proof it might happen less.

Yes. So 2020, how do you feel about it? So I see a lot of memes out there that are saying, like, you know, I can’t wait for it to be on the way to get over the worst year ever, you know, things like that. Right. And I think when I see those, I go, yeah, a lot of challenges this year for sure. What if next year is worse? What if the means, Meems, next year or what age?

Oh, I don’t know. I wish I could go back to 2012. I would imagine that. Right.

I mean, there is a possibility that next year it’s like, can we go back to 2020? Now, I know that sounds bizarre of how bad some of the things that happened this year in our country and in the world. But you know what? It might be better. I I think there’s a good probability that next year is better. And a lot of ways it’s not an election year. You could say that. Well, maybe covid will subside or people, you know, get used to it more or learn to deal with it.

Yeah. So, yeah. But what about the other things we don’t know about yet.

Right. So another thing people might be thinking right now and hearing that come from us, actually they might go, wow, you guys, that is such a downer.

What a pessimistic perspective. Doesn’t listen to your podcast because it’s encouraging. We do hear that encouraging you guys.

You’re setting me up to think that maybe two thousand twenty one is going to be worse. And that’s not our heart and no at all. But we just wanted to bring that perspective up because you might not have actually thought about that. And we want to. Challenge you guys, because is that going to affect your attitude, is that going to affect your perspective? Is that going to affect your family in a in a positive light or negative light?

And it’s all based upon who you are keeping your eyes on. And I said, who? Because we got to keep our eyes on Jesus.

So regardless of whether next year is better or worse, our joy remains the same. The joy is found in the Lord, our relationship with God and the truth that we know about. And that life here on Earth is temporary and we have eternity with God in a much better place than this Earth.

That’s right. And that and trusting the truth that God actually put you here in this generation during this time strategically like understanding that God has a plan for each person’s life, he has a purpose for each person’s life and really going, OK, so this isn’t exactly what I thought my 30s were going to be like or this isn’t exactly what I thought my forties were going to be like or what I was going to be like when I was having babies for the first time or I was planning on getting married this year or whatever your plans are looking at those and going, hey, God, I know you have a plan and a purpose.

What do you want me to do? What do you want me to execute? How do you want me to glorify you? I get that this life is bigger than just about me.

Yeah. So let’s dive in. And the first point is draw closer to God. You’re like, yeah, that’s a no brainer, Isaac. Draw closer to God. I know that. Right. And sometimes we listen to things and we go, OK, yeah, I know that. But what does that mean to you?

Well when I think about it, I think about first thing I think about is an evaluation process in my mind. Right. I think about, OK, well what is reflective of me actually drawing closer to him and not what I mean by that is you can tell when someone is drawing close to God, can’t you? You can tell. You can tell there’s a different countenance about them. Yeah. You can sense the Holy Spirit or not. You can sense a spirit of fear or power and wisdom in a sound mind. Like if you have the spirit of God activated in you and your exercising spiritual discernment, you can kind of tell, you know, when someone’s struggling or when someone’s not right. Especially if you know them super well. And I’m talking about people that you’re close to, obviously. And so if I was evaluating myself and going, OK, am I drawing close to God, it would be revealed through how I respond, how I react, what my attitudes like during the day, all of those kinds of things. And so while someone may know it, implementing that and having the fruit of having drawn closer to God are two very different things.

And I would challenge you that no matter how close you are to God right now, let’s draw even closer. Can’t we always draw closer? Can’t we focus more? Can’t we pray more without ceasing all day long? And I, I know that challenges me. I pray a lot, but I could pray more and that would probably be good. It would be good. And in uncertain times. Here’s a big point. In uncertain times, plans made in the flesh are less likely to work out. So just think about that plans made in the flesh, in our own wisdom and our own thought process, in our own marriage discussions without including the spirit of God or having a strong relationship with God to where he’s involved, then they’re even less likely to work out in uncertain times.

And I think that the the very drastic opposition of what you are talking about is how different it is when you’re not in uncertain times and how when you’re working hard and your flesh, for example, there’s this spiritual of sowing and reaping. Right? Yeah. And so someone could be seeking God’s will and have two pretty good paths in front of them and maybe some not so good paths. Right. And they might look at those four paths, evaluate the ones that are not good and choose maybe even the the the path that is not necessarily God’s will for them and start going down it. And it still might go well for them because of the law of sowing and reaping and because they’re working hard and so forth. And God is still with them. Right. However, when you’re in uncertain times, there’s this different element, right. Where like, let’s just first an idea is if someone is starting a business in a really hard economy versus a thriving economy, big business is going to be massively impacted.

Right. So I highly encourage you to be relying on the Holy Spirit in your decision making. You’re going to make decisions, but you’re going to be praying. You’re going to be listening. You’re going to be paying attention. You’re going to be in God’s word because you love him, because you want to communicate with him and he’s going to partner with you. He’s going to reveal things to you that sway your decisions, confirmed decisions you were making in the flesh so that, you know, maybe you did have a marriage meeting and you guys didn’t pray or were talking to God about it, but you made a decision. But then maybe afterwards you kind of vetted it with God and you were patient and spent some time waiting a little bit and heard from him in a different way and got confirmation. And so I think that’s really important. And how do you hear from God?

Yeah. Well, there’s so many different ways. I was actually just talking to a sister in Christ about this just yesterday. She was saying, you know, we were talking about this idea of hearing from God. And and I just want to remind you guys that we all have the same ability to be led by God. Like, I’m not any closer to God than you can be, is what I mean by that. Your pastor, for example, is not any more likely to hear from God than you are, OK? And so if you struggle with putting anyone on a pedestal and thinking that they had their prayers are more powerful or any of those kinds of things, I just want to exhort you because first of all, we’ve all struggled with those thoughts. Right. But at the same time, we have to remember that there are the enemy is trying to deceive us into becoming inactive. The enemy is trying to deceive us into thinking less of our relationship with God or his or God’s ability to work through us. The enemy doesn’t want us to believe the truth that God can can actually do something incredible through you. That’s actually the truth. The enemy doesn’t want you to believe that because it’s what God wants you to believe, which is the truth is that he does have a plan and a purpose for your life.

He can speak to you. And so we know from God’s word that which is alive and active, this is one of the main ways we hear from God is in reading his word in another way that we can hear from God is in prayers as we’re praying to God, as we’re meditating on his word, as we’re just being still in knowing that he is God and resting in him and waiting on him for confirmations and for things like that. Right. Because sometimes God answers our prayers and the answer is no. Sometimes it’s not right now and sometimes it’s yes, but later and sometimes it’s yes right now. And so we have to be aware and alert, willing to hear all of those answers, because when we’re praying, we want to pray and God’s will. Right? Yeah. Which the knowledge of being able to pray and God’s will comes from reading his word and knowing as well. Right. As much as you can. Yeah. And then I would say the third way that I rely on God is as far as speaking to me is through the body of Christ, which is actually here on Earth with us. Right. The body of Christ is in dwell among the church.

And I would just give you a caution with the body of Christ is you only want to be getting that advice from people that are already doing the things that you just talked about. So they are close to God. They’re drawing close because sometimes they’re fleshly agendas seep into the advice they give, it’s true or even their own personal experiences or justifying what they have done or not. And yes, you have to be really wise and aware who you seek counsel from for sure. And I’m also very hesitant to just believe something right away. Right. Like, so if someone was to come to me and exhort me, for example, I’m going to take that humbly. I’m going to sit on it. I’m going to pray about it. I’m going to seek God’s word on it and really let his spirit fully work the conviction. Right. Yeah. And so but you don’t just take what someone says and not do the second part.

I think another thing we talked about in the politics episode last last week, the importance of critical thinking. He can go back to that.

But when you are participating in critical thinking and close to God, you’re making connections naturally in our human strength and also that God is the Holy Spirit is impacting us to now make different and better connections spiritually because we’re actually thinking. So I think thinking is really important, critical thinking and including God in that and being close to God, because then you make connections and sometimes I can make really quick decisions. Yeah. And it’s amazing. Like they all already been thinking and critically thinking all along the way. And you’ve God’s word written on God’s mind word. And then all of a sudden it’s like I know what to do. And then people around me are like, well, you make really fast decisions.

Well, and it’s not always that you do. Yeah. There are some that you’re much more slow processing your about fasting over things like that. But then there are some where you are very fast and like get it done. Right.

And I think that having both having a reflection of both of those things plus like a medium, if there was a spectrum to have all those different is actually a good reflection of being drawn close to God and hearing from him, because not everything is going to be quick. But I just want to encourage you guys with a passage of scripture in some three, because as we’re drawing close to the Lord, we need to remember where hope is found. Right. So let’s just say what Isaac has kind of challenged us all in our thinking. Let’s just say the next few months are even the hardest of 2020. OK, now that’s kind of crazy to think about. It’s possible. Let’s just say that twenty twenty one is not better than twenty twenty. Right. Where is our hope found? Where are we going to find satisfaction and contentment? Is it in all what happens to us or is it in the Lord?

And so Psalm thirty three verse twenty says our soul waits for the Lord. He is our hope and our shield for our heart shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us just as we hope in you and I, I, I want to just encourage you guys to read on into some thirty for the first few verses are simply I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. And I, you know, it goes on these two passages, psalm thirty three and some thirty four are such an encouragement. If you’re someone who is really struggling with fear, with worry and anxiety, even depression regarding what has transpired. And and we don’t know all of your situations. I know that for Isaac and I, we were even reminiscing about twenty twenty. And while there have been very it’s been very hard in many regards, there’s also blessing to be seen.

So, for example, as you guys know, in February, we lost a baby, we lost mercy, but now I’m pregnant. Mm hmm. Right. So within one year, we have both loss and Rainbow Baby on the way. And so I see both. And I just want to challenge you guys, because right now it’s so easy to focus on all the hard stuff. It’s so easy to name and list off all the bad things that potentially have happened. Right. I know. You know, I know my grandma is in heaven, but my grandma died in March and I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to go see her. You know, she was in a nursing home. My mom had a hard time being able to see her because it Covid in what was going on. And and so I think, like a lot of us have those stories. A lot of us could say this bad thing, this bad thing, this bad thing. Right. But what are we choosing to focus on? And I know it would be easy to say, hey, what what about the good things? Right.

But I don’t even want to say that we shouldn’t be focusing on anything. We should be focusing on Jesus. Yeah. We should be praising his name at all times, we should bless him, we need a trust in his holy name and our hearts should be rejoicing in him, always so focused on the Lord as we’re navigating circumstances, as we’re navigating life.

And it is a good exercise, though. What are the challenges that happened this year that forced out of you and your family good things? That would be a fun discussion with your family. So there’s a practical thing you could do right away. That’s a great thing you can initiate the moms could do.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 CouragousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CouragousParenting.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 for 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 CouragousParenting.com.

Dotcom, Steve and 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 a 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 are trying to raise our kids, basically like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of 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.

And 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.

So we’re doing acts 18 nine through eleven. Now, the Lord spoke to Paul in the in the night by a vision. Do not be afraid, but speak and do not keep silent. Hang on before we move forward. If God said that to Paul, what does that mean? That means he was afraid. It’s a good point. So he would not have to say that to them unless he was afraid of speaking. Are you afraid of speaking sometimes, are you afraid of speaking your conservative voice, standing for truth, political opinions, sharing the gospel, let’s just read that again. Do not be afraid, but speak and do not keep silent, for I am with you and no one will attack you to hurt you. For I have many people in this city.

But see, Paul was drawing close to God.

There’s protection when we’re drawing close to God, and it’s not like he didn’t ever experience hardships, he was thrown in jail, ended up being killed and then, yeah, I mean there. But look at all the good that happened. But he praised God through it all.

You guys and God did some amazing things through him. And so we just have to keep we have to keep the faith. We have to endure. We have to keep perspective.

It’s so important. And that perspective thing is is key. So what is your perspective right now? What is what are you thinking about? What are you dwelling on? A lot of times that we’re dwelleth means is negative. Oh, your stop dwelling on the negative. Right. That’s often used. Well, you can dwell on the Lord, saturate your mind with scripture. And you know what? You can have such a big impact no matter what’s going on. In fact, these are some of the most exciting times I still believe is the greatest time to be alive because people are more aware of spiritual things. Yeah, it’s amazing. I get list off a whole bunch of other reasons, too.

Yeah, that’s not what this is about. Proverbs three. I just want to encourage you guys. Isaac wrote down, you picked out one verse, but can I share more than one because it’s. Well, yeah, because that’s what you do.

And so verse three says, let not mercy and truth, forsake, you bind them around your neck. We have to bind mercy and truth around our necks, write them on the tablet of your heart, how can you write Mercy and truth on the tablet of your heart? The truth is the word God. Yeah. And so that’s how it gets written on your heart. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways.

Acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. We’re talking about drawing closer to God and life planning in uncertain times. This is how he shall direct your paths if you don’t think you know at all. If you have a teachable heart and you lean on God, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from ever evil. And it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.

Something just a word just popped up in my head, as you’re reading. That is, what do you need to give God credit for right now? What are you taking credit for? And you have not given God credit for? What have you taken credit for in front of your kids? What have your kids taking credit for that really was God working through them? See, God wants to be glorified. He’s the only person that isn’t prideful because God.

That isn’t prideful, but demands glory. See, what if I demanded glory, I demand that you glorify me and everything that would be prideful, right?

But God is God and he wants glory. Why does he want glory? Some more people know how awesome he is so they can have eternal life and be reconciled to him, the more they know of him, the more people that know of him, the more people will come to him and be reconciled to him and have eternal life. It’s actually not. It’s it’s for other people.

Don’t you think that trust grows in your relationship with God, God trusting you when he knows you’re going to glorify him in the small things and the big things?

One of the questions that I know that when we were walking through hard times and we still ask this every now and again is that question, can God trust us? Yeah, it’s a really big question.

I believe we can, but we got to keep asking it because can’t we easily just move into pride? It’s so easy. All right. We got to keep moving here. So now you go ahead.

Vision is more important than ever. OK, Isaac, you take this one.

Oh, well, start it for sure. During uncertain times, you have to win. There’s challenges happening, especially leading a family. You have to see beyond the current circumstances because that gives hope. You have to help your family see beyond current circumstances because that gives hope. And I was reflecting as I was driving the other day and I wanted to share this with everybody, which is, I think, a key to success.

However, you would define success, but a key to doing well in this world into navigating the world well, especially in uncertain times, is the ability to have your current circumstances and and shift your thinking from current circumstances to what’s ahead and then back to current circumstances.

Some people just to stay on what’s ahead and they don’t get stuff done in the present and they don’t deal with things. And then some people only deal with things in the present and they don’t see ahead. So they make inferior decisions today and they get bogged down and burdened and challenged and all they can see is what’s right in front of them. And they’re just kind of constantly doing the things and it kind of in a rut of a rhythm. So what I think is key and more important than ever is I’m not just talking like a ten year goal or something like that. I’m talking about what’s ahead next week, what’s ahead next month, what what’s ahead for Christmas, what’s ahead next year? You know, and you can think longer if you can. That’s good. But it’s a constant shift of, OK, these this bad thing happened here.

Are this bad things happened here, this neutral thing that I don’t like doing, but I have to manage what’s happening over here. There’s good things happening over here, which oftentimes we don’t think about that one or those ten good things, actually. And but you have to now go, OK, but what’s ahead?

And I think about what’s ahead.

And that brings meaning to the present, a shift back to the present. And I do it. So it’s a I find myself if you want to get in my head for a second, I find myself constantly being in the present and shifting ahead and then shifting back to the present simultaneously all the time. And I don’t know that everybody can easily do that, but I know everybody can easily. Start doing that like you could work that muscle, so what’s ahead that you need to be thinking about the gives energy to the mundane of the present, super important to do that.

Mm hmm. What do you think? Well, I want to read from Habakkuk, chapter two, verse two and three, which says, Then the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it clean on tablets that he may run. Who reads it for the vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it will speak and it will not lie, though it tarries. Wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tarry.

So I love that scripture and I read the whole Book of Habakkuk before this. And don’t be proud of me because it’s three chapters so all you can all read it to. I encourage you to read it. It’s very fascinating and I’m going to go back and study and it was just really interesting. But I like that because it’s it’s about writing something down, writing plans on the tablet of your heart. Right. And, you know, how do you get things into your heart? For me, it’s actually writing physically with a pencil or a pen.

Yeah, we kind of do journaling old school, don’t we. Yeah, we both love to journal and write. And I think that that’s actually pretty indicative of why we’ve gotten better at being what we’ve grown a lot in Visioneering. I mean, we’ve always both been journalers, but I would just encourage you guys that especially in these times, like for for me, I love the thought of being able to pass down journals to my kids. Right. Because they can learn from the lessons that we’ve learned and the things that God has taught us. And that’s part of living a legacy. Yeah.

And so I think that right now, more than ever, having things written down. And what we’re all walking through, the personal testimonies we shared from Revelations 12 in one of the previous podcasts about the three ways that that revelation says that we can overcome the devil. And one is by the word of your testimony. And one way you can share the word of your testimony is by journaling.

Yeah, absolutely. And number three is evaluate areas of your life. This is so important to do. What are the areas of your life that matter? You can just make your own list. You could Google it. You know, the things will come up. But are finances important in your life? Well, yes, the love of money is bad, but money isn’t bad. It’s an important resource. Hey, man, it’s a really important resource that we need a steward well.

So it takes planning.

So you should be talking about that and you should be talking about spiritual things for for you and your marriage and your kids. And you should be talking about where each kids are and maybe writing some notes down together, you know, what their individual unique needs are. I think that kids want to be known. And when parents pause and think about one kid for a little while together or separately, even your your kids are more likely to feel known by you as they’re growing older. And that’s really important. So what are other things that are important? There’s there’s probably eight or nine categories you could think about, right. Your marriage and you put that down. So I’m not going to come up with more. You should come up with what they are. I have a date night and kind of start talking about those things. You might not even get to them all, but what will come out of that is fruitful discussion and the ability to make decisions together. Now, one of the greatest areas of growth for your marriage are those moments where you disagree.

Why do you think that is?

Well, because you need to have teachable heart and listen to one another’s convictions and evaluations of it and and it can I mean, God can use your marriage to sharpen you in ways like no other relationship, right? Yeah. And so there are times where, like, I’ll just give an example. There are times where one of us will have a vision or dream towards doing something. And we have to be like submit to one another out of reverence for Christ and listening and taking that on and really being objective as much as possible and considering it, even if our flesh wants to go “no” right away and really consider it. And then we need to prayerfully make a decision together that sometimes is compromise, sometimes as one person. Yeah. Submitting their flesh to the other person’s idea, which might be more God’s will. Right? Yeah, there’s so many different indicators. But I would say that for sure, when you’re evaluating areas of life, this is where men like one of the things that I have loved so much in our marriage. We’ve been married twenty one years. And one of the things that Isaac has always practiced right from the beginning is always bringing me in on all of the big decisions. Like, you know, now that we have eight, almost nine kids, there are a lot of little decisions that we just don’t have the time to talk about everything all the time.

And so I have to make decisions without talking to him. Sometimes he has to make decisions without talking to me sometimes. But we’ve also grown in that to where we both know each other so well that we’re pretty, pretty equipped to be able to make those small decisions without having to hash everything out. Right. And that comes with time. I just want to encourage the younger couples that that does come with time going. What would Isaac think? And I know that you do that well and you think about that when you consider it before you just do something right. And we’ve gotten really good at that with the little decisions when it comes to having to actually move forward and take action on things. But when it comes to the big things, we’ve always evaluated them together respectfully. And this is a crazy part. You guys, like a lot of men, probably don’t do this. I don’t know. Isaac doesn’t know I was going to share this, but I remember years ago when he was running a business, he went on a date night and he said, hey, babe, I have this. Like, I have to share something exciting with you. There’s this opportunity that our company could reach this goal, OK, but it’s going to require extra work, extra hard, like I’m going to have to work a little bit harder. This will look like what do you think? And he was like, because if you’re not in, I’m not going to do it.

And he fully basically put it on my plate, like, are we going to is is our bit is our team going to go for this or not? And I remember just being like, wow, he respects me that much that he’s like putting this in front of me and I’m able to ask as many questions as I want. But he realized how work impacts marriage and how much how much, how powerful it is to have your wife on your team when you’re trying to pursue something big. Right. And so when it’s when it’s come to big decisions, we always evaluate and make those decisions. One hundred percent together. And I just want to encourage you guys, this is why we’re saying it’s so important that you have date night so that you have the opportunity to talk together so that you’re making decisions in alignment. And I would say that this whole podcast is on life planning and uncertain times, life planning in uncertain times. And that means that you may have made plans. That seemed wise. For the economy, for the way the world is operating back a year or two ago, but if you were to re-evaluate, those might not be the wisest for right now. And there may need to be like a pull the brakes. Right.

The world changed this year in 2020.

So a lot of things are just different now. And so we’re challenging you guys because we care about your marriages. We don’t want to see marriages falling apart left and right. And we get that when marriage is under stress, when hard things happen, when circumstances are not in your favor, that your relationships in your marriage are challenged to a place like no other. And so we just want to encourage you. You have to draw close to God. You have to have vision and perspective and remember the long game. You have to evaluate these areas of your life together, making decisions together. But you but part of that all of those things is that you’re actually taking priority to to make time for your marriage.

One of the things I’ve noticed where we have conflict and making decisions is just misunderstanding each other. Yeah, I see things from a more visionary standpoint. And Angie thinks of things from a more practical standpoint in that conversation. And then there’s conflict. And so I’ve had to learn of how to change, how I talk about it so that she doesn’t misunderstand what I’m talking about. Yeah. And so forth. And so we should we should think about each other in our personalities and how we’re different. And if you can, your differences actually become the greatest strength if you learn how to work together.

Yeah. And if you learn how to communicate in a way that is honoring the other person. And so what I’m talking about is, especially in our first years of marriage, I think that I’ve really grown in being a visionary. I’ve just been influenced, I think, for sure.

But I remember distinctly, especially the first like five to ten years that we were married when Isaac would have an idea to do something like, hey, babe, what do you think about buying this property or what do you think about flipping this or what do you think about that? Or I just remember going, what, right now? Like, because he was the type of person that would just go do like you would make up his mind to go do something. And I would get I would be like, hold on a second. We need to evaluate all the little areas and see if this is smart and like. And so I was the very low risk taking person in our marriage.

And Isaac was more of the risk taking, I would say. And I would say you can’t you have become a little more risk taking. I wouldn’t say a lot, but a little more. Yeah. And I’ve become less risk taking. That’s right. So weve both grown.

And I think that that’s actually been growth. Right, because we you’ve learned over the last 21 years, you you pause more and you wait and you think, yeah. And then you communicat.

I do I do more of what we’re talking about now, which is relying on God. Like I can’t do anything without God. Very well. I used to think I could do things well without God now I actually don’t.

And I just have seen my plans get evaporated. Good plans, wise plans, people investing in things that think it’s wise and everybody around me being written in a newspaper because the business looks like a wise idea and, you know, over and over again and, you know, it’s fast upcoming company and all these things, accolades and in reasons why it can be good when really it wasn’t good.

Right. I mean, that’s the thing is that sometimes things can look good to the world and there can be even worldly success. But is it spiritually God’s will? Yeah, it was good in God’s eyes. It was the worst decision I ever made. Yeah. So but you guys, this comes from hindsight. Yeah. Like we’re on the flip side of that and realizing and wanting to share those things with you so that hopefully you can learn from what we’ve walked through.

Well hey, thanks for joining us. And Part two will be out next week.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com And CourageousMom.com For free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. Where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next on line parenting mentor program. Secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com.

That’s CourageousParenting.com

Politics, Christianity, & Your Kids’ Future

As promised, we share the twenty reasons why we are supporting President Trump for re-election. But this episode is about even more than that as we mention our respectful disagreement with John Piper’s recent article on the presidential election and even more importantly how to help your kids become strong critical thinkers that develop their own thoughts on politics and important issues and are willing to stand strong in their generation. This is a thought-provoking episode that we hope challenges and encourages you.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. Problems with “Don’t talk about religion & politics”
  2. Teach what you are learning
  3. Teach critical thinking
  4. A Christians role in politics
  5. 20 reasons we are supporting Trump

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet!

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Scripture In This Episode:

Psalm 33:12 –Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”

Proverbs 14:15 –The simple believes every word, But the prudent considers well his steps.”

Numbers 24:9 –He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?’ Blessed is he who blesses you, And cursed is he who curses you.”

Genesis 12:3 –I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

1 Timothy 2:1-2 –Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.”

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Full Transcript:

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 I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on t he raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children.

Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Welcome back to the podcast. Hey, everybody, so big topic today Ang. Yeah, we’ve been wanting to do this for a while.

I think you more than me. This is a very potentially controversial topic. Oh, for sure. But very relevant. Yeah, needed. I mean, we are going to be talking about politics, Christianity and your kid’s future.

That’s a big topic. We get a lot of questions about where we stand on things or why we’re pro Trump, for example, and a Christian. A lot of those, surprisingly, come from international audience. Yes, messaging us, which is interesting. And so we thought we would do an episode on it. So you fully understand why we have taken a stance we have and just know we’re 100 percent for unity. This is not meant to be a divisive episode at all. But we live in America and we believe that as Christians we need to reject passivity, stand for truth and lead unapologetically.

That’s right. And it’s getting harder and harder to do that in a society that is becoming more oppressed. Right. Which actually is one of the things we will talk about and down the road in this episode.

Yeah. With censorship and the lack of freedom of speech that’s happening especially towards conservatives. I mean, that’s a fact. I mean, you can’t argue that. Of course, anybody can argue anything but. Right. Because we do have freedom of speech. Yeah. Which is good. So let’s there’s a lot of confusion right now. And I think the Piper thing, we’ll talk about that in a little bit. And people, Christian leaders taking different stances out there and so forth. So we’re going to give our stance. But I do want a lot of you have also been asking quick Segway and we’ll get into in a second while we’re in Idaho Do you live? And wow, that’s beautiful because, you know, yeah, we’ve been pretty excited. It’s been a while since we’ve owned a home. And praise God, six years, a very unique thing happened. Where we’re able to do that, I would say was a bit unconventional and very much a blessing. And part of that blessing was our incredible company that helped us to be able to secure real estate. And so Idaho Wild and Mark there and his team are really phenomenal. So I would since we get so many people asking, hey, I’m interested in moving to Idaho and so forth, if you’re interested in southern Idaho because that’s what his company handles, then go to Courageous Parenting.com will put a form in the link. You can put your name and answer a couple of questions, and then I’m going to give Idaho wild access to that so they can follow up with you. It’s been a little bit of an administrative challenge. So many people are messaging us and interested. And who did you use, who helped you and so forth. And what’s cool is strong Christian led company and just awesome, awesome people. So, yeah.

So we’re excited to connect you guys with them if that is a desire of your heart and something that you are pursuing right now. So we also just wanted to kick off this particular podcast topic. Yeah. With a scripture in Psalm 33:12. He says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his own inheritance. It was interesting. I was just reading this and reading Blessed is the Nation Whose God is the Lord. I’m sure that Blessed is a nation whose leader is a Christian. Yeah, but that’s not what the Scripture says. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And I think that that is for me at least one of the things that I have been focusing on.

Not yes, I would ideally love to have a candidate that was running that had the some of the strengths that I do see in Trump politically. Right. And with policies and different things, but also have an even stronger faith and conviction of the way that he his character is portrayed.

Right. I would love to see that. But I think that sometimes our ideologies can be out of a desire to have Jesus as the president.

And that’s not actually something that we can have.

Yeah, absolutely. We need to look at this circumspectly. We need to look at this from a biblical perspective and so forth. And oftentimes we’re taught not to talk about religion and politics, and that is detrimental to the culture within our homes. And perhaps just challenge yourself in this question, because that was ingrained in you in the workplace not to do that, not to talk about those things or in social gatherings or maybe at Thanksgiving because people have different beliefs and so forth. We all obviously have to be respectful. Has that seeped into how you lead your family?

Right. How you parent, what you talk about at the dinner table and have your key to your kids now believe they should never talk about religion and politics because of what you’ve maybe not consciously but subconsciously passed onto them and maybe is that why we have some generations from a generational perspective that are very leaning, very liberal or passive in some ways?

Right. And this is actually can I just say, the ones that are Christian, those of you who are listening, what what this this particular topic is the part that I get most excited about. Oh, I love it. And just because, you know, we always try to take back what we’re talking about, what’s relevant today, what’s needed for parents to talk about. Yes. For their own personal exhortation, their own personal spiritual growth. But at the same time, we need to look at it and go, how is this impacting my kids and how is this going to impact my legacy? And how is this going to impact my kid’s, his future, my grandkid’s future, my great grandkids? What about six generations down the road? Yes, what we do and how we vote actually will impact the generation, six generations, seven generations down the road. Yeah, right. And we need to recognize that. We need to recognize that to take a passive approach or a nonchalant like to to to fall into the trap of thinking that by, oh, my vote doesn’t matter or they’re both that you can justify in your mind a reason why not to vote for either of them or a God is sovereign.

Therefore, what I do doesn’t matter. There is some people that believe that God is sovereign. That’s true. But what you do, you matter does matter. He put you here for a reason. Multiple things can be true at the same time. We’ll talk more about that.

Yeah. And so I think that there is an element of where do you see how Isaac just even brought up something where a biblical conviction can actually warp your conviction on what you do? And so I we just want to encourage you guys that there is actually we will dive into 20 reasons why we are going to be voting for Trump. But before we get to that stuff, you guys, we have some bigger topics to dive into first that have actual massive impact on your kids and how to talk to your kids about politics and how to raise up kids that don’t maybe have some of the shortcomings we do.

And maybe you’re like, hey, I don’t have these shortcomings. Cool. You’re unique, OK? Because frankly, I believe we’ve had those shortcomings in our past. One hundred percent and which is not being bold in getting more involved and in these kinds of things in the political arena and not talking about it. I can remember when I’m in business, I wouldn’t talk about these things. And there is a place and time we have to be respectful and we have to be. I think the key word is discerning and not divisive and not divisive and always speak and love and pay attention who’s around us and how that impacts people. All of these things, everything we do should be done in love, but it doesn’t mean we are passive about things of great importance.

And I would say that between the two of us, I for sure have had the most conviction about being passive to the point where, like, I still struggle with that people pleaser. Those who you guys who have been listening for a long time know this. I’ve brought it up a few times to where I don’t want to cause anyone to argue, no, I don’t want to stir division. And so even though I might have a very strong conviction on a specific matter, whether it be masks or vaccinations, you may not have seen me post about it. That doesn’t mean that conviction wasn’t there. Right. And so for us to actually be diving into this topic and really challenging people now, we will give our perspective on quite a few different issues. Yeah, but we actually want to challenge you guys. Like if we were to literally go over the 20 policies, for example, or 20 issues that we’re going to go over, if we were to go into every single one in depth going through scripture, this would be a 20 episode podcast. Oh, yeah.

And so I have to urge you guys to maybe take notes right down the path because we are going to be rapid firing some of this stuff. And you have to I just want to urge you to seek the word, to seek God’s guidance, to have a humble, teachable heart. We are still in the process of learning about some of these, you know, and like, God, show me like how does this relate this year compared to four years ago, you know?

So let’s dive in. Right before we do that, I just want you to know all the show notes, everything that CourageousParenting.com hit podcast. This episode will be there. Also, if you’re interested in relocation, the podcast, just because so many people have been asking about why we’re moving and so forth, that’s they’re both this episode in the relocation podcast. That form will be for if you’re interested in talking to the people that have helped us and so creative and good at what they’re doing there and make sure you do it that way because they are going to give importance to the people that do that form. OK, so let’s dive into it. Number one is teach what you are learning. Well, that sounds really simple. Well, it’s amazing how we lack implementing this first point. It’s like, OK, we’re learning things, but then we’re like, OK, what’s appropriate and not appropriate to teach our kids? And then because we’re not sure, maybe we don’t talk about anything that could be one hurdle or maybe we’re not learning.

Right. And so that’s another thing that could be a really if you’re not talking about the things that you’re struggling to fully understand yourself, it could actually be a sign that there’s some pride there.

Yeah. And what we’re actually encouraging you, especially as your kids are getting older, is to actually ask them what they’re learning about things, to have one. Yes, to have a humble heart attitude. Right. Because you can learn some things from your kids. I know we have. Right. But at the same time, don’t you wouldn’t you rather have an open, honest, non-threatening discussion with one of your kids or with all of your kids to hear what their beliefs are and how they’ve actually been impacted and influenced by media, by friends, by grandparents, by whoever? Yeah, you have this discussion and you might not even realize that your kids have some of the convictions and beliefs that they do have, in which case isn’t there. There’s no greater motivation than that on those topics. Right.

So super important. And sometimes we fail to teach things until we know everything about it. We’re like, well, I want to make sure I’m right about everything. So I’m going to, you know, I don’t and then I don’t have time to study enough. So then we don’t teach something. What I have found is when I’m not 100 percent sure about everything around a topic I’ll share. Sometimes I’ll share. Hey, I heard this is happening, but I just want you to know I didn’t read the full article, so I don’t know everything about it. But I do know this. And so I’m always just really transparent about what I know and what I don’t know. And I think that is one of the biggest. We’ve talked about this many times before, but that’s one of the biggest things. As a parent you need to get good at is being humble and what I mean, get good at that. It’s a muscle. You actually have to work because sometimes we feel like we need to have all the answers. And I think that’s a great jeopardy to be a great parent.

Yeah. I mean, the reality is we always are learning, right? And so if we have that attitude as we’re going along in our parenting, our kids, it’s contagious. Our kids are more likely to pick that up as well. You’re more likely to have more productive conversations, less arguing all of the all of those things, too.

And so we don’t want robots as kids that just believe and do every single thing we say. Right. We want thinkers, don’t we? We want people that can think.

And so encouraging and welcoming discussion is so important, even if it’s not the same belief, actually. Yeah. And the reality is, is there are so many issues you can talk about. I would encourage you not to get hung up on just one like there are so many find the things that if you have a hard time, especially if your kids are older, older. Right. And you have a hard time talking about politics because maybe you’re listening to this going, yep, that was what I did wrong.

And I feel super convicted about it. But how do I start now, right? Yeah. I would say try to find something that you have commonality on, discuss it together and find that common bridge. Right. And then move forward.

I love, for example, our daughter Kelsey is a junior at Liberty University and I love talking to her because she is learning different things from her professors and experiences and so forth. And we have such lively discussion and and it’s just so fun. And so teach them earlier than you think you need to. We teach this to parents about everything, because what we naturally think when they’re ready to hear something likelihood they already have seen it or heard it.

Right. So, so much earlier than we actually.

So it’s just so, so er on the side of earlier, it’s you’re the judge of when you do anything. So I don’t know what that means for your kids. You have to discern that. But don’t be a fear based parent that is worried about sharing things with your kids or scared. Maybe it’s just all on you. You’re just scared of how you’re going to talk about it.

Right. And I would say to if you have old some older kids and some younger kids in the home at the same time, I’m just going to warn you, the age that you chose for your older kid might not be the right age for your younger kids because your younger kids, every kid is different. Right. What they’re exposed to is different. But the fact that they have an older sibling in the home alone changes the game because you’ve likely had conversations with your older kids about things. And then maybe a little kid has heard a word or something in a conversation like he’s heard the word abortion or he’s heard the word and he and he doesn’t maybe know what it means, but he’s going to be asking about it a lot sooner than that oldest child in your family probably did, because they might not have heard that conversation. Maybe you and your husband only talked about it on date nights or whatever. Right. And so I just want to I want to give you that little warning that you have to evaluate every kid. Certainly where they are in their spiritual maturity, just in their maturity, right, their intellect, but also their curiosity and what they’ve been exposed to.

I also think it’s when you’re learning, it’s so important to be careful who you and what you’re learning from. You don’t want to have this invincible spirit about you that it doesn’t matter what I look, look at or learn from, it won’t sway me, OK? We all get influenced in the smallest and biggest ways.

We don’t even see sometimes. So it’s really, really important that you’re aware of that. And I would just highly discourage. I’m sure everybody already agrees with this to stay away from mainstream media. As far as if you’re getting political opinions or world affairs.

I mean, different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Right. And so it’s just good to be honest with yourself about that. And if you struggle with having good, solid biblical discernment, then maybe that’s something that you really want to limit for yourself.

So then the question becomes, and I get this all the time. Well, if it’s not mainstream media, where do we find out about things? And I’m just not going to give you a list. I have a list of this parenting group where I have a process, but I’d rather have you look for that one thing tip I’ll give you as I follow actual people on social media, like politicians, the individuals themselves, so that I can see what’s coming out of their mouths, because by the time things get to mainstream media gets distorted, twisted and so forth. And I have a foundational understanding of things that I can see what’s true and not true about what people are saying based on past things and so forth. So I think that’s really important. Proverbs 14:15 says, Thank you, honey. The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers, well, his steps.

Wow, that is so important. We don’t want to be this simple and frankly, it seems like there’s a lot of simple out there, right?

There’s a lot of people that just believe every word from the from the side they’re on, from the direction they’re going, versus really digging for the truth, digging for the truth and seeing no side is perfect. Right. And there’s no perfection out there. The only perfection is in Jesus. And if we’re looking for perfection, then we really don’t understand the gospel. We don’t understand that nobody’s perfect. Everybody is is corrupted. And that’s why we need Jesus right.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The reality is, is every single person that could ever run for this office or any other office could be declared unsuitable. Oh, yeah.

Unrighteous, unworthy at some point because we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. And the minute that you think that somebody isn’t is the minute that you’ve fallen into the trap of pride. And so have we made an idol out of the person that we are electing.

And so that goes into the next point, which is teach critical thinking. What is that? That is digging deeper, as Angie was talking about and really looking at multiple information points and being grounded in what the Bible says and then looking at things from a I would call it clear thinking perspective, taking biases out, taking. Now, you can’t completely take biases. I will have them. But it’s really important to try and get to that clear thinking and help your kids do it. But if you don’t practice that, really trying to understand what is true versus just what I care about and what I think the way things should be, or just looking at maybe a couple policies and making a decision on that, for example, to religious what people are saying or what some pundit is saying or maybe what one pastor is saying.

Right. Just following. Like maybe I mean, I don’t know.

I mean, I’m sure there’s probably a pastor out there that’s made a voting guy. It’s like this is how I’m voting on all these issues. And maybe there are some followers that are just like, I’m just going to do what he did.

And I think that’s wonderful. The pastor does that. But we always yeah, we should always be looking at it. We’re questioning and questioning and we want our kids. If you want your kids to stand for truth, they need to be good at questioning what information people are giving them.

That’s right. And I think that critical thinking, clear thinking can lead to a clear conscience, which is what we all want before God. Ultimately, regardless of if you agree with us on who we’re voting for, which is not what this is actually about, this is about so much more than that. This is about what are you teaching your kids? Are you having conversations? Have you been teaching them about these different policies? Are you actually having a teachable heart? Are you teaching your kids what you’re learning? Are you having a critical thinking? Are you teaching them how to critical think? Because critical thinking leads leads to clearer thinking. Clear thinking leads you in a place with a clear conscience before God. If you have a muddled up thinking, you’re confused, you’re unsure and you can’t own something, then of course, you’re going to struggle with having a clear conscience before God. And you might feel less likely to actually mark something on a ballot. Yeah, because, you know, you’re going to be held accountable for that, right? Yeah. But the reality is, is that we have to have a clear conscience before God. We have to pray about this. This is a really big issue and it’s a privilege and an honor. And there are countries out there that they don’t actually get to practice in true honesty, this privilege of being able to vote.

So it’s a great thing, practical thing. And when you’re with your kids is asking maybe you’re talking about something in the news or something that’s happening, and then you can ask them, why do you think this is happening? You see, the traditional parent might just give the answer in their opinion. I think it’s far better to present what’s happening and then ask, why do you think that’s happening? That’s creating critical thinkers versus them listening to a critical thinker.

You and it’s interesting, too. I mean, I watched one of the debates with the kids when you were traveling and one of the kids said, I just don’t like how much they interrupt each other. Mm hmm. And I said, yeah. I mean, they’re really struggling with not being kind. With being rude. Mm hmm. Do all humans struggle with that? At times, yes. Do some struggle with it more than others? Yes.

Because we all have something, a thing, maybe more than one thing that we’re tempted to struggle with. And you don’t just ignore that. You don’t you talk to your kids about that character issue and how that is a turnoff to people. Right. You then you pray for the leaders because they are your leaders. You don’t just condemn them and leave it at that. You go, OK, I see the sin in their life that they’re struggling with and I’m going to pray for them. And I’m going to be a faithful person because I. What God’s called me to yeah, and that right there is teaching your kids faithfulness, it’s teaching them the power of prayer and supplication, which God calls us to be praying for those who are in positions of authority over us. This is a really big deal.

Yeah, that’s a really big deal. And another principal practical thing you can teach your kids is that multiple things can be true at the same time that are very different from each other.

Yeah, OK, so an example of that is let’s talk about covid, for example. Could it be true that this happened in China, which we know that that’s fact first and that China maybe perhaps didn’t try and stop it or let other countries know in time because there was an election coming? Now, this could be called a conspiracy theory, but it could be true. And could there be something about covid? I’m just saying what Christians out there have said, where this is a drive towards vaccinations and immunity and control. Yeah. And control and things like that. Could that be true? That could be true. Could also be true that the president gave a valid effort and is not behind those things.

And it’s trying when early in covid, he was trying to, you know, prevent the spread and so forth, but he is not maybe behind this other agenda. Mm hmm. Because we can mix them all together. Right. Or could it be true that there’s things happening and then they get used for evil afterwards?

I mean, everybody can say, oh, but he did this with when they have hindsight. But we all have to remember where we were at back in January, February and March. None of us really knew what was going on. And I’m sure that he was still also going through the same, like learning and trying to scramble all these things. But lots of different information. People have grace with that. No, they just expect him to be all knowing as if he’s God. But he’s not. He’s a man, a mere man. And and I love your we’ve talked about this many times that multiple things can be true at the same time. So can it be true that covid is a real virus that can be dangerous for old people and immune? Absolutely. Is that seems at the same time, can it be true that it might be wise for older people to wear masks or to be careful and not going to certain places if they have a compromised immune system, while at the same time can also be true that the government is attempting a form of control and exercising potentially an experiment to see how they can get the population to be obedient and wearing masks.

That can be true and also many different things. It also should be true. It’s a political season. And so that’s change, changing how things are handled.

And it could also be considered a fear tactic.

I mean, there are so many you hear so many different things. And can a few of them be true? Yes. Can all of them be true? Actually, they all could be. We’re not saying if they are not. Our point is, do you see how between Isaac and I, we brought up at least six or seven different things that people have talked about regarding covid in masks and how you could sit at a dinner room table with your kids and discuss all these things and more and hear their opinions and get them critically thinking.

And I think when they come up with something, even if you don’t 100 percent agree with it, I think it’s good to let them think about and go. That could be true. Like we want to encourage if a parent who has so much authority just shuts down their ideas, then they’re not going to bring those ideas in the future. So we need to be, remember, if you the more respect you give your kids, the they rise to that level of respect and the more respect they’ll give you, too.

So one example of that would be a parent who maybe is enforcing not wearing masks or a parent who is enforcing wearing masks, either one, versus having the conversation with your kids, talking about all the things that you think are going on, asking them what they think’s going on, asking them what they feel a conviction towards or not, and helping them to make the best, most autonomous decision. Right. Like that would be critical thinking, owning it, living out your conviction, which is a three step process that we need to teach our kids in all kinds of issues.

So let’s go into Christian’s role in politics. OK, so first of all, vote, right? Yes. Regardless who you’re voting for, vote, exercise the right. Let your kids see that. Show them the ballot. You know, how could you talk through it with them on who you’re voting for locally and nationally and all these things? Right. But we need to bring up a recent article that John Pyper wrote. And this is just a small part of what we’re talking about. But I think it’s important because he just wrote an article and we will put it in the show notes. You can read it yourself.

And it talks about really overall encourages, I believe is my opinion after reading it, that people not to vote for Trump that are Christians. Now, he says total credit and a lot of respect for John Piper. He says, I’m not trying to tell anybody who to vote for here, but you’re a leader, John.

Right. So what you say influences tons of Christians, just like what we say influences tons of Christians and we know that. So we know everything we say is going to influence how we’re going to say it, knowing that.

So but here’s the things I got after reading his article. You might get different things, and that’s cool. The moral character is as important as policy or maybe more important than the policies a politician makes.

And his argument behind that, there are some biblical elements to this where moral character of a leader can corrupt the culture of the nation, which is true. Absolutely true. That attitude does reflect leadership. And we quoted that many times and other podcasts. But this is the thing. Who’s who is the one that actually controls your character? Is it your president or is it your lord? Right. So if we’re truly Christians and he’s speaking to people who are supposed Christian Christians, they’re not going to be allowing any man on any pedestal in any position to a.

Fact, their character or their moral integrity, that is something that is molded by the potter because we are the potter’s clay and so we as Christians need to take jurisdiction, responsibility, really man’s responsibility over our own attitudes, over the way that we engage with politics and not follow anyone’s example except what we feel God’s calling us to through scripture.

What a great thing to talk to your kids about this point that he brought up moral character or policy or both, or where do you sign? And by the way, moral character is super important in leadership. But I would never vote for a president because I want him or her to lead me. I’m not looking for someone to lead me, not spiritually, no, I’m looking for someone that is going to make a better country based on the decisions they actually make and the chance that they’re actually going to follow through on those good policy decisions.

I mean, would we love it if there was like an awesome Bible based pastor?

Oh, yeah. The amazing leader that ran that.

Incredible. Yes. But if we’re looking at today’s candidates, the reality is, is we don’t have that option. Right. And so we need to choose. And this is the other reality. Can I just say it? There’s actually only two candidates. And if you think that there are more than that, then you actually believeing a lie.

So if you’re a Christian, that right. Somebody in you’re basically giving a greater chance for Biden and Harris to win because your votes actually not going to count.

I’m just going to say, I believe that’s my opinion, that your vote doesn’t isn’t going to count if you’re voting for one or the other. Right. In the sense I mean, if if it was true that your guy actually had an opportunity when he would have been in the debate, was he in the debate? He has not been in the debates. So the reality is we have two people that are running and we need to evaluate those two and make the wisest, most biblical decision.

It’s like what’s at stake. I can’t have my judgment clouded over what’s going to be best for my kids and grandkids and so forth and the gospel moving forward. Right.

Because oppression actually oppresses the gospel movement for all of the things that that matter. And the most important things with Piper agrees with the gospel advancing, which is the second thing, gospel is more important, the gospel moving forward and more important than protecting America and which we totally agree we totally agree with. However, just so happens, America is one of, if not the biggest country that sends out missionaries around the world, that gives money around the world for good things. And I’m not saying America is perfect. There are far from perfect missionaries coming here that should tell us something.

So but on that note, though, this is the thing is that it’s almost like he’s saying which one should we choose, right? Protecting a nation or the gospel moving forward. But the reality is, is we can actually do both.

It reminds me of Jim Collins quote from the book, Good is great is the tyranny of the or the genius of the. And I’m taking the genius of the hand here. And I think that sometimes people take the tyranny of the awe and it doesn’t have to be in order. There is somebody and we’ll talk about our 20 reasons. We’re voting for Trump. But there’s somebody that actually what they do and what they’ve already done has demonstrated a track record that is unbelievable for things that are biblically true and that defending our freedoms in defending our freedoms, being things that are not biblical but are good things. OK, so we in the third thing I got out of reading the Piper thing article sorry, is Trump’s unrepentant sins disqualify Christians to vote for him. He didn’t actually say that. This is me digesting an article and what I took, what I thought people, Christians would take from it, what I took from it being a Christian. And I think that we need to be careful here. Yeah, he appears to sin, right. For sure. And he has other sins in his past. Yes. Is he is is there anybody here that doesn’t deal with pride listening? Is there anybody here that doesn’t still sin? Is there anybody here that doesn’t deal with past sins? Some horrendous I know I have some horrendous past sins. I became a believer when I was twenty three. Twenty three. And you know what? The my sins didn’t stop. Now, I would say that by having the grace of God and God’s influence in my life way more fruitful way, the less you became a new creation creation, you no longer were walking in the sins that you were walking in right.

But as far as like we all do fall short of the glory of God.

We all fall short and God closed the gap so we can be right with Jesus closes the gaps. We write with God and we all know this stuff. And I just, you know, is there maybe a plank happening in some Christians minds in their own?

I well, I think that really what it comes down to is people having a standard of not being willing to overlook certain things for. For making an actual decision now, I’m not saying that we overlook.

Yeah, like especially when we’re talking about teaching our kids, we actually it’s important that we would talk about the things that we do see. Right. He’s a public figure. I’m talking about the president here. He’s a public figure making sure that our kids know it’s not OK to be prideful. It’s not OK to treat people the way that he treats people sometimes. Right. It’s just talking about the vulgarity, for example, certain situations saying, OK, how could he have said this differently in a tweet that wouldn’t have been so attacking? Right. And having those conversations is important with your kids because you don’t want them to look up to him and want to mimic him. So it is important that we draw attention to this moral character is a really, really important issue. But at the end of the day, is there is there any man who can have both moral character and have the ability to fight? I’m going to say fight for the policies that are actually going to impact and and protect, not just freedoms. I’m not talking about freedoms here. I think that sometimes Christians have made an idol out of liberty and out of freedom because there are a lot that we don’t actually have that people think that we have. And I’ve talked about this before in previous podcast. But the reality is, is what what are we doing today to do our best not to insure, but to do our best to have a future for our kids, for our grandkids, even for ourselves when we’re in our 80s and 90s where we have the ability to go and worship together in a church building? Yeah, yes. I get that that is actually a privilege and that other people can’t do that in other countries. But how we vote today actually impacts that one thing.

Amen, I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. It is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. 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 CourageousParenting.com And subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.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 for 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 CourageousParenting.com.

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And so here’s the thing. A lot of times he’s brash. He comes from the business world on a big level. Not saying that everybody in the business is like that, but he a lot of times when I what sometimes I’m like, oh, that could have been said better. I could have been done better. I definitely have those feelings. But you know what? I think people feel that about me, especially when I was in the business world, too, and these kinds of things. And nobody’s perfect. But here’s a guy that from the beginning, the other side was spying on him in his personal life. Who knows? Maybe in his personal home in Trump Tower, he was spied on? I think so. The FBI and the Justice Department was completely corrupt. Not everybody. There’s great people working at those places. So if you’re listening and work there, I’m not talking about you. But overall, there was corruption happening at the highest levels and spying in all these things. And there was this principle that happens. Disillusionment happens in these uncertain times, which is reality distortion by the by the left and the other side. Not all of them, but some of them. Right. Which is the reality of their own evildoing or wrongdoing. They blame the other side for it. And then they hide it.

Right. Like right now. Just even the blame game that was happening in the last debate, right, about where are you getting your money from China.

And it literally was coming from both sides to where as a spectator watching it, if you haven’t dug a little bit and understood, you could easily become deceived by by either. Right.

So it is a fact that he was spied on. You can’t argue that. You just can’t, OK, that there was FISA abuse and that this was directed from Hillary and even Biden was part of it. Right. You can’t deny that there’s problems with Hunter Biden in the relationships of foreign affairs. We can’t deny that right now. There’s there’s too much evidence. The Russian hoax, which actually the other side was more having an issue being influenced by Russia in Trump was not. It appears that was proven. OK, so in a court of law. So it is the delusion. So part of me sees the Trump could be better sometimes with part of me in like a way to defend yourself. You don’t know. We don’t know what he’s dealing with off the camera. And then he gets on the camera. And we do know some of the things he’s dealing with in the media hates him. They hate what he’s doing. They hate what he stands for. They hate all these things. And there’s 20 reasons I think we should not hate we should embrace that we’re going to talk about. So there’s a big delusion. There’s a big divide. And I really think they’re looking at this. There’s a principle that if you create enough division, if you create enough hatred, then fear, enough fear, people lose common sense and they just want to attack. When hatred comes in. We are we are not rational anymore. And I think a lot of that’s happening throughout our country. You can just see it. And, you know, I part of the reason we moved listen to the relocation program, I guess part of the reason we moved away from Oregon is because property rights weren’t being upheld anymore. Downtown Portland, these poor business owners, they’re allowing people to destroy their businesses and livelihoods is lawlessness lawlessness? I’m like biblical. Why would I want to buy a house in Oregon if they’re not upholding property rights? Property is a big deal. That is the beginning of the end for a civilization. If people aren’t allowed to own a home and have it be protected.

The reality is, is that I’m going to go a little off topic for a sec. The thing that has been so alarming to me is that there’s an entire I mean, obviously group, not just generation, but it seems like there’s a specific generation that has specifically been deceived into believing that socialism is actually the way that we should go. Right. As a country. And I literally go, do you not see every other country that has been socialistic and communist like look at them or any of them thriving? Would you ever want to live full time in any of those countries? Is there prosperity there? Is there freedom there? No, it’s oppression. It’s the deception is so incredibly thick, you can cut it with a knife. And it makes me sick to my stomach because the reality is that a lot of that was actually in Portland.

Yeah. And since you’re on this, one of the things I’ve noticed is that the more the more government when society breaks down, there’s this there’s this feeling of we need more government. OK, but the reality is, if you look throughout history in other countries is when there’s problems in society, more government isn’t the solution. In fact, it furthers the problems in society. Take personal responsibility. I really look at President Trump as the president of encouraging personal responsibility and smaller government government where needed, but only where needed. And that’s super important. Now, another thing that’s interesting to think about is when people don’t believe in God. They we all were made by God, and so we all in us have a desire for a supreme good authority in our lives. I think about that for a second. A lot of people are putting that pressure on the presidential election and they’re putting the presidential election and they’re putting that on government. So if I don’t believe in God, then I want government to help me, OK? And that’s an overreliance, maybe even subconsciously. Wow, that’s really powerful. And so but if we believe in God, then we know what is in power and we tend to less want government to rely on government. It’s just interesting thing I’ve noticed you may disagree with me. That’s totally fine, but it’s something to think about. OK, so no for the reality on Trump. So here we go.

Ok, so we’re going to Rapid Fire through some of these and then we’ll go back and maybe talk about a few of them more in depth. Does that sound good or how do you go about this?

I think we just rapid fire and talked briefly about some of them.

So here are the 20 issues, right. Policies and issues that Isaac and I have talked about. A lot of Christians kind of get hung up on one issue, that issue. Yeah. And Christians always like they’ll say, I’m voting on this one issue, which is the pro-life issue.

So we have 19 before we get to pro-life.

That’s right. So there are 20 issues that we have been really focusing on with our kids. There are actually others that we’ve been focusing on as well. But we’re going to just share 20 of them with you.

And real quick, we don’t just we didn’t bombard our kids with all of these at once. We’ve been talking about these things for years. Why one at a time as issues come up in the world, we’re talking about immigration and the war and things like that. As the issues come up, we’re talking about the economy and what works and, you know, these kinds of things. So I just don’t want you to bombard your family all at once with, you know, that’s really wise.

The other thing I just want to I want to make really clear let’s talk for a second about moral character does actually impact policy. This is something we do agree with Piper on. And the fact that if someone is standing for policy, are they going to be true to their word and actually do what they say they’re going to do? Because that’s a character thing. Right. But that’s not something that you can judge. You can’t judge a man’s heart. Only God can judge man’s heart. What can man do? Man can look at outward appearance, what his outward appearance in regards to actually following through with policy. It’s what their track record is. And what have we seen from Trump? What have we seen from Biden? What what is the fruit of them being in ruling right. In authority? And we are going to be talking some of that stuff is in our 20 reasons. Right.

Because the reality is, is yes, Trump is an unrepentant sin and a few really big issues like being vulgar in his talk or being prideful like those are big issues. But then there’s this element where when it comes to policy, which is what we vote on. Right. We vote on policy.

He actually does what he says he’s going to do.

Yeah, but the media doesn’t actually bring attention to the lot of the things that he has done and done. Well, and we’re going to talk about those two.

Yeah. So let’s just talk about education first. There is there’s things he’s done that supports a parent’s right to where their kids are educated, for example, letting them shift money to charter schools and things like that. And so that gives freedom of choice to parents. Parents should have rights on how their kids are educated. Now, is any policy perfect? No, there’s some ripple effects that less funding to public schools and so forth. Well, hey, let’s let supply and demand work. And if public schools want to be in demand, let’s make them better. There you go. So I know it’s not as simple as that. I get it. But overall, he’s given more choice to parents, which we think is super important. Right. Standing for justice versus lawlessness.

This one is very personal in my mind, just because I. I think well, I know that God wired me to be a high justice person. Right. So when I see injustice happening, I do I the mama bear kind of comes out me. And I think that’s just kind of how God has wired me. But when I see stereotyping happening, for example, to police officers now, are some police officers wicked and working in the wrong. Yes, but are all? No.

Most are not.

And the reality is, is there is a stereotyping that’s happening. We talked about this the other night where literally that badge of honor is being ripped off of police officers and what’s being put and replace disgrace.

And that’s a lot of why they serve and protect that is because they want to do good for society. It’s why they took the position and actually got low pay for it.

If you take that away from them, that’s horrible. And some of them get paid pretty well because overtime and things like that. But but but you take the honor away. That’s a. No big deal, so we really believe and we’ve mentioned property rights and we need to have justice, we need to have people that obey the law and politicians that back up the laws that are already in place. We’re seeing an erosion of that. We’re not seeing any erosion of that with Trump. He is absolutely backing up the law.

Well, even when in when Biden is asked in debates, are you for law or lawlessness? He doesn’t he doesn’t answer. He actually doesn’t respond. And so the reality is, is there is chaos. When there’s chaos, then government can come in control.

And the people within the the country look at that as they are thankful for the authority coming in because there’s so much creating fear. There is a need in the world.

There is a philosophy out there that if you create chaos, you can gain power. And so that could be part of why we’re not seeing that.

It is we’re saying it could be it could be the our point as far as lawlessness and justice goes, is justice is biblical, lawlessness is not biblical. And this is a big issue that frankly, I don’t remember this being an issue in any other presidential election until now. And so this is a pivotal time to be teaching your kids about this. Does that mean that we just brush the issues of wickedness in regards to justice under the carpet? No, justice is justice. Justice for all actually is what we stand for.

So amen. And the next one is fighting opioid opioid problem in America, which is huge. And by the way, we’ll put this in the resources, encourage parents to come under the podcast, which is Wayne Grudum, a great Christian author and theologian.

I believe he wrote systematic theology and so forth. We don’t side with him on everything, obviously, but he did write a really good article on 30 Reasons He’s for Trump. I’m going to put that in there and you’ll see that he has the same ones as us, but more and so. But you’ll see, this is where I got that fighting opium problem. Six billion going towards the allocated towards us.

That’s awesome. And you see that on the front lines of the news? Oh, probably not. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. Yeah. The next one is fighting sex trafficking, which can I just say with all of the allegations that, by the way, try to get censored because of the liberal media, they try to prevent this from becoming exposed. But the issues with Epstein, the Clintons, multiple people on the left side being very involved, I’m sure that there are people on the right also that are guilty of this horrendous act as sex trafficking.

But the reality is that we have some very unfortunate things happening. For example, the bill that was just passed in California. Right. There is a real need for us to have deep conversations with our kids, especially if they are older.

Right. If they’re ever going out. If your kid is old enough to ride their bike in their neighborhood alone, they need to be warned about sex trafficking.

Super important. And Trump has done an incredible job. They’re rounding up tons of people. There’s investigations happening. And it’s just you wont see that in the media much, but he’s very, very much doing a good job.

You know, on that note, I just saw this last week. I think it was Ali Stucky. She posted a press conference that was held because of some amazing grounds that Trump has made on the efforts of fighting sex trafficking. And they held a press conference about it. But what was so disturbing is that there were only a few press that actually went to that because they don’t want to give him credit. And then when they asked the press if they had any questions, no one had any questions.

And they went, oh, hey, there’s no questions. All right, then. OK, good.

And then they left. It was so ridiculous. Any other president would have been slapped on the front of newspapers there. It would have been all over Twitter, all social media, but they censored it.

Yeah. So the next one is the amount of judges he’s put in place. He took every opportunity to do what he’s supposed to do and putting judges in place when there’s vacancies, one of the acts of a president when they are in office. So over one hundred and fifty judges, two of which are Supreme Court justices, it’ll be three shortly if Amy Barrett when Amy Barrett is confirmed, which it looks like that’s going through. So and he’s very much looking for judges that are conservative and for the life of human beings.

Right. Which is interesting. So when you when it comes down to if you were to judge someone’s moral character based upon their actions so far, we have someone who is fighting drug addiction, someone who’s fighting sex trafficking, someone who’s trying to put in righteous judges that are going to be voting for life. Someone who’s standing for justice and not lawlessness and someone who is actually for parental rights regarding education. And so what’s interesting about this, if we as humans, it says that we can’t judge a man’s heart. Right. So we don’t know if he’s been repentant or not. Right. I mean, obviously, he still proactively struggling with some things. Right. But the reality is, is we can only judge what actions he has taken.

And here’s somebody that’s already taken massive action in a good way on all of these things. Right.

And a lot of it’s just not being publicized.

Right. So trade deals super important because there are some past trade deals that were bad with China. And the NAFTA thing with Canada and Mexico redid those things. And it took some serious strength that no other president has had in modern history.

I mean, I’ll just say the way that he confronts specific issues and is willing to not back down so that he can protect the American economy, not the job of the president.

Yeah, and businesses are what create jobs and jobs are what supply income for families. That’s right. So it is so important that we have fair trade deals and now we do protecting U.S. businesses. Intellectual property tariffs were put on China because of this. There’s a couple other things, but that was one of the reasons and it makes it fair if they’re going to steal, well, they’re going to pay a lot more when they try and import those products.

There you go. Which again, is just.

Yeah, right. I haven’t heard a lot about ISIS lately.

Interesting. So we don’t know if that’s because the government is or the media is potentially censoring good things that Trump has done or if he already has taken out a lot of them. Well, it’s not as big of an issue.

We do know that a lot of them have been taken out, that there was a very proactive effort to do it in a very efficient way.

But ISIS has been deeply minimized and as opposed to what was happening during the Obama and Biden administration. Right. And so we know that if Biden was to be put into election, we already know his stance on relationships with those groups.

And how about religious freedom?

There’s laws he’s passed that give businesses more freedom in choosing who they serve and so forth. And, you know, if there’s things they decide to do for religious reasons, they’re more protected. I think that’s super, super important.

So especially for generations down the road, I mean, when it comes to religious freedom, that then trickles into every other issue.

Yeah. Protecting boys and girls bathrooms. You might think that’s why are you talking about that? I go, well, there was a law by the Obama Biden administration that allowed a person to decide, no matter what gender they are, which bathroom they want to use, which could potentially be dangerous. It was dangerous. In fact, story after story were coming out once that was passed of danger and people being scared to go to the bathroom and so forth. And so now whatever you are born with, boy or girl, that’s the bathroom you are supposed to go in. I think that’s super important. Fighting media censorship.

It’s a big deal. I mean, the reality is, is there is media censorship. We’ve been talking about this for a long time. I’ve personally experienced it for many years. You’ve also experienced we together prime ministries experience that. We know many people who have also experienced this on a very large front, whether their YouTube channel is frozen or taken down temporarily or their Instagram handles, whatever. Right. Like it happens to people. And the reality is that Trump is fighting media censorship. One thing I love about this also in regards to constitutional and Bill of Rights type stuff is right now what you see is Trump’s own children, Ivanka and Jared.

Yeah, they’re in the news right now because I think it’s New York’s Times Square, New York City, Times Square.

There’s billboards up or digital billboards and they’re taking quotes from them and changing them and misusing it and changing what their meaning is with their image, which is defamation.

And, yeah, you can’t take someone’s content and then put it in a different context. That’s called lying and false light. And so now they are potentially going to court for defamation to defend themselves, which I absolutely stand behind, obviously. And so I think it’s great that they’re fighting.

If you don’t stand up for the Bill of Rights, the Bill of Rights don’t exist in actuality. And so great thing country. We have freedom of speech, but we don’t have freedom to slander. OK, so there’s a big difference. And I love that the administration fights for that.

And this campaign for truth actually is what that is. They’re standing for truth. So Israel’s the next one. OK, this is a really big deal. Yeah. God’s word actually has something to say about this, so I’m going to share just briefly, if you wanted to go to numbers, chapter 24, verse nine, this is what God says about those who bless Israel, says, blessed is he who blesses you, talking about Israel, blesses Israel and curses he who curses you.

And Trump has been a friend of Israel the more so than.

Well, the previous administration was not a friend, actually. They were the most unfriendly. The Obama Biden administration was the most unfriendly to Israel. You look back and see why. And now they moved the embassy, which was bold moves all them all other Republican presidents promise that or a lot of them and never did. He actually follows through on what he says he’s going to do. And the the United Arab Emirates now has direct flights into Israel and vice versa. And our friends and a couple other Arab nations came in in the fold that was negotiated by Trump.

Just unbelievable things that move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel. And so there have been many big things that Trump has actually done action wise to show loyalty and a help to Israel. If you want more verses on that, you can go to Genesis Chapter 12, verse three, where God is also talking about blessing those who bless Israel.

So tax cuts shifting gears here that I just put a note. That’s a belief in people. And some people are like wait the rich are going to get richer and it benefits the rich. Well, wait a second. Yeah, nothing’s perfect. You have to make things, decisions that create the most overall good. Some people are going to abuse it. But you know what? If people who have money pay less taxes, that’s usually a good thing because they’ll hire more people. And that’s exactly what happened in our economy during Trump for many other reasons to deregulation in some ways and so forth. But that’s a belief in the personal responsibility people that when they get more money, they’re going to use it well and they’re going to purchase things in economy, which helps the whole system. It’s super, super important, whereas the more government philosophy believes that you can’t trust people. So we just need to take their money and more of it because we are the trustworthy ones.

All right. The next one on our list is prescription drugs. Isaac.

Oh, yeah. So he’s just dramatically brought down the price of prescription drugs where you used to have to, like, go to Canada and get your prescription drugs and then come back over there cheaper. Now, in the United States, that is increasingly happening where they’re much cheaper, which is important. And also the economy. Right. Unemployment’s way down, which is different than tax cuts for the economy prior to covid was doing extraordinarily well, unheard of. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. And then covid hit it and then but it’s still bouncing back. I can’t believe how resilient our economy is with covid and everything is of our.

That’s incredible, too. Yeah, it could be really bad right now if the Biden administration was in office right now.

Oh, as soon as we would be doing if if Biden wins, the stock market’s going to tank. Everything changes, like everything regarding the economy changes the policies of the other side just do not work for a thriving economy. OK, that’s that’s my opinion.

Yep. That one’s your opinion. Obama mandate.

That’s to do with the health care.

And Trump got rid of the Obama mandate, which it required people to pay massive fines if they weren’t on Obamacare or weren’t on that specific type of insurance. You no longer have a choice. You have to so fine if you don’t have it.

So, again, the president of personal responsibility in letting people have choices, which is important, not forcing fines on people for not doing something that’s maybe not a strong military where we don’t believe like we should just go to war and things like that at all. No, but we do believe in protecting ourselves. Strong military. It was super depleted before. So building that up is really important. And guess what? You know, Trump hasn’t declared any wars in his first four years, which I think is a first in a long time. So. Wow. So anyway, so that’s interesting. It doesn’t mean that that may not happen, may happen in the next four years, I don’t know. But we need to protect our country. Immigration is another one. The wall and all this that I think is so important. You have to know who’s coming your country. And we should bring people in through a process that brings the best people into our country. That is always the best. I know there I think of the story of my grandma on my dad’s side and she came into the country with her four kids when they were young by herself and did a proper immigration process. And her whole family has been a great contribution to the United States and thankful for that process. There’s a process in place we should use it, and the wall keeps things safe, covid response that’s being attacked big time right now because, you know, that’s what they need to attack and there’s not a lot else to do.

Ok, well, what’s interesting, too, is that they’re attacking it. But yet here am from my perspective, I don’t think he could have done anything better. I mean, he would have been blamed if he didn’t shut down the economy for a while. He would have been blamed. If he did, they keep going back and forth on what they condemn. So whatever he does, they condemn. That’s actually the game that we’re in right now.

And the reality is, is he did care and he did shut down the economy and he was trying to help the economy by sending out stimulus checks. Right.

Let’s have a good memory, too. When he decided to close down flights from China, the left, Biden, Nancy Pelosi, were freaking out on him, all these things. And then when he started closing down the economy, Nancy Pelosi is I remember seeing this in on my Twitter feed. She is like in Chinatown in San Francisco, saying everything’s fine, everything’s fine, no problems. You can be out and about. And then the story switches later. So no matter what he’s doing, well, they just switch and say he’s doing it wrong right now. If they said it was right before, which is what you just said. So he actually had an early response that wasn’t popular and then he is done. Not perfect, but I think he’s done the best he can on a very complex and weird situation with, frankly, a lot of bad information, including coming from the scientific community, some good information, some bad information, really hard.

I mean, this is one of those situations where you’re responsible for an entire nation. Huge, huge nation. Biggest nation. Right. And something happens that has never happened here before. And you are getting information from all different places and you’re trying to discern what is true and what is not true. Such a tough job. Yeah. And I do believe that reopening the economy and believing the best and trying to do these things and then and then flipping it and putting the power into the governor’s hands.

Right. So that because they know they’re they’re supposed to know their communities better and what’s going on. Right.

But the reality is he he has been doing what he what I think is the best that he could do right now. He got covid right. He survived.

And so for people to be condemning him, the biggest thing is you can’t make a worse problem because you have a problem. So by shutting things down and being too controlling about covid depression, drug use, businesses feeling suicidal, financial debt, devastation, suicides, all of these things are real and happening. And if you if you hurt, if you control things too much, it causes problems, make good recommendations, personal responsibility. One of the reasons we love Idaho, they believe in personal responsibility and people and making recommendations, but not overly controlling people unless you’re it’s a franchise in Idaho, like Ashley Furniture, which was kicked out of and some others here. But there you go. So finally, if you are a one issue voter and you’re voting for Trump on pro-life, well, here’s number 20 pro like you would have to dismiss the other 19 reasons. No, if that was the only case. But if you disagree with us on all the other 19, then a pro-life is a pretty big deal. And he’s put all those judges in, most of which are more conservative and would lean towards pro-life, which is a big effort.

He has restricted government funding towards abortion. He has been vocal. He’s the first president in the State of the Union to talk deeply about these issues, which is big. And I think you have a scripture for us. Right, to do.

It’s the the very obvious. Some one thirty nine, 13 through 16, which says four. You formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you for I’m fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works and that that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written the days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them.

Amen. And in Trump’s State of the Union address, where he was consistently mocked by the left acting childish, in my opinion, when he gave a great speech. Actually, regardless of which side you’re on, he gave a great speech. In fact, here some of his words, “to defend the dignity of every person. I’m asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late term abortion of children who can feel pain in a mother’s womb. He said, let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life, he added, and let us reaffirm a fundamental truth. All children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image of God.”

So not only does he say it in an unprecedented way, but he’s backing it with the things he is doing right. It’s a really big deal.

So you guys, you know, as we are getting towards the close of this podcast, there is a scripture that we just wanted to encourage you with. That’s in First Timothy chapter two verses one through two that says, therefore, I exhort.

I exhort, first of all, that supplications prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all goodness and reverence for this is good and acceptable in the sight of our God and savior who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Listen, when I think about even having the ability.

The ability, the freedom to live a godly, peaceable, quiet, reverent life. The reality is that everything that Biden and his that left side stands for is the in opposition to living a peaceable, quiet, gentle, reverent and even righteous life.

Yeah, and the thing that’s so hard about this is that you literally, if you are choosing to I’m going to say something very bold. This is my opinion. But Biblically, I cannot believe that any Christian would vote for Biden or the left side. For for many reasons, yeah, all of the reasons that we just listed, but the fact that there is also this element that our leaders who are put in position. Should be wanting to create an environment for us to be able to lead a quiet, peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

Now, you might find that hard if you’re if you’re questioning Trump and you have a hard time with how he communicates and all these things seeing that, he creates that. But if you look at all the policies, actually what he does actually does create this.

It protects us from being imposed upon or oppressed. Yeah, because the other laws are oppressive. It’s about freedom. So thanks for joining us. See you next time.

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