Most people live in a reality of having more to do than seems possible to get done. It can create a defeating feeling of just being in survival mode. The Tolpins continually have to manage themselves well to prevent getting into this defeated mindset with 9 kids in every season simultaneously, projects, ministry, relationships, church, and more. They share tips on having a thriving attitude even when it feels like you’re just surviving. Tune in to be encouraged.

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Scripture in This Episode:

1 Peter 1:6-7 – “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”

Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Psalm 16:11 – “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Romans 15:4-5 – “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:”

Full Transcript:

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

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 Ma’am.

We’ve been married for twenty one 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 and the following. Everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, we thought we’d offer a little more encouragement in a little different way. Thriving while you feel like you’re just surviving. And no matter our circumstance, we can all feel like we’re just surviving sometimes, can we?

That’s right. I mean, as Isaac and I were preparing for today’s podcast, one of the things that really occurred to me is that a lot of times we can attribute definitions to certain things such as thriving that aren’t necessarily biblical or just even the true definition of what they are. And so we hope that today is going to be a huge encouragement to you guys. I know that it’s already been an encouragement to me as we’ve just been talking about things. And so I’m glad that you’re here with us today. But before we dive in, we just wanted to thank you guys for joining us on this journey to impact legacies. We would hope that as you’re listening as a parent, that, yes, of course you’re taking things in. You’re being introspective, you’re walking away, exhorted, encouraged and stirred up to do more good works right, especially in regards to your marriage and your family. But we really want to just encourage you guys that what we’ve been doing here, really, when we set it out to do this, it seemed like an impossible feat. Yeah, I mean, we were just following God and not really sure how many people would be listening, and you’ve been a huge encouragement to us to keep on keeping on. And so when you leave those reviews, when you sign up for the app and you’re just engaging with people in there, when you send us an email, all the different ways we’ve been encouraged by you guys. And so we it’s a joy for us to be able to do these podcasts. We just want to say thank you.

It really is. I mean, just taking back, it’s like we had a moment of decision. Friend offered me a really lucrative job. We can move our family away from fellowship and so forth, or we could do what we feel God is prompting us to do with zero income coming in because of what happens. So that’s a whole nother story. But the short of it is we took action and followed God in doing this. And it’s amazing. And just looking at the numbers, the financial numbers from last year was so encouraging. We literally couldn’t have done this in the same way without people that donated and gave. We couldn’t have done this without people buying the all the courses in the redeeming childbirth book and all the things. Literally, this would not happen without your purchases and it would not have happened without you guys sharing on social media as we did zero advertising this last year, and it was super encouraging to look at that. And so as we look at this year, it’s going to be important. A little quick update on the app. You’ve probably heard of the be courageous app. And you know, there’s about five hundred and thirty six subscribers in there right now. And that is we’re just a right about to break, even from a financial perspective on it, which is really cool. It’s only been a couple months. It’s a it’s a quite an investment to do all this of time and effort. That’s not that’s not counting our time. That’s just the hard cost, right?

And when you say break, even you mean on a monthly basis because there’s like ongoing monthly costs that we have absolute month regarding just the upkeep of it. And so with that amount of people in there, it the cost monthly is

Pretty much breaking even. Yeah, we’re about breaking even. And I think that’s probably good. I mean, at least it’s not costing us money at this point. We’re putting a lot of effort into it, though, and that doesn’t obviously cover the effort. But we love doing it and it’s great. And so we encourage you to check it out if it’s something. If you want biblical community, be courageous in your app store and it’s eight point ninety nine a month. But just know that helps the ministry get profitable on that and make it something that can continue thriving long term, which is important.

And that really has enabled us to be able to step away from being dependent upon other social media engines for things like the private Facebook Group for the Parenting Mentor program. Yeah, a lot of people had reached out to us and said that they really didn’t want to be on Facebook or Metta anymore, and that they were only there for that group. And so Isaac did due diligence. We did research for a long time and creating an app has really been the best solution

And it’s a different if you want really sound. If you want to protect an environment where you’re not the product, like on Facebook, then you have to invest it because somehow it’s got to make sense for the finances to work. And so the reason we charge is because there’s real costs and quite a bit so anyway,

Super super or anything

Super important. So anyways, we appreciate it. You all. Let’s dive into this so thriving while you feel like you’re just surviving. And let’s just ask you, how are you doing? Yeah, how is your family? How is your kids? How’s your marriage? How’s your finances house? You know, the year going so far? We have, you know, we just got the first month knocked out here of 2020, too.

I can’t believe that it’s already February. You know, it’s interesting as Isaac. And I were talking there are definitely aspects of our life, even where we feel like we’re surviving and using that word can sometimes get people going, Oh no, what’s wrong? How can I help? Right? And it’s it’s not that there’s anything wrong. It’s that like when you have a lot of sometimes it’s when you have a lot of plates that you’re spinning. You’re literally like in maintenance mode, surviving, trying to keep those things going. Whereas maybe, maybe cutting back on some things and pruning some things would help you to free up more time to allow things to thrive. But as we were talking about this concept to what really hit me hard, what I was can just not convicted on, but reminded of and encouraged by, is that a lot of times when we think of thriving, we think that we have to be like more profitable than we have ever been and attaining a new success. And that means thriving.

Or I hit a certain number on a platform

Or I a certain amount on sales or there’s nobody is sick at all. And we’ve just been our immune systems are going great in our family for a long period of time. I’ve got

Everything dialed for the year exactly what my kids are going to do for school,

Right? Like there’s and there’s an excitement about that, right? Like, but I think that one of the things that was an encouragement to me was when I I really started thinking about it and I went, Oh. Well, actually thriving has less to do with all of those situations, yeah, and those circumstances and more about my attitude and my perspective thriving is really like if we have joy, even in the midst of trials, we can be thriving. And I know that you’re probably listening to this and going, well, Angie, I just I lost a baby or my husband lost his job, or we’re having to move away from family because we can’t afford to live here or

We’re locked down in some country

And we can’t even go grocery shopping like these are massive trials. How can you have joy in the midst of those things? And we have some scripture that we want to encourage you guys with from first Peter.

You just made me realize, you know, we I was looking at the map the other day for the podcast, just reflecting on last year and Latvia. We have tons of downloads in Latvia.

Hey, guys.

So I just love you guys. That’s cool. And China, we have a good number of podcast downloads in China and just all over the world, obviously Australia. Australia is the third highest place country that list Canada’s number two and U.S. is number one. But there’s so many Cape Town, South Africa, lots of listeners. And so I just, you know, I just know that there’s things aren’t just like they are for us, and we understand that there’s all kinds of challenges in unique situations that

Are really serious.

That’s all over the place and based on what country you’re in and what’s going on. But the. But you know what and when, Paul? It was alive and he was sharing the gospel, things were as bad as it is anywhere in the world, and we’re going to listen to Peter here, actually. But that’s true about Paul. But actually, I’m going to read from Peter. Same for Peter in his time in this. You rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes. Throat is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him. You believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So how we handle those times, we can feel like we’re just surviving. Either shares the gospel in the light of Christ with others or doesn’t. And that’s more important than our circumstances.

That’s really where our definition of if we’re thriving or we’re surviving should come from, too. And that’s one of the things that I just even think about. Like a lot of moms, I’m just going to speak to the majority of moms today who potentially the stay at home moms who they are doing the same mundane tasks every single day. Potentially, maybe there’s one or two new things that you get to do in your day, but generally speaking, you’re taking care of little kids. You’re changing diapers, your nurse and babies, you’re making lunch, you’re cleaning up lunch, you’re doing laundry, you’re sweeping, you’re cleaning toilets, you’re la la la la la la la. I could go on and on and on. Ok. And then you add in like some older kids and like, think about families who maybe they had their kids in school and because of the awareness that they now have, they’ve chosen to bring their kids home and their home schooling, maybe for the first time. And so they’ve had to say goodbye to some of the luxuries and leisure time that maybe they had before that they really enjoyed. And they’ve made some sacrifices to be able to have their kids at home. And there they just feel like they’re surviving because that transition time is just bogging them down.

It’s heavy, it’s not easy, it’s harder. And that is a real emotion. That is a real feeling. That is a real thing. But do not be too hard on yourself and believe the lie from the devil that you’re just surviving. When really you have a choice and it’s in your mind based upon what you’re focused on, if you’re focused on the word of God, the Holy Spirit can help you to keep your eyes on what is eternal on what is most important, what Isaac just read. And first Peter, which is having joy inexpressible through hard things, even through hard trials, right? So how much more like in our daily tasks and our daily things that we’re doing, we have an opportunity to have joy, to choose to have a good attitude while we’re doing those things. And there are so many like scenes out there that I’ve heard over the years to try to get myself to have the right mindset. Like, for example, with dishes. Dishes was one of those chores that I just absolutely could not stand doing for a long time. And I heard an older mom once encourage a bunch of us moms by saying, Hey, but those dishes, those many dishes that you’re cleaning represent all of the people that are blessings in your life that God gave you.

And so maybe you need to have some kind of some kind of saying like that to help remind yourself when you’re in the midst of doing dishes and maybe you start to grumble and complain, which is sinful of us actually to go, Hey, I should be thankful that I have all these dishes that we were able to even cook this food that God provided the food that was cooked in this baked pan that I have this many plates and this many forks that I’m cleaning because I have that many children, that many blessings in my life. And yes, that can help us to change our attitude. But I will say those little stains are momentary changes in your attitude. The thing that is long term that will change your attitude is when you soak yourself in the bread of life. When you read passages like First Peter Chapter one that tells us that we need to have joy in those trials and that those trials are actually for the testing of our faith by the fire so that we can bring glory to God, which is actually the ultimate purpose of life anyway.

You remember Paul when he was sent to prison? He had this amazing fellowship of believers. He was a part of and leading, and he got arrested and he was sent to prison. And the fellowship didn’t know where he was for a time and. But do you know everybody in the guard knew about what Jesus, what Paul was talking about, why he’s in prison? Do you know those under Nero? There’s over ten thousand people in the imperial guard. And so over 10000 people got some part of the message of the good news doesn’t mean they all accepted the Lord, but many, many did. And because he had joy in all circumstances. And so we have to think about that. He was one of the people that had it worst. And so we have to remember that. So it’s good to audit, you know, how we’re doing because feelings aren’t always reality. Feelings are important. They’re real. God gave them to us. But we need to, as Angie often says, hold our thoughts captive as it says in the scriptures. And so we have to in the moment when we have feelings that are starting to go awry, you start connecting dots that shouldn’t be connected. You start thinking one negative thing, and it’s a spiral to many negative things that may not be real.

Maybe about a relationship, maybe about your kids, maybe about your marriage, whatever it is. But what we have to do is hold our thoughts captive and go, OK. These are feelings. But is it reality? And sometimes when you pull yourself back, maybe need to go get some coffee. Maybe you need to have some, you know, at night, you need to pull aside and not get on technology and just get your journal out and think about what is real because we need to deal in reality and a lot of times we don’t. And when we deal in reality, what we’ll discover is so many rich blessings. There are good things that God is doing, but we have to be seekers of the blessings and not just automatic default toward the challenges because that alters our feelings in a negative way. And so there’s probably a lot of really solid things and things that we can anchor on, and we’re training our kids to do this. So we need to exemplify that because potentially we hope not. But potentially their reality in their future might be even more difficult. And some and some times in

Situations, you know, when I think about feelings too, I can’t help but think of the physical side and how God designed us. We are human. We just are. We are human. We experience getting hungry. And if that goes on too long, some people experience getting hangry, OK? That also affects people’s feelings. I think about hormones and how God designed a hormone or hormones. But when those get out of whack or when we’re in a life transition such as postpartum or having just had a baby or weaning a baby, those are just. Some examples there’s also pre-menopausal, there’s menopause. Guys go through hormonal changes as well when we’re not taking care of our health as far as nutrition and and our hormones are out of whack. They can actually affect our feelings to to help us, not help us. They actually hurt us in our perspective, and we need to be careful to go, Wow, OK, why am I crying? Have I got really hurt feelings here and dwelling on those things when in the moment it might be that our hormones are out of whack? And so we need to not create this illusion that truth is based upon how we’re feeling, because that’s not true. Truth is what is real like Isaac was saying in reality. And so when we do these audits, we talk about doing audits all the time.

But when we’re asking you, how are you doing and doing an audit of are you surviving or are you thriving because there’s really no in-between? I want to just share with you guys, first of all, Psalm 16 11, which says, you make known to me the path of life. Ok. So on this path of life, there’s surviving and there’s thriving. You make known to me the path of life in your presence. There is fullness of joy at your right hand. Are pleasures forevermore. So in your presence, there is fullness of joy. If we are struggling with having joy. We are not spending enough time in his presence, period. That right there is. If there was a solution to thriving, that would be it in your presence of God. There is fullness of joy and thriving really has less to do with your circumstances and your situations, and more to do with having joy in the midst of whatever you’re walking through. And so let’s talk about that for a second, because when we were talking about what thrive is, I just got the Merriam-Webster dictionary out and this was one of the definitions of thrive, it says, to grow or develop successfully. Now, people’s idea of success is all over the map. There’s a world view of success that is unbiblical and there’s a worldview that is biblical. But we’re talking about the definition of thrive here, it says to flourish or to succeed, to grow vigorously, to gain in wealth or possessions prosper.

Or here’s the third one to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances. Ok, so this is really important because one of the things that Isaac and I have experienced in our life as we walk through trials is that growth happens in the valley. Mm hmm. It doesn’t. I mean, yes, you can grow on the mountaintop experience with God. Like, you can have an awesome prayer time with him and work, but you have to purpose to not become just lazy in your spiritual growth. When you’re in the mountaintop and when things are going really well, you have to purpose to keep growing. That is something you have to own. You have to do and the and you have to really guard your heart against what you call the taking ownership over how you got there. The truth is that sometimes people can become complacent when they’re on the mountaintop. But when you’re in the valley, aren’t you usually like in these moments where you’re just like crying out to God? You’re craving him, you’re desperate for his help and for him to walk in and be the rescuer of your situation, of your circumstances, of even where your mind is at.

Maybe God’s growing your capacity for bigger purposes and bigger things you want to do through your family way down the road, way down the road. Or maybe it’s near future. We don’t know, but we want to respond well. And if you’re thriving right now, how old are you? Praise God. Maybe lots of things are going well. There are lots of people where things are going really well, and we praise God for that. If you’re if you have friends and things are going really well for them, we should praise the Lord. We should fan their flames. There’s nothing worse than when a friend discourages somebody or gets competitive with somebody because things are going well for them, right? We don’t want to do that. It’s not a comparison game. It’s praise God. If things are going well. Everybody has different timing when they’re in their valleys and when they’re in their seasons of abundance. And so if somebody else is doing real, hey, that’s that’s fantastic. But you know what? If you’re the person that’s thriving, make sure you don’t have to have a value to keep growing. You know what I mean? That’s where fear and God is equally important, reverent for his authority over your life. Because if he starts to sense that you’re you’re straying, you start taking control and you start to take ownership and not give God credit for things. Whoa. Be careful. I’m not God. I don’t know what’s in his mind, all other than what he writes in the word. But what he writes in the word makes me feel like we’re to fear him. And, you know, he tests us and prunes us because he loves us. I. Don’t want to be tested and pruned. I like the fruit that comes later from it, but it would be wonderful, I didn’t fit, didn’t have to happen if I could just be obedient the whole time. Hmm. You know what I mean? And so we need to be obedient and reverent for who God is when we’re thriving, because sometimes people forget a little bit.

You know, in life just happens to I mean, it’s not always that we need to be tested. There’s also this aspect of we talked about this in the last podcast How We Live in a Fallen World and life just happens. And sometimes bad things happen to good people. And and the reality is that we still have an opportunity to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. And when you’re a believer, that is to bring glory to God. So even in those toughest times, like to stand for truth, to stand on the side of of of truth, to wave that flag of follow Jesus and to to do it unapologetically. But in a way that also like brings life to people because the reality is as people oftentimes can be walking and living in lies. And that is not life. When they are walking and living in lies and there they find sin that justifies the way that they act and they they blame shift things. And we talked about this a little bit in the previous podcast. Also, those people are in a bondage and sometimes you having joy and choosing to delight in the things that they themselves scorn or despise or don’t want to be a part of. I just think of even the extreme feminist, the extreme woke agenda, the extreme views that are out there, that are super nagin and supportive of stay at home moms of biblical gender roles. Of all the things that as Krish, it’s literally an attack on scripture.

It’s an attack on people who are following and trying to live out what God has laid as the path. We just read about this in some 16 that he is the path of life in his presence. There is full joy. They are not experiencing full joy and they’re angry and they are attacking because they’re not in his presence and they’re not walking on his path. That is it. It’s that simple. And the reality is, though, is that sometimes we can get bogged down and in that attack, we can get tired. We can feel like not only do the attacks come at us, whether it’s seen what’s going on in social media and feeling like we’re a salmon swimming upstream, feeling like we’re isolated and alone, which the devil’s definitely tried to do that to Christians in the past two years. Isolate, isolate, isolate, closed churches. All the things. The reality that we need to realize is that the devil is coming for us. He in the sense that we have read targets on our back because we shine bright for Jesus when we are purposing to glorify him. Even in our mundane he the devil is working that through the attacks, and so we have to choose to take those thoughts captive and go, No, I’m not going to let those come in because those are actually what are making me feel like. I’m only surviving.

Let me ask you this Do you want your kids to have joy despite circumstances? Do you want your kids to be joyful even if they don’t get what they want? Well, we need to exemplify that attitude and that approach and that biblical truth that is spread out throughout the Bible. That God says despite circumstances were to be joyful. Because you know what? Earth is just one of our homes. Our real home is heaven. Yeah. And and we’re so learners were aliens. The Bible even says we’re aliens in this world, and so we have a home and God is going to create a new Earth, and he’s going to dwell with us and we get new bodies. How fantastic is this? This isn’t bumping into clouds and doing nothing. This is eternity. That’s a thousand times better than living on Earth. Do we actually live like that? Well, when we get discouraged, sometimes we are showing the people around us that we’re not living like that by how we respond, because if we know there’s going to be trials here, but we’re trying to obey God and be joyful because we know what the truth is and where eternity is. That’s what we want for our kids to and hope is vital. You know, you guys know we do Bible time in the morning. You can do it whenever. And I mix in some news and what’s going on in the world, and I say things in a way that the littles don’t get scared.

But you know, I was so encouraged today because there’s there’s bad news in the news today around the world. Mm hmm. I look all over the world, not just U.S. news and stuff. And but there was some really good news today. And so I just chose to only pick the good news today. I even put them on main stories this morning. The good news now. I think it’s good news. You know, that Meta went down $200 billion in value today. I think that I think that’s good news. I mean, I’m like, Well, that’s wonderful because the market responds to how companies behave and people are responding. People are standing strong for what they believe in and people love that. The truckers right now in Canada, and it’s spreading the Canada, the Canadian truckers are inspiring a global movement. Amen. They are doing something that is so powerful and it’s it reminds me of the Martin Luther King movement in this one aspect and that it’s peaceful, that it’s a peaceful effort and they are defying. And you know what? We need truckers. Everybody is going to start noticing real quick how much we need truckers because the shelves are going to go even more empty, right? Amen. I don’t mind going and killing an animal if that means we can have freedom instead of buying it in the store. You know what, that’s kind of an exaggeration probably won’t happen. But but the thing is, is that we’ll

Probably go fishing.

Amen. Amen. Truckers stay the course 10 million has been raised for them through Go Fund Me, and I hope it spreads throughout America. American truckers, I hope you follow suit. I think that’s really cool. So hope is vital, though we have to give our kids hope and the real hope is in Jesus and the hope we have in Christ and the hope we have of looking forward to heaven. Let’s live like that. We have a great verse here in Romans Romans 15 for four. Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the scriptures wow endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope this isn’t. This isn’t some obscure thing. It’s right here. Yeah, the sword of the spirit, the encouragement, the hope for the world. The answer to everything is right there. So let’s dive into the word. Let’s get alone some alone time and audit. Let’s get our journal out and write out the good things, not just the bad things. And let’s reflect and dwell upon the good things that says in Philippians four, go to Philippians four and look at that is to dwell on those good things.

And I also, I just want to end with encouraging you, moms on a practical note regarding just how you’re feeling on a day to day basis. Because we did talk about feelings for a moment, and I think that sometimes it’s easy for us to go, OK, well, if I could find alone time to actually be in the word by myself, a lot of moms might be thinking that right now, Isaac and going, Yeah, I would love to sit at a coffee shop with my Bible and a journal by myself. I have a four month old nursing baby. I can’t leave. And you know what, guys? I just have to say, like in the midst of mommy, you can still snack on the bread of life in the midst of all of the things that you do to serve your family. The thriving actually is dependent upon if you choose to believe that God is in the midst of it. If you invite his presence into what you’re doing, put on some worship music, be in God’s presence while you’re doing the dishes, while you’re scrubbing the floors while you’re burping the baby, half the worship, music playing while you’re rocking the baby, that’s fussing and teething. I get it like Zander’s teething right now. I’m in the midst of that myself, and it can be a lot sometimes when you have so many people that you’re trying to care for.

But keeping our eyes on the real perspective, you know, here’s an example I was when I was in the shower this morning in my alone time thinking time. That’s my only alone time, really. Just kidding. But as I was in there, I was really hit hard with this like motivation, just like welled up in my soul, deep in my belly where I was like, I want to have like a family meeting and just pull my kids together and go, You guys, I just want you to know that my heart intention is that I want to teach you everything. Like, I just want to sit and talk. I want to teach you things. I want to answer any questions you have. I want to read books with you. I want to learn things with you. Things that I don’t know how to do. I want to learn it with you. I want you to be as prepared as possible. And I want to have this kind of relationship where you come back and you want to ask questions. You want to keep learning things with me, like, I just like that was what was welling up within me. And then I thought to myself when we were out here creating this podcast, I was like, That is thriving as a mom. When you get that like intentional gut feeling that propels you to do the good that God has called you to do whatever that is for you, that’s thriving.

It’s not a matter of how big your house is. It’s not a matter of how many shoes you have, how nice your car is, or even how clean your house is. It’s actually in the midst of what is it that propels you to continue doing what God wants you to do that glorifies him? And are you doing it with joy and delight because you’ve been in his presence and in his presence, his fullness of joy? So as you’re going about your day to day, invite the Holy Spirit to be in your midst. I even think of that song Come Holy Spirit, come like we need. That should be our heart song. That we are calling out to God to be a part of our everyday, mundane everything. Mm hmm. And when you experience that you’ll no longer be like comparing and discontented when you’re in the midst of just living that. So we hope that you guys have been encouraged today. We hope that your hope is in the Lord and in his word, because that’s where full encouragement comes from being in the scriptures like Isaac. Read in Romans 15. You guys, I hope that this time that we have together, though it may be short, is like little snacks that get you excited to dive into God’s word because that’s really our heart desire.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts 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

If you are a parent, you feel overwhelmed sometimes. Tune in to get Biblical truth and practical insights in moving from being overwhelmed back to joyful parenting. It’s a transparent episode with personal stories and Biblical truth.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. There are no perfect parents, but we do need to be diligent.
2. Perspective is important, sometimes we over dwell on the problems overlooking the blessings.
3. The more we think about ourselves the more we are likely to doubt our capabilities. Instead, let’s dwell on God and what He can do through us.
4. Change is a process, not a quick destination. Patience and perseverance are required.

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Scripture in This Episode:

Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Colossians 3:15 – “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

Philippians 4:8-9 – “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Proverbs 3:6 – “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Romans 12:12 – “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer”

Full Transcript:

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

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 Ma’am.

We’ve been married for twenty one 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 and the following. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, guys. We’re talking about overcoming parenting overwhelm

If you have experienced being overwhelmed. You know why we’re covering this podcast. This I have a feeling this could potentially become one of our most tuned into podcasts. It’s every parent has experienced being overwhelmed at one point or another.

And there’s a lot of change happening. You know, we’re either trying to change things or we’re responding to circumstances that cause us to change or as the new year. And there’s just changes in our lives that seems to happen a lot. And or maybe we’re just desiring for things to be changed and it’s not happening or it’s not happening fast enough.

You know, I even think from my perspective, even twenty two years into parenting, there are still things that I am trying to implement for the first time as a mom, whether it’s a new curriculum that I’m trying or a new habit that I’m trying to get my family to instill or to be executing on a regular basis. And anything new can create overwhelm because you don’t know if it’s actually going to work right. And so there there is, I think, a lot of people out there, especially even right now, who most of them their lifestyle choices or the things that they’re implementing because they are encouraged by biblical parenting. A lot of those things can potentially become an overwhelming chore or task, especially if they didn’t see it growing up.

Yeah, absolutely. So, hey, thanks for being part of the one million legacies movement. We’ll get to the four points we have here with scriptures and everything in a second, but we just wanted to thank you because we 100 percent do this through the support of people purchasing products. Joining the app, which is subscription based eight ninety nine a month to the donations that come in 100 percent because we are full time in this effort to bring about the the podcasts, bring about all the content we’re putting out and a lot of

Them go to people like a lot of times, people. I get the comment a lot on Instagram, like when people messaged me privately, they’re like, Oh, whoa, thanks for getting back to me. Like, I’m surprised that you did. And I’ve always done that because to me, it’s that personal touch is so important. And it’s the same with like the text messaging that we have with the different groups that we have going, whether they’re in there because they’re in a course or whatnot. And that all takes time. So we appreciate you guys supporting us so that we can support you and so that we can support other parents who really need that one on one get backs.

Absolutely. So let’s stay connected. One way is to subscribe to our email, which you can do in our social handles. You can hit the link and there’s a way to do that. And Angie’s and Mine and courageous parenting also join the app. It’s a great way to be a deeper part of the inner circle and get really good, you know, encouragement, encouragement. I think the most powerful thing, the most useful thing today is strong community. Yeah. And while your primary strength of community should be at your church, the reality is around the world. Some places that’s difficult and you’re looking for that and we don’t want to replace that. But what people are finding is while they’re trying to find that, or even if they have that, they’re getting an expanded network of biblical believers that can connect with and be real with and get wisdom from.

Yeah, its community is one of those invaluable things today, for sure.

Anyway, there’s a lot we could say, but we appreciate all your help and sharing every time you share. I know you’re raising your hands saying I’m part of the one million legacies movement, so we’re going to dive in. The first point for you guys is when you’re feeling overwhelmed. I think it’s to realize that there are no perfect parents. There are no perfect people. That’s why there’s actually a need for Jesus to make us right with God. So just remember that that you’re in similar shoes is everybody else is that we’re imperfect people and we have imperfect kids and we’re trying to raise up God’s little humans to be responsible adults, but also to have a great commission mindset to share the gospel and whatever they do and to love God and follow after God. And that is hard in the moments of the mundane sometimes. And so the point is to don’t there is no perfect parents, but we do need to be diligent. Now I know we’re talking about not being overwhelmed, so I’m not trying to put something on your shoulders, but we’re not going to prevent the truth from coming out, either, which is we do need to be diligent.

Mm hmm. So what Isaac is saying is in the midst of being overwhelmed if you are an overwhelmed parent today, do not. Allow. Choose right now in the moment to not allow the overwhelm to paralyze you from doing good. From doing the good that God has called you to do as a parent, which is to be diligent, Deuteronomy six says, teach them diligently to love the Lord, your god. And so we need to remember that there is definitely jurisdiction’s responsibilities that God has given us. And sometimes all of those, when we look at all of them, could be potentially overwhelming. I’ll hey, I’ll just start this podcast out sharing and confessing to you guys. There have been many times in my life where I’ve been overwhelmed and I come to Isaac and he, if I haven’t gone to God first and he’ll go, Hey. Ok, let’s let’s talk this out, and he’s there for me as a listening ear, and he’ll help me to remember what’s most important and what’s most important. The end of the day is that your kids know that you love them and that you are pointing them to Jesus. And so I just want to remind you of that really important thing. If there’s one thing you take away from the podcast, it’s that you want your kids to know that they love that you love them and that they know that God loves them so that they love him and and that they know who he is, that they love him because of who he is, not because of what he’s done, or that he because he loves them. But.

And I just want to encourage you if you listen to our podcast every single week or you started over again, you’re going to have so much good wisdom, but there’s no way to implement everything immediately in every single episode. Now the good news is a lot of them are just encouraging. A lot of them are just awareness and in and I’m sure some of them, you’re going right on. I’m doing that. Oh, here’s something I could add to it. And that’s hopefully encouraging to you guys. But remember that every family is unique and on a journey. And as long as you’re diligent to do what Angie just talked about, that’s most important. There’s so many things we can focus on, and sometimes if there’s so many things we feel like we need to change, we get paralyzed, which is what you’re talking about, which is let’s make sure we start there. Let’s simplify to what’s most important, which is what Angie just did.

And I think that’s good. And I think that, you know, when it comes to that sort of thing and you really evaluate and you go, Do my kids know that I love them and you’re like, Well, I kiss them. I said, I love you. I, you know, I spent a long time with them. I read them a book. These different things like if you think about how your kids feel loved and what you did that day, I’m sure that your kids probably went to bed knowing that you love them. And that is a huge like. We don’t want to be the type of parents that need to check things off the box. But if you are that personality type, that should be on your list because if you have a list of things and and you’re not able to get to them because you are putting what’s most important first and then at the end of the day, you look at your list and you have nothing checked off your list that can be super overwhelming and discouraging. And so I just want to remind you that all of that could be erased. And you could say, Do my kids know I love them? And that would be enough. And so I I think that this is something that I have to remind myself of on a regular basis when I hit overwhelm because there are times where even in that overwhelm, I have to take a deep breath.

I have to like calm my breathing down. I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten to that place before. But when you are in the midst of that, you need to remember a few things. One of them is in Galatians Chapter six, verse nine, which says, And let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season. We will reap if we do not give up, if we do not get up, give up. Maybe you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while. If you have, we did an entire podcast on this specific verse and breaking it down. It’s called Don’t grow weary, doing good. You got to go and you’ve got to listen to that. That was a great podcast. But this specific verse is about sowing and reaping also, and there are times where overwhelm can equal weary. But there are also times where maybe you’re not weary, but you’re overwhelmed because you’re weary spiritually. Maybe you’re not. Hear me again. Maybe you’re not weary physically, but you are weary spiritually. And so that is what this is talking about. We need to not grow weary. Let us not grow weary. So what do you need to put into your life so that you do not grow weary spiritually?

And the Bible is so amazing. You know this. But if you’ve been spiritually dry for a while, if you get in a quiet place and you ask God to make his words make sense to you, and then you read his word with a sincere heart. You are going to be filled. That is a promise

He gives to us without partiality, is what James three says. So I. Or James one, when it’s talking about wisdom and I, you know, it’s interesting because as we’re talking about being weary and this concept of like weary physically versus weary spiritually because you can become overwhelmed if you’re feeling either of those things, sometimes parents need to just stop and ask, why? Why am I overwhelmed? I know that this is our second point, which is perspective. And that’s the why your perspective is why? Why are you? Why are you overwhelmed? Do you have too much on your plate? That’s a good question to ask. Another good question to ask is am I sowing what I or am I reaping what I’ve been sowing, which is what Galatians six nine was just talking about, right? If you will reap what you sow, if you go and look at Galatians six six, it talks even more in depth for the next three or four verses about sowing and reaping. It says Make no mistake that a man will reap what he sows. That’s both good and bad. And so if you are overwhelmed, you have to get perspective and guys, this could be convicting to you.

But I’m not going to hold back because I think this is a really important aspect of parenting. If you are physically weary from parenting, you need a sit back and say, Why am I weary? Is it something that needs to change regarding my sleep or my diet? Am I not eating enough, right? Physically wary? Or am I physically and spiritually and emotionally weary? Because it’s I’m like dealing with the same attitude issue with that little child over and over and over and over and over again. And I feel like I’m not making any progress and I’m getting discouraged spiritually. I’m doing good work, but I’m growing weary, doing good. The Bible says Let us not grow weary, doing good in the same verse, it talks about sowing and reaping. And so the next question is what is it that I have been sowing in my child over his lifetime or in the last month? That needs to change because what I’m reaping from what I’ve sown is making me weary.

So you could be doing something right to tend to your child in their bad behavior consistently even. But if there’s something over here that is off

By

Impacting that,

Like I even think about like what show or media has your kid? Potentially, this is just one example. You guys are so many examples we could give, but you may be doing everything right as a parent regarding your relationship and communication with your child. But if you’re sitting them down in front of a TV show that is encouraging disrespect of parents and disobedience and rebellious spirit, and they’re watching that show, you can expect that same fruit in your child

Or if or if they’re around other kids that do that. But this is about you not being overwhelmed. And so I also think that it’s important to have perspective in terms of what is going right. A lot of times people tend to navigate towards what’s going wrong when there’s probably five times more things going right and that you could be blessed and you could be appreciative of. And the more you list those out and you think about those things the Bible talks about in Philippians dwelling upon what is good, beautiful, right? All these things, it’s important to dwell. Even Bible tells us to focus on the good things to dwell on. The good things is not to escape that we might need to improve. Something might need to make an improvement. As in a parent. It’s not a reason not to focus on that, but what we should be dwelling on is the goodness of God’s word and the good things that are happening. Good things that God is doing in your family, in your marriage, in your life, and to have some perspective. So sometimes we’re out of perspective because we think about this thing. That’s wrong. And then we go on a bunny trail of many more things that are wrong, and all we’re doing is being a wrong hunter and we need to be a good hunter and we need to be a good hunter with our kids, too. And sometimes that can put us on a track that makes even more contention between us and our kids. And so we hold the baton of the culture of our home. And so if we’re becoming a wrong hunter that we’re we’re holding a torch for of wrong hunting and that can even spread that could spread within our kids, in between the siblings.

I mean, think about the whole concept of the rotten apple makes the entire bull go rotten, right? And so if you are the are you the rotten apple? I hate to say that, but as far as perspective goes, I know that for me, I tend to at times struggle with looking at what’s going. Ong, versus looking at what’s going right and that can be a really negative place. And so like many years ago, when Isaac and I were running a business together, we had this thing called Naig police. Do you remember that? And you were like, Hey, no neg here. And and it was like, Yeah, I mean, that really changes your attitude. It changes your countenance, and your countenance is so important with your kids because you set the atmosphere. So if you’re constantly negative and you’re struggling with kids having a bad attitude, a lot of times they’re mimicking you. But the verse that Isaac is talking about is Philippians four, verse eight, which says, Finally, brethren whatsoever, things are true whatsoever. Things are honest whatsoever. Things are just whatsoever. Things are pure whatsoever. Things are lovely whatsoever. Things are of good report if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

I remember a time where the very worst things were happening to us and very challenging time, and I remember lying in bed and I was just reciting that because I’d studied that scripture and I think I preached on it. And and then I was just it would the negative would come in my mind, why is this happening to us or why did this happen or what do I do? I know we might lose everything. I don’t know, right? All these things, the worry right? And all of a sudden know what is true focus on what is lovely books, you know? And I would recite that in my brain and I go in and it would just disappear. Everything would disappear. And God is in control, and I just need to be a good steward. I just need to be obedient and joyful in all circumstances. He does give us an equation. He wants us to be obedient and joyful in all circumstances so that he’s glorified through your trial. Mm hmm. So also in Colossians three fifteen, it says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. Oh, and also says and be thankful and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching, admonishing one another and all wisdom, singing psalms and so forth. But this is so, so cool because we have to let this

Our attitude

Of Christ rule what is ruling. It means completely consuming, consuming rule in our hearts, does Christ rule in your heart today? That’s convicting for me. Does Christ rule in my heart today? I would say part of this morning, not, you know, it’s like we have to be reminded continuously, maybe memorize that scripture and ask yourself, is Christ ruling my heart right now? Because if he is, we’re going to move away from overwhelm.

Mm hmm. It’s interesting how overwhelmed can be triggered in people. Overwhelm can be triggered by just. Have you ever said the that was the icing on the cake? Right. That was the the straw that broke the camel’s back. There are many. You’re like laughing at me because these are old idioms that you know, we that people like my grandma, my great grandma used to say these things all the time when she was on the verge of becoming overwhelmed. And there are times where I think through and I go, Why is it that there’s a list of things? And then all of a sudden there’s one more thing, and that’s what does it? Mm hmm. Because the list is us focusing on the wrong things. Mm hmm. There shouldn’t even be a list. Where else do we see this? We see this in First Corinthians 13, when it says love does not keep a record of wrongs. That’s hugely convicting to me, because if if love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, why are we keeping a record of wrongs with our kids? Why are we keeping a record of wrongs with our husband? Why are we keeping a record of wrongs with anyone, right instead? What should be our response? Because the reality is we will reap what we so so if we are sowing keeping a record of wrongs? Then we’re going to be sewing that and that relationship also.

Yeah. Christ wants us to be set free. He wants us to be set free to to do his work and to attract others to him, which includes your kids, maybe your husband if he’s not a believer.

So I would say that, you know, going back to looking at the second point, which we’ve labeled perspective, you brought a totally different teaching and perspective on this concept. And I just want to encourage people that it probably is a good idea if you’re going to be getting perspective to start out with what Isaac was talking about today, which is focusing on the things that are good and praising God and having joy because that’s going to change your heart attitude and it’s going to bring your blood pressure down, to be real honest. But at the same time, the reality is is you could turn around, go back into your kitchen or your home with your kids and be quickly triggered into being overwhelmed again. If there is truly something that needs to change in your parenting or in what you’re exposing your kids to. And so I would say that after you have changed your perspective regarding what you’re focusing on and you find you’re really you’re at peace with God and with the way things are, then turn around and go, What is the what is the why? Why am I experiencing these things and then try to make change on those things first? Those character depart eternal issue things. Now, the third point we want to talk about is what

You want to be not focused so much on yourself and more focused on the bigger purposes. And what is the bigger purposes and you talked about earlier is to glorify God and everything you do. But sometimes we’re we don’t even realize it, but we’re having a pity party with ourselves. Husbands do this. Wives do this. Ok, we inside won’t admit it very often, but we’re like, Woe is me. Why is this happening? Or were I am not capable? I’m not as good as so and so over there on Instagram. I’m not as talented, I’m not as smart, I’m not as beautiful or strong, right? Whatever the situation is that you’re thinking that doubt, it actually means your self-focused. Potentially, it means that your focus is too much on yourself. Someone once said there’s nothing worse than someone that has, and this may not be you, but a lot of money and all the time they want on their hands. And the reason is because that is the ultimate of potentiality for self focus. Ok, but that’s definitely not our listeners. But I think about I think about why do we get so self focused and start doubting ourselves? I think there’s an enemy at hand. The enemy doesn’t want you to raise up and equip confident, strong Christian kids.

The enemy does not want your marriage to be strong and amazing, and a light for the gospel in a The Bride of Christ. He doesn’t want it to look like that the enemy wants to destroy you. There is a spiritual warfare that’s happening now. The good news is God is way more powerful than the enemy. Of course, we don’t want to give strength to the enemy, but doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge it. And there’s also our own human ness. And that’s at play right here, which the enemy exploits. And so wherever you’re weak, the enemy is going to exploit that and you have to understand that and your spouse should know where you’re weak and where you’re doubting yourself. And you guys should talk about that so that you can build each other up and stir up the good work amongst each other, which is really important. So I just think that a lot of times we’re we’re actually when we’re overwhelmed, it might be because we’re doubting ourselves and all these things. And what’s the fastest way to cure self-doubt is to remind yourself of who we are in Christ. God says, you’re a saint. Because of what Jesus did on the cross

And in your weakness, he is strong. When Isaac is talking about taking the focus off self and having your focus be triggered on the purpose, what is the purpose? The purpose is actually God. It’s a great commission. It’s making him known in the world. And so we chose to share with you guys just to remind you of this verse. I know that you all know it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. This is something he’s doing. He’s the one that makes the paths straight. You, you can’t. You can’t make your path straight. He will make your path straight if you do not lean on your own understanding if you don’t focus on yourself. And so this this whole concept actually reminds me of a very simple thing that I preach to myself many times, which is less of me and more of him. Hey, man, less of me and more of him. That has to do with our homemaking. It has to do with our marriage, less of me and more of him because he’s going to be more grace giving. He’s going to be more forgiving. He’s going to be more gentle, he’s going to be more kind, less of me and more of him regarding homeschooling, right? Like, I even think about just I’ll share again this last week, I was very overwhelmed.

Every four to six months, I’m reevaluating our curriculum. What we’re using for each kid, every kid is so different. And so of course, we’ve used lots of different curriculums over the years. But the truth is is that as kids are growing and they’re getting stimulated and they’re cruising through a curriculum, they finish it. You need to get a new one, so you need to evaluate the old one. You don’t just I don’t just go by the same thing over and over again and reuse it with each kid. Now there are some tried and true programs for teaching certain things like phonics or basic early math and things like that that are great. But the reality is is as your kids get older and you start seeing their personality and you start seeing the different aspects of how God made them, it could become very easily overwhelming for a mom if she’s homeschooling more than one kid. Right? And so and I know that not everyone homeschool is, but I know that many of you do. And so I’m just sharing this with you. This is a reality that I even still still deal with. But again, I have to go less of me, more of him and changing that perspective again.

Those go hand in hand because you guys, this last week, part of my overwhelm was that I was focusing on what we have not done and overwhelmed by the thought of what are the things I need to have prepared my kids for by the time they launch our home and getting overwhelmed with all of the things for all of the kids. And then Isaac said, Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let’s look at what we have done. Like, let’s let’s look at what has been done and focusing on the good things for a second. And then all of a sudden and then we start having a little meeting with the kids a little bit later and they’re like, No, we’ve done this, we’ve done that. And then all of a sudden we’re laughing. There was joy back in this conversation, and there was a sigh of relief in a lot of ways because it was like, Wow, we’ve done so much more than was is actually needed, like on a human level. Praise God, that’s totally him. That is trusting his ways, walking out what he’s called you to in obedience. Like Isaac said, what does God call you to cause you to trust him and to obey him and to have joy and obey?

Amen. And sometimes there’s so many possibilities. There’s in the business world, this amazing innovator. He writes books about innovation for corporate America. Friend of mine. And he talks about how studies prove that when you’re trying to improve something that if you have endless possibilities, you actually are less innovative and are least likely less likely to solve the problem than if you put some boundaries around the ideas. And so simplifying actually gets you more innovative, simplifying to what actually the core of something is and not trying to think of everything actually brings a solution faster in a better solution. And so amazing books have been written by this guy on this, and it’s something that I’ve taken to heart because, OK, if there’s all these things, what really matters? Let’s make the short list. And then from that short list, let’s find the supporting things that make those things happen. Mm hmm.

Totally. So as we’re moving into the final point, which is change is a process, not a quick destination or event. Think about that for a second. Change is a process. It’s going to take a little longer than just like snapping your fingers, making a decision. It’s not like all of a sudden it’s kind of like working out, right? Like, you can have all the good intentions in the world to work out. You can even plan it out. You can have time scheduled and all the things. But the result? Takes time. It’s a process. It’s not like you automatically get back to where you wanted to be, right? And it’s the same thing with any other change that you’re making, and so have grace with yourself, even in this process of becoming good at managing overwhelm. Can I just say that? Be patient with yourself as you’re trying to manage overwhelm? What I mean by that is that guys, there are going to be times where you get overwhelmed and you may go, Oh man, I just listen to that podcast. Why am I doing this again? They said, I need to focus on what’s good, and they said, I need to ask the good why and have perspective give myself grace to not have to be perfect. But I need to keep being diligent on the things I need to take the focus off myself. Put it back on Jesus Christ. Be patient because change is a process like, I get it. I get the four points I understand. Why am I back here again? You’re you’re back there again because. It’s a process and God wants to teach you through that process. So if there is a final question that we get to ask, yes, I’m saying we get to ask this, it’s God. What are you trying to teach me through this process?

Amen. In Romans, 12 12 says Rejoice in hope, be patient and tribulation. Be constant in prayer. So rejoice in the hope that through Christ, we have and do not be. So rejoice, rejoice, not be patient and tribulation. So if there’s challenges, we have to be patient as Andrew is talking about, and prayer is an important part we haven’t talked about yet, but says it right there in scripture. So what do you need to bring to the Lord right now? Lord, change my heart. Lord help me to be focused on what’s good lord? Would you be with me as I navigate changes for my kids?

God, would you please reveal your truth to me in this moment and help me to take any thought captive that is making me feel like a failure that is leading to overwhelm? Lord, would you help me to be patient with myself as I’m trying new things, as I’m making change in my life or my family? And God, would you help me to have patience with other people, to not just myself

And guys husbands out there? I would be asking God to help me to listen to my wife, to not just try and fix things, but to listen well, long and let her discover solutions versus always giving solutions. I think there’s a good mix of that, but I think praying for patients to an understanding and that your marriage could be an amazing team working together using each other’s gifts for the glory of God in your family.

Yeah, I think that sometimes just one last marriage, I guess it’s a marriage encouragement or marriage tip. I think that one of the things that is potentially hard for a lot of women, but they’re missing out on something huge in their marriage. If they don’t share their struggles or they’re overwhelmed with their spouse and and maybe they’re sharing them, but they’re not allowing the spouse to lead, they’re not allowing their their husband to encourage them with what the good he does see. Guys, that’s one of the most powerful things when I come to Isaac and I am overwhelmed, OK? He oftentimes brings a perspective that I’m overlooking, which is all the good things, and I need those reminders sometimes to be able to calm down in that moment where my heart might be beating fast and I feel like I need to make decisions right away, or I feel like I’m failing in something. He brings the correct perspective because he sees it. And so, ladies, I just want to encourage you to let to sit and listen after you bring your problem like and let your husband encourage you. Let him speak truth. Let him help you to know what thoughts need to be taken captive at times, because sometimes I need to be reminded that that’s not entirely true, that you’re not. That’s not actually true. You’re doing a good job in this and this and this and this and that can be huge for just diffusing the fire that the enemy lit called overwhelm. 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 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 webcasts 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

We’ve all witnessed in these last two years how easily people in society can be influenced. If your kids grow up believing they can consume worldly things and not be influenced by them, they could over-expose themselves to things that do influence them away from righteous living and even from God. It’s best to start while they are young and consistently help them understand the Biblical truth that what we see influences us no matter how strong we think we are. This episode dives into this and will give you helpful insights.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Help them understand how easily they can be influenced.
2. Pink elephant example (listen to episode 173).
3. Teach them about what can influence them and how to respond.
4. Always teach them the “why” behind decisions that impact them.
5. Ground your discussions in Biblical truth.

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Scripture in This Episode:

Ephesians 5:11 – “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”

Matthew 6:22 – “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”

1 Corinthians 15:33 – “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”

Proverbs 13:20 – “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

Psalm 1:1 – “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast. Hey, guys. We are so glad to be back together on the show, although that was fun. You interviewed Caroline, I interviewed Drew, and that’s right.

Yeah, we’re back now.

We’re feeling better. That’s right. Thank you for your prayers. If you even knew that we were sick a little bit. So yeah, God is good

All the time.

So today we’re talking about teaching your kids about the power of influences. And this comes from the idea that just the Holy Spirit prompted us to talk about at this morning’s family meeting. And so we’re going to dive into this because this is probably one of the more important skills and things that your kids need to know about.

Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about certain topics, such as cultivating critical thinking in your kids, which is more about like, how do you teach them and what curriculums and what books are good for, like getting them engaged to actually be thinking about the different teachings that they are being influenced by. But this goes even deeper and really explaining to your kids and because they need to understand that their influences.

So now we’re going into season three of world weirdness. All right, so you’re three since COVID came about and all the things around all that stuff. So this isn’t a talk about that. But as we go into season three of weirdness, we have to realize the world really did change and morality is decreasing. It’s nothing to be fearful of and it’s nothing to even worry about. But we should be proactive in our response to the changes and how we lead our families.

We need to be equipping our kids and we need to teach them about and warn them. Basically, they need to be aware. We have to equip our kids so that we’re not constantly going around, trying to protect them all the time. They have to be equipped so that they can actually stand firm against the Devils attacks, against the temptations of the flesh of the corruption of the world. I mean, let’s just face it, the reality is is that there are evil people in the world. There are people who are there are people who are lost and then there are people who are actually working for the enemy. They worship Satan. There are proclaimed witches that exist. I’m just going to be bold right now and say this, and some of these people are actually your kids teachers. Yeah, some of these people are the are the are the people who are cutting your kid’s hair and cleaning your kid’s teeth at the dentist. And if you know anything or have learned anything in the last couple of years, now they these people have become more emboldened. So money to influence kids.

So as the teachers, the artists, the media, the the writers, everybody becomes more emboldened to share what they believe is true and come from their agenda. It’s more important than ever that we’re vigilant and that we’re also bold, that there’s light coming truth coming from the Christians out there. And we’re also protecting our kids appropriately. And I think if you really know deep down that you’re equipping your kids and you’re doing the right things with your kids and you’re walking strong with the Lord, you have nothing to fear about this world. You have anticipation and launching them. We just launched our first two kids this year, last year. Sorry. And what an awesome thing it was. And we still are in regular, even weekly, you know, communication and fellowship and fellowship and even seeing them, which is which is amazing. We feel blessed by that. So hey, as we dive into this about the power of influence and helping your kids understand that we are so thankful for what you helped us do last year with the ministry, the ministry had a great year. The downloads was up 17 16 percent, I believe over the previous year, three quarters of a million downloads from one hundred and seventy seven countries. We’re just so thankful. I hope you got our email into your email. You can email me, Isaac at Toll. If you want it, I’m happy to send it to you if you’re not on our list or actually even better for me would be to hit our bio in any of our social platforms and get on our email list. That would probably be best, but the one million legacies movement matters. It’s a mission to impact one million families and their legacies, which impacts way more than a million, right? Yeah. And it’s not just that somebody listened to the podcast, it’s we’re really feel God calling us to have an indelible impact to really shift

To implement biblical commands from scripture and and utilizing the guidance and the biblical wisdom that is in there that both warns us, but also exhorts us towards righteous living and teaching our kids right.

Amen to that. So let’s dive in Ephesians five 11, which is such a good Ephesians. It’s so good you got to take your kids the right. Take no part in the. Full works of darkness, but instead expose them. So sometimes Christians take the first part of that sentence. Take no part in unfruitful works of darkness, but they don’t take the last part, which is expose them. And I believe that’s a complete sentence right there because

It is not a period, it continues so.

So we are to not be part of and also expose unfruitful works. And we’re supposed to protect our family from those unfruitful works as well. And the power of influence is incredible. Like the ability for people to influence your kids is huge. Other people, the world media, anything billboards.

You guys this this whole passage of scripture like Isaac was just he just briefly dropped a bomb on you that said, Take your kids through Ephesians, and I just have to encourage you because a lot of times we will pull a verse or two out to kind of highlight within a podcast because we’re trying to teach on a specific topic. This is very different than like going and listening to a sermon at your church. Yeah, but this particular passage of scripture, if you were to even continue even further after it says take no part in unfruitful works of darkness but expose them for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says a Waco sleeper and a rise from the dead in Christ will shine on. You look carefully then how you walk not as unwise, but wise, making the best use of time because the days are evil. How relevant is that relevant? And not only that, I mean, Isaac was talking about how, you know, people will oftentimes take the beginning of that verse and then they don’t continue reading or they don’t continue teaching or they don’t continue walking out with the Bible, says ignoring that there’s a comma there thinking there’s a period there where it says exposed, because that’s actually an action word. Yeah, and sometimes it’s hard to take action. But listen, you guys, if we want our kids to be obedient to scripture, don’t we have to do that first and be that model for them? Number one, number two, they need to see what it looks like to actually obey the Bible.

So what would it look like if Christians all over the world were exposing darkness? That would be wild? Now we are seeing a lot of believers, like being one hundred percent who they are wherever they are, and that changing. What I mean is there’s a lot of times we’re only part of who we are like at work in different places like that. And then we’re different when we’re at home or different, we’re at church. We’re starting to see the whole person show up the whole Christian. And I think that is what the world needs. The whole Christian, a Bible commands. We’re supposed to be the same everywhere we are and not be tolerating now. We’re supposed to be graceful, we’re supposed to be discerning and when to talk and what to say and be what people need us to be. So they hear the gospel. That doesn’t mean deviating from any part of the Bible, though, right? That means being biblical the whole time. So it’s really important. So the first point we have for you guys is make your kids aware that they are influencing you. You’re like, Well, that’s really obvious, Isaac. Yeah, but if you don’t proactively do it and do it often, they will develop what I remember having when I was growing up in invincible spirit. An independent spirit could go along with that, which is that spirit of, I know what I believe in the Bible. I’m a Christian. Even though some of these lyrics in the song have some words in them, I don’t agree with it doesn’t affect those.

So it doesn’t won’t end up saying them.

Or even though this movie has some things, it’s not going to influence me. Or even though these friends I hang out with, you know, aren’t biblical, and they’re doing some things saying some things that have some corrupting talk. At least I don’t have corrupting talk. What you’ll develop and you have to work at this when they’re young, because if you start doing it in the teenage years when the problem starts happening, then it’s kind of too late. I hate saying too late because it’s never too late. You never stop trying. But way easier. And God can do everything, anything. But it’s way easier if you’re doing this from their little and on onward and always. And one of the ways we did this this morning in Bible time is I just made the point that, hey, I made this point, I’m making to you, to our kids. And I said, it’s prideful. If you don’t believe you’re going to be influenced by something you see us with, the Bible says, be very careful what you look at and be very careful what you see because it impacts the heart. And so I said, don’t think about a pink elephant. And then they go, what did you guys just think about? They just thought about a pink elephant, something it doesn’t even exist. And I said, that’s how easily you are influenced. I just got all of your minds

And you all started thinking about and visualizing a pink elephant all of a sudden, even though they don’t exist.

And they were like, Oh, I got that from some business book a long time ago, but it’s like, Oh, wow,

Oh yeah, I was just influenced to there. Now this is the thing we need to take everything that we teach our kids back to the word of God. And Isaac just said something a second ago, which is that our eyes are like, whatever we let come in actually does influence our soul. And Matthew, six verse twenty two, says the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then, the light in you is darkness. Ooh, that’s tricky. If then the light in you is darkness. How can light in you be darkness? I mean, that’s like this really deep stuff. If then the light in you is darkness. How great is the darkness? Hmm. Wow. No one can serve two masters for either. He will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. It was just this is an interesting passage, and it’s using money as an example and continues on. But you guys talking about your eye and and what goes in affecting the light that’s within you, that’s like in your soul that actually affects you in a really deep, eternal way, according to what Matthew Chapter six is say. Mm hmm. And so if we’re teaching our kids, let’s just take it for back for a second. I, you know, if you were raised by parents that say, do as I say, not as I do, and so they’re like, you can’t watch rated R movies. And then you were the kid that said, Well, why dad? Or Why Mom? Why can’t I watch them? And they said, Because I said, So that’s not good parenting.

That’s not biblical parenting. You need. You have the tools right here. I would simply go to Matthew Chapter six, and I would talk to my kids about how the eye is the lamp of their body. And so when they’re watching something, it is literally influencing the light and it’s becoming darkness. And what did we just read in Ephesians Chapter five? Taking no part of darkness have no have no part of it. Don’t even speak of it. So if we’re not supposed to speak of the darkness, why in the world will we sit and watch it in a movie? Or why in the world would we sit and listen to it over and over again in in certain music? I even think of, like when I was a teenager, I went through this phase of like listening to secular music. And then when I really committed to Christ, I stopped listening to all secular music and only listen to Christian music. And I am telling you it massively affected how I acted. It affected the light that was within me that I wasn’t even aware of. And you know how I know this. I remember walking into the high school hallways and other kids coming up to me and being like, Oh, wow, hi Angie, you look really happy today, or why are you so happy? Those were the days that I drove myself to school and was listening to the Christian radio station. The days that I did not listen to the Christian radio station, no one said anything like that to me.

Yeah, it’s

A big it literally affected the light that was shining within me. Like I was happier.

It’s a big impact. And so we’re in point two here, which is what influences. So you got to talk to your kids about what influences them and have discussions about this because you can think there’s whether you agree with this or not. Malone This doctor just had an interview with the big podcaster Rogan. I haven’t listened to it because I don’t have Spotify. The rest of the family does, but I’m not privileged like that. So and he’s only on Spotify, so I’ll have to like, borrow their phone or something. But anyways, I get the news clips about things like this and and he Malone was making the point that there was mass. There was a widespread psychosis and he called it something else. But I can’t quite remember, but basically that people were brainwashed in a way. Yeah, yeah. And this has been big in the news right now, so it’s really interesting. I was teaching the kids about that and I was just like, Wow, look at how easily people can be influenced to do certain things. And I’m going to talk about details here. But you know, you can think about the last two years and just all the ways people are influenced in.

You know, something is influenced like whole countries to shut down, like permanently almost. And people are left in their homes, like in Australia. Yeah. And it just so much fear and using fear as a tool. And then the media is complicit in this in isolation he was talking to. About how you get this done is through isolation first and then you have propaganda and you have all these things. I haven’t watched the actual interview, so you have to look at it. But I was I was talking about these concepts with the kids. And but really, this happens all the time. Everybody knows a repeated message over time influences someone to buy something, right? That’s why commercials used to work until we don’t watch TV anymore. Most people, but media is a big influence, so pay attention to what you’re watching around your kids, what you watch, what your kids are allowed to watch and pay attention to their peers. Their peers have a massive influence on them. It’s really, really important. This goes without saying, but I think we need to be even more vigilant.

You know what I was saying before about the the old school way of parenting do as I say, not as I do, this is when Isaac and I say normal Christian parenting is failing. It has not worked. When you read books like Already Gone By Ken Ham that talk about kids leaving the faith by age 18 and why that is. And you start really judging the fruit. I’m just going to be honest with you guys. There is a lie out there that Christians have been believing for far too long regarding judging. They think that the Bible and they actually go as far as to say, Well, the Bible says we’re not supposed to judge other people. Can I just say that the way that that is said is a lie from the pit of hell? Actually, the Bible says that we are not to judge those outside the church, but we are to judge those in the church. There is tons of scripture that talks about discernment. You can’t discern something if you aren’t judging it for face value. You have to make a choice. Think about Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. He has multiple choices in paths that he needs to go. He has to make a choice. What does he do? He has to discern. He has to judge, which is the safest one looks dark and gloomy. The other looks like an easy worn path. You know, there are so many examples that we could give our kids to explain this process of how they need to think critically. They need to discern. We have to understand that they are not going to have the skills to be aware and to make good judgments, to make good choices in friends if they are not empowered by you showing them where in the word it says, do not hang out with bad company.

And if and if you’re you know, as you’re getting that if your kids are in youth group or things like that, do you know what they’re being taught? Do you know if they’re leaving it at, Hey, just have grace for everybody and don’t judge anybody if they just leave it at that? What is what is that teach? What does that teach the kids? It teaches the kids to not have a critical thinking, not to make good judgments about who is good to spend time with and not. Now there’s people that are friends. We run the race with that we can trust. That would be. And you need a judge if their character, you need a judge, if they’re going the same direction, if they’re becoming more godly, these kinds of things. And then there’s people we are lights to and that we can reach out to. But those are different kinds of relationships.

So seek counsel and hang out with and do all the things with someone that you are not like minded in these things. So First Corinthians Chapter 15, Verse 33 says Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Ok. Bad company ruins good morals. Some of you might be going, OK, oh, that’s a that’s a good scripture. And when I think about that particular scripture, I think to myself, Whoa. Not only is this a big warning that our kids need to hear, like, this is a verse that our kids should have memorized. Bad company ruins good morals. Ok? Yes, this is a warning from scripture. But just having a warning doesn’t actually affect your life at all unless you empower the person to implement this warning and saying, Hey, use wisdom, have understanding you. And what is wisdom? Wisdom is if bad company corrupts good morals, then do not hang out with bad company and then your kids might go, Well, how do I know what’s bad company? You’re going to have to tell them you’re going to have to judge that for yourself. Do you see how this process like when you read scripture, you don’t just go, Oh yeah, bad company corrupts good morals and leave it at that. No, why did God put this in the word? What is God asking me to implement in my own life? How does this verse apply to my life? And if it applies to my life and it’s something that God is warning me on, I need to teach my kids and warn my kids because God calls me to be their teacher. But just telling them bad company corrupts, good morals is not good enough in the sense you have to empower your kids and say, You know what, honey, you’re going to have to make choices. You’re going to have to judge if this group over here is bad company or good company and understand that the Bible warns you, it’s potentially going to corrupt your morals if you hang out with them.

So true. So what other influences are there? There’s teachers. So word of caution. If you don’t know who your teachers, your kid’s teachers are all in any aspect. Coaches. Music teachers. Education teachers. Swim coach. If you don’t know them, it’s that’s a problem. And the second thing is, if you don’t know what’s happening, it’s even a bigger problem.

And what you mean by happening, you mean if you don’t know what they’re teaching your kids, that is a massive problem. So, you know, over over the years, we have definitely heard a lot of things. Guys, we’ve been doing parenting ministry now for three years, so we’ve heard all kinds of stories. It really sad stories. But one of the things that I’ve been becoming aware of, even more so as people have been opening up about their experience with their kids. Being in school is that some schools are not even allowing parents on campus, and parents are not even knowing who is teaching their kids. And so in those circumstances, I would just say like, Hey, so you don’t know who your kid is spending 40 hours a week with? Let me put it in another light. You don’t know who your child is spending one hundred and sixty hours a month with. You don’t know what they’re teaching your child, and they’re spending a hundred and sixty hours a month with them. How much time are you spending with your kids, like evaluating like and I’m not this. This is not to pooh pooh anyone’s choices. Maybe this is the first time that you are actually going, Oh, a light bulb. Wow. Yeah, I never thought about it that way. But in reality, if we as parents are pushing our kids over here and we’re saying, OK, we’re dropping them off, we’re putting them in school, what are we doing? We’re putting our stamp of approval on what that teacher is teaching our children. We’re telling our kids as they get out the door. Listen carefully. Do a good job at school, but try to remember. Yeah. Obey your teacher. Take good notes. All of these things are things that I have said to my kids. It’s things I heard growing up. But you guys, how? Why are we saying this to our kids if we don’t explicitly know the person that is teaching our kids

And it’s OK if we don’t align on everything, that’s OK, but at least you need to know so you know how to combat anything they might be teaching when they get home. It’s important to understand what is going into the minds and hearts of your children and the agenda that’s being driven from anybody having access to your kids. It is super important. Proverbs 13 20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. And so the Bible judges says there are fools, for example, and we need to not be companions with fools now. Do fools need to know God? Yes, absolutely. We should evangelize to people.

But is that the responsibility of a six year old? To evangelize to a forty five year old teacher that has an agenda on CRT. I don’t think so. No, I don’t think that the six year old could possibly be equipped to handle the arguments that the forty five or fifty four year old teacher is bringing at them. Nor do they have it in them to stand up against twenty nine other students that are falling for everything that the teacher is teaching them.

So there’s a big thing when you call someone teacher, that to a kid is a big deal. So just make sure no matter how you educate your kids, you don’t have to homeschool them for your kids to believe this. They should believe you’re their most important teacher. So you should think about How can I cultivate my kids? A respect for me as their teacher. You are their most important teacher.

That’s an actual relationship shift for a lot of parents who just have to say, this is a culture that has to be cultivated over a long period of time. It starts when they’re younger, and if you haven’t done it when they’re younger, it’s never too late to chase after your child’s heart. I would encourage you if you have kids that are not like super little to even just sit down with your kids and go, Hey, guys, mom screwed up, dad screwed up. I was super convicted. The other day, I realized that biblically I did not raise you in a way where we have a teacher student relationship, and that’s actually something God wants for you and I to have, and I’m sorry. Like, humility goes a really long way with kids. Can I just say that? And so there is never lost hope. You should never get to a place where you feel like up. I’ve totally screwed up. It’s all downhill from here. No, don’t believe that life from the devil. Instead, humbly pursue your kid. Go to scripture with them. Show them where you were wrong and how you want to change things. That is huge, OK? Versus saying, Oh, prayerfully, I’ve always been a Christian and I’ve always thought this, but we just never had time. And no, no, none of that. Please do not make excuses. Otherwise you are not representing being a Christ follower. Christ calls us to be humble. Hey.

Point three is always teach the why Angie had kind of alluded to this earlier, but don’t be that parent did. This says because I said so or don’t just leave it hanging. Always teach. The extra time to teach why we’re making the decisions we are. Here’s why we’re not doing this sleepover over here. Or here’s why we’re not spending time with these kids, or here’s why we’re choosing to do this. And not that the whys are incredibly important. Remember, you’re not just making decisions right now, you’re equipping them so they can make good decisions when their parents, you are equipping them, how are you going to equip them? You’re going to frustrate them if you don’t articulate the whys behind things, kids all want to know why. So you need if you’re going to make a decision that changes their life in any way, even a small way, you better be ready to tell them why. And if you’re not, you’re going to cultivate frustration with your kids. Just respect potentially, and maybe not even trusting that you can make good decisions for them,

You know, and with them, yeah. And OK, you just said a key phrase. That’s why I was going to talk about and with them. Can I just say for a second parenting? I think a big thing that authoritative parents mess up on on a regular basis is that they parent to their children. What I mean is they make decisions and they’re lay down the law, and this is just what we’re doing. You need to obey. Follow now. This authoritative approach in relationships is not a biblical one. I deeply believe that there is a potential for broken relationships down the road that need so much repair. If you are constantly just telling your kids what they have to do all the time and you’re not taking the time to actually teach them the why, which is what Isaac is talking about, but going a step further and going, Do you understand? So do you agree? And so does this make sense to you? Like asking them questions that put them in a position where they actually get to communicate their feelings about it, their understanding about it, so that they feel like they have a voice and they are part of the decision making and they own it. Let me just tell you on the topic, Isaac just brought up sleepovers. Many of you guys know that we’ve written articles and we taught on why we don’t do sleepovers for over a decade now. We have talked about this if we had just laid down the law with our kids and said No. And we didn’t tell them all the whys. Do you know how many times I would have been nagged over the years to do sleepovers? Oh yeah, by nine kids. Are you kidding? No, no, no. We have to teach them all the reasons why. And then we have this communication where we’re sitting down with them. We’re respecting them. We’re taking them to the word of God. We’re warning them about the whys and then saying, Does this all make sense to you? And they own it?

And then they also know how to articulate themselves to their friends or whoever else. Hey, you want to come over for the sleepover? Oh, actually, I don’t do sleepovers, but I’d love to come over for the first part of it and and do that. And here’s you know, and they can even share why they don’t do sleepovers, which is important if you want your kids to stand strong and not feel awkward and weak in those situations.

Right? I’ll just be honest with you guys. I mean, think about yourself if your parents had just told you, no, you can’t do sleepovers since we’re using this as an example and somebody’s a friend asks you, Hey, do you want to come over and have a sleepover? And you don’t know the reason why, but you’re just like maybe a more obedient child or or you agree with your parents or you’re you’re like, Yeah, I don’t really want to go to sleepover, so you never really question them. And you go, Well, my parents just said no, and that’s all that they say. The other kids might be like my kids kind of weak and and lose respect for them, actually. But so we have got to equip our kids. This is about equipping our kids with logical thinking and discernment and judgment and understanding truth so that when they get into those predicaments or those conversations, they can actually lead and not be tempted to follow and fall back and walk away from a conversation feeling like they were either bullied or disrespected. But instead they were like everything went great. They fully understand

Why, and if you don’t give them a voice with you, how are they going to learn how to have a voice with others? They don’t have a voice of disrespect or or disagreement or things like that, they shouldn’t sometimes kids sin and so forth, but they should have a voice. They should feel like they can voice their concerns, their ideas, their understanding of things and have a discussion with you like Angie was talking about, you

Know, as we’re talking about this too, one of the things that was really important, you guys, we shared a couple of verses that were specifically warning us about and that we should also go back to these scriptures with our kids. I just have to say that like, you need to go to First Corinthians 15 thirty three to talk to your kids about how bad company corrupts good morals you need. Go to Proverbs 13 20 so that they can see that they need to be careful with the friends that they choose and the people that they hang out with. And you know, you go to Psalm, one which says Blessed is the man who walks not in the Council of the Wicked. When you’re explaining to them the influence that teachers have in their life, whether that’s a Sunday school teacher, a youth group pastor, a regular teacher in their school, a coach, maybe even a grandparent or a friend’s parent like all of these people potentially have influence in our children’s lives, and we need to teach our kids what influences. Look up the definition if you need to, depending on their age. Explain what influences use Isaac’s example that he shared about the pink elephant and how we all are influenced at times. Get them to acknowledge that, like, ask them, So do you understand how you’re influenced? And they’re like, Oh yeah, I’m influenced.

So it’s so important that they believe they can be influenced. Otherwise, if they don’t grow up understanding that they can be, they don’t know how to protect themselves. And they will end up becoming older kids in their teenage years that are prideful and believe they can be part of the world in certain aspects and it won’t affect them. And then what happens to often the world does infect them with wrong belief.

I would encourage you guys to read scriptures that talk about running the race and having endurance, not allowing someone to snatch your crown scriptures that talk about people who have a seared conscience and understand that those scriptures God put in his word to warn us. And to for us to warn our children. With that, they need to understand that there is a level of accountability that we all have as humans to be pursuing righteousness and understanding that in the pursuit of living wholly because he is wholly in the pursuit of wanting to live, rightly, that’s what righteousness is, is living. Rightly, we want to be walking in a way where at the end of the day, at the end of our lives, whenever that day comes, Jesus looks at us and says, Well done, good and faithful servant, right? Like that is, that’s it. Like. And and part of that is that we’ve been living our lives for him, that we are about the great commission like we want our kids to to know God and want to make him known to others, understanding that that is clearly one of the main purposes for their existence here in this generation, right? But this is the thing if we don’t warn our kids with scripture because scripture is actually the why scripture? All of these Bible verses that God has given us, this is the sort of the spirit. This is the armor that protects us against the flaming arrows of the evil one as they’re darting at our kids. And if our kids don’t know it, they’re not going to know how to fight. So we have to equip our kids. That’s how they stand firm understanding that one, they are influential, but two Jesus is more powerful in them, and that the Holy Spirit can give them discernment so that they make wise decisions in the people that they actually listen to and allow to influence them.

Hey, thanks for joining us, everybody.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji 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

Isaac invites his 15-year-old son Drew onto the show asking him candid questions on what it’s like to grow up in the Tolpin home. Get a candid perspective from Drew on: what it’s like being in the Tolpin Family, what he thinks manhood means, his favorite part of homeschooling, what it means to be a Tolpin, and most importantly; what he appreciates about his Mom. 

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Drew’s definition of manhood
2. The importance of family culture
3. Why “I can’t” is worse than a swear word in the Tolpin home
4. The importance of having morning meetings and bible time as a family

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

Deuteronomy 11:19-20 – “And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:”

Proverbs 31:25-28 – “Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. I got Drew to open here, special guest on the big podcasts. How are you doing?

I’m doing good. How are you guys?

So we’re excited to talk about growing up with the Dolphins. We’re having a discussion here so you can get a bird’s eye view now. You may have heard of Drew on the Kids podcast if you heard some of those episodes. Those are all now in the app. Be courageous in the App Store. Feel free to download it. Plus powerful community and all kinds of things. It really supports the ministry. It’s eight ninety nine a month with hundreds of really strong believers, great people in their sharing wisdom, answering each other’s questions, spurring each other on. We have groups based on topics. You create a profile. It’s much like Facebook profile with the News Feed and all those different things. So it is a social media site, but it’s private just for the ministry and the people that want to be involved in a bigger inner circle way. So check out the app. It’s super exciting to be in there, and you and I are in there all of the time and enjoying it, but we’re dedicated as ever, getting this Tuesday episode out to everybody in our social media platforms and everything. Nothing’s changed with all of that. And so also just check out courageous parenting and courageous moms for any of the resources. And we have new shops, the be courageous shop and the resolute man shop at Resolute Man Now, too. So anyways, we appreciate you all being part of the movement today. We’re going to dive into some things with Drew and just get his input on things. So first of all, Drew, you know, what is it like to, you know, being a 15 year old boy in our family?

Well, for example, my older brother, Austin, he just moved out, and it’s it’s definitely takes responsibility and the knowledge of knowing that you are an older sibling now and you have a big role to play in your siblings experiences and the way they treat one another by example.

That’s so cool, and you’re super good example. Thanks. You have a humble heart and you really tend to lead by example. But you know, you’ll also let people know when they’ve gone too far, you know, bothering you and so forth. But you tend to do it in a good way. Thanks. I appreciate that about you. Side note There’s some exciting news isn’t there in the in the chicken house,

The chicken house. Yeah. What just happened? Yeah, we had some chicks hatch on their own. It was pretty fantastic, actually. How many for just about four. Yeah, it was great.

So you started with how many chickens?

We started with twenty three

And then you lost one recently, right?

We lost one.

And then you gained four, right?

So we’re in the positive, that’s for sure.

That’s pretty cool out here. By the way, people told us, Hey, don’t even try. I mean, there’s so many critters, big critters that will eat your chickens. Mm hmm. So so far, so good.

Yeah, it’s going pretty well.

So anyways, I bring that up because Drew has really taken upon himself to really fully take care of those chickens. The other kids help a bit, but he really is the main shepherd of the chickens, and that’s when you were saying leading by example. That’s another way that I’ve seen you lead by example. But you know, what’s what’s it like being in our family, though? Give them kind of an inside scoop of the day in life and being in our family?

Well, it’s interesting. You wake up in the morning and there’s always it’s never boring. You get out of bed. The boys are up. They’re active, and there’s always they might ask me like, Hey, can you give me some cereal? And the most important thing to do is the is the patience and to help them with getting their cereal in the morning because they several meals every day. Yeah, it’s

Kind of funny, isn’t it? Yeah, they kind of eat the early meal and then we a lot of times I’ll have oatmeal together. I’ll get up and make oatmeal or mom will, right?

Yes. But going through the day, it’s very it’s very fun because you go through the day you start, I go down to the chicken coop, take care of them. I come back, do some school and we will do Bible time as a family. And it’s great because my dad will just bring scripture and we’ll all learn something through it and we’ll spend Bible time together. And it’s I highly encouraged. Do that with your families to start off the day together. That’s like the most important thing to do.

Why do you like starting together? I it wasn’t. I didn’t know you going to talk about that. Why do you like that?

Well, what I like about that is that, well, I get to see what everyone’s up to and I get to. I get a little bit of the Bible from my dad, and I really like that for sure, especially from him, because he’s such a great teacher and it and it makes me understand the Bible more when he’s teaching, too.

No, it’s cool. I like that. I mean, gets everybody on the same page. I know Angie appreciates it, too, because we’re all together. She can also set expectations for the day. It just seems when we do that, everything goes so much better. We’ve been fed with the word of God. We’ve discuss things, we set expectations, we had a good time together, which is great, and I wouldn’t say we do it every single day, but we do it most days. It’s really an important thing in our family. Obviously, things happen sometimes, right? That’s cool. So those are some some cool little inside scoops. I you just curious, you know, you’re at the you’re 15 and you’re the oldest son in the house. Megan’s the oldest child and people respect her and look up to her. But there are a lot of boys in the family, so they definitely are looking to you as well for leadership and you’re in that transition period of becoming a man. We will be planning a manhood ceremony for Drew in the near future. So we’re excited about that. But what are some thoughts on top of your head becoming a man?

Well, for me, what that means to me for sure is that is to put away childish things and to want and to thirst, to grow more spiritually and emotionally, and also to be a great example to the younger siblings. And but by example is in teaching them is to be just by example is like in the morning, maybe cleaning up your room, making your bed, being helpful to mom, especially because she’s taking care of the baby. And she’s not always she’s not always super energetic when she gets up, so it’s important to help her in the morning, especially and also manhood as like learning how to teach the Bible. I’m just diving into that. So but it’s super. I’m enjoying it and it’s super fun. And that’s like one of the most important things, in my opinion, that goes along also with protecting the family for sure. Like my siblings, when we’re out and about being aware and discernment and trying to be as be as wise as possible, and what goes on with wisdom is discernment and experience and knowledge. Those all tie together and they’re all super important. You only learn those by time and appreciation for learning.

Wow. Well said really well said. You know it’s so fun, intervened drew here. Because, as you know, there’s no script involved. We have a basic whiteboard with maybe eight words on it up there, but in scripture references. But that’s it. I mean, we’re just chilling talking about this, and I appreciate you just being transparent about your thoughts about that. It’s cool. During the manhood ceremony, you’ll get to, you know, kind of share back with the men around the table, your thoughts about being a man and what you want to be held accountable to and things like that. So I’m looking forward to that. But you’re definitely rising up as a as a strong man of God, and I’m so proud of you for that and appreciate all your help and with the family. I know mom does too. I know people probably have. You mentioned school a little bit, but what’s your favorite part of being homeschooled? As you guys all probably know, we we homeschool all of our kids and everybody gets taught a little differently and has sometimes some different curriculum and things they’re doing, and sometimes the same based on who they are. But what’s your favorite part of being home schooled?

Probably my favorite part is the ability to have experience in learning, such as remodeling the house. I had time to do that because I was home schooling and I learned a ton through it that you can’t learn from, say, a classroom. I learned experience through that. I also like, right now, I’m getting experience in public, speaking by podcasting, I’m learning all the sorts of stuff that you can’t learn from a classroom, and that’s probably my favorite part.

Ok. And just so everybody knows you’re still learning math and reading and

All of all of

It, all the things, right? But he loves the experience side. He’s always been that way, by the way. I remember when you were young your mom would like teach you, and I’ll probably get the time a little off, but she’ll teach you for like you did home school for like 30 or 40 minutes. And then she would give you like 20 minutes to go, run around and then come back because you’re a doer. Right? That’s your personality, is to do things with your hands and see things and exercise and all those kinds of things. But you’re super academic, too. You’re really smart. It’s just that those breaks are really valuable. So I’m not surprised, he said. Experiences. So this is something that’s really good scripture right here. Deuteronomy 11 19 through 20 right here. So we have you shall teach them to your children. Speaking of them, when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up and you should write them on the door post of your house and on your gates that you’re, you know. So basically, this is talking about teaching scripture the ways of God to your kids, obviously right there. But it’s also, I think of homeschooling is you’re always teaching, meaning you’re not always there’s times for fun and just hanging out and those kind of. Things, too, but as parents, you’re looking for those teaching opportunities, so whether wherever you put your schools, I’m just an encouragement to everybody is to think about, well, what do you want your kids to know? And make sure they know those things, not just book knowledge of it, but experientially. It’s part of the reason we do RV trips and we do lots of the different things we do. It’s how we geared the Christmas presents we gave our kids. What did you get for Christmas, by the way?

I got a nice set of DeWalt tools. I was pretty fantastic. I’m so stoked about that.

So awesome. So, you know, like a skill saw right to drills.

Yeah, some power tools, power tools.

So literally, he has this bag that he can take to a worksite and help, you know, build a house or remodel. Yeah. And I think that would be a fun project for us to do sometimes is to maybe remodel a house or do something like that as a family. So that’s something on our dreams list is to be able to purchase a small place that needs fixing up and fix it up and sell it, or Airbnb or something like that. So anyways, that’s in our sights. Potentially, Drew’s going to be my right hand man and doing that. But yeah, it was so cool to to see when he opened his gift and he got the tools. It’s like he was overjoyed. It wasn’t like you were searching for a toy to be there or something like that or a video game, right? It’s not that you don’t play video games. There’s some video games you like, but I just really appreciate you that you enjoyed getting the tools for equipping. Ok, so finally, we’re going to talk about. What do you appreciate about your mom?

Well, that’s just about the most important topic, in my opinion. She is amazing. She she’s so packed full of wisdom and that’s like, that’s a very important thing to me because whenever I’m like needing wisdom or something, even though my dad has so much wisdom to my mom, my mom is she’s so she’s so she’s like a walking bible. She she really knows what to say in the moment and is so I’m so appreciate that about my mom. Also, I appreciate her patience for me, especially because I get migraines and she is so patient and she helps me and she’s so guiding, and she’s just taught me so much through that. And I’ve learned, especially through my mom, because she has the same situation is to be not a complainer, but to appreciate what you have through that. And I’ve learned so much through my mom and all of it, and she is such a diligent woman, which I also very much appreciate. That’s just the main things about my mom, for sure.

So when you say diligent people, you know, sometimes go, I wish I could be a fly on the wall while Angie’s, you know, doing her rhythms throughout the day and see what she’s doing. When you say diligent, what do you what do you see? What do you experience with your mom being diligent?

Well, with my mom, she’s definitely not a lazy person. She she gets up in the morning and she makes everything. She helps us. She makes everything getting going. Either my mom or her, my dad or her sorry will make us oatmeal or eggs. And then she’ll get going on her day and she’ll get everything, everyone running and going, and she’ll help us through our school. She’ll she never complains about anything that she does, and she’s so diligent through it, and she goes through the whole day, just super energetic. And even if she’s not feeling super well, she acts like she’s just fine and she helps us through everything that we need.

It is really remarkable. She just keeps on going. I think the best thing I can do as a husband is to help her stop sometimes, and the kids do that too. Drew does that as well, but we have to literally try to slow her down sometimes. Yeah, so so she doesn’t burn out. And if we don’t do that, she’ll she’ll hit a wall. So we we need to be proactive and helpful to do that. And you know, we could always get better at that right. But we try, we try to do that. So that’s great. What do you think? What do you think it means to be at open? Here’s what I didn’t say. We’re going to talk about what does it mean to be at open?

Well, what does it mean to be told me, OK, well, something my dad’s always said is that toppings don’t give up. We don’t say, no, we don’t give up. That’s what I’ve grown up learning as to be as open as to not give up and to try your absolute hardest. Because my parents, they always have told me they’ll always be proud of me as long as I do my absolute best, and that whenever I’m taking on a project, that’s what I think about is to do my absolute best. And that’s, in my opinion, what it means to be an open, for sure.

Well, in, you know, in the kids podcast you shot earlier, that’ll be in the app you talked about, you shared the scripture, no corrupting talk coming out of your mouth. Right? And it’s funny because the worst bad word our kids could say is the word was two words I can’t. So that’s profanity in the open house is to say I can’t. Now do people still say I can’t in the open house? They do, but I remind them I go, That’s a bad word, right? Just like if if we watch a movie with the olders and there’s if we didn’t know it, but there’s a bad word in there, I always say, Hey, bad word, everybody, because I don’t want to just let it go by. I want to bring attention to that is a word we don’t use. We don’t let corrupt talk, come out of our mouths, and we don’t just watch it and let it be received as if we’re going to do it. Well, the words I can’t. Are the worst words. They’re the absolute worst words in my mind. Now, is it OK to not be able to do something? Absolutely. Is it good to get help? Yes, but I’ve always found the words I can’t are immediately limiting, and that goes along with what you’re saying. I think that you might have got part of that from that.

Oh yeah.

Anything else? I mean, there’s a lot of things we talk about, but maybe another nugget of what it means to be a Tolton.

Another nugget. A topic. So it’s to work hard and to be kind to one another and to go through the day joyful. And also like another thing is what we were talking about before is the morning time that we have together. It kind of it seems it feels to me like that’s something I stop and do, especially a lot of other people do that. But it feels something signature to our family that we do for sure.

Yeah. So and so I encourage you guys to do things that are unique to your family and to do them consistently enough to where if you just someone just sporadically asked your kid, What does it mean to be a Johnson? Was it mean to be a Smith? Was that it mean to be a? Um. I don’t know any last name, right? What does it mean to be your family? And when you ask that of the kids, they say something that is unique to your family and that is good and it is bears, fruit and so forth. Obviously, those things aren’t the only things about being a top. There’s lots of things. I mean, it’s about involvement. Most importantly, we want to glorify God in honor God with what we do, and we want to make him known to other people and those things. So, you know, what does it mean to be your last name? And when people ask your kids that, what are they going to say? And I would encourage you to think about that as we’re going into the new year. In fact, our second episode we ever created is, I think the title is creating a family culture. So what is the culture of your family? And the culture is not what you think it is, not what you say it is.

It’s the actual real behaviors that actually exist in your family when nobody’s looking. It’s not when everybody’s at their best. When you have guests over is when no one else is looking. What is your family and what are the real behaviors in your family? And your kids are always going to say how it really is. And so just think about that and think about it as you’re going into twenty twenty two or whenever you’re listening to this, think about the next season ahead of you and go, you know, are the real behaviors of my family, what I want to have in my family and identify a couple that you want improved and then make some family initiatives about that. I was just reflecting actually drew. You might remember some of this. I was reflecting on planning for 2020 and the family initiatives. One of them is producers, not consumers. Yeah, and it doesn’t mean we don’t consume. We consume, we watch good movies. We do things where we consume other people’s information. But and we learn, obviously, we read books and all those things. But one of the things I’ve taught the kids in is an initiative. As in this came about years ago, as I saw media grabbing the hearts and minds of everybody, just social media, just everything.

And I wanted to create a culture in the family engine I did to where they understood that there’s there’s a balance that if I’m consuming more than I’m producing or if that’s out of whack in any way, I’m probably not going to be as happy with myself. And I’m probably not going to be growing in personal development in the same way and not contributing to society in the same way that I would. And I don’t know about your family. I think everybody is probably like this, but us opens. We feel the best when we’re contributing, when we’re producing, when we’re being creative, when we’re doing something that other people appreciate or helps other people. Something I’ve noticed about our family is everybody’s that way, even when they’re two years old, if they can help wash dishes. They love washing dishes because the new responsibility and they love contributing. They love seeing that I did something and things are better because of my actions, and I think God made all of us that way. But I would encourage you, how can you stir up the gifts in your family in and stir up a better culture in your family for this next season? That episode is super helpful. Well, any last thoughts from you?

Drew last thoughts I would just say goes along with you is just to encourage you to keep devoting your family in the word of God in the morning and making that start very, very start of your day. And also to just like you said, like, what’s the culture of your family? Really? Think on that for sure.

And a scripture, I want to make sure we don’t escape. I was going to say it earlier when you were talking about your mom, but this is so important. Proverbs 31 people know it well and just a little piece out of there as 25 through twenty eight, which is strength and honor, are her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. And that is certainly Angie Toppin, and we’re so appreciative of her. Of course, by the way, the reason she’s not on today is she’s not feeling the greatest. I was down a few days ago. A lot of people prayed for me out there. I appreciate it. I quickly got back. Obviously, Angie helped me with some great natural remedies and all kinds of things and your prayers as well. I was back on it, so Christmas was a little. I was a little. Quiet during Christmas was, yeah, but now Angie is needs to get better, so if you could be praying for her anyways, thank you so much for joining us, Drew. You did a great job today. Thank you. Yeah, so wise, so well-spoken. I’m so proud of you. And it was a joy to do this with you. Thank you. All right. God bless everybody.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji 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

Angie and Karaline (daughter-in-love) discuss what it means to cultivate healthy relationships between in-loves and why it is important to stand firm against the culture’s stereotypes and stigmas that all too often bring division between in-love relationships.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Our desire as in-loves.
2. Be the in-love you want to have.
3. Why you might be struggling in your in-love relationships. 
4. What the culture says about in-love relationships.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

1 Peter 5:5 – “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”

Genesis 2:24 – “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Exodus 20:12 – “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

Philippians 2:3-4 – “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall.

Hello, everybody, welcome back to the Courageous Parenting podcast. Today, I have a special guest with me, I have Caroline, my daughter and love is here with me today, and we are talking about a very important conversation, really. I mean, it’s a topic about cultivating relationships in love. And if you follow me on social media, you know that I don’t like using the terminology daughter in law. It just seems

Cold. It seems cold, right?

So I call care my daughter in love. Or really, I just call her my daughter. But you know, many of you guys know our son got married and we are talking about those really those in-law relationships today on the podcast. But before we do, I just wanted to say thank you so much for following us on Rumble and on social media. All of the reviews that you guys give, especially on Apple, make a huge difference and we read those. They’re such an encouragement, especially in those times when we’re like, Oh, what do people really need to hear? We love seeing what has impacted you the most. That means the most to us. So giving us those five star reviews is also a huge help for rankings and for getting the word out there so that more people can be impacted by the podcasts. So thank you for joining us in the one million Legacy’s movement. Woo-hoo. So we just had Christmas.

It was so awesome.

And Caroline in Austin came and stayed at the

House and we haven’t left. That’s right. It’s Monday. Yeah. To be fair, we are having a

Lot of fun with the snow. Snow is pretty beautiful. We have maybe four or five inches. What do you think? Yeah, really? Ok. Yeah. And so I just love a white Christmas. I love the the last few places we’ve lived. We’ve gotten snow on Christmas special. But. That’s right. So for those of you who maybe don’t know, Isaac and I have been working really hard the last few months on launching an app and it is going super well. So if you haven’t checked out the be courageous app, all you have to do on Android or your Apple phone is go to your app store and put in, be courageous and you will find us there. And it’s super awesome. We have loved building that community. We have quite a few hundred people in there already, lots of just biblical encouragement articles. Isaac and I do a live, a 60 minute live every month in there. That’s a Q&A, and that’s been really fun to get to know people and answer questions. But so if you are interested in that, please join us there. Ok, let’s dive in. This is a really special conversation. It is, you know, I was hesitant to dive into this conversation because I’ve only been a mother in law for a couple of months.

Yeah, you’ve only been a daughter in law for a couple of months. We’re very inexperienced, but it’s been going great.

It has been. And so that’s part of why we thought we would share. I know that over the last few years, a lot of you guys have asked me questions, even though we hadn’t had any kids that were married about how to handle relationships with your in-laws. Maybe you’re a parent, you have kids and you have some either tension in your relationships with your husband’s kids or your wife’s kids or wife’s parents or your parents. And it usually is centered around parenting or just even just the relationship itself never was like cultivated on the right foot. Maybe. And so we as we started talking like I thought to myself, Caroline thought to herself. I said, Hey, let’s just think separately about what we would want to talk about. And we both came

Up with the same back with the same

Idea. So it must be what

We’re supposed to talk at once, it shared. That’s right.

So you guys, we are really excited. We’re going to go over about four different little snippets of scripture here just to kind of reference. But you’ll get the feel for where we’re going with this very quickly. The first thing that I think is important to recognize, though, is that culture has some really bad ideas about

The mother in law specifically. Yeah, yeah. Like, it’s the joke, the mother in law.

That’s literally what I got asked when I was wedding dress shopping, how was the mother in law? And I was like,

Huh, what are you talking about? She’s awesome. I kind of felt a little bit defensive. I was like, Excuse me, my mother in law’s great. Why would you even ask me that? But it’s true.

A lot of people have issues with their mother

In law, and it’s interesting because years ago, just even as we started, Isaac and I started parenting our kids, I started a little journal of like what I would like to be like when I became a grandma. And a lot of those things are things that are centered around my relationships with my future daughter in laws and son in laws well set in love and daughter in law. And when you look at like those desires that you yourself maybe had and it wasn’t fulfilled or even the things that you’ve really respected and loved and appreciated about your relationships with your own parents as you’ve started having kids like you have to realize that those things are either there or missing based upon the relationship that you have cultivated from the ground up with them. Mm hmm. And so you guys, we chose the word cultivating because you really is something that you have to build a relationship. And so Caroline and I didn’t like I didn’t know her from the time she was a little girl like I did. Obviously, I give birth to my own kids, obviously, right? And I raised them. A lot of people, though, they adopt their children, and so they maybe don’t know them the first eight years that they’re alive or whatever also. And so you have to have the same perspective, though, of building a relationship, whether your children are biological or not. Mm hmm. And so when Austin was going to propose to Caroline or even when they were just serious in their dating relationship, I kind of knew like, well, I kind of knew that you were the one for him.

It was going in that direction, that’s for sure. Yeah, it was pretty

Obvious, but I but I knew like, I need to be really careful. Not like walking on eggshells. Careful, but like intentional. Careful. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so I even think back to do you remember that conversation? This just popped into my head. Do you remember that FaceTime call that you and I had?

Yeah. When was we talked? For two hours? I was back in Texas. This was actually before I was even allowed to like Austin. I were still writing. And if you’ve heard our podcast, you’ve heard our story. So this was when we still were not in much of communication and I called mom,

Or you called me. I don’t

Remember. I don’t remember. One of us called each other. I was literally in Texas, wasn’t with any of my families. I was visiting a best friend and we took on. There was almost a break two hours at the house, right? Is that the same situation? Yes, that’s right.

I was really somebody was going to break in like, murder me and I went to I was like, I was like, If I talk to Austin’s mom, at least he’ll know what happened to me because I can’t talk to him. I remember this. Yeah, that’s true.

So you were visiting some friends and we had a face time call and we ended up talking and just I feel like that was really the first time that we had a long time to talk that was undivided. That and when you helped me pack before we moved to Idaho. So those of you who don’t necessarily know all of Caroline and Austin’s story, her family moved from central Oregon because we all lived in central Oregon to get like, you know, knew of each other and then got to know each other better. And then they moved literally four days before we moved. So they moved to Montana, and then we moved to Idaho. Some of our kids went over and helped them pack and load. Oh yeah. And then Caroline came over to my house and helped me pack and load up stuff all the time.

And that was actually

A good time for us to just to be able to talk and have some time. I remember being up in my bedroom and packing up my bathroom and my bedroom, and you got to see some sentimental things.

Pictures were coming out. Cool family history.

But I remember the first thing Angie said was, I don’t want the boys packing my like China or something.

She’s like, You can do this. I was like, Oh my gosh, I think I, I hit it pretty well that I was absolutely terrified. And she’s like all the top cabinets. I’ve just left those for something that’s going to be careful. And I was like, Oh boy, that was low key kind of a stressful moment. But she was like, I really want it to make the whole trip. And I was just like, Whoa, this woman has a lot of faith in me. I did.

I did have a lot of faith in you. I do have a lot of faith in you. But I think that having those times where we were able to have some undivided just time to talk and spend together was really important for us to be able to start trusting the character of one another.

You know what I mean? I feel like intentionality needs to start before the marriage happens because you’re marrying into a family, and so you want to know that who you’re marrying into, you’re making time to make those intentional conversations with them before you get into your marriage. And then you’re like, Oh, wow, I’ve got some in-laws here that are not. I didn’t do any real connecting with them, and that’s really sad.

It’s interesting because you just touched on something that I think is really an important issue that I think even Christians potentially stumble in this because the culture there’s such an independent spirit among young people, especially like when they’re starting to when they move out. It’s like this. A lot of times people don’t leave their homes well, they leave with an independent spirit. And because there was some kind of strife or some kind of issue, right? And it’s like this hard thing that creates. Some form of conflict or division or whatever, right, and that is very true for a lot of people in the culture, but then when they start to like, get married and so forth, they do like the whole dating aspect of life independently, like not involving their family very much, not getting wise counsel, not wanting them to necessarily even meet the person until it’s serious. And all of these kinds of things. And we did not do that. No, with you guys, that was not something that you. That was not the spirit in your heart or Austin’s heart. And so for those of you who are young and are listening, that’s something that I really felt honored by. That would be just a side note for you to maybe take that little nugget and go, Oh, how can I honor my future father in law and mother in law by getting to know them, by letting them be a part of our lives and not being so independent and exclusive? I guess. Yeah, because I think that when people are, especially when they’re younger, it’s almost like the younger people are, the more they feel like they have to prove or something to where they think that if they’re independent, they’re proving that they’re so like confident

And they can do.

Yes, but you guys, that’s not what being an adult is like. Being an adult is being and and being spiritually mature, which is what we should want for all of our kids as they grow older and we should strive for that ourselves is that we don’t have an independent spirit. We have a humble spirit and we’re willing to get help when we need it and ask questions. And it goes both ways. So cultivating healthy relationships with in-laws is something that you have to start with. And we wanted to read from Genesis Chapter two verse twenty four, because this is something that I think a lot of people have a hard time with understanding how to do this.

Yeah, I mean, there’s a natural adjustment that is that the Bible lays out so clearly for us. How nice is that I love when he takes transition periods of our life and it’s like, here’s a verse and then just do it, this verse says, and it’ll go with you anyways. Genesis 2:24 I will say my mom in love has better eyesight than I do because her Bible has

Taught you Sprint. I’ve ever tried to read I. We’re reading glasses. I’m not sure if you know that, but I have the extra giant print bible and she hands me this and I’m like, Give me a second, I’m going to be squinting over here. I think I can read this, though, OK? Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother

And hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and we’re not ashamed.

And so, you know, as this whole concept of leaving and cleaving, this is the concept that is difficult for people where they still like, view their son. Like, I’ll just use that as an example, because Austin is the one in my life who is now married. So moms sometimes struggle with the concept that, oh, they have left,

They’ve

They’ve left, and they have now cleaved to a wife. And so there is a kind of a cutting that happens in that sense where I, as his mom, I’ll always be his mom, like, I’ll always love him the same. I’ll always like, remember his childhood and all those things. But there is now a different woman in his life that is the number one in his life that he makes decisions with. He goes to her first. It’s all about their alignment and their relationship. He’s not coming to mom first and asking mom, Hey, can you help me with this or whatever, right? And so one of the things that has been really, I think, helpful in my relationship with Caroline is that I’ve even come to her and just tried to honor and respect her and go, Hey, I don’t want to like cross boundaries here. And so if you need help with something like when Austin got sick, for example, I just even think of like last week, like I didn’t even have to go to her. Caroline came to me because her heart posture was, I don’t know what to do at this moment with this specific situation. Can you help me, mom? And I was like, Oh, totally. How much help do you want? Like, I was trying to show her the same respect that she was showing me.

So instead of like bombarding her with all the things I, I actually first asked, What have you done so far? Yeah, because I know that she’s grown up with a mom that was very like minded, does everything naturally, all these things, right? And so I’m like, I don’t want to, like, start out this relationship overwhelming her, like telling her to do things she’s already been doing because that can feel condescending, and I would never want her to ever feel that from me. And so if I start out with asking a question first, what have you done and then kind of trying to like, fill in the gaps that then I can answer her question her first question how to. What should I what do you think I should do to help him? And so that is a good example, I guess, of what it means to like, give and take and how there is a hard posture that is needed from both sides, both the mother in law or the mother in love and the daughter and love where we’re both wanting to like, honor one another and respect one another and help one another.

Yeah. And I will say it kind of leads to this next thing when there is that mutual respect of like, I feel respected that mom’s not trying to run our relationship, then I’m like, I want to ask mom’s advice because she has a lot of wisdom and I want to glean from that. And I’ve I’m obviously covering it from one point of view because I’ve grown up in a certain family and she’s raised her kids to be a certain way. And I’ve seen the fruit in the way. And I think if I was basically raised, my husband and so I’m like, I want to learn from that. But mom does a really good job of staying approachable, and that’s something where I feel like a lot of daughter in laws don’t necessarily feel like they can come to their. Moms and be like, uh, like, I really want to ask this or I want this because they’re either scared they’re going to get too much like mom just said, or they feel like they’re just going to get like, Well, why didn’t you think of this? Well, of course, you would do this in this situation. And so the fact that she does lead with questions allows us to be as a part or as separated as we choose. And it keeps this really healthy of like, I don’t feel like moms trying to force anything on me, and therefore I want more because it’s not being some like force like you need to or you should have, or because we’re learning and being aware of that being somebody that’s been married. How many years? Yeah, twenty to twenty two years has nine children like she realizes I’m not going to have what she has because

I haven’t been married. I’ve been married two months. I have the two minus the two, minus the two. And so it’s really, really so nice

At such a blessing and you’re going to be able to bless your in-laws. I mean, the fact that she even had purposed in her heart before she even had in law, like daughter in law, kids like that is such a blessing and that it’s something that you’re going to do if you don’t have them, if you do have them, obviously you can work on that now. But like the fact that she did and she purposed before it ever came up, I’m so about doing things before you get to them, because then you’re you’re aware of what you want. It’s where

You live. And when you talk about that all the time and the parenting mentor program about different ways to be proactive parents. And that would even be like another good podcast just how to be a proactive mother in love or father and love, right? Like, yeah. But it goes both ways. And so understanding that like both have to invest in the relationship and make the time and try to love and honor and get to know one another, too, with like without having like ideas in your head of what you think they already are. Right? And so that, I think is like super super important because it’s easy for like it would be easy for Austin to be like, Oh, well, my mom doesn’t it up. And then for Caroline to like, think something in her mind and not ask me, right? But I don’t see Austin as doing that sort of thing. And so that’s where I think that it’s it’s an important thing for us all to constantly be reflecting it and understanding that not only do we build a reputation for ourselves with other people and relationships like I’m building a relationship and a reputation with Caroline, either she’s going to feel like I’m approachable or she’s going to feel like I’m not either. She’s going to feel like I’m controlling, or she’s going to feel like I’m not. Do you see how there’s a reputation that’s being built there? And the truth is, is that we do that with our kids that we raise from the time they are babies up, right? Are they trustworthy or are they? Are they not? Is mommy going to pick me up when I’m crying or not? Like, it starts literally when they’re infants? And it either cultivates selfishness in a baby even by overly like helicopter parenting, or it creates a trusting, healthy attachment, right? And so I think that what’s important for us in this conversation, though, is I think it would be good for people to really reflect first and foremost on what they would want.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if you were like to ask yourself that question. So for me, I would say, what would I want in a mother and love? Like, what would mean the most to me and then to try to be what I want, right? And then Caroline would ask similar but different question where she would say, What would I want from a daughter in love and then try to be that right? And so, like both of us, have an opportunity in this, to be introspective, reflective, honest, remove the rose tinted glasses, ask ourselves the hard questions and really ponder that because we love one another. And that’s part that’s like the first part of cultivating a good relationship is like, OK, me what I need to work on here. Yeah. And I think that that’s one of the biggest problems with the whole like reputation that mother in law’s have, especially because they’re like the older, more potentially domineering is that they’re they’re not thinking about like how they might need to change or how they can be in a relationship. But instead, they’re like that

Girl or you know what I mean? That was honestly, really cute. I don’t think most mothers are in love to do that. I cute that girl, but that was adorable.

But in all seriousness, like I have another friend whose son is getting, he’s engaged. He’s going to be getting married in a few months. And she texted me a little bit ago and was like, OK, Angie, I need all the tips, and I’m like, You know, honestly, I my biggest goal is to knock. Out of the park to literally, like, hit that ball outside the park of what a mother in law can be in the sense of I hate what the reputation is in the culture and what people say about, Oh, your mother in law or you know what I mean? And I mean, there’s movies that are titled this. I haven’t seen them, but I’ve seen them like promoted and it just doesn’t look healthy. It doesn’t look good, like you watch any romantic movie. And there’s always a mother in law that shows up somewhere in there. That’s like Cruella de Vil.

Like, seriously? Right? It’s true. It’s true.

And I just so, you know, we have to be aware that like we are actually already, when you step into that role, I felt like, wow, I’m already in a battle for like a reputation that’s completely opposite of what the culture is expecting of us. And so having some grace for the mother in

Law’s out there is probably a good thing because they really they

Even if they are like the most perfect mother and love that could ever exist because there’s this cultural like pooh poohing of that specific role within a family, they are literally like a salmon swimming upstream. But it’s a good fight. It’s a good swim that we need to swim upstream. We need to try hard to not be what the culture expects. But so let’s let’s share from another scripture. We we’re talking about being what you want. And so there is a passage in Philippians Chapter two, verse three and four says do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. And then it goes on Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And if there’s one verse that I hope and pray that you like really hold on to with this, it would be this one. Mm hmm. Because treating one another with love and respect. Like, we often times I’ll just confess, like when I read the Bible, a lot of times I think about the relationships that are closest to me, like my husband or my kids that are still living in the home or whatever, right? But little do we think about the relationships that we’re building or the relationships that are, like, maybe a little bit more extended, right, where it’s the in-laws, like even me thinking about my in-laws right? And like treating them with the same kind of humility and more significant than yourself. That’s a hard one to to swallow. A hard pill to swallow is a good old term from Grammy. Caroline and I. If you know something about us, we have a lot in common.

We do, which is awesome. I am like such a big fan of honestly being like so much like my mother in love. I’m like, This is great. She gets it. There’s so many things that I’ll say or like our terms or the fact that we’re both wearing our little white hats. That’s right. Yes. Oh yeah. If you’re watching

Rumble, you can see Caroline and I were we just slapped

On a little bit of mascara and have our baseball caps or white caps. Is that what you call them? I call them white hats.

My mom was like, Oh, so technically mine’s a mama had.

Yeah, she’s she’s a little more advanced than I am. Mine still just to wipe it. Yeah, but it’s true.

As Andrew was saying, like keeping it is interesting because I feel like in-law relationships get a little second degree treatment, and it really shouldn’t be that way for the daughter in law’s that are listening to this and wanting to be respectful and honoring of your husband’s parents. Think of them is your own parents. You would fight to have a relationship with your own parents. You would have a fight to be in relationship with your own family because you’re aware that they’re going to play a role in your life, your husband’s life, because clearly they raised whoever you married, which means there should already be a baseline of respect there. The fact that they have raised a spouse that you would commit the rest of your life to means that there is already an honoring happening because they did something that you’re benefiting from,

Which is that you are attracted to,

Well, I think you’re trying to do.

So it’s like they’ve already done that for you. Base level, whether they’re an excellent in in love to have or not means they’ve already done something and they’ve put in work and time and prayers and tears over this person that you now get to enjoy. And that is a massive benefit. So looking at it through that and then being like, OK, would I not fight to have my own mom in my life and keep a healthy relationship within her between her and I? Absolutely. Because I want to be able to bring my grandbabies back to her and have her be somebody that I trust and have her be somebody that wants to take my kids in. And like, I want the same thing with mom. Like, it does not change. And I feel like it’s really sad how we kind of ostracize in-laws a little bit and are like, Oh, you’re the you’re the in-law. Well, no. She plays such an important role in not only my husband’s life, but now my life because we’re one and I definitely feel like Angie’s daughter. Like, I feel like another topping kid and she’s just taking me under her wing so gracefully. Yes, there’s a different relationship because you haven’t risen from birth. Like she said, you’re trying to get to know them, you’re investing in that relationship, you’re learning how they communicate, how they operate. So you’re just going to have to work harder. But it’s something that is so worth working towards because when you have it, it is so sweet. I don’t know many girls that are like would consider one of their in-laws, their mother and love to be a mentor, to be somebody that they aspire to be like, to be somebody that they respect. Now I was obviously blessed with an insanely good master.

I’m like, Well, you know, you know the token, this is their podcast for crying out loud. You listen to everything they say. They’re awesome.

And a lot of people, I will say, don’t get this. Some people don’t care to do their research, but it’s worth fighting for it, even if it’s something that’s not an easy relationship because all relationships require sacrifice and you shouldn’t think you should have to sacrifice less and expect more within in love. Like that’s just wrong, and you’re going to end up being like drinking the poison and expecting them to die. You’re going to be the one that’s going to be really sad and like, OK, we’re going to have to cut off this relationship or withdraw. And it leaves a hole in your heart when there’s not unity, and it’ll do that in any relationship. So Body of Christ family,

That’s really good. I think that you mentioned something that we need to go over. We talked about a little bit in our conversation in the kitchen about the difference between honoring your parents and obeying them, which is part of the whole leaving and cleaving thing. And this is an important aspect. And Exodus 20 August Rita, I would pass the baton.

I think you mentioned that know I decided to tell you the first verse so you wouldn’t try anymore. See, we’re

Still learning all the things. So Exodus 20, Verse 12 says, Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land. The Lord, your God is giving you. And, you know, there is a difference a lot of times one of the things that care said in the kitchen when we were chatting about this. So a lot of times people bunch the words obedience and honor and respect together as if they mean the same thing. Mm hmm. But they don’t know. They don’t mean the same thing. And the the biggest difference, I believe from from my perspective, one of the things that I had been thinking about meditating, on reading the word and preparing my heart as my son was about to get married was this concept of him obeying me versus honoring and respecting me because the Bible says to honor and respect your parents even when they don’t deserve it, right? Like that. But it doesn’t say that you have to obey them. Like, for example, if a parent was telling their child to do something that was unbiblical or anti biblical, you would not need to obey that. Like if they’re trying to get you to send, you would not obey that, right? But there’s another aspect of this when you leave and cleave. There is there is something else that shifts in a maturity and in a growing up where obedience to your parents changes.

And so like for Isaac and I, we in our minds don’t expect. Our adult children to obey, like how we would expect our three year old and our six year old to obey us. We do have a healthy expectation of them all to have be honoring and respecting us because that’s something that is unchanging right? And that it’s and it’s important that they would be respecting and honoring and obeying God always right. And so as we were digging into the scripture and looking at like honoring your father and your mother and what that looks like for in-laws, it’s it’s the same because now I’m one of your moms. Yeah, right. But at the same time, what is, you know, Isaac and I say this all the time on our podcast and in our parenting mentor program. If you have a choice to make it easy or hard for your kids to respect you, why not make it easier by living in a way that it’s easier for your kids to respect you living in such a way that it’s easier for them to honor you? And the same goes for obedience like we would want our our younger kids. We always focus on this, John, 14, says. If you love me, you will obey me. We want our kids to obey us because they love us, not because they fear us. And so there’s this element of having to invest in those relationships so that they’re cultivated on the foundation of Christ and on the foundation of love.

And that takes effort. It takes an investment of time, which is what we’re talking about, like relationships like this. Take an investment of time. You have to cultivate a relationship that is loving. Now I just want to say something because many of you listening might go, OK, but what do you do if you’ve been in a relationship because you have been married for four or five years and it’s not going well, and maybe you don’t feel like you or your mother in law or your father in law have cultivated a relationship that is founded on love? And can I just say the communication goes a long way? Yeah. Just even sharing your heart, asking your mother in law out for a cup of coffee, and saying, first of all, I just want to say, I love you and you share with them your heart’s desire for your relationship. That alone can go a really, really long way. Hmm. If you have a humble heart posture, even if they don’t, that will convict them and change the relationship drastically just by obeying what scriptures we’ve read honoring your mother and father, treating others as if their interests were more important than your own. Those two things in an in-law relationship go

A long way. You know, a

Really long way. And so how many one others are there in scripture that we could literally go? I really wish this was part of my relationship with them, so I’m just going to try to do this and lead by example. That’s what we’re all called to do in all of our relationships. But a lot of times, like I said, we think about our relationship with our spouse or our relationship with our kids and we or a relationship with friends. How many people treat their friends better than they treat their family? That’s not OK. We need to be the same in private as we are in public, right? So I hope that that is an encouragement to you. But we want to jump into a few other important bullet points. So when we’re talking about being what we want, we talk about investment.

Yeah, we talk about communication.

The next thing we wanted to bring up was boundaries.

Boundaries are important. Boundaries honestly solve a lot of communication problems when there are boundaries in play. And then there’s a mutual respect, which we kind of already talked about. When there’s a mutual respect, there’s an investment. So there’s a foundation and then there’s boundaries. It creates really clear communication because you know what the boundaries are. Why do you create any sort of boundaries for your kids? Because then if they do go outside the boundaries, then they understand what comes next. It’s not like, Oh, now we have a big misunderstanding. They knew where the boundaries were. They went outside the boundaries. They know what to expect if that happens, which means either a conversation or some sort of discipline. Now that’s was kids. The same thing applies in an adult relationship. If I lay down a boundary, somebody steps over boundary and apology might be necessary. A conversation might be necessary. But they knew that something was out of place because we’ve talked about it and we’ve been like, Hey, and being open with your boundaries instead of being like, OK, this is something we want because I know Austin and I talk a lot about like we had a planning date, little meeting thing, and I was like, What kind of boundaries do we want to have with our friends, with our with our house? What kind of door do we want to have? Do we want to have a revolving door? Or do we want to have one where we’re like, we have boundaries or

Even boundaries with your phones? Oh, we did that.

We put our phones to bed outside our bedroom because it’s like, I’m not going to invite the whole world into our personal space and our personal lives. And so we put our beds, phones to bed like outside over Austin’s desk, and it creates a boundary to where we know that if a phone is inside the bedroom, we both know that a boundary is being crossed and there’s an ability to be like, Hey. Obviously, boundaries are sometimes going to get ignored, and that’s OK. Or forgotten about or misinterpreted, and you can be like, Hey,

Come alongside them. This was a boundary we put up.

Can we please respect this and can you go put your phone out and then we it clears up communication. It’s not like, what are you talking about? We’ve never talked about this. What we’ve always had our phones that are but there’s none of that going on because we’ve set clear boundaries

And you set them by communicating like I even think about like the very first month that you guys were married, just communicating with us about what your heart’s desires were for the very first month that you guys were in transition of learning what it meant to be married and to be a married couple like you had mentioned to both dad and Megan, just a few other people like, Hey, we just really want to just be us for a month. Mm hmm. And that was really important, especially to Austin, I think. And that was like a thing. And so communicating, though, made it easier for us so that we didn’t then have, like hurt feelings. If we invited you over for dinner and you do, you know to me. And so like, it helps you when you have boundaries or you have desires like that and you and your communicated to and you know what their why is it makes it so much easier to be supportive and so much easier to be like backing that and going, Yeah, that is good. That is such a great goal. I think I even told you I wish Dad and I would have no did that. We could have done something like that because there is so many different transitions that are happening when you’re getting married for the first time.

And this is like a good tip, even like to recommend to the younger couple because they may be feeling this like feeling a need to do something like that, but not even verbalizing it, not even knowing what the need is. There’s just too much. Too many family dynamics are changing all at once, potentially, and there might feel overwhelmed. And I wonder sometimes if that’s one of the things that scares so many people from even wanting to get married today is that there’s so many potential relationship changes and just transitions. They don’t know how to navigate it or even understanding that they can have. Like goals and boundaries and communicate about these things and be like, we’re going to move forward and we’re going to make progress and we’re going to do this, you know? And I think that it’s such a healthy thing and it’s going to be one that’s going to be needed. Even like eventually when you guys have a baby postpartum, like it took me five babies to be able to say, I need six weeks of not a lot of guests and not going anywhere.

Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Like, I just need to transition with my baby and like nurse and rest and all those things and like. But how much better were my postpartum? Once I was finally taking care of me and the baby and my family holistically like getting our new groove, we just added a new family member and I’m healing. It’s OK to say no, and I’m sharing that with you guys, because a lot of you, a lot of those questions that come to us are regarding big family transitions, like adding a new baby or a son getting married or or like. I know those are two very, extremely different seasons of life, and sometimes people have them at the same time like I did.

I’m going to say, unless you have like nine kids, then you might experience that. It just hit me differently.

But yeah, but in reality, like, it literally does not matter what the transition is. Communicate. Boundaries have mutual respect for one another by being willing to say, Hey, I think we just need this. And this is why

When I think mom, having had done boundaries in her life even with her postpartum like she just said, gave her real understanding for like, here’s another female who’s feeling a little overwhelmed and need some space in her life. And there was that like understanding of like, Oh, I did that in a season of my life too. Yeah. Why don’t you take that? Because it was healthy for me. I think it will be healthy for you. And when you communicate, you have the support and support goes such a long way, especially as newly married couples. It’s going to be the same thing when we have a baby, when we have any time, there’s transition. Like Mom said, when there’s support there from both people, it’s like, Oh, wow, this is awesome. You don’t feel like you’re alone and you feel like they understand. And then we weren’t sitting down there in Boise Way, far away from the family going. We don’t know if they’re like, they don’t like that. We’re not hanging out with them. Like, I knew that mom and dad said, like, we understand. Don’t worry about you and

Go for it. Yeah.

And that doesn’t mean they didn’t extend an invite to make sure we knew we were welcomed back whenever we were ready. They weren’t like, OK, well, if they’re going to be that way, we’re going to. We’re going to be that way. You know, like, it’s really easy to get tit for tat in relationships like that and be like, OK, if you’re going to want space, we’re going to take you to extreme and just not invite you at all. Yeah, because there were

A few things within that first month, like even I think about Solomon’s birthday and like, there were just a few like someone had invited our family over and said, Oh, even Caroline and Austin are invited. And I was like, Well, I think they want a month, but I’ll just send the invitation out so they know they were invited because I know it feels good to know when you’re invited, even if you can’t go, Yeah. So if I feel that way, how much more is my new daughter in love going to feel who’s in a new city and just getting to know people and probably feels alone at times, right? Like even if they do say no, at least she knows she was wanted, and that’s a good thing. So the next thing we’re going to really rattle off here is why you possibly have a bad relationship. Ok, this is like deep heart, introspective time, so get ready for some exhortation because we have three bullet points here. One is, are you approachable or are you unapproachable? The second one is, do you have a teachable heart or are you prideful and have an independent spirit? And the third thing is, are you humble? And so we’re going to dive into those things being unapproachable. This is more one that I think I could speak more towards, because I think that this is something that, like the mother in law, father in law really cultivates and leads in in the sense of are are are you approachable for your daughter in love or send in love to come and confront you on something or even ask you a question? Or do they feel like they need to already know everything they’re walking on eggshells or they’re not good enough, or they’re never going to measure up? And the reason why I’m bringing up those are very different things.

I get that some of those things are similar, but some of them are very different because being an approachable can come from a few different places. One, it could come from a legalistic home. If someone is raising their family in a very legalistic environment and one of their children get married, the end loves are going to sense that same tension of potentially walking on eggshells. And it shouldn’t feel like that. It shouldn’t be that way. If you want to have a relationship where your daughter in love is coming to you and asking you for a recipe for something that she knows her now husband loved when he was growing. Up or for help with medicine, or I don’t even know, like if she’s going to ask for anything, you have to be approachable and the approachable illness. I don’t even know if that’s a word. You guys are probably laughing at me, but your ability to go with it, your ability to be approachable. Really, a lot of it comes from like a culture that you’ve even cultivated within your family and what she has sensed being there. And so like, do your other kids like, here’s a good evaluation tactic. Do your other kids feel like they can come to you and ask questions? Do they do that regularly? And if they don’t, because you’re constantly saying no all the time, you might want to switch that up.

Just a little hint there. Wink, wink.

That’s right. But I do think that it’s really important that we evaluate and go. Am I a person that is approachable? Like, am I friendly? Or am I kind of more quiet and reserved? Do do I need to go out of my way instead of blaming my personality, right? Oh, maybe you’re more introverted and you’re like, Well, I’m just introverted. This is how I am. Well, what is what is the most giving loving thing that you can do in that relationship for your daughter and love if you are introverted? To step out of your comfort zone, be the bigger person and try to be what she needs you to be right. And the same goes for someone who maybe is more extroverted. If you have an introverted daughter in love, you’re going to have to kind of calm things down a little bit and be quiet longer to let her talk. Or, you know, there’s just we have to be respectful of other people just in general. And again, it goes back to the Philippines, too. In my mind. But Carol, why don’t you speak about the next one

Having a teachable heart? This is a good thing to have. It’s definitely something that may not is always something that everybody works on. Whether you’re in any season of life, we’re all wanting to have a teachable heart. We should all at least desire to have a teachable heart. But this really comes from a position of Am I going to be a person filled with pride thinking that I know best, especially when it comes to being a daughter in love who’s only been married two months and has a wonderful family that has shown fruit that has shown that they have something that they can biblically add, both mentally to us, spiritually to us, physically with us. They show that they have raised a family, they have fruit. So coming to them and having the humility to be like, I want to know and not being like, OK, I’ve moved out, I’ve gotten married, I’ve done the thing now I’ve got. This is really hard for a mother in love because she’s going to watch you learn everything the hard way you learn things. Two ways you either learn by somebody having gone before you and getting to be like, Hey, mom, you’ve

Already done this healthy or

You’ve had to deal with. Maybe Austin’s having a reoccurring thing that he had when he was younger, and I’m like, Dude, we never dealt with this in my family coming here and being like, I need to know what’s going on because I never dealt with this with any of my siblings or my mom never treated us like this. Like How? How can I help, you know? But I had to ask. I had to be willing to be like, I don’t need to come across as a know it all. I don’t need to come across as I have it all together. And it sometimes it’s intimidating coming into a new family and being like, What are they going to think of me if I don’t know what this is? That can be kind of scary. It can be kind of vulnerable, can be kind of open. It can be like, I don’t know any time you’re saying, I don’t know to another person, there has to be a sense of humility there and being like, I’m going to lay aside the pride of what they’re going to think of me, of needing to have all the answers and coming in and being like, I have a teachable heart. I want to know. I want to grow. I want to. And I always want to be a person like that, reading books, listening to podcasts, listening to.

But I mean, some of the things that are have the most wisdom are standing right in front of you, and you won’t even give them the time of day to share it with you. And it’s really sad that so many people, I feel like, just kind of bypass their parents and their in-laws and are kind of like, Yeah, OK, whatever your family. And then they go to outside sources. Oh, well, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do this when their parents that have either parented them or have parented their spouse are sitting there going, Why won’t you just ask us? We’ve been through this like, you don’t have to learn by making your own mistakes and then having to clean up all the pieces. We did that. We know. So just like, ask us. But it comes from if you want to have an open relationship with your parents and don’t want to feel like they’re pushing things on you. You have to be willing to ask, which means you have to have to have to have a teachable heart. And then it puts them in a position where they feel like. They’re wanted. They’re loved, they’re needed, they can be helpful, and that is what. A mother in love, a father in love wants to feel.

Yeah, I mean, I’m just even thinking about the tightest two role that God commands the older women to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and children and be busy in the home. Mm hmm. And if if the younger generation is not coming to the older generation and valuing them, then it’s difficult because then it’s like this. It’s almost like the tightest twos are trying to like force it and that’s not going to work. So there has to be a teacher ability. One of the verses that we were going to share with you guys is First Peter five five, which says, likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders, clothe yourselves. All of you with humility toward one another for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I love that in here it says, clothe yourselves, all of you. It’s not just the younger clothe yourselves, all of you with humility toward one another. And this is important because a lot of times people, a lot of younger families, will not go to the in-laws for advice because they actually don’t see the approachability in the in-laws, because there’s pride in the the in-law. Yeah, like the older generation, too. And so this is a really important thing that we need to recognize both in both generations. It doesn’t matter what age you are, we are all to be clothed with humility and consider one another. We’re in humility towards one another and go, Hmm. So maybe if they’re not asking me about this, maybe I need to really reflect on that because. Maybe there isn’t fruit in my life, because the reality is, is as Christians, we all need to be wise who were asking things from right.

We’re not going to look at somebody, whether it’s your mother in law or father in law or a perfect stranger, and ask them for wisdom in something if they don’t have fruit in that thing. Yeah. Does that make sense like common sense? Biblical wisdom will tell you to judge the fruit first and then ask for the wisdom, right? And so I’m not what I don’t want you to misunderstand. We’re not saying you should only and always be learning from your mom and your mother in law. No, not at all. Like God’s word exhorts the younger to go to Titus to men and women, not just your mom and your mother in love or your father in love and your father. But there is an element that you have to use wisdom and you have to judge that. And so like for me, I have to be I’m constantly like evaluating, Am I walking in a way where my kids would want to mimic this? Like this is that’s just a basic thing that we teach in the parenting program. Are we perfect? No. Do we mess up all the time? Yes. Do we repent of that and try to fix things and try to be more patient, more consistent in our parenting? All the things like, yeah, like because that’s what God’s word commands us to do and we want to obey him, but we’re not going to be perfect. And so when we walk in that open transparency, even with our daughter and loves where they’re looking at us and going, Oh, I probably wouldn’t do things like that or whatever.

But at the same time, they have grace because they see you like knowing what’s right and pursuing that and they see your heart’s desire to be obedient. That’s what family is about, and that’s what’s beautiful. That’s what’s God honoring. But you both have to have approachability, comes from having humility and being willing to say, I’m not doing it right. I’m really tired or I’m sick or I’m whatever it is or I’ve been. I failed at this and I want to be better. And for the younger generation, it’s having a teachable heart and a different kind of way that’s like, I don’t know what would you do? Or I’ve tried this in this and this, and it’s not working. Am I doing something wrong? What would you try next? And so sometimes these relationships, like there can be tension because we don’t know each other’s hearts. And so if there’s one thing that we could just really end with, I want to encourage you guys to be grace giving and to look at the heart intent as much as you can. It’s really hard. The Bible says that man looks outward appearance and God looks at the heart. So you got to have time to talk and cultivate that relationship. Go out for coffee if you need to spend time together. Like, I even just think about when we went to pick up your sofa and just Caroline took me out for Thai food

And we spent the day together driving around, picking up furniture dresser over here and we had a crime baby in the

Car part of the time. Bless her heart. She’s trying to help Sandra in the back, but it was a bonding experience for us, for sure, and I’m honored that she asked me. I remember when she asked me if I would be willing to drive out to Boise. And I’m and I was so excited.

I was like, She wants a relationship with me and

I was so excited. But like, I know that some of you guys might think that asking those kinds of things would be a burden. But it’s not. It’s absolutely not. It’s those times together that build the relationship where you can talk, serve one another, love one another and really just build a relationship. So I hope you guys were encouraged. This was super

Fun. This was super fun. This is a bonding

Experience for us. Yeah. On a podcast, if your mother in law, that’s one I really go, Yeah, and it’s it’s so cool because even just listening to Angie speak, I’m like, Wow, I got a good one. I got such a good one.

I love this lady so much. She literally has taken so much of the homesickness about moving away. A lot of people have asked me that love like, how’s it been being so far away? Because my mom is like one of my best friends absolutely hands down. And a lot of that has been kind of like dissolved by how. Our summit is to have live close to a mother in love where I’m like, I feel like as if I were one of her own, and it’s honestly, I feel like Angie is kind of the whole verse of are the is that no, that’s not even a verse. Do unto others. Yes. Yeah, as you would have them do unto you. Sorry. I was like, Is that just a good Bible?

That was such a weird like brain glitch, but it’s doing unto others

As you would have them do unto you. And I feel like so many times she got in my shoes and was like, Oh, if I was a newly married wife, what would I kind of want or what would I desire? And she did that with even how thoughtful her our wedding gifts were and stuff. And it was just like, Wow, you can tell the intentionality that this lady has invested into not only her son, but now me, and it is a massive blessing. So thanks to you, mom, I’m not actually going to take out my hack.

So no thank you.

Well, you guys, we’ve enjoyed this and we hope that you have a great week. Thanks for joining us on the podcast and we’ll see you next time. Happy New Year’s! Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji 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

Your marriage is either growing or digressing, there’s no in-between. Stir things up in a good way by dreaming together in a productive way that positively alters the path of your life, family, and marriage. The Tolpin’s get candid about what they’ve been doing for 22 years now to ensure marriage alignment as they pursue progress and change.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Plan time together to purposefully discuss and document areas of life that you desire change and progress with.
2. Think ahead about your discussion points.
3. Distill to the simple so that you take action.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

Proverbs 21:9 – “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.”

1 Peter 3:7 – “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”

Romans 15:5-6 – “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Welcome back, everybody.

Hey, guys.

Wow, we’re approaching the new year here.

I know this is actually a topic today in the podcast that Isaac and I have been passionate about for many years. Yeah, we are going to talk about marriage visionary.

And you can do this any time of year. In fact, you should do this frequently. Catch up on these things and get make sure you’re getting in alignment. Marriage Team is the most important team, and so we’re talking more about teamwork. Last episode, we talked about marriage, thriving tips and communication, different communication strategies. So catch that if you haven’t. But today we’re going to talk about visionary together.

That’s true because obviously the previous conversation that we had in the podcast will be helpful as you are communicating your vision sharing and planning together, right? And so the reason why we’re covering this right now strategically is because it’s a few weeks until the new year. And so right now is really the best time to start thinking about and planning and and dreaming and asking God to really impress upon you what he would have you and your family focus on. And we’re going to go over some three basic steps here pretty soon, but we just really, really thought that this would be a great time as people have. Sometimes they take some time off work during the Christmas holidays and it can be busy. But right now you really need to take that time to pray and think before you have your planning meeting.

And if you also a previous episode was on thankfulness and doing an exercise with your family, giving up all the reasons each person, the family is thankful, leading it with a whiteboard or journal or something, and capturing all the miracles that happen this year, all things God provided for. We easily can forget those things and accidentally even take credit for those things when really God showed up and did something really small or really big.

And it’s our responsibility to glorify him and to teach our kids what it looks like to glorify him and to really shine a big spotlight on the God moments.

So this is this would be the next step before if you decide to have a family meeting, getting everybody making intentions for the new year in different areas of their life and so forth. But before we dive into these awesome points here, I think you’re seeing a lot of this episode. We just so appreciate you being part of the one million legacies movement. As you know, there’s lots of change. We felt like there was no other option but to create an app, and out of necessity comes blessing. Sometimes the blessing is that the app isn’t like we have to move off of our Facebook groups off of Facebook and these kinds of things. No, it has become this is way better. People are absolutely loving it, and the app is a huge hit and success. And I would say a better word is fruitfulness right for everybody involved. And there is an investment to be part of the app because we are investing continually to make that app work. So so we’re partnering together whoever’s part of it to create a powerful biblical community. And there’s lots of powerful, really good, helpful resources there. All the kid episodes are there now to

To protect them, the new features that you just instilled in the app in the last

Week. Well, we one of the things is we’re doing a monthly Q&A for 60 Minutes where we rapid fire answer everybody’s questions live. Isaac and I do. Yeah, and that’s for everybody in the app, and we’ve decided to create a library of those and write what the questions that were asked were in the description. So then over time would be a full library of all the questions people have and us talking about them. In addition, the parent team mentor program, it used to be that we would do a live every two weeks or so. And if you’re in the six weeks of the program, those lives are go in your dashboard at courageous parenting. That’s still the case, so someone doesn’t have to pay for the app to always get benefit from the parenting mentoring program. However, in the private group, in the app for the parenting mentor program people we are now, we used to delete those after we do them. After a couple of weeks now we’re going to build a library. They’re two from each topical live we do, which has a 30 minute Q&A afterwards.

So it’s 90 minutes, really.

So just a couple of things and that people were so receptive and we got feedback from people. They wanted that. So we did it. So it takes extra work, obviously, but it’s worth it.

And you can also search for things using hashtags, which is kind of a common thing that people are used to doing these days. But it’s it’s becoming an exciting thing as people are sharing resources and what’s working for them, what the Lord is teaching them.

And yeah, so it’s got a news feed. Just like, you know, Facebook, it’s got profiles. You can connect with people. And I think what’s really cool is you can see where everybody’s city is. So as things get more difficult, it’s going to be even more important to know where real biblical Christians are near you. Yeah. And I think there’s some future benefits that people may not even be thinking about right now to the app of knowing who’s in proximity and helping each other. So anyways, potentially when churches can’t meet home churches to. Hoping to who knows, right? So we’re going to dive in, so thank you for sharing and all the reviews and everything. It really helps the industry. Let’s dive into this. So the first thing is unity, right? Isn’t that the pursuit? The main pursuit of doing this would be that you’re in unity. Hey, guys, have you ever gone down the road with an idea without really talking to your wife, praying about it together and, you know, deciding together, deciding together to do something? Yeah, you know, sometimes that doesn’t go so well for your marriage. So this is really important as you’re thinking about new initiatives, your family, spiritual life, all the things educational things that you’re walking in unity, even if only one of you is actually doing the doing. And a lot of them, you’re both doing the doing. Yeah, OK, so that’s really important. And I think that Angie picked out some really good scriptures on this.

Well, you know, as we were talking about just our experience with our visionary, we’ve always called them visionary sessions or visionary dates. And we have typically over the last twenty two years, our regular, I guess, routine would be meeting together and doing this every three months, at the least. And sometimes it’s even six weeks. Mm hmm. And it’s really become something that Isaac and I look forward to because we’re able to see the progress that we’ve made from our previous visionary and experience or planning date, seeing the progress that we’ve made, whether that’s financial progress or educational milestones with the kids or friendships or decisions that we made, projects that we wanted to pursue, different things like that. And then we’re able to create new ones. And that’s really how like by the end of every year you look back and you don’t have regret and you’re like, That was a really productive year. Praise God. But you’re living with intentionality. I just think of intention as being the main word here. So this is something that we have lived out for the last twenty two years. We have taught on this and marriage seminars in the past.

We’ve shared on this with people that God has placed in our life, that we were mentoring and different things, and it across the board is something that everyone enjoys. So I think that this is really a good application project that any couple can do. Absolutely. But one of the things that can be a huge issue is potential arguments. And you don’t want to go into a meeting like this arguing being quarrelsome or potentially like heading in two different directions. So while Isaac is talking about with unity is super, super important, but we have a couple verses that we want to share with you guys that are really warnings from the Lord. Obviously, Proverbs has some good warnings for us as wives and for husbands, but Proverbs Twenty twenty one verse nine says it is better to live in a corner of the house top than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. And so a lot of times people will read this verse and they’ll think that that’s just a warning for women and it is a warning for women, but it’s also a warning for those women’s husbands as well, right?

It is because a lot of times it’s not always, but many times it’s the husbands fault, at least partially or completely, because there’s a lack of communication about things and they’re so far ahead in their brain and even actions, sometimes on things I know from experience and that the wives feel left behind or they feel not in the know of some of the details that make it sound like an actual wise thing to do. Or they just feel like, Hey, are we a team or not? What’s going on here? And so if you want your team in marriage and if you want your team to operate well, there needs to be really good communication decisions made together. And yeah, husbands, you’re going to you’re going to lead and initiate and these kinds of things, which are wonderful, but it doesn’t mean you just make all the decisions and just go and expect your wife to be supportive when she’s not part of the process, right?

Because that is actually the thing that could potentially tempt a woman to become quarrelsome, right? Like if she I don’t know if you’ve ever met anyone who just seems like they want to pick a fight about everything, right? Or they’re they just kind of are in a mood. Many years ago, my great grandma used to call that being in a mood, and I I think that we, both men and women can learn from this. No one would want to live with anyone who’s quarrelsome, whether it’s a wife or a husband, right? And so we need to take responsibility for our moods. And before we’re heading into a date night like this where we’re going to be doing a visionary thing and we want to be in unity, we should pray and ask God to help us, not to be quarrelsome and to have an open spirit and open mind towards hearing some new dreams potentially or. Different things that want to be tried out for intentional living or whatever, or

Ways we can improve our marriage relationship, which would be the hardest conversation. And so in first Peter 03:07 You can look it up, but part of it talks about living with your wife in an understanding way.

And so it’s a warning, too, because it says less your prayers be heard right?

And so if you want God’s blessing on things you’re doing, you better be living with your wife and understand your way. So your prayers are heard. So God’s behind it, and you better be asking the Lord for wisdom and anything you’re doing, whether it’s a, you know, a good word for your family to improve the culture or whatever it is, you should be tuned in to God and tuned in to your wife husbands. Because without those two things, you’re likely it’s not going to go that well, or even if you get the thing happens. How you got there is going to be very difficult and not worth it.

Right. And so but it’s the same warning for wives too, right to be totally focused on the Lord and submitted to him trying to walk in purity so that you’re walking in righteousness, right? Which means walking rightly. If you’re walking rightly and your heart is pure before the Lord, you’re less likely to be quarrelsome. And so maybe spending some time in the word and just seeking God and saying, Lord, would you give me an opportunity to share this thing that’s on my heart or that I would like to see change in? And would you like if it is a marriage conversation, which Isaac said is oftentimes the hardest conversation to have, like, say, you’re not happy with your the intimacy in your life or you’re not happy with the respect that you feel or don’t feel from your spouse. Those are hard conversations to have. And sometimes people will shy away from going to those deep, dark areas because they don’t want conflict thinking that it’s going to create peace or tranquility without talking about it. But in reality, it has to be talked about

Creates long term disaster.

So, yeah, so we just are warning you guys basically point one as a warning to pursue unity. But part of pursuing unity is a warning and scripture for women to have self-control over their tongues. While it’s also a warning for men to have purposefulness in their listening. Those are the two things I would say that men and women struggle with.

Yeah, so let’s listen.

Men and and women, let’s not be argumentative. Ok. Really listening

To you? So the second point is plan time to be together that can be out on a date night, or it can be a date night in or you can do a weekend together, whatever you can do. We are not really in a spot to do a weekend together or anything like that. We have a little baby, but we can find time in our bedroom to do this, we can go out to dinner, but that’s even hard with a baby. So right now, our best bet is to probably come back to the studio, come out to the studio right here. And if we didn’t have a studio, we would just do it in our bedroom, as we’ve done before, because we seem to always kind of have a baby, right? Most of our adult lives.

That’s true. So which is pretty 11 pregnancies in twenty two years. You do the math

So we can get a lot more done, especially we have. We kind of like our white board and things like that. But you know, we’ve done it going out.

We can be super productive. It’s just a matter of the kids also have to have like a little pep talk of respecting our time. So they don’t interrupt us, take some planning. It takes some time. It’s a good tip, too. So dads, I mean, I would say both mom or dad could give this morning to the kids, but I think that it really is a special extra warning if the dad goes, Hey, guys, mom and I are going to be doing some important planning for the year, so we really need our privacy. So unless there’s blood, don’t interrupt us.

So and in this planning, I think be OK if it takes a couple of meetings or a couple of times together, you know? And so that’s really important. So be intentional about that plan. Some things you can make it really nice or you could just be basic. Let’s not put big expectations on it because sometimes if we put big expectations, we just don’t end up doing it, and that would be the worst. I’d rather do something really simple than not do it at all. So don’t think too much about that,

But you definitely want to hit your goal of completion of, Oh, we did this and we feel better.

Yeah, so so. So the third point is, think ahead about the discussion points, and I’m going to reel off some discussion points and you can add some and you might not do all of these. This is a lot. But as I read them, as I say them to you, you might think, Oh, that one’s a definite for us. And if you’re like all of them are definite for you, just plan. This might take a couple of times together, and that’s OK. But the first one is culture. And what is the culture of your family? Culture is the ethos, the real behaviors, the attitudes. It’s not what you necessarily teach or what you think your family is about. It’s what your family actually is about. If someone came up and asked your kid, Hey, what is your family about? What actually happens in your family? What do you guys care about? What do you guys do? That is elements of your culture. And if there’s an element of your culture that you don’t like around kid attitudes, marriage attitudes just overall in spiritual things like that, then it’s up to you guys to identify what is an initiative to influence our culture this year, because what leaders repeatedly talk about changes the culture. So what are you going to decide to repeatedly talk about now? There’s a whole podcast episode on this. I believe it’s our first or second episode we ever did.

It’s on family culture. I believe that

That’s in the episode one or two.

Yeah, creating a family culture.

And that’s how important we believe it is.

So we this and it’s something that you’re going to continually re look at and you’re going to evaluate and communicate and decide if there’s any heart attitudes that need to be strengthened or corrected in your family. I think that when I think of the two. Words that are best for evaluating, it’s like, oh, what needs to be strengthened in us or implemented or instilled? Yeah. And then the other would be what needs to be changed or corrected or refined in our hearts? And this is just as much parents as it is the kids. Oftentimes, you will see that attitude reflects leadership. And so if you’re struggling with something or you’re seeing issues in your kids, take a good look in the mirror because likely it’s something that you could be refined in also.

So, you know, husbands, let’s initiate in these things super important. Maybe that’s why that episode’s not number one like I think it should be. Everybody wants to know about discipline and obedience, and I know all those things are good. But culture is is, I think, more important, actually. It’s really powerful. So let’s

Go. Your culture is impacted by your faith and your belief, right? It’s a reflection of all of those things. Those convictions, those beliefs. Your faith. Yeah. How God is incorporated. Well, but but you are. But you aren’t like in the sense that like the culture of the family is most influenced by that. And the culture is reflected through the attitudes and the respect level and all the things.

There’s a whole bunch of these on this is that a lot of times people don’t focus on it because they don’t actually believe they’re as powerful as they are. They don’t actually believe their words make that much difference. And if you pick a word like we did, one of them was a couple of years back. Generosity or eagles, not seagulls or producers, not consumers, OK? There’s meaning behind those things that our kids all know all about, and those are some of our initiative words or a couple of short phrases that really created a culture and improved things. We identified where we’re strong and weak and where weak. We made an initiative for the year and we talked about it a lot.

One year was God first, and one one year was giving God the glory. And I remember that that was your initiative, mainly within the business world because we were by like business missionaries, if you will, is kind of how we viewed it. I mean, wherever you are, you’re a missionary, right? And so we were super on fire for the Lord by Isaac was God had put Isaac in the business world. And so one of the things that we talked about was giving God the glory. Regardless of how leadership or other people within our company viewed God, we were going to continue to give him glory and honor. And as we did that, he really blessed the business as well, and we were able to even have more influence and and share about him. And so I think it’s amazing when you look back, if there’s been ever been a year where you have chosen a specific theme or a word or something like that and you look back on that year, how was your year different than the other years? And you can see traces of that intentionality displayed in a really productive way. And it’s awesome.

So if you didn’t do any of the rest of these, do that one, but I’m going to give you the rest. How about how you guys spend your time reflect on how we spend our time, how the husband spends his time, how the wife spends her time? Is it in the most fruitful, possible way and is it also in an enjoyable way? Is it what you want? Or is there improvements there? How about friendships? Are the friendships you have edifying to your whole family or just you? Is is it really a beneficial thing? And so really, thinking through friendships finance, it’s important to talk about finance making goals around that. My money is not evil. The love of money is evil. And the people that have a bad relationship with money from a Christian perspective tend to often not keep their money and not invest in the right things because they have this underground feeling of money is evil, but it’s not. It’s a it’s a resource, it’s a tool. It’s when people start to love money, when it becomes an idle,

And greed is definitely something that needs to be constantly evaluated like Lord. Am I holding on to this because of greed and making it an idol? And that needs to be a conversation that you need to be able to have within your marriage, because maybe one spouse is seen that there is a little bit of lacking generosity that that could be a good word. I even think about this last year, and there are two words that for us, refuge was a huge one as we were moving to Idaho and that that was definitely and it wasn’t just for us that that it would be a refuge, but that we would we would experience God, be our refuge and that we would prepare a place for people right and be hospitable and different things like that. And we definitely have the opportunity to do that. And so looking back on the year and acknowledging the words that God had highlighted in your scripture time and just obedience, thinking about the word obedience, how have you been obedient this year? What has God called you to let go of in the name of being obedient to him? That was a huge thing for us last year, too.

It was huge. We’re in a rapid fire here. Education, you can talk about that. How your kids are. Being educated, spiritual, that’s the most important, right, so spiritual things that trumps culture. So now that we got to it here, that would be number one marriage relationship that’s huge to family meeting. If you’re planning to do a family meeting coming up, you might talk a little bit about how you’re going to do that when you get everybody else thinking about areas of their life and focusing forward. I think that’s our, you know, first episode we ever did. And family visionary and then experiences, you know, what kind of experiences do you want to create for your kids this next year? I know I want to create more opportunities for my kids to build things that is really important.

I know we even we did a lot this year, and so that’s exciting. So you can see we’re sharing this with you guys because we are about to have one of our visionary dating meetings. And so Isaac has already been thinking about the things that he would like to see for this next year. I’ve been thinking about the things I would like to see, and we’re going to come together and we’re going to share those things and it’s going to be exciting and we’re going to make a list and then we’re going to prioritize them and we’re going to go, OK, what’s more important? You can’t do everything and because you can’t, right? And you have to prune. And sometimes, you know, like we said in our last podcast, sometimes God prunes good things out of your life so that you have room to do that. Even better things fully. And so sometimes simplicity is a is a needed thing for a family. I feel like that was partially part of what we did with with certain.

If you think sometimes people go, Wow, you guys are doing all kinds of things, I go, Well, actually our life, we we work hard, but our life is simple. There’s some areas of our life that we’ve made very simple so that we can serve and do more of the things we believe are more meaningful, right?

And we also have routines. So the things that we are committed to, like, obviously like today’s Wednesday, actually. So Wednesdays are our big day. It’s where Isaac takes all of our kids and then they have guitar lessons, chiropractor appointments, Krav MAGA, like, they’re like, boom, boom, boom. They pick up click lists. Bring it home. My Super Day they have. It’s your super dad day. He also has a meeting with some guys. That is a super, I think, an encouraging meeting. In the middle of the day. You can sit at coffee shops and they do their homework. They read their books while dad’s having the meeting in between their other meetings. And so we just I feel like Wednesdays are our go go day where a ton of stuff happens. I mean, obviously Mondays are a big day for us too. But you, when you have a few days that are like every week is exactly the same and you knock it out and you get it done, it just feels good.

Yeah, it’s awesome. Now the last one is projects. There might be projects that you’ve really wanted to do with your kids. And you know what? If not now, then when? If you don’t have an intentionality towards getting it done, it never will and you’ll live with regret. I was I was going to do an RV trip with my family. For example, I was going to do this and then all the kids are gone. He didn’t do it. So just think about that, that’s important.

Yeah. And I have to say on that note too, like, don’t underestimate the power of planning and preparing and setting aside finances that you need and start saving a little bit every month so that you can make it happen. And I share this with you guys because so many times people will say, Well, I would have loved to do that X, Y and Z, but I didn’t have the finances right? And so as you’re dreaming, if you keep coming up with great ideas of things that you either want to do, whether it’s experience or education or time, maybe you want to work less, but you’re worried that you’re not going to be able to provide enough, right? And so looking at ways that you can cut back and you can save so that you can do the thing that God has laid on your heart is super important, but that’s a marriage conversation that happens during this planning time. It does. And and being part of a team like, how awesome would it be? The Bible also really praises being married to a prudent wife. And I just have to say that in this category, because when you make a planning, when you when you have a visionary meeting like this and you hear your husband’s heart and you see as teary eyes about how he wants to do, I don’t know, wants to learn how to hunt with a son or, you know, whatever it is.

And he’s like, I just I have a couple of years left with him before I move out. I didn’t know how to do this. I think we need to invest in some of the tools that we’re going to need to do this. It would look like this. I probably be gone this many weeks like and you see that heart’s desire. Or you see maybe, maybe you want to take a kid on a mission trip, whatever it is like, there’s going to be sacrifice in some areas. But one of the best ways you as a wife can do this when you’re the jurisdiction for for buying and selling goods for your home in the sense of like you’re having garage sales, you’re finding coupons, your thrifting, you’re trying to be prudent, like, and if you haven’t done those things, that is a huge opportunity for growth that could free up finances to make that dream that your husband has come true. Amen.

Amen. Right, man? Amen.

You cracked me up. People are like turning down their podcast right now

Where you just get louder as it gets towards the end. Here, we’re going to wrap this up. Actually, we have a scripture and our final point, which is short, but it’s very, very good. Ok, so Romans 15 five through six May, the god of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So your marriage and your family is to glorify the father. So all of these intentions, all of these things. Let’s keep that at the front of our mind, which is where to be one voice as a married couple. And if you’re going with two voices, if kids are hearing

Two voices, no, I wouldn’t do this. No, we’re doing that.

That’s wrong. It’s it’s exhausting. You’re like, how could someone else have so many kids? Well, it’s because our kids don’t experience two voices. It’s because we’re a team and so our kids know what to expect. And they’re they participate in parts of it. And what we want to do this year and which we can’t do everything so we could go snowboarding or we could do this. What do you guys want to do? What is a better experience? And and so including them having one voice into glorify the father and whatever you decide to do, I think is is paramount. And our final tip for you guys is distill to the simple. Don’t have big, long lists in all kinds of things,

Your goals have to be realistically attainable.

It has to be very, very simple. That’s why there’s no big mission statement for our family and even in the business world, I used to have these big mission statements and I distilled it down to a couple of words and influence the culture.

Now, I mean, to be more powerful. I just have to say having a mission statement is not bad. We have had them written out before in the past, and I think that it’s a good thing for kids to grow up with toppings are that addicted to. But but what Isaac is saying is like that sometimes can be an intimidating thing for people that ends up being something that catches them up to where they aren’t actually following through with the meeting, even because it’s such a huge thing to come up with.

Well, since he said it, I have to teach you something because you bring meaning to a couple of words that everybody in the team understands deeply in inherently. But if you try and bring meaning to a full page document of a bunch of words, it’s very difficult, especially

For the younger kids.

And so really, what I’ve learned and this is actually true running big organizations too, is you need to distill it down to really a few simple things that have some really amazing meaning behind it that you nonstop talk about and you anchor into the understanding of the people around you, that you lead, and that is really, really important. So anyways, distill it to the simple don’t try and do everything, make a concerted effort towards the things that matter most, maybe spiritual culture and marriage relationship. Maybe those three, if you influenced those three in a meaningful way this next year, you know, financial probably helped. All the other things will probably be helped. So don’t try and like make this exhaustive list into every single thing. There’s one of you in the marriage that likes to do that. Potentially, they like to, like, make big lists and have this beautiful plan that would be me and all these things. And then nobody ever looks at the plan. Or then you get frustrated,

You get frustrated because you don’t get everything done, either sometimes. And I think that that can be discouraging. And so it wouldn’t it be better to have a simple list? Get it done, re-evaluate again in three months and be able to add to your list because you got so much done like that that is productive. That’s what’s encouraging. And and so you guys, I also have to say that there’s an element with this that, you know, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but remember that the most important thing that you could give your kids is unity in your marriage. And this meeting is all about bringing unity. It’s all about living intentionally with one voice together as a married couple, communicating, hearing one another’s hearts and, yeah, pursuing what God has for you. So take time after you listen to this podcast and just ask God, what does he want? What is his will for your marriage? What is his will for your family life right now in the season that you’re in now? Pray, consider God, seek his word and then meet together with your spouse and hear one another’s hearts and come together in unity. Because the best gift you can give your kids is one voice

And single moms, single dads out there listening. You can do this exercise yourself. And it’s as valuable because you need to be that strong voice.

It’s standing firm and leading unapologetically.

Amen. Thanks for joining us by.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Randi 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

Perhaps the best marriage episode ever on this podcast! God made you and your spouse different, and what he intends for greater teamwork, sometimes leads to conflict or misunderstandings. In this episode, you will get practical insights into different communication strategies and how you can overcome common barriers in marriage communication.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Why communication is vital.

2. Understanding the differences in communication strategies:

• High relational
• Inquisitive
• Practical
• Driver

3. How to overcome barriers most marriages deal with.

 

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

Philippians 2:2-5 – “Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:”

James 1:19 – “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:”

Proverbs 15:1 – “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, you guys.

Oh, we’re so glad you’re here. We have an important episode, you know, with the number one tip to parenting is

Having a good marriage.

He meant that

Actually the number one tip would be a Christ centered.

That’s true. Other than that, yes.

Other than that, it is. That’s like an obvious given thing. But a lot of times people don’t understand or they underestimate the power of having a strong marriage and how that can impact the family culture.

Absolutely. So that’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about thriving marriage communication tips. And I think you’re going to get a lot out of this. I don’t know if you’ve been listening in a while, but we usually get a little more intense and energetic as it ends actually towards the end. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that, but we we kind of it’s like we build momentum as we go. So make sure you catch the whole thing. Just put it on like one point five. I’m sure you do that, even though we kind of we do talk pretty quick,

But we do actually. Comparatively speaking, I listen to some podcasts before and I’m like, I can’t speed it up fast enough. 2.0, it’s called 2.0.

Go, all right. So I don’t think I don’t think we’re beyond. At one point five, you message us if you speed us up even more than that, I’d be interested. I’d be curious, are you one 1.5 or two when you listen to us? If you say two point five, I’ll take it, but I’m going to be a little insulted, but it’s OK. Ok, well, we’re so excited to talk about this and what a great season. And you know, it also can be a hard season. We recognize that there’s tough situations around the holidays around Christmas sometimes, and we understand that. We hope and pray that you have people around you that can spur you on that you can share with. If you need prayer and prayer requests so you can message us, we’ll pray for you on social media and so forth. And so all of that’s important. But you know, at this time of year, really, regardless of our challenges, it really is about Jesus. I know that’s not the topic of this, but it’s timely. Now let’s dive into a couple of updates, and then we’re going to go to our first tip about communication. We are so appreciative of all the support and encouragement about the move to the app. It has been overwhelming. It has gone way better than expected, and I can’t believe how amazing that is now. You can be an important part of the ministry and not be in the app. So by no means does everybody need to be in the app. But there is an invitation there and it’s eight ninety nine a month and you can go look at in your app store what it’s all about. But not only is it worth more than that. That is where we’re putting a ton of new energy. The kid episodes are there to lots of stuff, different lives we

Do, which on that note about the kids episodes being there. Some of you may not realize this three months ago because we’ve got what, 12, 13 episodes that we’ve recorded with the kids. Yeah, it’s the Courageous Kids podcast, really. And we have just felt this deep desire to move them to the app. We were in complete alignment. I know that many of you guys have messaged me in your little sad that you don’t have those accessible for free anymore, but they are in the app for many reasons. And I think that when I share the first one, you’ll alone go, Oh, I get it as a mama bear. I’m wholly there too, and it’s to protect our kids. Yeah, we we just don’t want anybody potentially attacking the things that they are sharing on a on a on a spiritual level. And so we’re doing what we can to do due diligence. And part of that is putting the kids app only or putting the kids podcast only in the app.

And there’s a couple of other reasons you can listen to our change episode for all the reasons and so forth. But but it also supports the ministry, and it’s a small amount monthly that I mean, some people just give monthly to the ministries anyways. But we wanted to put something together where it’s way more valuable than what the cost is. But when lots of people do that, it really stabilizes the ministry financially, which is important actually. Yeah, to do free things like this weekly episode, there’s a lot of expenses you don’t think about it. I never imagined how much goes into doing an online ministry. Really, a lot goes into it. It’s my full time job and Angie’s part time job because she has another full time job called Homeschool Mom. So so she’s got the even bigger plate in some regards. But we do things together too in a lot of ways, so we’re going to dive in. We appreciate you being part of the one million Legacies movement, all the reviews. And if you’re in the app, give us a review there to. Would be more seen. The podcast reviews to super helpful. Communication is vital in marriage. We can all agree to that. But from our experience being around a lot of marriages, going to different churches, lots of different relationships we’ve had, helping people’s marriages and so forth.

I mean, marriage ministries at churches, one leading home group, there is

A common problem.

Oh, Mylanta, do not even get me started. I did not know he was going to set me up like that. The common problem is a serious issue of a lack of communication between the husband and the wife,

And I will say it since it’s on my sides. Problem is a lot of times I’m not going to say every. Almost all the time, almost it’s it’s the man, it’s the husband. It’s a lack of details, a lack of sharing on the husband’s side that creates secret contention and creates confusion and missed expectations and a feeling of not being loved. And I could probably do like 10 more hands.

I wow, I’m just like, Wow, he really is intuitive in this.

Like, I’m intuitive from good experience messing up.

Hey, obviously, we are going to be very honest and open like we always are in this podcast, and so we might even share some stories. But the real deal is that it’s interesting how everybody, every marriage tends to think that they’re awesome at communication. Have you ever have you ever come across a couple that thinks that they are the biggest experts when it comes to communication? And then you get to know them personally, and there’s all kinds of misunderstandings, and they never want to admit that it’s literally that they just didn’t have enough time to communicate with their spouse. What is so wrong or hard about saying, Oh, you know what? This is a misunderstanding. I’m super sorry, but my wife and I didn’t communicate or my husband and I didn’t communicate. It’s not hard to do. Yeah, and it’s so freeing. It’s kind of like when you’re wrong and your husband’s right or your wife is right to just say, I’m sorry, I was wrong. It’s so freeing.

Maybe you mean some of you are good at this, but others you might just want to practice what you’re driving. I’m sorry I was wrong. Just practice saying the words.

Maybe say it like ten times. I’m sorry I was wrong. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I was. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, it’s like easier to come out. I still have a hard time saying that I do. Sometimes it’s true, but I would say Isaac’s actually pretty good.

As you know, it frustrates her.

Sometimes he’ll say it really quick, sometimes. And I’m like. But was that sincere?

Yeah, usually.

Usually most often you we were going to be very candid in this. But in all honesty, though, I am actually really good when it comes to like if we don’t communicate and someone comes to me and says, so I heard you guys are coming over and I didn’t know about that and I already have plans to do something else. I’m pretty. I’m very good at saying, Oh, I didn’t realize that that’s probably miscommunication between Isaac and I. I’m going to have to check with him and get back to you on that because I thought we had something else planned. And so like, I have no problem just saying what it is like if we haven’t communicated, that does happen pretty rarely. But when it happens, I’m like, I mean, why? Why would I put up a front that we’ve communicated awesome when we clearly have not?

So it’s important, I think, that we ought it look at, yeah, you know, how is the communication about things where misunderstandings leading to so much wasted time later arguing, wondering, making mistakes? Can I? You’re not an effective team unless there’s good communication

And at the heart of it, you guys listen. The problem is the sin of pride. Like at the root of all of this is pride, and pride is not just going to affect your marriage and your family, but it’s going to affect your relationships with other people when it comes to communicating.

It can also be not understanding how you’re wired differently or understanding, but not adapting to that. And we’ll talk about that in a

Suspecting the way that in loving the way that your your spouse was was wired by God, right? Designed by God

Different than you so that you compliment each other. You’re more powerful team when you got married, right? They probably said the verse that, you know, two are better than one. So do we actually live that it doesn’t just automatically happen. Sometimes two are not better than one by how their marriage is right.

It’s like way worse.

So we want that to be true. It is true when we’re acting maturely and Christ is at the center and we’re walking spirit. It’s absolutely true. The Bible is absolutely right. But some marriages are making that not accurate for them because their sin so high priority needs to be made on this. And sometimes we go, well, it’s just we’ve got four kids under six and we’re home schooling and this and that. And the other thing, and I’m just going to say this and don’t be offended, please. But whatever is the highest priority we will make time for.

It’s kind of like that saying, whatever is most important to you, you will make time for. Mm hmm. Which is an important thing to actually teach your kids to. But when you teach it to your kids, they’re also going to go, Oh, OK, so if my parents aren’t making time for me, it’s not important.

I would say it’s more important than sleep.

Yeah, and I would also say this is another reason why taking time to get a loan and like have date nights and communication like times privately is so important. I know that for Isaac and I, sometimes getting away can be harder because we don’t live like close to town and there’s not a lot around us where we are. And so we actually get more communicated when we come out to the studio than anything. Yeah. And so just coming out here to just quick powwow, let’s talk.

And I know some of you are like, Hey, I don’t have a studio. No, no, no, no. But you have a car. You have a car. You have a closet, you

Have a bathroom, you have bedroom, you like you laundry room, shut the door, like turn the dryer on so you can’t

See. You have to. Hey, you know, we have a few kids and just a few, and there’s a lot going on. We understand the challenge. We’re not perfect at it either, but make it a higher priority. We’re preaching to ourselves right now, too. We also need to make it a higher priority sometimes. But this is a good reminder for us and for you, for everybody. See the value. You have to have vision longer term of how you want your marriage team to be to do the right things today, even if a sacrifice is sleep or whatever the sacrifice is. So sometimes we will just stay up pretty late talking. Not always, but sometimes we do because it’s really needed and it was our only opportunity. And maybe that pain will force us to create better timing opportunities.

Yes, and sometimes we will literally be both having our AirPods in and be talking to each other while we’re driving people. Jesus.

Oh, in different cars. Yeah, like different places.

Or if I’m at home and you’re in the car and driving

Airpods, good at marriage investment. Right, OK. So that’s our first tip. And it goes with the scripture in Philippians two two through five. So Chapter two, verse two three five complete my joy by being of the same mind. Having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Now. I bet usually that’s not a marriage verse. No, I. My favorite marriage verses are non marriage verses. You know what I mean? Yeah, it’s like the ones that talk about how to treat other people.

All the one.

Why do why do we? Yeah, why do we talk about that in terms of how we should be at church, but not talk about that in terms of how we should be in our marriage?

Well, the reality is there are other scriptures. A lot of times people don’t connect all of the dots within the word of God, right? Like, you’re not reading the Bible and studying it for yourself and you’re not purposing to write, have the Bible written on your heart, which is a whole nother topic. But like for me, when I am in the word before I get to the word, I always I don’t know why this is. I don’t even remember ever being taught this, but I always say a little prayer. Oh, and I just ask the Holy Spirit to write these words on my heart that I would be able to remember them and recall them on a day that I would need it. Lately, in the last couple of years, the thought came back to me because when I was doing missions work in Turkey and I thought that I was going to go do that long term Bibles were illegal there in Turkey, and I had smuggled some into the country and I had also had to bring some out of the country. And it was a very I mean, there was some anxiety associated with it because back in nineteen, ninety eight and ninety nine, it was a closed country. And I remember thinking back then I need to memorize as much as scripture as possible because I might not be able to have my Bible on me when I need the word. And then, you know, then I came home and I ended up getting married and having kids, and I was I had the Bible accessible, and it’s not like it was something that was illegal or anything like that. And now, in these last few years, with how people have been treating Christians and censoring different material, I literally feel like I’m just waiting for Fahrenheit 451 to actually occur in my life real time. And for us, for there to be burnings of good literature and even Bibles to be illegal at one point, and that might happen in our lifetime, who’s to say it’s not going to?

Well, there will come. The first place that will happen is in the church and pastors will lose

Their portions of their tax

Status if they preach parts of scripture that go against what

Happens in Canada is already

Happening. And I would just encourage any pastors, wherever you are in the world, do not skip scripture, do not stop purposely actually preach those parts of the word and and ask for God to protect you. And you know what, if things happen, it’s it’s tough. But that’s going to glorify God in some way, and we don’t want to skirt around scripture, but that’s where it starts.

Yeah. So on this topic of like realizing in the last few years, I started praying that again because I felt like the Bible is so precious and I want to remember as much as I can. So I pray before I start reading the Bible and ask the Lord to really impress it upon me. But this is the thing. When you do that, you can recall more and different parts of the scripture come alive. So what Isaac’s talking about is some of his favorite verses that he’s applied to marriage or that have been the most convicting towards our marriage to him. And I would say to me for sure are often times just recalling different aspects of scripture and going, Oh, OK, so if we should be aspiring to be elder qualified later in life and we know what what Titus, we know what Timothy talks about regarding leadership and the qualifications of being an elder. And you’re like, I just want to be walking a good Christian life

Like and some people treat their neighbors better than their

Spouses. Exactly. But this is the thing. What is that scripture say? It says that those you that to be qualified, to be actually heading up a church, you have to manage your home well to be able to manage the House of God. And so when you know that scripture, then you read the scripture that Isaac just read that’s talking about not considering yourself more than others, but putting other people’s interests before your own being of one mind and being of one mind and all of these different things. You should be convicted going, Oh, if I want to be qualified to do this later in life that I need to get it right in my home first, because that’s what qualifies me to be able to do ministry.

Well, more importantly, your kids are watching and there’s lots of reasons for a good marriage. I mean, it’s just super important. Well, I just.

Can I just say a alone John, 14, like obey me because you love me? Like, do we love Jesus? Do we want our kids to love Jesus? Do we want them to experience the product of Jesus Christ having saved our souls, which is the fruit and how we love them?

Amen. So we’re going to go into our point two, and this one’s going to be some serious good meat here, right? So understanding different communication. Strategies, a lot of you’ve taken different assessments and things like that. What’s capturing an aspect of how people are wired differently in a lot of them come from the same place a couple of thousand years ago, right? So a lot of them come from the same kind of place and they are capturing there is truth to capturing an aspect of who we are. I’m not going to name any certain assessment here, but I’m going to talk about some communication strategies that you’re going to identify with. And it’s going to be a little interesting. And I want you not just to think of your spouse as we go through this, but I want you to think, most importantly, about yourself and how you defending your strategy even subconsciously, might be creating conflict with your spouse who has a different communication strategy. And even though you know the difference, we tend to really love our strategy best,

And it shows at times people will often impose their expectations of of how they handle things, thinking it’s the best way they impose that expectation on other people when that’s not like, that’s not how they’re wired to actually deal with this certain situation or whatnot. Now I’m not I’m not in any way saying that if someone bursts out in anger outbursts, for example, which is sin, OK, we don’t justify sin. We don’t like hold back and have a grudge, which would be another way that some people would potentially deal with conflict, right? Like that could be sinful, allowing a better route to take place, right? And so that’s not what we’re talking about here in this situation. We’re talking about like, literally ask yourself the question right now for just a moment. Do I think the way that I do things is always the right way? And do I expect everyone in my family to do that certain task or talk to me the way I talk to them in the same way? So if you do, then there’s an issue.

So think about that as we go through this, it’ll be more clear as we talk about this. What Angie just said and so there’s I’m just going to break it down into four, but really, you could be more nuanced and break this down into even 12. Right. But let’s talk about for here. So there’s the high relational person. It doesn’t mean other people aren’t equally caring about relationships, but this high relational person uses lots of words and really is more of that outgoing personality in talking and listening sometimes, but more talking sometimes, right? So then there’s the inquisitive person. These are good words. They’re all good words inquisitive, which might be a little more quiet, a little more reserved, and silence might be embraced by them before they respond. Could you see already where the high, relational and inquisitive person would have some potential conflict? The high relational might not wait long enough for the inquisitive person to respond. High relational just thinks they don’t want to respond. Then there’s the practical, more risk averse person where it’s no, I only believe what someone says at face value. Kind of kind of wiring, OK? And then there’s the real driver and they can be impatient, right? Because they want short bursts of information, not long, elaborate pieces of information, right?

So more about being productive potentially than they do the relationship.

But some, yeah. And sometimes they’re productive on the wrong things. They miss prioritize things. So there’s there’s positives and negatives of how everybody’s wired. And I think in communication strategies, it’s really important to start going, OK, how am I and how is my spouse? And usually in a marriage, they’re a little different. Not always. And that has its own unique challenges and blessings. So it’s important to look at that and it’s important to overcome some barriers we’re going to talk about next. But first, with all of these, what we all have to be better at is listening because just because an inquisitive person is silent, he may not actually, or she might not actually be listening. They might just be thinking about what they’re going to say and what they’re going to say next, or how foolish they are by saying what they did. And I’m not going to contribute because it seems like a foolish conversation and these kinds of things and a practical person could be like, OK, he said six things, and I need to write them down right now. And so I’ve shut you off already because I can’t write them down or a driver is just already, you know, looking at the phone and impatient. So there’s there’s problems. There’s problems, OK? So when you think about that, everybody needs to do better at listening and hears.

And just before you go into the scripture that you’re going to share with them, I want to encourage you guys because the four things that Isaac just rattled off this is super super just barely touching the top. The the top of this topic, OK? And the reality is, is usually people have a little bit of everything. There’s in some are maybe stronger in one than another or whatever, right? And like he said, you could even break it down into about 12 different types. So we’re just going over like the four most obvious kinds to give you guys an introspective perspective, if you will, where you’re able to really evaluate and go, OK, so people are wired differently, and that’s OK. I mean, the Bible even says in First Corinthians, where Jesus, he his body of Christ, which is here on Earth, that’s all of us that are part of the Church of Jesus, you know, and we have to realize that we all have different gifting because God and his goodness has dispersed the gifts among the body. Amen. And that is partially based upon how he’s designed each of us uniquely also. And then when the spirit comes upon us and we’re we have spiritual gifts that he puts in our life, he doesn’t give all the same ones to all the same people because it’s for the edification of the whole that they’re dispersed.

Here’s one of my favorite marriage scriptures. And you already know it. You’re going to. You’re going to remember this one that you’ve heard this before. It’s in James one 19. I love the book of James. When I was a brand new believer, James was my favorite book. It might be because I’m more of a driver personality, actually, that I like the book of James. Isn’t that interesting? Ok. So know this. My beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Wow, that’s about listening right there. That is such a good reminder to me. I often quote that, and I don’t always quote it perfectly. Sometimes I mix the words up because I don’t have a photographic memory like my wife seems to have, which is a wonderful gift. But I love that scripture, and I think we should do that, and you know, here’s a tip for you guys as you start to think about who you are and maybe the differences in your spouse, you already might know these, but think about this. We tend to operate naturally from a place of communicating how we’re wired to the other person. But the secret is, if you honor first in communication how the other person’s wired, you unlock receptiveness to what you’re saying. So even though you’re not at fault for maybe a conflict in communication? Potentially it could have been averted by changing your strategy and thinking about, OK, I’m high relational in my husband as a driver and gets impatient. Now he shouldn’t get impatient with his wife. It’s not an excuse for sin. You should live.

You should live life in an understanding anyway. Scripture says, yeah,

But if we’re understanding each other and maybe he’s busy in the midst of something. Maybe I remember. Ok, I need to cut my words down and get right to the point because he’s trying to go to work or he’s trying to do something, is that honoring that’s honoring? Right? Or if they if it’s an inquisitive person and and they’re talking to a high relational spouse, we might go, You know what? I need to share more information. I need to think less and say more because that’s going to honor my spouse. And they’re not going to wonder if I understand something. I can be also inquisitive. By the way, I can be a driver. I can be inquisitive, and sometimes I can get into the high relational. But I’m really more of that driver personality. And I have had to learn these things, and Angie’s very different than me.

Very much so.

So let’s dive in to overcoming some barriers.

All right. Well, the first barrier that can oftentimes be hard to break. I think that this is probably the hardest one, which is silence, especially if you are the type that you get offended deeply and you hold on to things or you don’t want to deal with conflict. And maybe you are the type of person that will overlook an offense because the Bible says in Proverbs, it’s to a man’s glory to overlook an offense. And so maybe you overlook offense after offense, after offense, and you think that you’re doing the godly thing, but in reality, you’re not forgiving. You’re not actually overlooking overlooking means that you’re not going to bring it up again, that you’re going to forgive it and you’re going to let it go. But a lot of times people who think that they’re taking the higher road don’t actually forgive and they don’t actually let go. They hold it deep within them and hold a grudge. And so this scripture is really important one we’ve taught on it many times to people, especially in regards to teaching your kids that when they’ve been offended, there are two ways they can go about it. You can either overlook it or you can go the Matthew 18 approach and confront your brother who sinned against you. And if they don’t listen, then you take another person and then you take a couple more, right? Yeah. And we all should be practicing biblical conflict resolution in this. The the hard part, though, is that when people think that they’re doing the higher road of overlooking an offense, but deep down inside, they’re not and they’ve got that grudge and then it happens again and then it happens again and then it happens again and they get their silent about it. Mm hmm. And the reality is that clearly that silence is going to hurt that person because it’s become a bitter root, right? That’s just one example of silence. Another could be just even in conflict. Maybe having an attitude. Maybe your silence is more of an attitude problem than it is.

All those things can happen where it’s manipulative or it’s a strategy to win an argument, these kinds of things, but there’s a whole nother side of it, of it being a natural part of who you are. And whereas, you know, five or 10 seconds of silence or three seconds of silence for a high relational person seems like an eternity, but for an inquisitive person is required for a good response. And so if you have a marriage where you’re very different, if one spouse and this, by the way, could be the male or female, if one of the spouses feels like three seconds is a big silence. And if someone doesn’t fill that silence within three seconds, they need to talk because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Then potentially what’s happening is the other spouse is not fully communicating because they don’t have enough time to think of their words now. There’s no difference in intelligence. This is really important to understand. It’s a difference in how minds work and how people process information and

How people deal with

Conflict in one person. They want to think through what they’re going to say before they say it. Another person. More talks from their sleeve, if you will, and just what? What goes into their head just comes out. They’re more prone to say the wrong thing, and inquisitive person is more careful in making sure they say the right thing. But then there’s challenges in the relationship. So I would just say, if you’re the person that talks more in the marriage, there might be an opportunity for you to talk less and encourage the other spouse to share their heart more to understand their opinions in these kinds of things. And by the way, silence is incredibly powerful. It’s incredibly important, and if you don’t like silence, might challenge to you is to start to like it. Even with your kids, your kids are all wired differently than you to. And you know what? Some of your kids might be growing up learning how not to communicate, not to be fully who they are because it takes a good amount of silence before they’re willing to participate in communication, before they’re feeling confident and communicating their thoughts. And if it’s too much silence for you because you want to get on with things or you feel like they weren’t going to say anything, so you feel it, then you might want to think about that. It’s a really, really important thing.

So the next barrier that we want to talk about overcoming is an overt communicator. So obviously, we just talked about the complete opposite of that. Over communicators can overload the person that they’re trying to communicate with, and sometimes people don’t actually have the capacity to remember all the things they actually. And it is a thing where they they are so thoughtful that they want to take the time, they want to remember the things. But some people are just not wired and oftentimes this is a female male thing. I’ve noticed it even just in raising our boys and our girls that like when our boys were younger, I remember just being kind of like, Oh whoa, I can’t give them more than two tasks. Otherwise they forget the third, the fourth and the fifth. But with the girls, it was easier to give them six or seven tasks, and they could just nail them all in a row without me having to repeat myself twice. And so I think that there there is a certain element that might be gender related in this, but it also might be personality as well. And so I just think that when we’re evaluating these things, every person is different. And so we have to consider who we’re in marriage with and go, can they actually handle talking about four or five things at one time? Or is that going to overwhelm them and frustrate them? And we’re not going to make progress in the conversation? What is the most important thing that I need to talk about and just stick to one? Maybe. And so that would be the most loving thing that you could do for your spouse if you’re the over communicator in the situation to just pick one or maybe two things to communicate about and not to bring up other things into it, even if it reminds you of something else to just stop and let it be those two things,

Especially if there’s conflict, if if you are over and over communicator, you might. Have a whole litany of things that are bothering you, and it becomes like instead of a little hammer of like, Hey, let’s be aware this when you talk about this, it becomes a sledgehammer. And I think that’s really important. So now I already said this, but here’s a barrier. Men don’t share enough. This is just an observation now, if you’re one of those unique men that share a lot. Good job, the rest of you. We need to share more. I need to share more. I, by the way, I would say in the last four years, I have become massively better at

It where there have even been times where I’ve said, OK, that’s all I really need to know.

But I have worn her out, which is, I wouldn’t say, a victory because that would be wrong. But I would say I’ve come a long ways.

It’s true you have come a long ways, but I will say that there is an element to where I think in marriage we build reputations with one another based upon our history in our marriages, right? And so this is where allowing one another to grow is super important because if I had just assumed that Isaac was always going to be the way he was, like the first 10 years we were married, for example, I would constantly feel the need to be coaching him all the time and and asking, like almost interrogating him, trying to get more information on things.

She means coaching like asking questions, trying to get info about, Oh, how did that meeting go? Oh, we’re good. I talked about this and this. Let’s just not good enough. If she was really interested in it, some meetings she doesn’t care about, but if she’s really interested in it, I need to honor her and I go and give more. Well, we talked about this. We talked about that, you know?

Mm hmm. And I think that this is especially important when it comes to the kids because obviously the kids hearts are always going to be massively important to the mama. Right. And so if there’s something that needs to be shared with your wife, for example, like just know, like her heart is already there to know what’s going on in her kids. And so just saying, Oh, everything’s good is not enough. It’s kind of like if you were to pick up your kid at school and ask them, How did your day go? And they were like, Fine, is that enough? No, that’s not enough. And so you have to ask three questions deep like Isaac always says, and parenting is the same in marriage. And so sometimes what needs to happen, though, is a brief, very succinct conversation where the wife just says this is actually something that I’m really interested in. Can you tell me more? Or that is really important to me, what else happened? Mm hmm. See how they’re communicating. That’s important to me. And if the husband hears that he should go, Oh, well, let me tell you more, then. Mm hmm. But you don’t have to have like the deep. I’ve just gotten to the place where I just don’t have to know everything about everything. And I don’t know if that’s comes with age and maturity or having a lot of kids and there’s a lot going on. But the reality is that you have to get to a place to where you trust one another with situations and with. People and with things, right, and so sometimes like I know that for myself, especially when it came to like relational things I really wanted to know like and how what did they think about that and what how what were you perceiving for them from them? And a lot of those questions would come from me because I cared so deeply about the relationship and I wanted to also be praying for that particular situation or whatever.

Hey, what’s the ultimate goal for all this stuff? We have a couple more for you, but what’s the ultimate goal is that your marriage glorifies God, that there’s something different that to do become one, and it’s more powerful for the Kingdom of God. It’s incredible. It’s contagious, and it’s there’s so much alignment and teamwork in truthfulness because of this complementing each other and using each other’s strengths and shoring up each other’s weaknesses instead of being in competition with each other, which is the next point is the next barrier is both competing against each other. And this sometimes happens with two high relational married or a driver in a high relational. This can happen with any type, but sometimes we’re competing.

I would even say to how people were brought up, like their upbringing has a huge impact on if they’re competitive as well. Mm hmm. And what I mean by that is if you grew up playing sports, I know I’m just or anything that could be competitive, right, then potentially there is competitiveness literally sewn in your heart to where if you are the jealous type of person because you’re competitive with your spouse and he’s out during the day or something like I’ve struggled with this in the past, and I actually wrote a blog post about it a long time ago about how I used to struggle with Isaac when he would go and travel for work because I knew that he was also having like nice dinners with his team and with different people that he was working with. And I was at home, potentially with a sick kid or potty training nursing up in the night, and I was alone because he was traveling out of town. And those years were the hardest for me, not necessarily for our marriage, but they were the hardest for me because I had to really evaluate, where is this jealousy rooted from? Like, where did that start in me and how do I one like, how do I grow and change out of this so that I’m not struggling with this anymore? And a lot of times I think that women don’t put a voice to that. They don’t confess that sin and work towards really getting to the core problem that’s deeply rooted in their hearts, which is competitiveness and men.

We need to go overboard and recognizing the value in the wives contribution, whatever that is in your marriage. There is biblical roles and there is in a lot of marriages, someone at home and so on, working a lot of times with the wife at home and the man working. But I know there’s unique situations out there too, and I just think it is a big job to do what I know my wife’s doing at home with the kids. It’s just an incredible job and we need to go above and beyond to honor that, recognize that, appreciate that and give value to that. I was going to tell a quick story. I was in the barbershop today and a bunch of guys were in there. Only there’s only a guy on barbershop and and tough guys, you know, macho guys and and they were just this topic came up about. And it was funny, and I don’t even think they were all believers or anything. I don’t know. It didn’t quite seem like it, necessarily. And they were talking about how we need to honor the stay at home moms role. And they were. And by the way, there was F-bombs going off and things like that. But they were like, they should weak men that don’t appreciate their wives. Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah. But they were just going off and I’m just like, I didn’t like the language, but I was like, smiling. I’m like, Yeah, these are cool guys. I mean, they they’ve got some things right here. Something’s really right about, you know, honoring wives and so forth and what they do and appreciating the value.

One of them was talking about how he was in the service and, you know, one of the special forces dudes. And he was the guy cutting my hair, actually. And he was talking about how when he came back, he was the staying at home for several months and for a period of time, and he was in that role and just how humbling it was and how important it was to really appreciate his wife. And I thought that was really amazing. So anyways, a little tangent there. But yeah, I don’t think we should compete. We men, we need to really appreciate our wives. And then. Point two points here is assuming assumption is the death of good communication. Oh yeah. Assumption is the benefit of being married is we know each other really well and the detriment of communication is that we know each other really well. And so because you can easily assume based on all the rhythms of communication from the past, what they’re about to say and then we can get ahead of it and interrupt and make our point. And the the biggest detriment to good communication is when someone can’t complete their thoughts. So we really have to make sure we’re allowing space, even if we think we know what they’re going to say to complete the thoughts. And a lot of times you’re going to be surprised that they say something different than you thought when you let them finish. And that’s important.

Yeah, I mean, we all need to realize that none of us are telepathic. Actually, that’s not a thing. And and even if you were to guess, you might be right sometimes, but you’re probably wrong more than you think you are. And this is what I was talking about when I was mentioning how important it is that to recognize that we all build a reputation for ourselves and with each other. And so but at the same time, we need to let each other grow. And what I mean by letting each other grow is don’t just assume, like Isaac is saying, that you know what they’re going to say, or that the pattern of how they’re going to respond is going to be the same. If they have Jesus in their life and they are seeking after him, anything’s possible. And the way that they potentially used to respond in sin to one particular kind of trigger, for example, might be completely different because of the power of the Holy Spirit in their life. And that’s what we should hope for. That’s what we should call out and one another. In fact, how amazing would it be if this was something that you potentially struggled with in your marriage, assuming that you knew what the other person was thinking or about to say? Ok, imagine if you just bit your tongue and you didn’t say anything and you let them speak, and it was not the same thing and you were like, Wow, you know what? You’ve really changed because I thought you would have said this and you call out the change in each other and you encourage one another in that. How awesome would that feel like? Imagine if you were that person and and they were your spouse was assuming that you were going to say certain things. But he was quiet and you just said something, and it ended up being very different than what he expected. And he was like, Whoa, it

Was not what I thought she was going to say. And the final point is maintenance versus deep communication. Maintenance is the one that’s easy. It can happen all the time. Make sure you get groceries, make you pick up this, do this. We need to do this. This is happening. This is happening with the kids, OK?

There’s a lot of that to happen. All right.

Our maintenance talk could never stop. So we just have to stop it and choose to go into deep communication. And you just need to do that because there’s so many maintenance things you could probably talk about. Oh, the gutters need to be cleaned. When are you going to do that? How are the lights on the house yet? Or, you know, when so-and-so coming over, they’re coming over here? Ok, let’s make sure we talk about this. This is an issue with this friend. Oh, we got this and the kids are going here and oh, are we going to keep them here or we’re going to go there?

But that’s the point, right? Like how exhausting can maintenance talk be? It can be draining. And if someone doesn’t actually get to like half of the things on their maintenance list, then it’s all talked about again. The next day. Let’s make sure that our communication with our spouse is first and foremost, God honoring. Yes. Secondly, that it challenges us to grow and be better, and that it’s loving and kind like a lot of the verses out there that are about all the all the one another’s. We brought these up before, right? Consider others more than yourself. Consider others more than yourself. How much more does that actually? Like, if you practice that in your marriage, how impactful would that be? Huge. Like sometimes I feel like and I’ve seen this just even sitting in a restaurant, and sometimes I’ll I’ll watch how people interact, right? If they’re all just sitting on the phone all the time now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when Isaac and I go to a restaurant and we are on our phones because we’re literally like on a working date and we’re trying to get work done. Like we just did that a few days ago and it was super productive when we were Christmas shopping and stuff. But there are times when I’ll like, look around and couples that are just literally they’re just scrolling, they’re not talking, they’re not communicating when this is their opportunity to go deep. Like, we just need to we need to see what it is that is potentially preventing us from going to those special deep. Authentic places where our hearts actually connect, because sometimes it’s not maintenance mode. Sometimes it’s distractions versus deep.

Someone once said Thoreau, maybe some philosopher. Most men live quiet lives of desperation, and I would just edit that. And I would say most spouses live lives of quiet desperation. So they’re sitting in a restaurant. There are actually deep things that they need to talk about, and they’re so distracted and so scared to actually talk about them and or how to bring them up. And they’re kind of living lives together, but also a little bit separated in their in in what’s in their head. And that can be very sad. And so I encourage you to get out of that proverbs. I want to finish with Proverbs 15 one. A soft answer turns away, Ruth, but a harsh word stirs up anger and it goes in to talk about the tongue. You can read more there. We hope this was helpful. There’s so much more. This could be a full day seminar what we just talked about.

No, it totally could, because I’m even thinking about other barriers that we didn’t put on our list. Like, I mean, we were just talked briefly about distractions, but like, what about body language, right? Like, this is a huge deal, like making eye contact with a person that you’re actually talking to versus looking down like that’s one of the most dishonoring ways to communicate with someone. And so like recognizing that that that’s a barrier for going deep, you know? And if you want to have a strong marriage that is actually going to be thriving, you have to be willing to prioritize and go, this is not as important to me as you, a man.

Well, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll chat with you next Tuesday.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Randi 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

There is a lot of influence on your kids by the choice of gifts you give them. This episode dives into thinking about gifts that are useful towards the interests God has given them. But it’s not just about the gifts we see, even more, powerful are the unseen gifts we give our kids. Join a lively conversation with practical insights on giving gifts.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. A list of unseen gifts to nurture in your kids

• Gratefulness
• Genorosity
• Faith
• Memories/Experiences
• Time
• Love
• Music/Dancing
• Laughter
• Siblings

2. Gifts to equip

• Tools towards productivity
• Instruments
• Educational resources
• Books
• Laptop
• Counting games…

3. Thoughtful Gifts

• Ones that nurture your relationship with them
• What matters most to this kid?
• What have they really desired?
• Give gifts that stir up your kids spiritual gifts

 

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Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

1 Peter 4:10 – “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

1 Corinthians 12:30-31 – “Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone.

Hi, guys.

We are so excited for this episode.

It’s true. We are we actually. It was interesting as we were talking about what we were going to be sharing with you guys today. We had some awesome ideas of some practical tips that we were going to share regarding like productive gifts, gifts and keep on giving. But then as we started planning, it really became more like the Holy Spirit just really impressed upon us that we wanted to talk about the more important gifts that you could be giving your kids, maybe the unseen gifts and stuff like that.

And so whether you’ve already done your shopping or not, this isn’t just about your Christmas gifts for your kids. There’s so much more giving gifts that keep on giving. So it really got us put something on Angie’s heart in this area. I mean, I’m into it as well, and I think that we should all be thinking about this. In fact, we’re going to talk about something that is even inspired us to take some action right now that we haven’t. And so a lot of times we’re speaking from experience with the Holy Spirit’s convicted us to talk about and things we’ve done. But sometimes there are things that we want to do, too.

That’s right. I mean, for us, I know that over the years I’ve always been into like buying gifts that had a greater purpose when it came to like tools and things like that. And we’ll get into that in a minute. As far as like wanting to be making an investment, not be buying something that’s literally just going to hold their attention for maybe four days and then they’re they’re not into it anymore. That seems like a waste of money. It seems like a lacking of stewardship and wisdom in regards to purchasing things or things that break right? And so we’ve always tried to buy gifts in the past, over the years, primarily. I mean, I’m just we’re going to be really blunt and honest like we always are. In the past, I did a lot more of the like gift shopping, whereas the last couple of years, Isaac and I have been really doing that more as a team, which has been super helpful for me because we have so many sons. And as they started getting older, I really needed like input and help in figuring out what would be the wisest thing for them that they would really appreciate, not just now, but in maybe five years from now.

So why don’t you just review real quick the agenda? And then I’m going to share a little bit about something new and then we’ll dive into it.

That sounds good. So today we’re going to talk about gifts that are unseen, which may or may not be what you’re thinking about. We’re going to talk about gifts to equip and then we’re going to talk about thoughtful gifts. And so before we get into all of that stuff, Isaac is going to share a couple of things with you. You want to.

Yeah. So we, as you guys probably know, maybe not. We launched the Be Courageous app, which is an Android and Apple in the app stores right now. It’s a small investment monthly about the cost of two coffees if you were to go out at, or maybe less or less per month, and we’re putting tons of value in there, there’s tons of value already there. All of the kids episodes are now exclusively only in the app, the powerful community. There’s already hundreds of biblical Christians in there engaging with each other, answering each other’s questions. In fact, we’ve had Facebook groups and past for the parenting mentor program and so forth, and the engagement was always really good. We’ve always had success with groups, but for some reason, when it’s off of Big Tech and social media, people feel safer and we’re seeing we’re we’re seeing more people responding, more people engaging with each other. It really is blowing us away. It’s better than expected the response from people, and it is a haven for Christians to really talk about, you know, how to raise their families. Marriage, parenting, home schooling,

Postpartum and pregnancy. Because as you guys know, I’ve been a doula for many years and I’ve written a book on childbirth. We have a postpartum course and so we have a group exclusively for that season of life as well. And it’s neat to see people encouraging one another, praying for each other, literally writing out prayers in the comments, things like that, which just

So hey, if you want to check out the app, you could cancel any time. But check it out what’s eight? Ninety nine a month? And we’re putting as home base of the ministry. We’re always going to have these episodes on Tuesdays free always. And you can always listen to them. But if you want to dive in, if you want spiritual community, if you want topic based groups, if you want the private, courageous mom group just for women or the Resolute Man Group just for men, if you want the kids episodes to play for your kids, if you want all the episodes, including these all in one place, they’re also in the app.

You know, I was just thinking like, So you guys, if you listen to our exclusive episode that we put out on the changes that we were making and the exciting announcement that we were launching the app and launching our stores and different things like that, we launched that last week. You can go listen to that podcast. But the important thing is that we are really trying to be proactive. So that we are are our ministry, our livelihood and our ability to do what God has called us to and impacting families is not dependent upon Big Tech or social media because we don’t know how long we’re going to be on there, meaning we don’t know if we will ever get deleted or when that would happen. And so we don’t want to be caught in a scenario where we’re like, Well, now nobody can get a hold of us.

Yeah, I can’t tell you how good it feels to have all of our episodes of both podcasts, all in the app. So if anything ever happened, it’s covered. By the way, you might be wondering, well, it’s in Apple and Android. Yeah, but we also have a web version that’s always updated and works almost exactly the same. So should we ever get kicked out of that app stores? It’s no big deal, either. So anyways, nothing is completely bulletproof, but I would say it’s as bulletproof as you can get, and it’s really an exciting thing. So we love engaging in there. We’re in their daily. And so anyways, let’s dive in. So thanks for being part of everything.

But yeah, so as we start talking about the gifts that keep on giving, one of the things that was it was really, I believe, that God just kind of laid it on Isaac’s car right after I was literally writing down on our dry erase board First Corinthians Chapter 12, 13 and 14. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read three whole chapters out of the Bible to you right now, but I’m going to just encourage you and exhort you. This is aside from the three main points that we’re going to be going into. I was telling Isaac, I said, You know, it’s interesting as we’re talking about gifts and we’re like, we’re thinking recalling scripture that we know about gifts that God has given us. And we’re like, OK. Obviously, he gave his only begotten son. Jesus gave us the gift of eternal life. He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to walk with us and be here guiding us while we are here on Earth. He’s given us the gift of each other and the body of Christ, and then he talks about spiritual gifts, right? Which is the three chapters that I was referring to First Corinthians, Chapter 12, 13 and 14. And I want to encourage you if there was something that you studied with your kids during the holiday season, it might be those three chapters in First Corinthians because it’s talking about a different kind of gift, a spiritual gift, which don’t. We all want our kids to like, experience the gift of salvation, to have a deep walk with Jesus, to know him personally and give their lives to him and want to make him known in the world. And we want to watch them like living their best life, the purposes for which God created them. For that, they be walking in his ways and experience his presence and power in their life, in a resurrection kind of way where they are experiencing the Holy Spirit, move through them, doing things in their weakness by using spiritual gifts that God gave them. Don’t we want to see our kids grow up into the spiritual gifts and

Ultimately to glorify the father so more people know his name, right?

It’s all about the great commission partnering with Jesus Christ in his spirit and moving forward the kingdom of God. And this is a powerful thing because as our kids are watching Christmas presents, getting put underneath the Christmas tree, like, shouldn’t we, as parents also be trying our best to remind our kids that we should always be seeking spiritual gifts? That’s what it says here in verse 30 of Chapter 12 of First Corinthians, it says, or in verse 31 says, but earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. And so he’s going over like the body is. Many part has many members, and God has distributed the gifts among the body for the edification of the whole. That’s like what this whole section is about. It’s about unity and diversity in one body. And then he’s like, hold on a second, but earnestly desire the best gifts. And then in verse 13, in Chapter 13, he’s talking about love being the greatest gift. So anyway, this is not what our topic of our podcast is all about today, but I just could not not share that with you if that makes sense, because I think that there is an element, especially as our kids start getting older and they’ve accepted Jesus and they are claiming to be Christians like their focus should not be on the non eternal things.

And just remember, kids are going to be almost as focused as you are on something, right? So how focused are you on Jesus this time of year and they’re almost as focused as you are usually? That’s right. So not even quite to your level, sometimes. Sometimes the blow you away and they surpass you in their focus and it motivates you. I know that happened with Austin when he motivated me to work out and get in shape, you know, because he was doing so well at that. So kids are amazing in that way. But I think it’s a good challenge to think about. Let’s go through the unseen gifts.

Yeah. So as we were talking about this, the first point is gifts that are unseen and. There are so many, actually, so again, the topic of our podcast today is giving gifts that keep on giving. And so when you think about gifts that maybe are unseen that you could give to your kids, yes, now during holidays, but also like all throughout their life, giving the gift of gratefulness, giving the gift of generosity. Let me just talk about generosity for a second. That was like a theme that was our family theme for a year.

Yeah, and it really set our family and our family culture on a better

Trajectory, right? Because there was I mean, it wasn’t that we weren’t generous per say, but there was a it was a good exhortation for all of us to really like focus on that concept of like what is generosity? It’s not just with your money, it’s with your money, your time, your love, your affection, your faithfulness, your loyalty, your commitments, keeping your word being generous with everything like when you like. Literally, you can think of almost every topic and being generous with that thing, it literally will blow your mind if you just meditate on the concept of being generous with all that God has given you, including assets like time right or love or nurturing things like that. And I know that it changed our kids in a really mighty powerful way that will forever impact them. And so that is a gift that keeps on giving because they will look back on not just that year, but like it’s become part of their character now because it’s something that we’ve really focused on. And you could focus on this like for your kids entire childhood if you wanted to. And that would be a beautiful thing. But there are so many other unseen gifts like gratefulness, right? Like, I even think about just we just had Thanksgiving. So verbalizing the things you’re thankful for verbalizing thankfulness and gratefulness of friendships to people in your in your life. That’s an unseen gift that you can give to people and you never know who needs to hear that. Then, of course, there’s the unseen gift of faith. Yeah, it can be seen because it’s manifested in the way that our kids live their lives. Yeah, but I just think about like, what a awesome opportunity we have during, like the time that we have our kids in our home to be leaving a legacy of faith with our kids like that sometimes is an overlooked thing. So I could even put this in a different category. Gifts that are

Overlooked. So look for those opportunities to bolster faith in your kids. They might be just getting discouraged about the smallest things, and they need to have more faith that God’s going to come through or the things are going to work out. And these kinds of things also memories and experiences. Sometimes we invest a lot in things for our kids. But what is even more important and what they remember are experiences, things parish experiences don’t,

And experiences build confidence. They build relationships, they build character that there’s so much when it comes to experiences. So like a practical way to apply. This is obviously like, do you want to take your kid on a missions trip? Or maybe you want to do an RV trip as a family and see part of history as part of their education?

I remember the RV trip, the three month one was so important to us. It was like. And I remember OK, and because of a business failure we were recovering from, we didn’t have a lot of savings. And so the only way we can make it happen and the time frame was important was to sell things. And so I literally sold all of my guns except for one, but

It was our kids like we

Had. I saw all kinds of things.

And the kids all like they sacrificed and got rid of stuff so that we would have this like nest egg to take on a trip with us so that we could experience memories. It was we could have experiences

Like God will bring this stuff back, whatever we want. This experience is vital and it was a promise, and we’re going to follow through on our promise, even if there’s some pain involved. And it was so

With all of those things, those experiences that we got to have with the kids much more meaningful to everyone because we had all sacrificed together, whether it was selling a favorite book or toy or just working at the garage sale and checking people out and setting it all up and taking it down. And so there are so many ways that you can go about this, right? But another thing we’ve done in the past was snowboard passes for the family, and that was a Christmas present for a year. And that was a gift that kept giving throughout that winter where we were able to get exercise together as a family. I didn’t, but you did with the kids and build memories being on the mountain together.

So experiences are great, you think? Keep thinking about how about the gift of time? Sometimes we get so busy, especially in the whole. Holidays, it can get so busy, there’s this dinner party, there’s this next thing, there’s this other thing, there’s getting the even just the process of making sure we get gifts for people and sometimes we need to slow down. We need to give the gift of time. And this is a season where we should spend increased time with our kids to really focus on the birth of Jesus and the greatest gift that ever existed. So time is so important. Where do you need to spend a little more time? Where does your marriage need more time? Give the gift of time. And sometimes we’re so a.d.d.. Everybody is kind of today by looking at our phones and things like that. Where does the phone need to be put away and have undivided time? Super important.

So obviously, other things that come to mind that are gifts that are unseen would be like music and dancing, like laughter. Laughing together, having time to actually sit down and play games together and just laugh and enjoy each other, which takes time like Isaac was talking about. And so there there are so many different things that are like unseen or overlooked gifts. And I just want to encourage you that those are the things that your kids are going to remember so much more than the thing that they got at Christmas. They’re going to remember that mom and dad played monopoly and ticket to ride and hearts, and they played code names and they they laughed together and they read the Bible and they sang Christmas carols and they made cookies together and listen to worship music while they were doing it. Those are the kinds of things that your kids are going to remember about the holidays they aren’t going to remember. When I was eight years old, I got in my Little Pony like, they’re not going to actually remember those things. And so let’s focus on trying to be thoughtful and giving the things that they are going to remember that are going to create memories and enhance your relationships. Another thing that is often overlooked and unseen as a gift is siblings. Yes, I said it. One of the best gifts you can give your kid is a brother or sister.

Are you telling everybody to get pregnant?

No, I’m not telling everybody to get pregnant now, but I am saying that. Do your kids appreciate one another? And do they see their siblings as a gift? Do they actually see them as a gift? Do they need to be reminded? Like, Why are you whining and complaining? You have a sibling to play with? That’s a huge blessing. That’s a huge line of right. However, if you were to, you know, decide that you wanted to give your kid another sibling, yeah, that would be one of the best gifts. I said, throw that in there. We love all the babies, right?

Yeah, I just I was just thinking of your book Redeeming Childbirth. I’m like, I wonder how many more babies are in the world because people read that book. So yeah, if

You don’t want, Jesus knows that. But let’s move on to the second point, which is gifts to equip. Now, I think that this is one that Isaac could get pretty passionate about. Yeah, this is something that we have done for many years. It kind of started out with me. Like once we started homeschooling, I really wanted to like, kind of, OK, so I’m going to just be really blunt. You know how like, sometimes family members can get gifts and you’re like, Oh, why did they spend money on that? We already have one of those or you’re you’re thinking, Oh, the kids are not really going to play with that very much. And and I know that I’m speaking to the droves of parents out there. I have written blog posts on how to encourage family members and friends to give gifts that are going to keep giving that are really going to be appreciated by the family member, especially the parents, right? And so what I’ve done over the years is I I have a relationship with my mom where she will ask me now, right? Like, what do the kids need? And to give links to things that are going to be tools that they are going to love, that they’re going to use, that they can later show grandma like, look at what I built with this or thank you so much.

I’ve been needing one of these. And when I started homeschooling, I started looking into like games that taught kids how to count, games that taught kids how to read games that like would teach them something about science or history, or whether it was, you know, a puzzle about the United States to help them remember the geography of our country and the capitals in the states or the geography of the world or like. There are so many different good ideas for educational gifts that you can get your kids, and that was something that I started doing when our kids were really young. But then as I started getting older, we started talking about like, Oh, it would be a good idea, like to maybe get like, I remember with Kelsey, I was thinking she she loves to bake and she when she moves out like she’s going to need some baking tools like we should start getting different things like that, and now we have boys coming up.

So I just think it’s what an opportunity. If you’re going to invest money, think about them. Now, whatever it is that you invest in giving gifts during Christmas to your family and think about it, that amount of money and what could that money be used for the catalyzes a better future for your kids. This is kind of how I think about it is like, OK, if we’re spending the money, let’s spend it on things they really enjoy but are going to last and can be in the direction of their passions and interests and are tools that help them do the things God is pressed on their heart to do. And so if you sense, even if you have little kids that you have a little engineer mind in your in one of your kids, they’re more engineer driven. They love or architect the building things. Then think about tools even in a young age that they can do like some kind of erector set. They can build things or as they get older, they might be actual physical tools like real tools. And if you have a creative kid that’s into art, it might be art supplies and those kinds of things to fuel their passions towards. Maybe, you know, three years down the road because you did that. They start selling their art on Etsy, or they start building things for family and friends in the garage. You know, those things are cool. So we’re really thinking about that. I’m like, How can we arm our kids with tools and the direction of their passions? And this year we’ve done that again. We’ve focused very much on what do they need to further the things they’re already doing for older kids and for our younger kids. What can we get them that they really have fun with, but also are our educational in some

Ways, you know, and part of that too. One of the phrases that I heard as a young mom that I’ve really I’ve encouraged so many moms with this, but even just talked about this more in depth on our live and our app this last week is that a child’s play is as practiced for life. And that concept of choosing and investing in toys that are tools, not just toys and understanding like kids all like Think back to your childhood. Didn’t you just want to be older when you were young? Like, kids love dressing up like the construction worker, like the policemen, like the doctor, like the vet, they love playing dress up. They love being big. They always want to do something to help. That is an innate thing in every human being, and it never stops. If you think about it when you were a teenager, you just wanted to be 17 or 18 years old. And then when you were 17 or 18, you just wanted to be in your 20s. And the reality is is we need to both teach your kids to embrace the season that they’re in and to be learning and delighting in that time, but also at the same time, encouraging them by giving them the opportunity to be growing and learning and feeling big and doing something productive even when they’re little and giving like getting tools that are going to help them to be productive.

Like I remember one Christmas, we got the kids, one of those Melissa and Doug, little sets of mop, broom and little like and they to this day we’ve had like five kids that have played with that all from the time. They’re like three to five or six years old. And we’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth out of that little mop and broom. And part of it was that they just wanted to help so bad. And so having a tool like that and I remember thinking like, that’s kind of a silly thing. But but we had visited a Montessori school and they had tools like this that were like little kid people size, but so that they could actually help. And so that were real and productive. So another thing that goes under the gifts to equip section that I think is important to share is instruments. We talked about the gift of music, and sometimes instruments can be expensive and sometimes you have a kid that’s just had their heart set on learning how to play a specific instrument, whether it’s a guitar or a harp or even drums, right? And it doesn’t always fit into a family’s budget, but like, really, think about that kid and how they’re gifted. And maybe that this is a way for God really to start shining through a gift of leading worship or something that

Maybe that’s a thought I wanted to share because people are listening all over the world. Some places in the world you’re locked down like churches are closed that still exists out there. And and if it doesn’t where you are in the states or other places, well, in the future, there is a high likelihood that home church is the only option for Christians. That is possible and it is it is the truth right now in many countries. And so why not give the gift of music and enable kids to participate in worship as a family? But that might become a useful tool when you guys, if you guys are doing home church down the road.

So I think that’s even like one of the things we we did. Music lessons with our older kids for so many years, like 12 years, it was big investment, right? But it’s something like for years and years and years, I always wanted to leave a legacy of worship. I’ve written on that. It was just regardless of if it’s putting worship on, I want my kids to be able to worship the Lord. And so sometimes it’s a big investment. Sometimes it’s small investment. But what can you do? What can you do to help equip your kids so that they can just lead their families, right?

Also, technology, sometimes a laptop is really important to enable someone to further what they’re doing digitally like if they’re learning how to code or if they’re learning how to do Photoshop or graphic designer, they they’re prone to that. You can give a tool in advance of them having the skill. That’s usually how it works.

That’s right.

So you have to be looking for the directions they’re going and give tools that might nurture and have that

Blossom and other educational tools. I mean, every Christmas we buy books. That’s I mean, books are every year. Throughout the year we’re buying books. And so thinking about educational books, I know that our older teenagers are not going to be listening to podcasts. So I’ll just tell you what, we bought a couple of our teenage boys a survival guide book, actually, and it’s it’s very cool. It’s very old fashioned, but it teaches them everything on hunting to gardening, to, you know, starting a fire. All the things

Some people are like. I want that book.

I know, right? Well, you just need to go Sportsman’s Warehouse, but you know, and then one of our younger kids, we got him a whittling book so that he could learn a little, get ideas for what to whittle because he’s really into doing that with his pocket knife. And so, you know, what are your kids already into? And is there a resource, a book? And I really encourage books over anything right now because we don’t know if we’re going to always have the internet. We don’t know if we’re always going to have access to books. So having resources on hand that you can have to build your family library or really an investment, a gift that keeps on giving

And for your family too and for each other. Because remember, how often do you google it or DuckDuckGo it

And you don’t really want your thinking on the internet a ton anymore, like, but think

About how often you do that. If you actually think about often you do that well, what if you can’t do that anymore?

Do you have a book? Yeah, you better

Know you have a book that gives you the answer.

So another thought is just toys that teach, right? Like understanding that a child’s play is their practice and that toys teach things. And so being really creative about the toys that you’re getting, especially younger kids when you’re buying toys like toys that teach toys that are going to encourage their biblical gender roles. Even so, getting little girls baby dolls that they can change their clothes and so that they can kind of mimic mommy if mommy has a baby like I am all about that because it is. Kids are drawn to do the things that God designed them to do. So the third point that we want to talk to you guys about is thoughtful gifts, which we actually have. Like a couple like three questions that I think would be really helpful for you to ask when it comes to thinking about each child and going, OK, how are they wired? What is most important to my kid? What gift would mean the most to them? And it’s going to be probably very different from child to child. And so when you ask these different questions and you think about, OK, what are they most interested in? That’s a good question. What do I see them doing when they grow up? That’s a really good question.

Like I remember when I was 15 years old, I really wanted a hope chest. So I asked for a hope chest because I wanted to be able to antique shop and buy stuff that I would need when I was going to get married, like when I was 15 years old. I like had this ideal early star design in my head, and then as I then I got saved and and I started going on missions, trips and then I thought, Oh, I just want to be a missionary. I don’t want to be married and I don’t want to have kids, right? And so I actually got rid of my hope chest and I got rid of everything in it. So we’d even have that when we did get married. But when we had daughters, I started thinking about that and I was like, This is actually an important legacy that I would want to pass on to my kids. And so our daughters, like they would babysit and they would nanny, and I would I would encourage them to spend their money that they had worked so hard to make on things that they were going to potentially have into their adulthood, not just right now.

And so, yeah, it was fun to go shopping for clothes and things like that with them and to take them out. But I loved going to antique stores with Kelsey and finding old books she would buy, like old versions of Pride and Prejudice or Shakespeare or different books like that. And and it was always really fun to watch what she would invest in, and she definitely had valued books. Yeah, she valued an old fashioned baking tools and vintage things like that. And that is just it’s part of how she’s wired and what she prefers, what she likes. And it’s pretty cool because she likes making bread from scratch kind of like they did in the olden days, right? And so for her, like getting gifts where it’s going to be tools that help her to bake like she loves that kind of stuff. So what is it that your kid that you see them doing when they’re older? What gifts can you give them and then do that thing with them? Like, I remember getting Kelsey an apron and some little cookie cutter things, and then we would use those tools and then that helped her to love baking even more. Now she’s like a pastry chef intern that just

It’s amazing and also give gifts that nurture their spiritual gifts and help them discover their spiritual gifts. And so in first Peter 04:10, it says, as each one of you sorry as each one has received a gift. Minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So we should really be looking at who are our kids. How is God gifted them and giving them things that help them bring those things out more

Around other people, right? Is stirring up good works in one another, calling out the spiritual gifts in your kids. And part of the way that you can call that out is by giving them a gift that is going to help them in that spiritual gift. Like I even think of like the gift of music, for example, we were talking about this earlier, right? And so if you were to give a child that has the gift of music that just really has this ability to connect with God and lead other people, and they’re not shy, they’re confident in leading worship and you give them a guitar. Are you not encouraging them in that spiritual gift? Of course you are. And that is a really beautiful thing. What? What about if you have a kid that has the gift of knowledge and you give them books that are going to be tools that they can use to study the scripture, whether it’s a concordance or a like the Vine’s Bible dictionary or systematic theology or things like that, like when they’re teenagers, if they’re interested in a specific topic, getting them something that’s going to stir up that gift of knowledge or that gift of wisdom, right? And I just think that if we were all to really sit down and evaluate, write, maybe write down our kids names. And this is a good challenge. Write down your kids names and think about the spiritual gifts. That maybe you see in them. Have you called that out and then if you haven’t, that would be an amazing gift to give your kid to call out that spiritual

Gift, even telling them why you gave the gift or any a little card. I see that you have this gift, and here’s why I gave you this present, right?

You know? I mean, I even did that. Like, maybe this is another podcast, but you guys know that our son got married and I had plenty of gift gifts to get for my future daughter in love, right? That I that we were about to get and we had a bridal shower and then we had the wedding gifts and and I had so much fun. I was searching and searching, like Isaac mentioned before on Google for ideas, and there was literally nothing. And then I just prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and I kept looking and I prayed and God gave me really good ideas of things that would be thoughtful, memory making gifts. And then I wrote a card with each one of them that shared, like what I was thinking of when I was picking out the apron or when I was picking out the salt and pepper shakers or just the different tools that I knew that they would need, and I wrote little messages on them. You can do that for your kids. Like how much more special does that make that gift?

And when you get good at giving gifts, then your kids are becoming good at giving gifts, and that’s part of their legacy. And this will be passed on in the future as they have kids. So it’s just a really powerful thing. I would say Angie’s Way more gifted in the gift giving. But but I’m catching up and I’ve been more into it in these recent years and it’s been really fun. And so we hope you take this to heart because it can really have a profound impact on your kids because your kids don’t have very much of their own resources, so they’re really relying on you to use the resources you do have. Well, so that they can be best equipped and bring joy to them at the same time,

You know, and on that same note, like as far as your kids, maybe not having resources and giving gifts, I would just encourage you to like, come up with some commission jobs around your house that you can give your kids where they can earn some money to, where they can give some gifts to maybe their siblings and or a very dear close friend or something like that. That’s special so that you can stir up that generosity in them and it’ll mean so much more to them if they’ve worked hard for that money versus you just coughing up money and giving them money to go shopping with. And so that’s something that we’ve always done. We’ve always tried to give our kids commission jobs where they were equipped with what they needed to be able to give to other people.

And hey, if you’re feeling like, Wow, Christmas is so close, I’ve already kind of taken care of the gift shopping and I didn’t do some of these things. No guilt

Allowed. No, no, no.

No guilt allowed. These are great ideas for every single thing doesn’t have to be implemented exactly how we talked about it. You’re a unique family, and I’m sure whatever you’ve done is tremendous and everybody’s going to love it. But take these things into consideration. You have a year before next Christmas and you have time before their next birthdays and you can apply this all the time.

Well, and I would also say to I hope that this is an encouraging time to be talking about this because a lot of people are struggling financially right now, whether they’ve lost a job because of different things going on in the world right now. And maybe there weren’t as many resources to buy gifts. So to be really focusing on the unseen gifts or the thoughtful gifts and gifts that equip that then like, actually turn into something that they can use to create something to sell so that they can make money like that is so cool.

And I will tell you, some of our best Christmases were those few years where we had very limited resources and we just reframed it with our kids and that things are going to be a little different in terms of gifts and this kind of thing. But. And they responded so well and your kids are really going to be encouraging with that.

That’s right. Well, thank you so much for joining us on today’s podcast. We just love connecting with you guys and hope that you have a great Christmas. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji 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

Special guests Austin and Karaline Tolpin share their short engagement story while giving wisdom about dating. It’s sure to inspire Generation Z in their approach to dating and marriage in a Biblical way.  For parents of young kids, this will help you hone your vision, if they are older it will help you with practical insights now. Regardless, everyone will be inspired by their desire to obey God in their relationship. At the end they give reflections on the first month of marriage.

Main Points in This Episode:

• Why a short engagement can be good.
• How God clearly showed up to enable Austin to propose.
• When and how they first met.
• Insights into staying pure until marriage.
• At age eighteen what God changed in Austin to have confidence in providing for his family.
• Reflections on their first month of marriage.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

Proverbs 18:22 – “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9 – “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.”

Ephesians 5:33 – “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the fall. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Very special episode, we have guests and we hardly ever have guests, especially in person. We have the other top and family Austin, Carolina here.

Hey guys, it’s good to be here.

Yeah, so excited.

So this is awesome. So thanks for joining us today. But before we get started, we just wanted to say thank you for your support and for encouraging us over the years for all of the stars ratings on iTunes, the comments, the reviews and you guys, many of you know, this is actually our podcast editor. So he’s been doing this for a few years. He does a great job, so he gets to listen to them probably more than he wants to.

But by the way, just a quick note on that. I remember in the beginning, you know, we were just building with very little resources and he did it for free for a really long time. So he really helped us get the ministry going. We appreciate it. But hey, today we’re talking about one month married with Austin and Caroline Tolbert.

That’s right. It’s been a month. It’s been a month. So for those of you who have been following along, we actually haven’t talked a lot about the fact that we had a son get married.

I know on the podcast, by the way, I just first got some of the first pictures do so we haven’t even posted.

I know, I know, I haven’t even posted this month, and he hasn’t post again.

Well, that’s

Ok. We do do social media, but you know, some things are private until a month later, I guess.

Yeah, and that’s OK.

That’s OK. We’re living life. It was an amazing wedding. I keep getting feedback, by the way, just how people were touched by the Holy Spirit, whether they’re just a bigger picture of family and multi generations. And it was it was really an impact to people. So yeah,

It was an amazing day,

I’d say,

Yeah, it’s some fun too. So anyways, we are so excited. We appreciate you being part of the movement and everything we’re going to talk about today, really something that they’ve been getting tons of questions on, which is why such a short engagement. So we’re going to talk about there and short engagement and their opinion about that we’re going to talk about. Hopefully, we’ll hear about when Austin talked to her dad, Chad and all these different things and getting the blessing of parents and those things. And then why it’s short and maybe a little update on them.

That’s right. So we are super pumped for you guys to meet Austin and Caroline here, if you’re watching on Rumble. You can see them in person. Otherwise, you can also find them on Instagram at Austin Walpin and the life of a girl, right girl. That’s right. So we will put their little links in the show notes, which is that courageous parenting if you hit the menu and you just hit podcasts. Latest episode, you’ll see all their info there.

So I think when all this started, you were seventeen, right, Austin?

Yeah, I was seventeen years old and had found. Uh, that I really liked Caroline Johnson and was like, OK, how do I go about this? And previously I wasn’t really even open to the idea of dating or a relationship or anything, but I realized, OK, just turned 17 or I was like 17 and a half, and I’m like, OK, I’m getting older. I should at least be open to the idea. And then the Lord brought Caroline into my life, like shortly after that, and I was like, Man, I need to marry this girl.

So now,

Almost a year later, 18 and a half and married to my wife, and it’s been amazing. So we get the question a lot why a short engagement? It was about three months, right? The engagement?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, about three months. And so we’re just going to kind of answer that question for you guys, but also share some story and give you some background information on our story and how we met each other and different things that happened along the way.

So to start off, why don’t you tell us how long you guys knew each other before you got engaged?

You can answer that question

Because I know the true

Answer and I have a little bit. I acknowledged him.

I knew who he was at 13, because Kelsey, his older sister, and I worked at one of our first Jobs Ben Soap Company in Bend, Oregon, together. And so they had like a little company party and their family came in. My family came and I was like, Wow, that’s a really cute kid. But then again, at 15 years old, I was fifteen going on. Twenty five didn’t want really anything to do with little children. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, no, I can never like like this guy. But I did think he was very cute, and that’s all I really remember. I saw him two more times after that at. You were giving a talk somewhere that we went and looked at or listen to. And then I met you one other time. Mm hmm. And then where did you officially remember meeting me?

So yeah, we kind of have different stories because I don’t actually remember meeting her the two times that she said she remembers meeting me. But I when I was like 12 or 13, I think I went to a camp that she was going to, and I remember seeing her. I didn’t really know who she was. I just knew she was amazingly beautiful. And I remember seeing her and was like, I don’t know who this is, and she’s probably like twenty six, even though she’s like 16 or something. And I was like, Well, I can’t marry this one, but I need to find someone just like her. And then kind of moved on from that and didn’t really think about it much. But that was my first like. Like memory of her. And then we met officially from my remembrance in Twenty Nineteen Right Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty on Mt. Bachelor. I was snowboarding, she was skiing with her family and we met each other and actually shook hands that day. Yeah, so that’s kind of when our friendship really started.

I mean, when you get off the chairlift and I saw him and I was like, That’s awesome to have been. I think I went over and gave him a handshake, and

Then we

Officially met and we both remembered it.

Now our families had spent some time together prior to that. Yeah. Not for a long time. We knew of each other. We liked each other and so forth, and we knew some of the other kids. But you were gone some of those times when we were spending time with them. So that’s really cool. So how fast from that time on the ski lift to the first date,

First date was, wasn’t it like August or something?

You destroy my twenty third July.

Twenty third. Okay, yeah.

Well, she knows better than me, but um yeah. So took her out on a first date. And then after that I was like, OK, I’m for sure marrying this girl. And I don’t know when all I knew was like, she’s worth, however long it takes. And whatever I have to go through.

So in Austin, get digging my number. Before then, we started talking a little bit, first over Instagram, then we started talking through text and we became pretty good friends to her. Like, I knew a lot more about him outside of hanging out together.

We just we would kind of talk back, Yeah, we were good friends for a while before the the first day. And like my dad had said, we, our families kind of knew each other. So it was good track record between like mutually between both families kind of knew how each other were raised and that we were like minded. And then on the first day, it was really just like kind of sealing the deal, honestly, which is kind of weird to say for the first date. But like I am sure some like all the deep questions, the non-negotiables and was like, OK, this actually works, and she checks all the boxes that I’ve ever wanted for my future wife.

So hold on. I think most people listening are going, Wait, so you were like 17 and you had like a list with boxes to check. Yeah. And I just think that that would be a really good thing for parents to hear to encourage their kids in making a list because you also had a list like why don’t you tell us about that?

Do you want to go first or do you want me to?

Well, I’ll just say, like, I’ve kind of grown up knowing like what my values were, and I’m pretty unwavering in those and I know what I believe. And obviously, the Bible says a lot about being equally yoked. And so what that means is I need to find someone that’s like minded so that we can be equally, equally yoked. And then also, obviously, there’s other things like attraction and do I like a personality? Do I like her character, all these things? So but yes, I would say, have your non-negotiables and stick to them and don’t settle for less because there is somebody out there for you.

And yeah, I really appreciated Austin’s intentionality on our first date because I was also one of those people that were raised to date intentionally, and I had heard a lot about him. I said, No, I’m not interested in younger guys because previously I had only talked to older ones and having graduated like high school at 16, I feel like my life moved a lot quicker. And so I was like, What’s all this hype about this guy? But I nanny for a lot of people that went to his church and knew him very personally, and they were like, Caroline, know like, you’ve got to check it like just just do it. And I was like, OK, I don’t like him. But if he ever asked me out, I’d say, yes, that was like my one liner. I was like, OK, because I want to know what all the hype is about. Why is this guy so cool? And he’s only 17. Like, everybody thinks he’s God’s gift to Earth.

And I’m like, Why? Like, OK?

So then everybody spoke very highly of Austin, and I was like, OK, I’m really curious. So when we went out on a first date, I told my dad because back when I was 17, dad made me made a list of non-negotiables and things I wanted to know husband. So I had that in the back of my mind. That’s how I screened everybody. And I was kind of intense. Some previous guys that I had talked to were like, You’re like getting in a board meeting like he. He jokingly said, Do you want me to bring a suit and tie next time because I was so like, I need to know what you think about this and what are your values? And I was very just kind of like, Here’s what it is. I wasn’t very like feely initially. I wasn’t super like fun per say. And so I told dad I was like the first guy that can just give me solid answers before he asked my opinion of what I believe on these things. I was like, I’m going to marry. And I was like, OK, like, that’s a tall order. And then I asked Austin some of these questions on a first date and he’s like, I believe blah blah blah, and gave me like a super like biblical firm like opinion. And I was like, Whoa, that is really impressive. And especially for being younger, especially younger than like me because I was only, what, 19 at the time, and I was like, Whoa. To be able to respect somebody and look up to somebody like this, even though he’s a lot younger than me, that just went a long ways. Yeah.

And on top of that, we were able to have a lot of fun and just. Oh yeah, we had it worked out better than previous situations,

Like

Because like we were able to ask each other these intentional questions, but it wasn’t like it did not feel like a board meeting. Now we’re just we were having

Fun and you definitely weren’t

Bored. Oh no.

Oh, so, so so you had this first day, it sounds like, Austin, you pretty much knew at that point, I knew. Yeah. And and then pretty quickly after that, you guys were separated, right? You moved.

Yeah. So tell us that time we

Both families grew up in Oregon, and so we lived in the same town, Bend, Oregon, and then in October of twenty twenty right? Mm hmm. My family, the Tobin’s, we moved to Idaho and her family, the Johnsons, they moved to.

Columbia Falls, Montana, yeah, Montana.

And so then all of a sudden we had gone on like, I think, one to two dates and then we were 11 hours apart. And so at that point, we were long distance, but on top of that, until

We get some funky stipulations. Yeah. So we went long distance and when we went long distance, my father chose to cut off communication outside of the writing of letters the good old fashioned way. He wrote letters to my mom. My older brother in law had to write letters to my sister. He had different, different ideas of what he wanted our relationship to look like. So he had us write letters and I believe we were writing letters for seven months. And that was hard because I had just moved to a state where I knew absolutely no one had zero community. I’m super outgoing. He had just moved to someplace where he knew very few people, and I think it was really hard in in a good way. And then just like, wow, like you had nowhere else to turn, but to the Lord, you had to grow male often got delayed because of snow in between our two very snowy states, and I’d just be sitting there for three weeks like I haven’t heard anything from him.

So, yeah, it was tough. And like really only writing letters, no text messaging, no calling. No nothing.

Yeah, no social media,

No social media. So what’s cool about writing letters, though, is it was actually kind of a blessing in disguise because it really allowed us to get to know each other way better than I think we ever would have if we were able to just talk and do whatever else we wanted over the phone. Because with the letters, there’s no room for anything else except for being intentional. And so we got to really dig deep and ask some questions that we probably would not have thought to ask if we were able to just text or call whenever we wanted. And so it was really cool to be able to get to know each other better that way. And that also sped up. I think kind of our timeline, if I’m looking at it in retrospect, because at the end of that seven months, writing so many letters I wrote were like forty two letters or something. And then I got responses back and she wrote, Me too. And so it was like, we really knew each other really well in a short period of time, and we already knew each other before that, too. And so I think that that’s kind of part of what played into moving quickly. It’s just because we haven’t had your the normal relationship, it’s not been average, so to say and we’ve done things differently than I think most people do things and so.

But during that seven months, you guys also got to see each other traveling.

We did.

Yeah, yeah, we’d see each other here and there. I’d either come down or he’d come on.

And it was your family came to visit you just before things so fine. It was super fun.

Well, and I never like doubted Austin’s commitment to to our relationship because there was no flippancy. There was no like, Oh, I can just talk to this girl whenever I want. Like, he had to make it an intentional effort to sit down, to want to communicate with me, and it really showed my dad and really impress my dad about his commitment level and how it wasn’t like, Oh, the first pretty face I met in my hometown. And that’s what Dad really wanted to see. He wanted to see, OK, this man really committed because he is so young because this is his first relationship. Like, does he really want to pursue my daughter’s heart? And Austin diligently did that during our relationship, and it spoke volumes to my dad.

It wasn’t easy, though. Austin, it was.

And I was like, Man, I just want to talk to her right now.

I don’t want

To wait for like a week or two to get a response

Back. And you weren’t even a verbal processor.

Imagine me.

Yeah, like she also did. But like, it was really good for a relationship. And like we get, we have all these letters now like, that’s like history of our relationship and we can go look back on those whenever we want and we’ll be able to show our kids. And so it’s really it’s been cool. And then after that, we where’d we go?

Well, I had already signed up because I didn’t think I was going to be able to actually date Austin for a long time. And so I was like, OK, because this is going slow, I need to go occupy my time and my thoughts and go do something. And I was like, I really wanted to serve the Lord by going to a Christian camp in Northern California that my grandfather had started. And I was like, I’ve always wanted to serve here for one summer. And so I was like, Now is the last summer. I want to do it because I knew I wanted to marry him. So I was like, You can’t go if you’re married, like, I got to do it. And I was like, This is a perfect time, because our relationship at this point, we are still writing letters. I didn’t know how long we were going to be doing that.

We were kind of at a standstill is the perfect time to go.

So I committed to that and I left in June

And then I kind of like, I’m not a last minute person. I know I don’t like doing things impromptu, really. I mean, like fun things. Yeah, but like major life changes, I’m not like, Hey, let’s pack up your things and go like randomly. That’s not me at all. And so, yeah, I noticed that. And so but I actually ended up going to judge two. But it’s weird because. Like, I was still here in Idaho, I had my job, I was working, I was busy, but I was just here. I was like, What am I doing here? I know the woman I want to marry is at this camp serving the Lord, and she had been calling me because at that point, actually, we were allowed to call. I think it was like the first month or whatever we were allowed to phone call, and I’m like hearing about all these amazing things she’s experiencing and how she’s being impacted by the Lord. And she’s seeing other people impacted and she’s really serving the Lord. And I’m like, OK, I’m here like, Yeah, maybe I’m getting all my ducks in a row so I can be more prepared to get married eventually. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing, but like. It wasn’t what I wanted, and I felt this tug in my heart to like to go to, and obviously part of that is because the woman I’m wanting to marry and in love with is there too. But another part was like. Wow, what have I actually done in my life? That’s. Just been purely to serve the Lord like. Going to this ranch, you like, drop everything and you’re working there on staff full time for three months.

And so you don’t get paid, you don’t get paid.

And it’s long hours. It’s it’s whatever. There’s no they don’t tell you what you’re going to be doing until you get there.

And a lot of times they use your skills, right? And so you know, you have skills in photography and social media, you know, so maybe that would have been something you would do, exactly. But you know, you got there and you got the very best job, right?

I got the very best job on the ranch. So anyways, I I’ll tell you what it is in a second. I said, OK, Laura, I’m going to trust you. I felt this tug in my heart. And then also I was like, kind of struggling with like, I am the kind of guy that wants all my ducks in a row. And so it was I was comfortable living at home with my parents, being 17 years old, working pretty good job. I was like, baby. But at the same time, I was still like stressing out about like my future and career and stuff like that for no reason at all. And so it’s like, Well, Lord, if I can trust you with everything in my life except for this, which is, I guess, basically it was finances and job and career and all this stuff, then that’s not OK. And so part for me of trusting the Lord and going to the ranch was. Giving that up and deciding to trust him. And so I quit my job left for the ranch, got there two days late, then I was supposed to be there. So I missed orientation, missed all the fun inside.

You were being a good son.

He was. And he said to me,

Yes, I was pregnant with Zander and I was due May 20 first. And so Austin tried to stay as long as he could because he wanted to be here to meet his baby brother. But Bud had other plans.

Other components? Yep, yep, that is true. But I mean, I had the idea to go on the 19th. I think, yeah, I was like three days and I was supposed to be up there on the 20th and I was like, it was in Northern California. I’m here in Idaho, so I’m like, it doesn’t

Really add up or at this point too. I had called Austin and we were talking, and it was really hard to maintain a relationship because you’re working day and night, like you’re just grinding, especially in the position I had. And so I was like, You know, I still love you. I still think you’re awesome. But I was like, Maybe we should take a break. I think that kind of scared him because you

Think, Are you breaking up with me?

I was like, No, but I can’t continue to, like, feel like I’m being pulled one direction while serving the Lord here. And I was like, I want to pick this back up. But we aren’t going to move very far this summer having no service. It’s like up in the boonies. And so I was like, This is really hard. Like, I can’t keep doing this. I have to walk like a mile to get service, just to have a quick conversation and stay out past curfew. And I was like, This just doesn’t work.

Yeah, it wasn’t really practical. So we probably would have had to, like, take a break from at least communication and then picked it back up once you got back. But anyways, I decided to go trusted. The Lord dropped everything here, got there and I got the best job on the ranch I was in. The kitchen is in the dish pit, washing everyone’s dishes and you get there and you’re like, OK, wait, what? And I had like a really hard time for the first, like two weeks. I was like, What in the world did I just sign my life off to?

You even missed some of the programming because the dishes have to be done, you know,

Like you missed. So there’s like part of being on crew is like you get you have benefits of being on crew, but when you’re in the dish pit, like dishes have to be done after every meal and there’s meals three times a day. And at that time there was one hundred and forty people. But like during the summer dishes for 500 people when we had guests on property. And so it was a lot of

Work during the whole summer. I just want to ask you that one question how many dishes do you think you washed during the whole summer?

I have the numbers somewhere, but I don’t know exactly. I can tell you that we made one hundred in like one hundred and ten thousand meals that summer

Because it’s not just dishes your burger doing burgers or

Grilling at the

Barbecue. Five hundred hamburgers for burger night. And then you watch everyone eat them in 10 minutes. What was took us six hours. So what was the

What was the turning point to seeing that as an opportunity?

Um, it just came back to trusting the Lord that he had a plan in that also it was finding my why? Like really committing to the whole I am here for the Lord, and there’s no other reason why I’m here. So and that was actually the hardest job on the ranch. You can ask anybody. And I wasn’t just me. I had my buddies in there with me. Um, but like I got to. I learned I went in thinking I knew a lot about work ethic, but like I did not. And so I learned a lot more about work ethic. I was humbled, like so bad, like math. It was like, It’s humbling to be like you. I went to the ranch thinking, OK, I’m going to be on crew with 140 crew members, all like same age. Well, I guess I was one of the youngest, but. And we’re going to be working together for this goal to serve our guests that come through and, you know, lead him and set him example in Christ. And but when you’re in the kitchen, you’re actually the crew that serves the crew. So like, I was like. The little so I was like. It was the lowest of lows, to be perfectly honest, like you’re I was washing everyone’s dirty, grimy, disgusting dishes like the crew members. And so it was like,

Yeah, is because even though Austin was in the kitchen and in the kitchen, you aren’t really like a face of the ranch. You weren’t really seen that often you’re just kind of back there in the hermit pit. We called it the sauna, terrible ventilation, and in California, in the middle of summer with hot water, right? It was hot

In there,

But he’s like going. And what was so awesome to watch and what I observed over and over is crewmembers would come up to me and be like that, your boyfriend in the dish pit. And I was like, Yeah, that’s him. And he was the only one that would get like he really ministered to me, or he totally impacted my life in some way. And like over and over, people came up and told me this and I was like, Wow, this is incredible, that somebody that’s not even being noticed, not being recognized, it’s in like a corner, so to speak. It still having an impact all around the ranch. And he was one of the like, well, most well known dish boys because everybody was like, Wow, when Austin does come out or when we’ve had a chance to observe his worth ethic, they were just so impressed. And that was like a lot of confirmation for me because it was like, Wow, this guy does whatever it’s take. First of all, not only to be here with me because he sacrificed a lot. Yeah, but then to just watch the way his life permeated the whole ranch, even though he was in a not not a glamorous position.

So well, it’s amazing the example you set for others and the standing firm for truth and all the things that happen there. Obviously, this podcast know there’s so many stories you could do an episode just on JH or a couple of them. So a lot of God used you guys in a lot of different ways, and it’s really neat. But maybe,

But you got to serve God

Together for the first time, really?

Yeah, got to serve God together. And then all of a sudden, one day you decided to get a ring.

Yeah, it was pretty grand be being

One of my buddies in the kitchen. He actually became one of my best friends. His name’s Christian and. One day on our off day, you get one day off a week, and it’s it’s pretty random, it changes every week, but anyways, we had the same day off and we like, we’re like, OK, we got to get out of here. So we left camp, which you were allowed to do and go. We went to like a water park or something and like went and watched a movie. And then we went to the mall and just walked around and got food. And then we were like. Why don’t we go look at rings because like at this point, I knew, like I knew, like months ago before this that I was going to marry her and I was like, Well, I’m going to have to buy a ring eventually, so why not just do it now? And so we went and looked, and I actually didn’t have any intention to buy a ring. And then I found this one right here and I was like, OK, well, actually, I need to buy this ring clustering without any knowledge of like when I was going to propose how I was going to propose without permission from her dad. All these things, right? And so then I was like, All right, cool. I have the ring. And then like a couple of days later, I’m like. Ok, I have a ring.

Like what I need to do something with the ring now. And so I was like, Whoa, I want to propose. But I need to ask permission. And at that point, her dad was at the ranch like a week before I had bought the ring and he was there with one of his daughters. They had gone through the program through a program together. And then he had left. And so I felt like, Oh man, I lost my opportunity and there’s no way I was going to call him or text and were sent him an email asking him for permission. I had to be in person. And so I just said, OK, Lord, you’re in control. And if you want things to move forward with me and Caroline faster than originally planned, which at this point I was thinking, well, might be a few months. Once I get back home, then I can go visit them and ask your dad for permission. And so I was thinking, it’s probably going to be another few months, just so just to get engaged. And so I was like, Well, Lord, if you want this to happen, you have to have Chad Johnson show up here at camp for whatever reason you want. I don’t care what it is, but if you do that, then I’ll fulfill my end of the deal and I’ll ask him for permission. And then some unfortunate things happened at camp and in

I actually called my dad and got him back on property. The funny thing was I didn’t know this was going on, but I called my dad crying and I was like, This was the unfortunate situation. This happened in doubt is like, Hey, can we just pass the ranch about two hours ago, coming up from Southern California? He goes, all flip the car around right now, and our whole family will come down there and help support and fill a position that needed filling. And I was like, what? Like, Are you kidding me? So I got so excited, and I went and told Austin he was working out with Christian in the gym. I was like, Dad’s coming back the whole family. They’re going to help us and all that stuff. I was so excited and I could see Austin’s face just be like, Oh

My gosh, yeah, we’re going to ask her

Dad now. And he just looked at Christian like,

Man, it’s going to go down. It was stressful because, like, I

Had chills because we were working out in the gym and Caroline and Christian and Christian knew I had the ring. Obviously, he was there with me and she was like, I just got a text from my dad. They’re coming back now and I’m like, I look at Christian. I’m like,

What?

So that’s like one of those God moments where it’s like, there is no reason he should have come back. But God used an unfortunate situation for good, and he came back and I asked him and he said, yes, so

Well, it said to mom before they had even given on property. He was like, if Austin asked me to marry Caroline because he knew we were, we had gotten a lot closer over the summer. We were going through a book of one hundred one questions asked before getting engaged, like they knew we were moving forward and I was super impressed with how awesome handling things. And I, of course, would call them every week and brag about them and all of the good things. But then we were, so we knew we were getting closer, and dad had a conversation with mom actually during those two hours driving back. And he says if Austin asks for Caroline’s hand, like, Are you ready? Like, Are we ready to take? Take this on and say yes. And he was in mom’s like, Oh yeah, I think they’re so ready, like all this stuff. And so dad’s like, Well, if you ask, well, at least we know we’re on the same page, so it’s kind of up to him. They had that conversation on the way to the ranch. He knew he was going to ask my dad. It was just amazing. Yeah.

So that’s that’s how I got permission. And then a few weeks later, I proposed to her on top of a mountain at the ranch,

And we were fortunate enough. Austin did a little preliminary work and he got our family and Caroline’s family, both the entire family to come out. And Chad and I even got to help set up a little bit of super fun, just us working together, and it was one of those memories I’ll treasure. And then you guys came down the mountain and you didn’t know the families were there, and that was a

Surprise surprise after our engagement. And I was like, OK, so we’re like driving down and I see all the crew members like gathered up and I was like, Oh, that’s cute. Like you said, if I screamed in lights and the crew’s here to like, celebrate us and then like, I see my best friend who was there to like on the corner and I was like Ellie Williams. And then instantly like our whole families from both sides, which is like twenty four people come like running out and just swarm us. And it was the most overwhelming moment of my life. I was like, Oh my goodness. And that place to hold such a sign of

A dream of yours, right, was to have all the family there.

That’s why I thought he was going to wait until we got home because I was like, There’s no way he’s going to propose when we don’t have family to support us. I was like, That means a lot. And he knew that. And so he I didn’t think he was going to do it. But in the back of my mind, I was like, It would be cute because my parents got engaged at each ranch in the same month, what? Twenty eight years before us on that same property in the sports field? So like, they got married where he served in the kitchen. They use that kitchen in my parents wedding. So it’s kind of a bunch of cool like legacy stuff too. And I was like, It would be cute, but I don’t think he’s going to do it. Then he did.

Yeah, and then you guys got married. How many months later

It was three. Three years later, you got engaged August 7th. Yeah, and married October 15. So just a little over three months, which is crazy. Yeah, it’s crazy. You, you get back from JJ on August seven. Yeah.

Trying to plan a wedding in three months is not easy.

So it was a lot of work,

And she pulled a lot of the weight. So I’m super impressed with her.

I can’t believe it. You guys came out for a week, which was super fun to get. To hang out with Caroline, get to know her better as you guys were planning the wedding and just watching you guys work together as a team. It was like by noon, one day you knocked out six things.

There were incredible. Oh man, you guys

Are so true. It was just wild. It’s like there is nothing else except this list, and we’re going to knock this list out. So super cool. So what an incredible story. God was all over this. It’s clear you guys are really meant for each other and it’s a beautiful thing and everybody echoes that, which is great to have that support. But I think people really want to know why is such a short engagement? I mean, you’re so young and you know, it’s very against the cultural norms, which I think is wonderful, but I think people want to know why.

Yeah, of course. So well, there’s a few reasons, one of them being to avoid temptation. That’s one of the biggest reasons, I would say. And. We one of our biggest goals in our relationship before being married was to stay pure and remain pure. And so I didn’t even kiss you until like a week or two before our engagement. And and then obviously we’ve waited for everything else until we were married. And so that was a big deal for us. And so avoiding temptation for sure was one of the biggest reasons. And the longer you string it out, the harder it is. So yeah, we just really wanted to be married and live life together. So yeah, and then when a verse that I love to to read people or remind them of when they ask me, is he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord? And I posted this on social media before, but this one really hits home for me, and it really just goes to show how much the Lord is in favour of marriage. And if the Lord says it’s a good thing, then it’s a good thing. Regardless of all the nitty gritty details and the reasons why maybe you wouldn’t want to get married. And so I was like, Why would I want to delay that? Why would I want to delay favor from the Lord?

So, yeah. Yeah, it was it was awesome, but it was kind of interesting because we did go back long distance to during our engagement because of that whole remaining pure, we weren’t going to do anything or move in together until we were married. And so I went back and live with my family and everybody was like, Why did you do that? I went back to Montana. He went back into life, went back to like the normal spots. Mm hmm. But our desire hadn’t changed at all. And so I mean, you know, you know, like bottom line, I think it’s so sad that our culture has wrapped this up and delight. You need to wait for all of these things. And it’s just I don’t find it to be beneficial because it’s really hard. Like it was a hard season and it was a good season. We obviously needed the time we had to plan. But like Austin said, like not delaying life together, being able to support one another was wonderful.

Yeah. And like you said, when you know, you know, like I knew after the first date, that was like, Yeah, sure, we got engaged in the three months later we were married, but I knew I wanted to marry her for over a year. And so it’s like having that in your mind for that long.

It’s yeah. So I think a lot of people want to know, too on the provision side of things. Austin, because obviously you believe in what the Bible says of taking care of your family in that way. And you’re so young. I mean, you’re 18 now, but you know, maybe you can give some insights into that experience.

Mm hmm. Well, so I’ve always been. I remember being eight years old and telling my dad like, I’m ready to work, like, what can I do?

And you know, I remember that dad came home and he was like, I went out with Austin today, and he’s kind of like down at first. So I asked him what was wrong. He’s like, I just want to live my purpose.

I’m ready. I’m ready to go to work. What can I do?

So this is a big thing for a lot of people. Everyone’s everyone wants to find their purpose and figure out what they’re doing career. And then obviously, now that I’m married like money is definitely important. I need to provide for my family and my wife. And so it’s like. How do you do that, and I’ve just I don’t know, the Lord has been good and I’ve had a few different jobs I’ve pursued originally, I would say the first thing I’ve ever done is photography, videography and just editing and online stuff. I’ve built like websites before I built Shopify stores, I’ve done a few different things. So I would say for the first few years after graduating high school, I was an entrepreneur and just kind of did odds and end jobs, worked for my parents, started doing their podcast, which I did for free for a while and then now we’ve since figured out a system that works good for both of us. And then recently, so before I left for JH, I was working for a marketing company and I was doing photo, video and social media and all that stuff. And that worked out really, really well for me. But then the Lord called me to the ranch, and so I quit my job.

And with the blessing of that

Employer, with the blessing of the employer, I didn’t just drop everything on him last minute I just asked him for. I was like, What do you think about this? And he was fully in support of it. So that was just one thing after another God was involved. And so I I went to the ranch being like, OK, I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get back. Have not making any money now. And then, like, got engaged and still was like, I have no idea what I’m going to do. Then I got home and I was like, Well, I’m just going to dive right back into freelance work, do photo video anything I can get my hands on

And then sold some prints and local

Coffee shops started. Yep, yeah. Sold some of my photos. I printed them on canvases and I was presented in a coffee shop. A local coffee shop sold a few prints and then an opportunity came up. One of my good friends who was actually my previous employer, he is kind of. Uh, he has a lot of different businesses and he’s always moving and trying new things, and so he had recently bought a wedding venue. And he was like, I need a manager. And so we thought about it, prayed about it and I was like, Maybe this is it’s so random. It’s nothing I’d ever thought I would do before. But now I’m managing an event center in Eagle Idaho and it’s going really well. We do weddings, corporate events, holiday events and

Called St. Crossing. We should give them a shout out. Yeah, check them out. So that’s super cool. And I know before that, Austin, that you had this peace of mind about the one thing that you hadn’t surrendered to God. You mentioned earlier which that provision and then you had this release of I know God will take care of me, and I’m not worried about it at all.

It’s going to work out. By the way, you told us that story the night you called us to tell us that you were going to propose to Caroline

And we were like tears of both

Just started crying. Yeah, when you told us we were so proud of you because we knew in that moment that all of a sudden he’s in the place where he needs to be as a man to be providing for a family because you need to be submitted to God and you. You showed that in in releasing that to him. And I really believe that he’s honored you in that. So you’re doing the wedding venue, which is really an event center. You do many events.

Do we do all sorts of stuff? Yep.

And then you still do some podcast editing for us

Ways and the way that I can.

Yep, yep. And so and sometimes you take on extra stuff for other people, too.

So well, I think you have a scripture, but also we want to find out, is there any other reasons for short engagement?

Well, there were some practical. There were practical reasons, for sure.

Sure, pressure reasons like her sister was about to give birth to her baby. And obviously,

Yeah, she had it two days ago. We got in just in the nick of time. I mean, she was my one long distance sister. She lives in Kentucky with her husband. I knew she was eight months pregnant. I was like, We can’t push this further, and I didn’t really want to compete with the holidays, finding open event centers. And then there’s weather for people traveling. And I mean, we live in a very uncertain world as I think we’re all picking up on that. And you don’t know what the government’s going to do. You don’t know how COVID is going to affect things or whatever is happening in our nation day. I mean, we I know of several people that have postponed their wedding or had a backyard wedding and support meant a lot to us. We wanted to have both of our families there, all of them or as many as could make it, and it mattered to me. I had like 14 bridesmaids, but it meant a lot because I was like, I want all my sisters. I want all his sisters, I want some friends. And it was such a blessing to have that support and be able to start your marriage off.

With so many wise people speaking into us, people that have already gone before us and being there to support us, it really meant a lot. And that was something that it was going to get a lot harder had we pushed it out. Mm hmm. And the timing was just perfect, and I think he was funny because God really honored the desire I had in my heart because I told my dad back in February, when we were still writing letters, I was like, Dad, I really want to get married in October, and dad was like, Not a chance, sweetheart. Like, I love this, but you’re going away for four months. You won’t see him. You guys won’t be dating much. And he was right. That was aren’t going to be our situation. And then the Lord brought us into us. And then the first thing my dad told me when we were talking about dates was, he’s like, here, I think October is the only month that I work this year, and I was like, Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you, Lord. Like, you

Know, what’s interesting is until the parents saw the maturity and what God was doing, we weren’t pushing things forward at all. In fact, we were doing the opposite. You were being cautious, giving wise counsel and maybe even pulling things back a little. Yeah. Mm hmm. And so and I think that’s wise. It’s like, let’s see the fruit of this relationship. I think Chad was wise. Let’s see the fruit of this relationship and make sure this is what God’s doing, not what people’s will is doing.

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and for us to we wanted to we were in alignment with your parents regarding a short engagement, which just comes back to the like mindedness of both families in the sense of like, yeah, we we all were in agreement. And so having that family meeting right after you guys were engaged and your dad looking at his schedule and saying this date and I mean, it’s a lot of work to get all of the fifteen or fourteen bridesmaids and the family members. And and so I think that just practicality making a date that works for most people that are that it’s going to be most important to while at the same time honoring the parents wisdom and not making it like a year long engagement or something. Right?

And I feel like it takes some of the stress out of planning because it’s like you either spend two weeks stressing out about flowers or you spend about two minutes worrying about your flowers, and you’re kind of like, OK, look, I think it took a lot of the like. I don’t have hours to just make decisions on things, so I like those. Let’s just go with them. And it kind of simplified things because it wasn’t like we were just sitting around like, Oh, let’s contemplate one more venue. It was kind of like, this one works for our four. People we want to have and we kind of just got to start knocking things out, and it was really nice because I was like, it’s taking care of like we’re done instead of just like spending an entire year worrying about it because I would have and I feel like it takes honestly some of the focus off the marriage and more about the wedding and more about all of the things and less about two people coming together. Starting their life is one

Which is what’s really most, which is most

Important. And so I think it kept us a little more focused, which was amazing, and I really liked

That a lot. Well, hey, we want to get an update. It’s one month in or so. It’s more like five weeks. Yeah, in a second. But I think we have a very important scripture.

Well, you know, when you were talking about just work and you mentioned something, you said, why would we wait and why wouldn’t we just build our life together? And this verse in Ecclesiastes 4:9 says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. And you know, that goes in alignment with the story that you guys told and the narrative that you have been living out in, building together, building your life like it’s been fun. Yeah, especially like I have to I have to say it’s just been fun as a mother in love. Yeah, I like that term much better than another lot I do. But it’s been fun to watch you just enjoying and delighting in preparing the harm and all the things that you’ve been working on it and supporting Austin, going to work with him sometimes and then doing your own work while you’re with him and making the lunches that you make and the meal prep and all of the fun stuff that I’m watching you do. I’m like, It’s just a beautiful thing. You guys are doing this as a team and building your life. And it’s interesting because I got married very young. Also, I was 20 years old when I got married, just like you were. Yeah, Isaac and I met when I was 19, and I remember looking back and going my personality. If I would have lived independently for a long time, I think that it would have been more difficult for me, just in my personality. I’m not. This is not a prescription for other people’s lives because some people get married later in life, for sure. But for me, it would have been harder to have a servant hearted attitude because I would have really liked my independence a lot. Yeah, you know, and so I see you guys building your life together. Yeah. And you’re a team now and you will remain a team.

It’s. Yeah, because Caroline, you’re a go getter. You really are. And and it’s in your ambitious person. But what’s really neat is to see it’s godly ambition. And then it’s pointed towards the top priorities, which is, you know, biblical roles and marriage and taking care of your family and and those things. But you’re still you’re still doing your things that you like to

Do, too. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

I think it’s awesome, too, because we were both raised with the desire, obviously listening to parents talk. And if you heard my parents talk like we were both raised understanding biblical roles. And so that was the desire in each one of us, like far younger than I think a lot of our peers. It wasn’t as inputted into them. And so they were a little more like, oh, whenever going a little bit more along with the world’s way. If you have to do all of these things before you get married, you’ve got to live your independence, you’ve got whatever. So your audience, whatever they say, yeah, do all these things. And I always told my dad, I said, I want to be young, broken in love, and I meant it. I was like, I don’t want to feel like because I am super like, kind of scrappy. And I was like, I don’t want to just come into this like giant house that I don’t get to really put together because somebody will probably do it for me. And like all this stuff, I was like, I really want to build a life together, learn together you to grow together. And I do feel like you never get to learn the I mean, living in a big family, you don’t really have an option to be that selfish. You’re always having to put people first or work schedules and stuff. And so getting to come from a big family straight into a marriage, you don’t have that time of, like you said, growing in this almost unhealthy independence of I am going to be come more of a selfish person. And all of a sudden, what I need to start serving you or laying down my life for another person, like, I’m not OK with that. You know, we never really had a chance to do that because we went from living in big families to living with each other. And honestly, somebody asked us how I was going, and I was like, It’s so much easier to

Be one than 11.

And they were like, That would make sense. And I was like, He’s easy.

I grew up with seven sisters. He’s so much less drama anyway. It’s awesome, but

I just really like that. And then having that in the back of her mind like that was instilled in our hearts, like he wanted to be a provider. I wanted to be a homemaker. He wanted to protect me. I wanted to support him and like knowing that’s what we wanted to do. I mean, I didn’t want to wait to start walking out a role that God clearly lays out in scripture for me as a woman. And so I was like, What a blessing to get to start doing this as 20. Now everybody’s love story is different, so it’s like whenever the Lord brings out, right? One, that is the perfect timing for you. But for me, he definitely wanted that earlier, and she knew I was not a person that wanted to be by herself.

I just could not.

I don’t like being by myself very much anybody.

Well, hey, Ephesians five. Three, it goes right into, I think, getting an update from you guys. Nevertheless, let each of each of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. It’s often used in weddings and so forth. But I think just our observation so far is we see this happening in your marriage from the day one. Yeah, and it’s beautiful. And I thought that would be a good lead in just getting an update. I’m sure people want to know how it’s going.

It’s going great.

We still like each other.

We still like it

And

We’re glad we got married and I looking back, I would not have done anything differently. To be perfectly honest, I’m loving being married. I love my wife and it is truly just a blessing from the Lord. Marriage. So I’m glad you made it.

It’s so awesome. It’s so fun. Feeling like you have just to your team. You’re a team. You get to work together. It’s so much fun and it’s I’ve really enjoyed it like a lot because I love having a little house, not a little house. We’re in a little apartment, but it’s so fun to like, decorate things, you know, do all the things that you never really had to say and or without very many opinions. I was just like, Do you like this? Ok, if it pleases you, it pleases me, let’s go. And it’s fun to have the freedom of like, we’re starting a family like we do live out the legacy that we’ve obviously been passed down, which is such a blessing. But at the same time, it’s like, what do we want our family traditions to be? And it’s fun going into this holiday season being like, How are we going to do Thanksgiving? What do we want to start doing before we have kids, when we have kids? So it’s so much fun?

Yeah, it’s a good thing, really.

Yeah. So a lot of people have been asking you guys a lot of questions, and maybe we end on this one last question. How’s that sound? Ok, so how many kids do you guys want?

Austin’s last answer was, I

Want a lot of kids.

Maybe somebody sent me a DM going. Did your husband just say all

Of the babies without hesitation? I said, Yes, he did. Yes.

All of the baby, as many as Lord will give us. We’re not going to plan it. We’re not going to stop it and God’s in control.

Yeah, I love the way both of our parents have seen children, obviously is a blessing. We see children as blessing. And then also as like having a womb, being a woman looking at what my mother and mother and loved it and just being willing to surrender that part of yourself to the Lord. And that’s a really most people. I feel like we’re like, OK, God will give you everything, but this one’s still mine. This one, I still get to control. And that was something where I was like, OK, if I say I’m really surrendered, I should definitely trust the Lord with how many kids he wants to bless us with, or if he wants to bless us with children. So just leaving that with wide open hands, and we’re really excited to see what he does. And like, he said, we don’t have a number, but we’ll take ten plus.

Yeah.

One last thing I want to do before we close up here and my dad did not ask me to do this, but I want to shout out to his new merch company. If you’re watching the video, I’m wearing one of his hats right now and he’s wearing one too. And that’s right. Yep, go check out what is it? What are the shops

Called Resolute Man?

Resolute man? You can find the shop, get the merch. They’ve got some pretty cool stuff.

Thank you, son.

That’s nice.

All right. Thanks so much for joining us. This was a blast. I’m sure it was enlightening for many.

See you next time. See you guys. See ya! Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone

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An important episode so you know what’s happening. We are making some big investments and adjustments to navigate wisely as the world is rapidly changing. We believe these new plans will help the ministry pursue the mission of making an indelible difference on 1 million families and their legacies despite the cancel culture around us. You will get some helpful insights too as you listen. Thanks for being part of the movement!

Insights From This Episode:

• More than ever we must think and act proactively versus reactively.
• Big tech is likely not going to get easier on truth-telling Christians.
• The Tolpin’s realize that it’s likely inevitable that the ministry will get deleted off of big tech platforms at some point in the future.
• The Tolpin’s aren’t leaving any platforms but will now be ready for that future reality.
• We are stronger when connected in a place with real free speech.
• The new app will be the main home base of the ministry enabling everyone to be a deeper part of the growing community of Biblical Christians.

BIG BLACK FRIDAY SALES THROUGH THIS MONDAY!

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Scripture in This Episode:

Deuteronomy 6:7-9 – “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

Deuteronomy 31:6 – “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

Psalm 85:10 – “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

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Full Transcript:

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

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 twenty one 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 and the all. Hi, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, guys. Well, this is a very special, unique episode where we appreciate you listening in because they are vital big changes happening to the ministry.

That’s right. So we this this podcast is going to be really fun. We’re going to share with you guys some projects that we’ve been working on. If you follow on social media, you’ve seen us give little tiny bits, sneak peeks, if you will, at some of the things that are coming and we are going to share all of that with you guys into the podcast.

And we’re so appreciate the journey you’ve been on with us. I know there’s some new listeners, quite a few, actually, but you’re along the journey to in a spin, a lot of fun. We’re coming up on three years since the podcast launched here in December.

That’s right. So next month, we’ll be celebrating that for sure.

Yeah, and we’re getting closer and closer to over two million downloads and we’re not quite there. But sometime in January, we probably hit that. So that kind of gives you a ballpark of where we’re at as a ministry, and just thousands of people have gone through courses and been impacted. We just got a message the other day of somebody that listen to a podcast about needing to pursue entrepreneurship, and they messaged us their link to their website for their new business because their husband was forced to quit a job.

That’s right. And so we’ll be sharing their link to their website to at some point here as well. Yeah, just to encourage them by you guys. We love hearing from you. We love hearing how God is using this ministry to impact your families to impact your on that case, the provision of a family, right, which is really cool. And it’s such an encouragement for us to continue on. I know you guys probably need that encouragement to to not grow weary in doing good. Amen.

And so we so appreciate you guys and we’ve talked about this concept. We’re going to lead in with several other times in other podcasts, but it’s very important it has to do with why we’re doing what we’re doing together. And all together with this ministry is that we need to be proactive in our decision making versus reactive in the simple differences. You make a decision ahead of time, even if it’s hard. Acting in wisdom and seeing the trends of things in listening to the Holy Spirit versus doing hard things once something already happens to you and you have to react because the options are not as good, usually when you’re reacting, but if you’re proactive, you can do it in your own timing. Make the appropriate investments and decisions, right?

We talk about this all the time in the parenting mentor program. When we’re talking about being proactive parents versus reactive parents, right? One example would be teaching your kids something versus reacting when they don’t do that thing correctly or when they sin in that area, right? So if you spend more time in the teaching and loving on them in that way, teaching them that expectations, if you will, then you spend less time having to correct later. And this is it’s interesting how we take that’s something that we’ve definitely been living out as parents for a very long time. But then when it comes to ministry, when it comes to even just having wisdom in how you run a business, that’s where Isaac goes, aren’t we got it? We got a shift here.

So that’s why we moved. That ended up being extremely fruitful.

If we look

Back and we’re like, Wow, thank you, Lord, thank you, God. And we feel like this is one of those other huge deals in our lives and that will impact so many other people’s lives because we’re being proactive in it. And we hope that’s the case as it pans out. And so,

So as we are sharing this with you guys, this is super exciting, but I hope that you can also learn from some of what we’re sharing today in regards to your own businesses and take a really good hard look as Christians as to what is your business reliant on and is it built on sand or is it built on the rock? And how can you start making and implementing small things today that are going to help your business to be stable and to be able to provide for your family?

That’s a good word. Such a good word. So I think we’ll kick things off with

Ephesians you guys. Ok, so Isaac and I were really encouraged as we were moving forward in dreaming about some of these new things that we’re going to share with you guys. But we want to read from Ephesians five verse 15 through 17, which says, see then that you walk circumspectly not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Are the days evil? You guys OK, therefore do not be unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not and then just continues on and on and on. It talks about like speaking to one another and Psalms hymns and spiritual songs, which I think is important because we’re going to talk a little bit about social media and how it’s changed in the last couple of years. And that’s one of the things that we have, definitely, as we’ve shared scripture, as we shared truths, as we’ve shared spiritual encouragement. There has been a a well, first it was invisible, but now it’s not so invisible fight against the enemy. And so the days are definitely evil and we want to be wise and we want to know what God’s will is. We know that everything that’s happening today is actually part of the plan. Like there is an element of uncertainty. We talk about raising confident, courageous kids for an uncertain world in the sense that we don’t all know the details of how end days are going to look right a thousand years ago or five hundred years ago, 300 years ago, those generations didn’t know what those end days were going to look like for them, for their kids, either. But they have the same Bible, and we know that we are all in end days. We know what the Lord talks about as far as famines, pestilence, all these different things we know.

And you know what the good news is? There is certainty about how everything ends.

That’s right. So there’s both certainty and uncertainty. And I just I wanted to bring that up because it’s like, OK, so the certainty that we can have, the hope that we can have this sound purely only solely in Jesus Christ and the truth of the word

We’re real confidence comes from. And there’s no need to be fearful at all.

So that’s a good word. So we are super excited, even though we read scriptures that kind of go, Oh yeah, the days are right. Like, Oh, I think it as exciting.

I think if you’ve ever played chess, the kids get paid. If they beat me for the first time and several have been paid now. So it’s, you know, it’s been a year, but it got them to practice and work hard at it. I think chess is incredible because it works the mind and, you know, navigating through these times, leading a family, leading business ministry, things like that. It really takes strategy. The more moves you can see ahead, the better decisions you’re going to make today. And so that’s really important. So this is kind of all about that. I do want to think the over five hundred people that filled out our survey to give us feedback on all of these changes, most of them and it literally the outcome that we’re going to present to you today is from that feedback and it’s great instrumental.

It was overwhelming feedback. Actually, you guys are in a lot of alignment regarding some of the hard decisions that we’ve had to make. But I want to read to you from Matthew Chapter five. Yeah. 13 through 16, which says you are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing. What’s it good for? Nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men? You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven, not you. Amen.

Amen. So you think about that having a ministry that is very much online, there’s many of those. There’s many people that preach truth in an online environment such so effective, right? But one of the things that is making the truth chipping away at the truth shared online is censorship is is the enemy using these big tech companies to prevent people to scare people from getting cancelled. And all of these things and the more reliant whatever you do is on being able to stay on a platform, the less likely you are to share the truth. If you know you’re going to be punished for it. And so we really don’t want anything to get in the way. And from confusing even us in our minds of what are the priorities here? Well, the priority is what Matthew five says, which is do not hide your light under a bushel. Even on platforms and wherever we need to be, who we are at home, how we are in public, that whether we go to work or wherever and if we can’t. You really have to kind of think about that because that’s a challenge. We’re to share where to be a light wherever we go.

It’s interesting because we were reading from Ephesians five, which was the section verse 15 and 16 earlier verses versus 15 or 17. But I also think of the section just above it, where it says in verse eight four, you were once darkness, but now you are light and the Lord walk as children of the light for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. So if you’re not speaking truth, you’re not. Actually representing the light fully like you can’t be a if you’re not representing the truth. So the thing that we have noticed, not all ministries, there are many good ones out there and I do see that God is blessing many different ministries, but I also see that many of them are struggling. They’re like really struggling with censorship with all kinds of things, with even the temptation to just be watered down and to not talk about the things that are the most important, which is the deception that is out there and being wise in in understanding exposing the lies like the God calls us to do that right here in verse 11, like listen in verse 10, says finding out what is acceptable to the Lord and verse 11 and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them for it is shameful even to speak of such things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light.

Now, just a side note, I do think there’s some some things getting exposed recently that were very encouraging, and you can think about whatever you think those things are. But it’s just, I think that’s really encouraging. We’re starting to see some of that, but that goes into our first point, which is there is an enemy. And back to the chess board analogy is we see that rook in that bishop working together from the enemy side, trying to corner in a, you know, few moves away from check. And so we need to maneuver and be wise and make sure we’re nowhere near being in check. And you know what I mean, because we don’t want the light is God is used through this ministry to get

Taken down off of the table or put in the basket over it. I mean, even think of the little song that we sing with the kids like a little light shine. Hide it under a bushel. No, I’m going to let my light shine. And seeing that this is a huge example. Like for us, you guys, this ministry has been a family. This has been a family thing. Yes. And by God’s grace and provision, we’ve been able to bless our children when they work and they help us with the littler kids or different things so I can just shoot out here does all the work sets things up and then we shoot a podcast. I go back, you know? But the reality is that we are an example. Isaac and I are an example to our children and what it means to press on. And when you hit, when the enemy comes in and he starts barricading or trying to put up walls or obstacles, we are constantly trying to be wise. He’s a schemer. What do we know about our enemy from scripture? What do we see happening in the world? How can we maneuver and get around? How can we expose the darkness? Amen.

So amen. So the is real and the enemy is using things like Big Tech in many ways. You know, you think about these big social platforms and so forth, too, as we said, to squish out truth, biblical truth and other truth too. But biblical truth is what matters most.

And they aren’t even apologizing for it.

It’s all a collaboration where they realize it or not with the enemy, in our opinion, as we are going deeper into in times.

And so and there are two kinds of people that are obviously going to fall into that category, being tempted or deceived by the enemy, right? There’s those who are lost who literally just don’t know Jesus, and they don’t realize that they’re being used by him. And then there’s those that have literally they have been deceived and they have given their souls or their hearts over to idols, other gods, even Satan. And so we need to be aware that this is a reality of what we walk in in this world. Ephesians six goes on to say that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of the darkness and the dark rulers of this age. There are dark rulers of this age. And so when we take all the different pits of scripture, not just one scripture, but we want to take the whole Bible in context and we see the challenges that have happened throughout history. We’re not shocked by what’s going on, but it is true that there there are people such as social media platforms where they have a lot of resources financially and otherwise, and they’re not using them for good and exposing the lie.

And eventually we’re going to get kicked off. I mean, it’s just inevitable and we’re not going to stop preaching truth, sharing truth, biblical truth and otherwise, and we’re going to share that stuff because that is as long as we possibly can. But we’re not in fear and we’re not going to put the ministry in jeopardy by having any aspect of what the ministry is doing reliant on big platforms or whether to say yes or no to us being on there. And I think that’s really important for all of us to think about and what we’re doing. We’re still going to stay on Facebook post. We’re still going stay on Instagram wherever people are that are listening. We’re going to be there as long as we can be, but as an example, we our parenting mentor program had their private group in Facebook and it was so useful because it was very, very, very effective. We could do lives, we could do all of this stuff.

People could communicate and comment on one another.

Just like that, that can be taken away.

Well, we’ve even experienced some things they many of the the people in our group have shared with us. They do not get notifications when we’re about to go live anymore. Fortunately, we’re able to send out text messages to people privately. And so we still it’s been a very effective method of communication and connecting with people in our lives. But we have over a thousand people in that group, and many of them have expressed, Are you guys going to get off of Facebook and our concerns about how it is, you know, a lot of people have left Facebook because that was the only group that they were there for. Some are still staying because that is the only group that they’re there for. And we don’t want to be a stumbling block if someone has a conscience like a check in their conscience that they don’t want to be a part of that. We don’t want our ministry to have to be reliant upon the functions that it provides in order to be getting everything that they can get out of the parenting mental approach.

So I started a process. We listened. We we were feeling the same way. I started a process of having calls with different companies and finding out even interacting with some other social media sites like Gab, looking at telecom, telegram, things like that. And they just don’t have all the pieces. Plus they’re still social media. They’re good. I believe those two are pretty good social media platforms, but there’s still social media platforms. And so we really felt, wow, we really need to move in a different direction that’s safer and provide safety for the people and privacy, and not only for the parenting mentor program, but we have resolute man, we have courageous mom, we have courageous parenting all under one ministry. And we thought, how do we can bring everything together and bring all things in one place so that it can be more effective so we can have a unified, more powerful community, whether you sign up for the parenting mentor program or not. We still want to be in community with you and to connect you to other biblically minded Christians that are intentionally parenting and resources and those kinds of things. So we really felt a calling to solve this. Now, when you try and solve something like that and you’re not using the free things on Facebook and things like that. There is serious costs involved time, effort, cost expense.

The courageous mom group will be just for women, and the Resolute Man Group will be just four guys.

Yeah, so and also the podcast, you know, we’re still going to have our podcast on iTunes and Google Play, Stitcher all the places, but you never know when when that Big Tech kind of turns against you. So one big so we’re going to we’ve loaded everything into this platform. They’ll still be out there. But if they ever get taken off over there, they’re all all still be in the one place except for the kids podcast. And we’ll get to that in a second. That will no longer be out there. It’ll only be in this one place. Also, the kinds of resources but really powerful community, all in one place. So we are launching

The be courageous app.

So we’re so excited about this. It is going to be a native app in the Google Play, in Apple stores, but also we have a web version of the app should we ever get kicked out of the stores for any reason? So it is super exciting, obviously big expense, big time and ongoing expense for every single user that uses the app. So we really had to think about this. We also want some barriers to entry. We don’t want anybody just to be able to download the app and get into it because this is for believers. This is for intentional believers that you know, really want to grow and equip the families. And so if you make something that anybody can just access, you really dilute the power of the community. So one, there’s an expense and two we want a barrier to. Not just anybody gets into it unless they really want to, and they’re willing to invest in it. Also, when we invest in things, we’re better contributor to the thing we’ve invested in. And so I think that’s going to make it a richer community as well. And so we’re launching the app is going to have topic based groups. As Angie was talking about. It’s going to have the powerful News Feed. Just like social media platforms like Facebook.

You get to have your own profile, actually, which is really powerful because then it makes it easy to to message and connect with other people as well. And so for those of you who really enjoyed the messenger feature or doing on Instagram that you’re struggling and then you don’t want to necessarily be on social media anymore, you can connect with like minded people that are in the parenting mentor program, for example, if you’re in. So and the great thing is, is this is not just for people on the parenting mentor program. Yeah. This app is going to be available like Isaac said in the App Store. And so we’re going to have this is just going to be a fun thing to watch how it

Grows and you can go to great parents for all show notes on every episode in there, we’ll put images of the app, links to it and so forth. But you can also just go into your app store and search for be courageous, and it’ll be very obvious you’ll see it right there.

Yeah. So why don’t you tell them a little bit more about the Kids podcast?

So the Kids podcast has been a huge hit. In fact, it is almost getting the same number of downloads on a weekly basis. Is this podcast so that these episodes that Angie and I do, which is amazing and I hear story after story? Yeah, I played it five times for my

Kids and we had some great conversation motivated this and so cool

Every. And it seems like every kid is a hit and people are getting so much feedback and it’s such an encouragement to our kids. But one of the things that we’ve been concerned about from the beginning and now is like a serious concern is exposure to our kids is putting our kids out there and the thoughts out there, although nothing negative has happened yet. It could wear somebody slices and dices what they say to create different meaning and things like that that have actually happened to us before. So we want to make sure that our kids, that does not happen to another thing. Our kids are awesome and they help for free, but we’re not going to do episodes every week into the

Future for three years

Or so. And nor do I think that’s right. Even though they’re getting home, school credit and things like that, we actually desire to pay them per episode. One of the things we’re going to do this might give you an idea for your kids, and something is that money. They get paid per episode, though, gets saved and they can only use it for entrepreneurial efforts. So whenever they’re ready to do something entrepreneurial, try something, even if they feel there’s less capital building and they’re doing the episodes. So that’s really cool, too. And so. So we are taking the kids podcast off of iTunes, off of Google. It’s not going to be out there anymore. The only place the Kids podcast will be is in the app, so it’ll be exclusive access only for people in the app because these are believers paying monthly to to use the app and be part of the community in a deeper part of the one million legacies movement. So what we decided to do and we look at the pricing and how all this works, it’s going to only be eight point ninety nine dollars per month. So when you download the app, it’ll ask you to subscribe eight dollars and 99 cents per month.

And then that will just charge you monthly and you have unlimited access to the app with one caveat. There will be a parent team mentor program group within the app that is private only for people who paid for the parenting mentor program. And as soon as their group starts, it opens and it forever stays open in the app for them. Obviously, people that join the Parenting Mentor program are going to get the app for free for three months and then at the end of three months, they’ll start charging them. Now the question comes up OK, well, what about my spouse? I mean, you can have a resolute man group in there and things like that. Do we have to pay eight ninety nine twice? The answer is no. Once you pay eight point ninety nine, you’ll get emailed a code a discount code that takes seven dollars off and only be a dollar ninety nine for your spouse after you sign up. So that’s really cool. So we wanted to make that really, really easy. But there’s going to be articles, all kinds of stuff. So now anything more about that?

No, I think you covered everything.

Ok, so now the other exciting thing is to expand the movement, have reminders in people’s homes when they’re drinking coffee and putting their hat on, looking in the mirror, when they’re wearing something, when their kids are wearing things are reminders to be courageous, to be resolute with two shops watching.

That’s right. So we for many years we’ve had the courageous mom shop, but now it is getting rebranded, revamped and it’s going to be called the Bee Courageous Shop

Because it’s not just for moms. That’s right. Moms and dads are being greeters.

That’s right. And so we have to be courageous shop, and it’s going to have everything from some totes which moms might like to use when they’re, you know, people use bags for grocery shopping.

Homeschooling stands for that very cool trucker hat.

That’s right. So we have to stand firm hats. We have baby onesies, which you guys, you know, we just kind of felt called to make some baby onesies that we’re going to one remind moms and dads when, you know, sometimes babies can get fussy at times. And I know that for me and myself, I have to constantly preach to myself with little ones, right? So we have toddler shirts, we have toddler sweatshirts, we have onesies that say things. Worthy, blessed, loved, known we have. We also have some gender specific onesies, which I really am excited about because there’s such a fight and an attack really on our children of today to create confusion. And we know that Satan is called the author of Confusion and Scripture. And so we want to be clear, so we made some onesies that our God made me a boy and God made me a girl, therefore gender specific.

And there’s there’s more. The bugs are just incredible, so we can’t wait to see you guys having the mugs. You know how we always have mugs and so forth. And so it’s just super excited. And the Resolute Man Shop is going to have the Eagle Mug and the dad mug and all these really quick things. The resolute man hats, the, you know, be resolute pat and say resolute, not passive. Hats, eventually. And there’s more things coming shirts, be resolute shirts and things like that just for us guys to remind ourselves to stand strong and protect our families, but also to project in to create a movement of men rising up and leading their families, create a movement of women rising up and being courageous and men to being courageous to. And it’s really putting them together. We all have to reject passivity and be courageous and be resolute.

And I think to, you know, a lot of you guys have reached out to us over the last three years because Isaac and I oftentimes have coffee or really cool cups mugs in our podcast. So we’ve got a lot of messages over the years saying where you get your mug and, you know, the Bible verses on them in different things. And so we thought that it would be cool to create some mugs that are like that. We’ll share pictures with you guys on social media as well. But you guys, we need to remember, we need to preach to ourselves. The truth constantly, isn’t that right? And so like, I know that as a mom in the bee courageous shop, one of the products that was our most popular product when we had the courageous moms shop is that I love being a mom. Is is that is that right? And so we have mugs and we have a bag that say, I love being a mom because, you know, every mom would say, I love my kids. But asking someone if they love being a mom is a very different question. And we need to embrace that. We need to embrace the role that we have. And so my prayer is that as moms are drinking out of their coffee cup that says I love being a mom and they’re getting refueled for the day, they look at it and they go, OK, yeah, I do. I need to remember that. Do my kids feel that? Do they feel like I love being a mom or do they feel like a burden and change their lives?

Amen. Hebrews Ten twenty fourth or twenty five? And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as I see the day approaching. So obviously this is talking about going to church, being in fellowship with one another, but we can also take this outside of the church and continuing and fellowship. And you know what we really felt even at church and I maybe you have a church that’s really biblical and people are being courageous and resolute, but a lot of churches there is. It’s hard to find those really courageous and resolute people that are standing firm for the gospel and not backing down and being the same person they are in private and public and those kinds of things. So we thought, Wow, this app will be we can all come together, stir each other out in good works. And then when we go back to our churches, we can share that we can encourage others, we can exhort others, and that can have a massive impact. And so we’re super excited about that. And you know, we’re committed as ever. I think this shows it to the one million legacy’s movement of impacting one million families in their legacy. Just think about the generational impact that’s going to have. Angie said this the other day. We’ve talked about this to our kids, which is, you know, we’re going to live like Jesus coming back tomorrow. But we’re also to live in this other space of we’re going to grow old and our kids are going to grow old and their kids are going

To grow up for a hundred generations.

And so we have simultaneously need to have both focuses because we don’t know

When Jesus is coming back and we don’t know when our day is going to be your last day. I think that sometimes there’s such a huge focus on Jesus coming back, which we should be focusing absolutely

Should

Live like that. But the Bible also says that life is like a vapor. And I think that when we hear of people passing dying or people who are experiencing loss, whether that’s miscarriage or or any other kind of loss, we are reminded to live every day as if it was our last. Because we don’t know. Every day is a gift from God. And I think you know that for us, you guys is one of the main motivators for wanting to impact. And yes, we say one million legacies because there’s so much. Easier to keep truckin forward and pushing to have something when you have that, you have a target that you’re going after, for sure. But you know what, really? We just we’re we’re so thankful that you guys have enabled us to be able to partner with God in the great commission in a way that hasn’t compromised our family, but has allowed us to grow and to reach many people for the Kingdom of God to encourage those who need it, encouraging to share truth with people who were lost to encouraging people to stand firm and grow. And I can’t help but want to go back to our main theme verse, which is Joshua 01:09 says. Have I not commanded you so as that God’s saying, I suggest this. He commanded, Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed for the Lord.

Your God is with you wherever you go. And I think that that we have listeners all over the world. God is with you wherever you go. He’s with you in every circumstance. And it’s not even like where you live geographically. God is with you. Yes, that’s true. But for the moms who are trying to decide if they’re going to have a baby in hospital or in a birthing center at home, guess what? God goes with you wherever you go. For the dads who are trying to decide where they’re going to work and God goes with you wherever you go. We are here in this generation for purpose. Our kids were put here in this generation for a purpose. Our kids were chosen to be our kids. God chose you to be your kid’s parents. How many different messages do we all need to be reminded of on a daily basis to have our mind and our eyes set on the goal so that we can endure in the moment when things are hard? And I’m just thankful for this opportunity. I’m excited for what God has in store. The stores are going to be in the app along with the podcasts, along with the groups, the courses, all the things are going to be there. And so it’s going to be a place where you guys can find all the things you need

And you can find them also resolute and courageous romcom and grace parenting.

That’s right. Well, thanks for joining us for today’s episode of the podcast. We are so encouraged by you. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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 webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji 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